Edmund burke on the sublime

Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful
Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) is an examination of howsensation, imagination, and judgment are interrelated in the experience of art. Burke explains how sensation, imagination, and judgment determine the experience of pleasure and pain, and how pleasureand pain are represented by the aesthetic concepts of beauty and sublimity. Burke says that, in order to understand the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful, we must examine theexperience of pain and pleasure. Pain is not simply the removal of pleasure, and pleasure is not simply the removal of pain. Pain may be caused by the removal of pleasure, but pain may also arise in and ofitself. Similarly, pleasure may be caused by the removal of pain, but pleasure may arise in and of itself. Pain or pleasure may be preceded by, or followed by, indifference. Indifference is a state ofneither pain nor pleasure (Part I, Section II). Indifference may remove pain or pleasure. Pain or pleasure may remove indifference. Burke declares that the ideas of pain, pleasure, and indifference areclear ideas. These clear ideas may be independent of each other. They are not relations of ideas, or ideas existing only in relation to each other. They each have their own reality. The cessation ofpleasure may result in a state of indifference, disappointment, or grief. On the other hand, the cessation of pain may result in a state of indifference, happiness, or delight. Burke uses the term"delight" to refer to a pleasure which is caused by the removal of pain, while he uses the term "joy" to refer to a pleasure which arises in and of itself. According to Burke, pain may be a more powerfulemotion than pleasure, and may have a much stronger influence on the imagination. However, the idea of pain, or of danger, when the individual is not actually in pain or in danger, may yield a...