Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime

Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime (French: Leçons sur l'Analytique du Sublime) is a 1991 book about the philosopher Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment (1790), focusing on Kant's description of the sublime, by the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard. The book received positive reviews following the appearance of its English translation in 1994.

Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime

Cover of the first edition
Author	Jean-François Lyotard
Original title	Leçons sur l'Analytique du Sublime
Translator	Elizabeth Rottenberg
Language	French
Series	Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics
Subject	Critique of Judgment
Publisher	Éditions Galilée, Stanford University Press
Publication date	1991
Publication place	France
Published in English	1994
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages	264 (1994 Stanford University Press edition)
ISBN	978-0804722421

Summary

Lyotard discusses the philosopher Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment, focusing on Kant's description of the sublime.^[1]

Publication history

Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime was first published in 1991 by Éditions Galilée. In 1994, Stanford University Press published an English translation by Elizabeth Rottenberg as part of the series Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics.^[2]

Reception

The book received positive reviews from Thomas Huhn in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism and A. T. Nuyen in Philosophy of the Social Sciences.^[3][4] Huhn described the book as "brilliant", writing that Lyotard provided a "provocative reading of Kant's doctrine of the sublime".^[3] Nuyen credited Lyotard with providing a "close and careful" discussion of portions of the Critique of Judgment.^[4]

Peter Fenves praised Lyotard for posing the "question of the subject of aesthetic judgment" with "renewed vigor".^[5] The philosopher Alan D. Schrift suggested that Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime is Lyotard's most important work since The Differend (1983).^[6]