Engaging Nature Aesthetically

JOSEPH H. KUPFER

Acting in Nature For the most part, most of us appreciate nature as spectators. Some portion of a natural scene is viewed as if it were a painting or photograph. We look for the picturesque in experiencing the real thing because our aesthetic approach toward nature has been filtered through pictures a canyons spacious contours, a spectacular waterfall, a weeping willow swaying and billowing in the breeze. And there is certainly nothing wrong with this approach. I like a splendid sunset or majestic peak as much as the next person. However, thinking of nature solely or chiefly as an aesthetic scene to be observed is unnecessarily limiting. Regarding natural phenomena as material for detached, pictorial observation overlooks the aesthetic features revealed only through our active intercourse with nature. In what follows, I outline an active aesthetic of nature appreciation in particular, a series of physical responses to nature which yield a spectrum of aesthetic possibilities. Our active relationship toward nature is expressible by the relevant prepositions, as action can be in or into nature, against or with nature. Of course there will be overlap among these modes of dealing with nature aesthetically, but they are nevertheless fairly distinct and distinguishable. Moreover, the types of activity are arranged so that each succeeding way of addressing nature encompasses the aesthetic virtues of the preceding types of activity. As we move from acting in nature to acting with nature, therefore, our aesthetic experience becomes richer and more inclusive.1 The first active departure from the role of mere observer is found in acting in nature. When we act in or within nature, natural phenomena are the medium of our movement. Whether, hiking up the valley or swimming in the lake, we participate in the natural environment. And that participation
Joseph H. Kupfer is Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Iowa State University. His recent publications include a book, Visions of Virtue in Popular Film and articles in the Journal of Value Inquiry, Journal of Aesthetic Education, and Journal of the Philosophy of Sport. Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 37, No. 1, Spring 2003 2003 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

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uncovers aesthetic features of nature not available to the mere spectator or observer. Walking through the valley, the prospect of wildflowers shifts from a distant, cascading carpet to a direct encounter with individual shapes, colors, fragrances, and textures. Our aesthetic experience includes appreciation of the shift in perspective itself, from long-range floral vista to more intimate perception. When we swim in the lake, it is no longer simply a thing viewed a shifting montage of patterns of light playing on its surface. Instead, the lake is experienced as a translucent medium which alternately resists and yields to our arm, leg, and torso movement. Immersed in the water, we feel warm and cool patches, and hear sounds muffled and transmuted by the lake. The sound of our breathing is also modified by the watery medium, as well as by our physical labors. Acting in nature provides two aesthetic opportunities absent from mere spectating. First, the fact that we are active in the natural environment brings home a sense of ourselves as causal agents. Instead of change merely taking place in the natural environment, we are directly bringing about the change. Because we walk through the valley or swim in the lake, otherwise unavailable sensory experiences are enjoyed. Our movement, moreover, enables these experiences to develop from one moment to the next, at best, in an integrated sequence. In addition, there are the specific aesthetic features created for us by our physical activity our bodily involvement beyond the more typical visual panorama. For example, tension and relaxation in our muscles, the feel and sound of our breathing and heartbeat correspond to change in our natural surroundings. Our bodies furnish us with responses to the natural environment because we are moving in it, not simply observing it. A more homey example of acting in nature is the case of standing or climbing inside a tree. Most of us enjoy the aesthetic experience of walking in the woods, among clusters of trees and other wildlife. But the individual tree also offers an opportunity for acting in or within nature. Enclosed within its branches and leaves, whether on the ground or alight a limb, we gain a new aesthetic perspective. The leaves which appeared to move as a green mass when viewed from outside the tree are now seen in their detail: uncurling at the onset of spring, ablaze with color or brittle brown in autumn, full-veined and lush in summer. Nestled within the tree, the summer tree-farer is encased in an airy green cocoon. The gentle swishing of the leaves increases to wave-like rushes as the wind picks up. The world, natural and man-made, is visible in bits and pieces. The shifting screen of leaves reminds us that we are separated, but barely, from the rest of the environment. Hence, our aesthetic enjoyment may include the feeling of concealment while in the midst of other people and things. Intimacy with the tree includes touching the rough bark and

