Locating the Scientific Sublime

Abstract

This chapter considers the definition of the sublime and methods for locating it in ancient texts. Important concepts include the sublime subject, greatness of soul, the flight of the mind, and the view from above. The scientific sublime itself emerges as a discourse that configures the study of nature as an exhilarating adventure through which our consciousness expands and our perspective shifts as we leave behind the trivialities of everyday life and approach something that appears truer and more real, something divine. Frequently, images of falling underscore the potentially electrifying proposition that we may not arrive at correct or even consistent answers; this paradigm is related to the idea of flawed sublimity, and an important model for it is Phaethon. The chapter concludes with a survey of philosophical and rhetorical discussions that link natural inquiry with the sublime. Illustrative passages come from Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Longinus, and others.