A History of Ideas: Edmund Burke on the Sublime

BBC

A History of Ideas: Edmund Burke on the Sublime

Cognitive and TED collaboration

Harry Shearer on Edmund Burke and the Sublime

Ray Laurence

What is the difference between the beautiful and the sublime? This question was central to Edmund Burke’s ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful’, published in 1757. In this short film, Harry Shearer talks us through Burke’s theory and shows how the distinction between the beautiful and the sublime cuts to the core of our sense of self preservation and how that influenced the Romantic movement.

Want to hear more on this topic?

Here’s the whole episode from A History of Ideas - Barry Smith on the Philosophy of good taste.

Project scrapbook

You may also like these
A History of Ideas: The Golden Ratio
A History of Ideas: The Golden Ratio

What links the shell of a Nautilus, Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ and the Pyramids? The Golden Ratio.

A History of Ideas: Simone de Beauvoir on Feminine Beauty
A History of Ideas: Simone de Beauvoir on Feminine Beauty

Is a woman born a woman? In her book ‘The Second Sex’, existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir says no.

A History of Ideas: Diotima’s Ladder And The Appreciation Of Beauty
A History of Ideas: Diotima’s Ladder And The Appreciation Of Beauty

Is lust the first rung on a ladder that leads to the appreciation of abstract beauty?

A History of Ideas: Edmund Burke on the Sublime
A History of Ideas: Edmund Burke on the Sublime

What is the difference between the beautiful and the sublime? This question was central to Edmund Burke’s ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful’.

Andrew Park

Cart (0)