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solid trunk as well as savoring the mix of aromas the tree affords. We may even be closely surrounded by the local inhabitants furred, feathered, and shelled. Our distant delight in the multicolored leaves at the height of autumn receives a detailed counterpoint when we are enclosed within the trees umbrella. The sound of the leaves rustling and crackling is more intense, and the blended wash of colors gives way to discrete fragments that vary in hue, intensity, tint and tone. As the leaves fall, we sense the brittleness of the trees coming wintry days. Branches becoming bare convey the onset of dormancy, especially because we are close enough to see clearly the naked nodules where the leaves had been attached. Into Nature Acting in or within nature overlaps with action which takes us into nature. The difference is that action which takes us into nature envelops us in the unfamiliar, and so is investigative. Of course, what registers as unfamiliar will be relative to the individual. Any woods may be a new experience for us, or perhaps just this wooded area. And a trek through swamp or bayou would carry the aesthetic of penetration for me in a way it would not for natives of Louisiana. Moreover, how saturated an experience is with this quality of penetration or investigation is also a matter of degree. But regardless of differences from person to person or within a particular experience, it is another aesthetic mode of activity adding new aesthetic features to those found in simply acting in or within nature. When we crawl through a cave or scuba dive, for example, our activity is exploratory. Penetrating into a concealed topography, our experience is enlivened with the current of interrogation within which ripple varieties of discovery. Consequently, the sights and sounds, textures and odors, are invested with the quality of revelation. They unfold for us and before us. Through bodily movement, whether crawling on knees or flicking our finned feet, we call out aesthetic aspects beyond our everyday reach. The delight taken in evoking aesthetic experience by acting in nature is now overlaid with the piquancy of novelty, discovery, and exploration. Our aesthetic experience is shaped by awareness that our action is taking us into the holds and stores of the natural phenomena. We are enfolded by a new natural domain. The damp chill of the cave is a climate we experience only by taking the subterranean plunge. When the journey is punctuated by an unexpected inky lake, descent of stalactites, or stand of stalagmites, the beam of light we shine brings these sights to life, as if we are creating them. Supplementing the eeriness of spelunking may be a sense of danger. Most of us are aware of the enormous mass of rock and earth which presses upon us, and there may also be the risk of becoming stranded or

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lost. Whether the riskiness of venturing into the cave enhances the aesthetic experience depends, of course, on the individual and perhaps the familiarity of the particular cave. Similarly, the brilliant colors of the fish in the coral reef bedazzle us because we have invaded their habitat, and the ensuing aesthetic experience is imbued with a spirit of inquiry. We feel ourselves to be uninvited tourists, probing into a foreign land, perhaps a bit unsure of what awaits us and of how we will be received by the native dwellers. The sense of intrusion and uncertainty acts as a catalyst to our senses, providing a constant emotional thrum to the particular aesthetic qualities we uncover. Against Nature More dramatic yet is the aesthetic experience of acting against nature, trying to overcome natural obstacles, or prevail in the face of natural opposition. Nature may be taken on as a challenge, as is often the case in mountain climbing or kayaking white water rivers. We view the natural forces as competing against us, as if the mountain or river were defying our agility and strength, intelligence and perceptiveness. We cannot vanquish such natural antagonists the way we can defeat human or animal opponents, but we can surmount the difficulties they present. The feeling of competing or struggling against nature invests the overall aesthetic experience, as well as its details and episodes, with a contest-like aura. Contesting the mountain and river, we are testing ourselves. As we cope with their trickery, ferocity, and treachery, they bear witness to our skill and strength in taking them on. In the struggle against nature, moments of self-discovery inevitably arise. Our abilities and deficiencies are revealed to us even as we discover the personality of our natural opponent. Just as a tennis player competes against this opponent or a boxer parries and punches a particular fighter, so it is important to take on this mountain or this stretch of river. They are named and personified. As the river or mountain fools us or forces us to adapt with greater inventiveness, we often find ourselves admiring or marveling at our natural challenger the way we admire a boxing or tennis opponents deftness and ability to catch us off-guard. Discovery and surprise may be greater the first time we navigate these particular waters or climb this mountain, but because natural conditions change, often subtly, repeated confrontations with the same natural area can nonetheless pose new difficulties or variations on difficulties previously encountered. For this reason, retracing a natural course can provide depth and nuance in aesthetic experience as the familiar is altered, in both obvious and fine-grained fashion. In activities such as strenuous climbing and kayaking, we strive to traverse a perilous space. To be sure, the space is constituted by a medium, as when

