Edmund Burke on the sublime
"Some things that move us are beautiful, others are sublime. But the sublime moves us more profoundly than the beautiful. See how Edmund Burke tied the experience of the sublime to the possibility of pain and how the idea went on to influence the artistic Romanticism movement. Voiced by Harry Shearer. Scripted by Nigel Warburton."
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The European Enlightenment
"The eighteenth century was the Age of Enlightenment, or Age of Reason, in Europe[...]. Advances in science in the 1600s gave rise to the belief in natural law and confidence in human reason, which led thinkers of the 1700s to apply a scientific approach to matters of human importance including religion, society, politics, and economics. The movement was centred in the salons of Paris, coffeehouses of England, and universities of Germany.Human rationality was seen to be in harmony with the universe, and belief in the importance of the individual was popular. Philosophers looked for universal truths to govern humanity and nature, and the sense of progress and perfectibility through rationality abounded. Human reason was considered the path to understanding the universe and improving the human condition, the result of which would be knowledge, freedom, and happiness.The scientific approach to discovery was very successful in the fields of science and mathematics and spurred the search for rules that could define all areas of human experience. Rather than trusting innate goodness or blaming original sin for people's behaviour, Enlightenment thinkers crafted new theories about heredity and psychology. Whereas once the political state was viewed as a representation of divine order, new political thinkers began touting the rights of individuals and arguing for establishment of democracies."
(Simon & Schuster, Inc.)
Fig.1 Étienne–Louis Boullée: Projekt for the National Library in Paris, 1785, France.
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The Constellations ProjectSHARE
