Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia

This book gathers Lyotard's notes for his lessons on Kant's Critique of Judgment. He compares here two different aesthetic theories, which we can find in Kant's pages. One is based on the idea of beauty, while the other on the idea of the sublime. Although the quotation is short, it summarizes well the differences and relations beautiful and sublime keep with each other. The passage helps us understand how Modernity developed this opposition, while using it to investigate the sentimental and sensible dimension of the aesthetic. By reading this short text, we can make an idea of how the Classical ideal of beauty evolved into the modern feeling of the beautiful, as well as how this new culture opened the path to unforeseen forms of aesthetic experience. Lyotard is a contemporary thinker, who died in the 1990s. However, his philosophical source is here Kant, who is considered as one of the "founders" of modern aesthetics.