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we move in or into nature. But now the medium is either a dynamic force, as with the river, or is formidable and forbidding, as with the mountain. In addition to their sheer size, mountains are perilous. Not only are freezing temperatures, violent storms, and severe winds daunting, but the threat of avalanche and rock or ice fall requires additional vigilance. Most palpably, oxygen deprivation at higher altitudes compounds the growing physical fatigue of the climb. Nature as oppositional calls forth our inspired, forceful response. We must exert ourselves more than when acting in or into nature. Strength is exercised immediately upon rock or water, but it is also needed to endure and persevere as the outing progresses. The aesthetic richness of our experience of acting against nature depends a great deal on what John Dewey describes as the balance between doing and undergoing. It is not just doing and undergoing in alternation, but consists of them in relationship.The action and its consequence must be joined in perception.2 The harmony between activity and receptivity can be realized in virtually any experience, whether carrying on a conversation, playing a sport, or kayaking a fierce river. In the ideal conversation, for example, we actively listen to what the other person is saying in order to respond to the implications, intimations, and delivery of what is said to us. And when we reply, the way we express ourselves is tempered by how we think our interlocutor will interpret what we say. Each person speaks as a listener and listens as a speaker. So, too, when playing a sport, what we do should be conditioned by what we are taking in and what we perceive ideally is governed by our potential for action. In the case of individual sports, such as running, skating, or swimming, we must be receptive solely to the consequences of our own activity. Continuity in movement results from moving in response to the results of our antecedent motion; we are in fact responding to ourselves. In social sports, such as tennis or basketball, we must react and adjust to what other individuals are doing, whether opponents or teammates. We must anticipate what they will do next and how they will react to our play. Experience fails to be aesthetic to the extent that there is an excess of activity (doing) or receptivity (undergoing). In the lecture format of the classroom, for example, both teacher and students suffer from lack of balance between doing and undergoing. The teacher is almost exclusively active and the students tend to be too receptive. Sporting events fail to be aesthetically interesting when one side dominates the other. In a lop-sided boxing match, for instance, one participant does most of the punching while his opponent absorbs the bulk of the blows. But when what we do is prompted by what we perceive or undergo, and what we perceive is shaped by our active response, experience becomes truly aesthetic. When acting against nature, a premium is put on responding decisively to changes in the natural surroundings. We must readily digest the information

