A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was an Irish statesman, philosopher, and the founder of modern British conservativism. Burke was born in Dublin, the son of a wealthy attorney. His mother was a registered Catholic, a fact which was used against him later in life when his political enemies accused him of adherence to Catholicism. Burke attended Trinity College in Dublin and London’s Middle Temple. When he left university, Burke was preoccupied with two main areas of interest: the overlap between religion and politics, and philosophical methods for understanding and thinking about the world. Although Burke is considered an important historical philosopher, his career was focused on political development and public policy.

As John Locke entered and overtook the academic and political discussions of the 1700s, his Essay Concerning Human Understanding became a foundational text for philosophers. Thinkers developed a greater interest in epistemology and the unlocking of how the brain produced and carried out ideas. At age 28, Burke wrote and published A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, a study of how the mind perceives and appreciates the arts. Prior to his work, most critics embraced classical views of art and literature. Immanuel Kant and Denis Diderot, well-known European philosophers, were greatly influenced by Burke’s ideas about

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