sublime, presentation, existence

In the brief but incisive Preface to the French edition (Paris, Ed. Belin, 1988) of the collective book "Of the Sublime: Presence in Question" (Albany, State University of New York, 1993) Jean-Luc Nancy approaches a very important series of questions, developed in the book by himself and by the several authors whose names may be seen in the front cover.
He writes that the sublime "constitutes our tradition" (p. 1 - the underlines in red are mine). What that tradition "passes on" is "the aesthetic" or "the sensible presentation as question." (p.1)
Western thought is organized around this dichotomy: representation, i.e, "the instance of the object", and therefore "nonsensible", and "articulated in terms of conformity and signification" (p. 2); and the subject, who poses itself in the side of the sensible.
Presentation is an "event", an "explosive one", which traditionally is connected to "beauty and/or sublimity" (p.2).
"From the moment when representation comes to know itself to be such and comes to present itself as such (...), a moment which constitutes the history of modern art and thought, it takes up (...) a question (...) of presentation." (p. 2)

Thus the sublime is "the question of presentation", "of what is at play at the limit of the essence" (p. 2) : "(...) the sublime is more "essential" to beauty than the very essence of the beautiful." (p. 2). It "(...) puts into communication or contact all instances of presentation (...) (history, community, sense, politics, thought, and even representation) (...)" itself (p.2).
"The question of presentation is the question (...) of existence (...) the question of being-in-the-world." (p. 2).