雄渾、恐怖、與他者--- 勒孚克萊夫特之恐怖科幻小說(II-II)

Abstract

Lovecraft執念之終極恐怖層次，除了與語言系統與人類主體的界限關聯甚密，更架構 在「尺度」（quantum）上，是超越了人類知識與符號系統所能理解與表述，既是時間、 也是空間層次上的宏大尺度，與「雄渾」（the sublime）的概念產生呼應。本計畫所關切 者，為雄渾與符號的對撞，因雄渾基本之定義，即是主體透過符號系統與宏大尺度之 他者之相遇經驗。 英國思想家柏克（Edmund Burke）1759年出版的《哲學式探究我們對於雄渾與美的思 想之源》，及其與康德《判斷性（力量）批判》的思想出入，為本計畫的主要取徑。柏克 較康德更早談及「尺度」，並充分闡述雄渾與恐怖的相依性，更處理康德未觸及之雄渾 與符號的關係。本計畫將從此出發，擴展對Lovecraft恐怖科幻作品的文本研究。

The dimension of horror in Lovecraft’s horror science fiction is closely connected to the limit of both the language system and human subjectivity. Yet this dimension is also constituted by magnitude (quantum) in an absolute sense that far surpasses human comprehension and discourse, as well as human temporality and spatiality. The aesthetic nuances of the dimension in question should be legitimately tackled with the aesthetic outside aesthetics, that is, the problematic of sublimity. At its basis, the sublime gestures at the affective experience of an encounter between the subject’s sign system and the other structured by incomparable magnitude. The project’s theoretical primer will thus be Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (2nd edition, 1759), as well as the contrast between Burke’s perception of the sublime and Kant’s as is expounded in his third critique, The Critique of the Power of Judgment. And the focus will be placed on Burke’s thematization of the relation between the sublime and language, and the mathematical and dynamic sublime in Kant’s work.