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about our natural surroundings that our senses convey, and translate that input into appropriately adaptive maneuvering. The balance between doing and undergoing is fine-tuned, as we continuously respond to the change in environment which our prior response has either wrought or disclosed. Equipoise between our activity and receptivity also occurs whether acting in or into nature, otherwise these modes of appreciating nature would be seriously lacking in aesthetic quality. However, when acting against nature, the balance in our doing and undergoing is multiplied and amplified. It is multiplied because our range of activity is greater how variously we must perceive, think, imagine, and move when challenging a mountain or river. The interplay between activity and receptivity is amplified because so much is riding on our ability to calibrate our action precisely to our changing natural surroundings. We may suddenly have to move quickly and decisively in creative ways, to navigate an unanticipated whirlpool in the river or negotiate a mountain crevasse for example. The active-receptive problem-solving process permeates our perception of the natural phenomena and our aesthetic appreciation of them. Because life and limb are at stake, wariness and urgency suffuse the experience. Here we might do well to appropriate Immanuel Kants notion of the sublime, for with an important modification, it applies to the more intimidating confrontations with nature. For Kant, the experience of sublimity is typically aroused by natural phenomena that overwhelm us by their size or by their force.3 In the case of great size, our imagination cannot fully grasp objects such as a star-studded night sky or an immense mountain. In the case of great natural forces, we feel outmatched by such dynamic phenomena as hurricanes or raging rivers. Kant claims that although we recognize the storm and river as fearful, we are not actually afraid of their power. The experience of potentially lifethreatening natural objects and events can only be enjoyable when the observer runs no practical risk.4 Kant thinks that genuine risk would undermine aesthetic enjoyment by imposing real life, actual interests upon the individuals detached and unencumbered observation of the mere appearance of things. And here is where we would modify Kant. In acting against nature we are not insulated from the dangers posed by the great size of the mountain or the force of the river. Indeed, the challenge involves coming to grips with our fear and either overcoming it or incorporating the fear into our aesthetic experience. For many people, the real practical danger of the encounter with mountain or river heightens the excitement of the experience. We might then consider the sublimity enjoyed by individuals who compete against dangerous, threatening nature an involved or practical sublimity. When we experience involved or practical sublimity, we do not merely endure or soldier through the danger, but actually take pleasure in the riskiness of the

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competition with nature much as the detached Kantian observer would delight in the spectacle of the violent storm from his or her safe vantage point.5 I am also modifying Kant by talking of natural objects of great size as being dangerous. Kant separates the (mathematical) sublimity of size from the (dynamic) sublimity of force, thinking that only the latter is perceived or recognized as fearful. But when we act against a portion of nature that possesses great magnitude, it is likely to be a threatening experience. The risk involved in climbing a towering mountain, crossing a vast desert, or rocketing into the starry heavens transforms the sublimity of magnitude into the practically sublime. When mountain, desert, or deep space are no longer merely the object of contemplation but are confronted directly, we do actually fear for our safety. Both kinds of natural objects that evoke sublimity in Kants safe observer, objects of great size as well as force, therefore, can enter into our experience of practical sublimity when we pit ourselves against them. Practical danger can enhance the aesthetic experience of nature by making it more dramatic, the way competitive balance in a sporting contest supplements such aesthetic qualities as grace and teamwork with dramatic tension. The risk of contesting nature necessarily intensifies our attention. We must be on the lookout for the smallest cues so as to alter what we are doing appropriately, and often the cues come from our own bodies minute changes in tactile, kinetic, auditory, or visual sensations. Complementing this attention to fine detail is the constant sense of the coarse and loud, whether the strain of our muscles paddling the river, our heavy breathing, or the roar of the rapids. We enjoy our own bodily exertions in response to change in the natural opposition, as small, transient successes build along the journey toward a definite, determinate goal. Victory is found in the finale of reaching the mountains summit or the slackening of the rivers turbulence. Such closure, however, is not always necessary to enjoy the way the challenge unfolds, and when it does occur it may be tinged with disappointment that the journey has had to end at all. Proprietary Activity My emphasis in this discussion has been on the somatic side of experience, the modes of interacting with nature interpreted predominantly in physical terms. However, cognitive activity also occurs in all our interactions, including acting against nature. As noted, mountain climbing and kayaking obviously require quick wits (as well as thoughtful preparation) and appropriate transformation of sensory experience into cognitive-physical problem-solving. Yet in other endeavors against nature, physical involvement is subservient to what is primarily a challenge to know or possess. Hunting

