Kant, Aesthetic Judgement, and Beethoven

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores Kant’s conception of the relation of the beautiful and the sublime to freedom and to moral theology. It then turns to Beethoven’s conception of the sublime, and illustrates this by an analysis of the slow movement of his early piano sonata Op. 2, No. 2, and an analysis of the first movement of the Eroica. The thesis of the chapter is that a Kantian ‘optimistic’ account of the sublime fits these pieces better than some other accounts of the sublime that the chapter describes, namely ‘the uncanny sublime’, ‘the authoritarian sublime’ and ‘the solipsistic sublime’. The chapter ends with a brief remark about the relation between Kantian freedom and the Christian faith.

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