| abstract | This dissertation seeks to elucidate and expand upon Arthur Schopenhauer's theory of the sublime. It affirms Schopenhauer's
account of the mathematical sublime, which correlates to the forms of space and time, and the dynamical sublime, which correlates to causality, but goes beyond
these by positing a third category, which I call the ontological sublime. I argue that the ontological sublime is called for by Schopenhauer's identification
of the subject-object relation as the 'root' of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The subject-object relation plays a key role in Schopenhauer's 'discovery'
of the will-to-life and operates on a more fundamental level for consciousness than space, time, and causality. I attempt to fill a previously unidentified gap
in Schopenhauer's thinking by arguing that the ontological sublime correlates to the subject-object relation. I suggest that the feeling of the ontological sublime
is triggered through experiences of profound loss either in nature or vicariously through art. Like the established categories of the sublime, the feeling of the
ontological sublime is initially painful but ultimately pleasurable, where the pain results from the threat to the subject-object relation via loss and the pleasure
results from the feeling of transcending loss. I argue further that the concept of the ontological sublime is compatible with Aesthetic Naturalism, especially insofar
as it reveals to consciousness that loss is built into the structure of one's being via a confrontation with the 'natural difference'.
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