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and trophy-taking pit us against nature as potential interpreters or proprietors. And in these endeavors, sensory awareness and physical skill serve a conceptual and practical end. To the extent that hunting, observing, or photographing natural phenomena is what we primarily care about, to that extent the challenge in overcoming nature is a means to an end. Acquiring the natural object or a record of it is what matters, and what leads up to that success is valued as the means to that goal. Even if we appreciate the object or record aesthetically, such as the beauty of the antler rack or the photo of the bird formation, the process leading up to it has chiefly practical value. However, the trophyseeking experience could be more like the best mountain-climbing or kayaking ventures: overcoming nature for its own sake and for the sake of the aesthetic dimensions of the challenge. Some people hunt, collect, observe, or photograph and value the process of pursuing and securing what they are after as much as the object they may (or may not) later possess.6 In such experience, people find aesthetic enjoyment in pursuing the trophy or game as well as in having acquired it. Just as climbing a mountain or kayaking a river discloses otherwise concealed features of natural objects and environments, so can trophy-seeking be revelatory. The individual who collects flora, hunts wild animals, or photographs wondrous vistas uncovers remarkable aspects of organic and inorganic nature whether it be the life-cycle of ferns, the migratory habits of moose, or the periodicity of waterfalls. These cognitive-proprietary activities include the previous mode of acting into nature, only here the into suggests an emphasis on inquiring into the attributes of the natural phenomena. Here we are looking into hidden recesses of nature, probing and penetrating with our mind and our minds eye the natural history and composition of the world. Acting with Nature We can also act with nature, moving in concert or harmony with the natural medium. In downhill skiing and ocean surfboarding, for example, the natural medium still poses problems and difficulties to which we must respond. But unlike undertakings in which we act against nature, and seek to overcome it or symbolically gain ascendancy over it, when we act with nature we try to harmonize our movement to the natural contours. This less confrontational relationship tends to be more a dance-like partnership in which we follow natures lead. Acting with nature typically requires that we expend great energy, exercise skill and judgment, and aim for a definite outcome, just as when we act against nature. However, now the goal is less reaching the end, the mountain peak, or the calming of the roiled waters, as in synchronizing our move-

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ment with nature. When we act with nature, we delight in the balance between doing and undergoing as an end-in-itself instead of as an aspect of a larger contest. We take pleasure in modifying our movements (doing) to our perception of the natural medium of movement (undergoing). It would be like enjoying volleying back and forth in tennis without keeping score. As we move dexterously through nature, we value for its own sake the interplay between our perceptions of nature, our physical movement, and our bodily sensations. Accordingly, the aesthetic of acting with nature is dominated by maintaining balance and poise in swift, demanding action. The look of the waves curl, the cool spray in our face, the sound of the water rushing by, are informed by our adjustments and readjustments to somatic cues received along the ride. In particular, we must make adjustments minute and large to cues in proprioception, vestibularity, and kinesthesia. Proprioception is the sense of the relative location of our limbs how our feet and legs relate to thighs and hips in surfing, for example. Vestibular input enables us to orient ourselves with respect to gravity, such as the incline of our body on the surfboard or the angle of the surfboard on the wave. Kinesthetic sensibility is awareness of our motion, as resonating through particular muscle groups as well as our sense of overall bodily motion. Nature in the form of the wave or ski slope communicates its contours to us through these bodily resonances. Of course, we also have the visual and auditory perceptions that are so abundant and evident when we act in or move into nature. However, acting with nature provides a stronger and more encompassing aesthetic experience by stimulating our sense of limb, gravity, and motion. Feeling change in intensity, duration, and direction of the waves pull, we must appropriately, smoothly shift our weight. The same holds for the aesthetic experience of the ski slope. Our responses to change in snow density, tractability, pitch of the surface of the skis, and angle of the edge of the skis depend upon how well we digest and immediately use the whirl of sensory details coming our way. The various organic cues we receive have to be instantaneously translated by us into the required action in order to follow natures lead and maintain our harmony with water or snow. This is why improvisation is going on all the time, on both the intentional and subconscious levels. Although improvisation is needed when we compete against nature, the difference in the mode of interaction imparts a different tone to the respective experiences. When we improvise in our competition against nature, we are avoiding a setback or complete defeat. We regroup and look for a way to surmount or go around the natural obstacles, like overpowering athletic opponents or figuring out how to blunt their strengths. When we improvise in acting with nature, however, we are trying to get back in the flow, to find the balance between our bodies and the natural medium. Instead of an

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obstacle or antagonistic force, nature is viewed as having a structure or energy with which we must align and realign ourselves. We must adjust to the distinctive characteristics of the particular domain of nature. As we become acquainted with the details of ski slope or shoreline current, we are better able to follow its lead, as if our partner in a dance. Surfers and skiers with favorite locations anticipate the choreography called forth by the familiar locale; they have a pretty good idea of the tempo and rhythms of the dances in the repertoire they share with this natural domain. When our natural partner moves in a different direction, at a different tempo, or with a different combination of dance steps, we must adjust so as to recapture the harmonious give and take which is our goal and our joy. In contrast to acting against nature, there is little sense of victory over the surfed wave or skied hill; rather, the exhilaration in happily speeding along a natural avenue of movement is brought to fulfillment. Dewey calls such endings that include all that has preceded them consummations: A situation, whetherplaying a gameor taking part in a political campaign, is so rounded out that its close is a consummation and not a cessation.7 What is begun is carried forward until its development reaches a satisfying conclusion. Each part or episode of the experience grows out of what has preceded, and all the elements and their relations are brought to fulfillment in a comprehensive way. When the experience results in a culmination of continuous movement, the experience is complete in itself.8 Yet consummation does not occur only at the end of the experience. As the experience unfolds, consummation is ongoing. An engraver, painter, or writer is in process of completing at every stage of his work, [summing] up what has gone before as a whole and with reference to a whole to come.9 When skiing or surfing is a consummatory experience, we enjoy continuous fulfillment and ongoing completion of the activity prior to its final resolution. In contrast to consummatory experiences are those activities which lack closure because of a loose, undirected expense of energies. Sporting events, conversations, or interactions with nature often lose their rhythm or tension, or their energy is dissipated instead of rounded out. At the other extreme, we find that experience is interrupted or that an ending has been imposed on the experience rather than developed out of it. Loss of genuine consummation when acting against nature often is the result of having the goal too much in view, operating as a distinct, separable event. In such cases, what precedes the conclusion is felt merely as prelude or means to the accomplishment, like counting the miles as we drive until we have reached our destination. However, in the most aesthetic experiences of competing against nature, the moments leading up to the victory do mature to their conclusion. In mountain-climbing, for example, summiting may be experienced as an expression of all that has led up to it. The peak experience can be the

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synthesis of the prior overcoming of obstacles and solving of problems. Especially in utterly exhausting contests against nature, the sense in which the end is a consummation of what has preceded may unavoidably be appreciable only in retrospect. Climbers, for example, may be so fatigued and overcome with relief at having simply survived the ordeal that earlier struggles cannot be immediately incorporated into the climactic ascent. Only in rested recollection can summiting then be aesthetically enjoyed as culmination of what has transpired. As the effort required and the risk involved increase in contesting nature, therefore, it becomes more difficult for the conclusion to be immediately experienced as a celebration of a developing aesthetic process. Conclusion Each succeeding mode of interaction with nature incorporates the previous modes. This is why I discuss acting with nature after examining acting against nature. For instance, the excitement and challenge of the confrontational mode persist in the harmonizing form of relationship. But the excitement is transformed into cooperation, where we strive to move with nature rather than against or upon it, and we prize the creation of partnership instead of viewing ourselves as overcoming natural obstacles. These four modes of active aesthetic involvement with nature may or may not characterize the whole of any particular experience. Any given experience may be dominantly or fleetingly defined by one of these modes. Alternatively, an experience could involve shifts from one mode to another. For example, we might start off acting in nature or penetrating into a natural domain, such as a forest or lake, only to find ourselves struggling against rugged terrain or a sudden squall. On the other hand, what begins as a confrontation, as in climbing up a chasm, could end in a casual stroll through a mountain meadow. As we proceed through our natural outing, of course, our experience can modulate between these forms of activity, and even overlap among them. Thus, moments of exploration and revelation doubtlessly occur in the midst of confronting or harmonizing with nature, even as confrontation and harmony can give way to one another. Our attitudes and interests sometimes determine the mode of aesthetic activity. For instance, noncompetitive individuals can approach a steep slope as exploratory rather than as confrontational, whereas some surfers inevitably view every wave as a personal challenge. But nature can also have a lot to say in what attitude and mode we adopt, regardless of our proclivity. An unexpected crevasse or overhang can turn our recreational mountain hike into a rigorous test of strength and agility. Or, the rhythm of the rivers current and spray, sunlight and foliage can seduce us out of our competitive attitude, as we find ourselves harmonizing with our fluid environs.

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I choose the examples I do for what strikes me as their salient features and for illustrative purposes. None of the examples is meant to reside exclusively in its suggested category. I use swimming as an illustration of acting in rather than acting with nature because the water typical of a leisurely or routine swim tends to be less dynamic than in such activities as surfing. However, a recreational swim could become transformed into acting with or against nature should the current be especially strong or wavy. Windbased activities such as airplane gliding and sailing seem to be paradigms of acting with nature because of our need to move with the flow of air. But, again, turbulence or storm could quickly pit pilot or sailor against nature. I do not presume to have offered categories that are exhaustive, but I think they demarcate nodes on a continuum of actively responding to nature which yield correspondingly different, albeit overlapping, aesthetic experiences. Whether for a jaunt or a journey, a ramble or a scramble, nature affords amazing elasticity in aesthetic activity. I present my case in the hope that it will be confirmed and happily modified by the qualities nature-goers find when acting in and into, with and against nature.10

NOTES 1. The experience may not become richer with regard to all the possibilities within a given dimension however. For instance, we may more fully perceive colors in the trees or in the songs of birds acting in nature than when acting against or with nature. But our experience when acting against or with nature will be more complete with regard to the different aesthetic it makes possible. The everincreasing scope of aesthetic dimensions, therefore, may be seen as a gain of breadth sometimes enjoyed at the expense of depth. 2. John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Putnams Sons, 1934), 44. 3. Kants technical terms for the sublimity of size and force are, respectively, the mathematically and dynamically sublime. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement, Akademie ed., trans. James Meredith (London: Oxford University Press, 1928), Book II, Analytic of the Sublime. 4. Kant claims that the experience cannot be found enjoyable unless the perceiver runs no practical risk, The Critique of Judgement, 110, sect. 28, para. #260. This independence from the practical consequences of the object is similar to Kants point about our enjoyment of beauty, which is free from desire for the object as an existing thing which might satisfy our practical interests. 5. My appropriation of Kants views intentionally stops at the natural object which excites our sense of sublimity. I do not draw upon Kants (understandably controversial) theory of the faculties according to which the true source of sublime pleasure is found in the superiority of our reasons powers over nature. Anything approaching an adequate summary of Kants view would take much more space than I have here. I only add a brief explanatory note. For Kant, feeling overwhelmed by the size or force of nature is merely the initial phase of the sublime experience. The discomfort we first experience is resolved by our awareness of our reasons superiority over nature. Mathematical sublimity rests on what is absolutely greatbeyond all comparison great; The Critique of Judgement, 94, sect. 25, para. #248. We are superior to nature because we can think the idea of the infinite, whereas natures great size can never be truly infinite. In

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

dynamic sublimity, we are superior to nature in that no matter how great the forces of nature, we alone are capable of conceiving the moral law and obeying its moral force. And the force of the moral law is of a higher order altogether than the merely physical forces of nature. See Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 168-71, for an illuminating analysis of trophies, their mass pursuit, and the impact on nature of different kinds of trophy-seeking. John Dewey, Art As Experience, 35. Ibid., 35-36. Ibid., 56. I am grateful to my colleague, Margaret Holmgren, for observations and questions which invariably helped me think more clearly and cogently about the issues discussed in this essay.