Chapter 1 Aesthetics, where to start?
(1) Overview of aesthetics and beauty
What is aesthetics? Simply put, aesthetics is the study of human beings The knowledge of the relationship between aesthetics and reality. It is different from ordinary art, nor is it simply a daily beautification activity.
The origins of aesthetics as a science can be traced back to ancient slave societies. Ancient thinkers’ philosophical discussions on issues of beauty and art, as well as their research and summary of artistic practice experiences, can be regarded as the bud and starting point of aesthetic theory.
As an independent science, aesthetics is a product of modern times. During the period of vigorous development of bourgeois philosophy and science in the eighteenth century, aesthetics began to be established as a special department in German classical philosophy. Baumgarten[1] first used the term "aesthetics" (Asthetik) in 1750 (its meaning is the theory of the study of feelings and emotions), and regarded aesthetics as an integral part of the philosophical system. Subsequently, Kant, Hegel and others gave aesthetics a further systematic theoretical form, making it occupy an important position in their philosophical systems. In the 19th century, some bourgeois aestheticians, dominated by the spirit of positivism, tried to make aesthetics get rid of philosophy and become the so-called "empirical science". Of course, empirical aesthetics, which claims to be the so-called "empirical science", has not and cannot break away from the dominance of philosophy, but aesthetics developed more extensively and independently during this period.
The emergence of Marxist philosophy has provided a truly scientific worldview and methodology for aesthetic research, and changed the face of aesthetic research. Classic Marxist writers also put forward many important principled aesthetic views, but they did not have time to systematize them. Therefore, establishing a scientific Marxist aesthetic system is still a task that needs to be completed. It should be said that using Marxist perspectives to study aesthetics is still in the exploratory stage.
As a social science, aesthetics is produced and developed on the basis of the material life and spiritual life of society. It is a science that studies the laws of beauty, aesthetic feeling, beauty creation and aesthetic education.
Beauty is an emotional experience of the external beauty or internal beauty of objective things. It is an emotion of affirmation, satisfaction, pleasure and admiration produced by people with certain aesthetic views when they evaluate the beautiful characteristics of external objective things. Aesthetic experience has two distinct characteristics: 1. The perception of the perceptual appearance characteristics of the aesthetic object, such as lines, colors, phonology, harmony, vividness, symmetry, etc., is the basis for the generation of aesthetic feeling. 2. Perception and power of beautiful objects. Aesthetic feeling is a subjective attitude towards aesthetic objects and a reflection of whether the aesthetic objects meet the needs of the subject. Aesthetics is the appreciation of beauty and ugliness. Only through recognition, evaluation, and appreciation activities can we have a sense of beauty. Since everyone's aesthetic needs, opinions, standards, abilities and cultural backgrounds are different, the aesthetic experience of the same object is also different. Not only the evaluation and appreciation of beauty and ugliness can arouse people's sense of beauty, but also the evaluation of good and evil. It will affect people's aesthetic feeling and experience.
(2) Beauty and beauty
What is beauty? In Nietzsche's understanding, in addition to the "illusion of appearance"[2] theory and the theory of "the projection of the abundance of vitality on the object", there are also the following formulations that deserve attention:
First , Beauty is the source of strong desire. Nietzsche believed that since Kant, all aesthetic theories have been corrupted by the concept of "disinterestedness." He despised the so-called "desireless contemplation" and advocated: "Where is the beauty? In the place where I have to will with all my will; in the place where I am willing to love and die so that the image does not remain just an image. Love and death: always the same . The will to love: this is the willingness to die. ”
Secondly, beauty is the image of strength. "When power becomes benevolent and drops to the visible, I call such a drop beauty."
Nietzsche has the following main analyzes of the psychology of beauty:
First, Lenovo said. Judgments of beauty "endow a kind of magic to the object to which it is slightly emanated. This magic is conditioned by the association between the various judgments of beauty, but has nothing to do with the nature of the object." An object is felt as beautiful because This object activates the subject's unconscious memories of various wonderful experiences in the past. All these experiences stimulate each other and gather around this object. Therefore, beauty is an illusion based on unconscious associations.
Second, the theory of mixed animal pleasure. There are animal pleasure states in us such as sexual excitement, intoxication, cruelty, etc. When an object arouses a little excitement in the area where these pleasure states reside, "the mixture of these extremely exquisite nuances of animal pleasure and desire is Aesthetic state."
Third, the theory of empathy. In ancient times, people were trained in fear and saw danger in all strangers, so they learned the ability to quickly guide and imitate their feelings in their hearts, that is, they learned to empathize. People have even extended this view from humans and animals to natural things, believing that all movements and lines contain intentions. Fear leads to the practice of empathy, and empathy leads to various types of beauty, including the beauty of nature. This theory is equivalent to the theory of empathy, but Nietzsche pointed out that empathy originated from the fear of primitive people.
Fourth, distance theory. Beauty depends on a certain distance in space or time.
(3) Aesthetic conception arising from the sense of beauty
This is where all the inspiration provided by the "bottom-up" [3] aesthetics started by Fechner lies. Now that we have human real aesthetic experience as the logical starting point of the aesthetic theoretical framework and the most original basis for discussing all aesthetic issues, the hypothesis about the objective existence of beauty immediately becomes a luxury, and it is definitely a luxury. Obstructive luxury. The most important issue faced by aesthetics starting from the sense of beauty is no longer the so-called essence of beauty, no longer the ontological proof of whether beauty is an objective existence, but the essence of beauty, the essence of the process of beauty, which is the essence of human beings. The process itself of the subject aesthetically perceiving and grasping objects. This means that aesthetics has been transformed from a science about "beauty" to a science about "beauty" and "aesthetics", and the foothold of aesthetics has rapidly shifted from the ontological level to the epistemological level. The metaphysical study of ontology is transformed into the metaphysical study of cognition.
A philosopher once said that when people praise an object as "beautiful" in unison, they may mean completely different things. Everyone's psychological feelings have their own unique personal characteristics, and the same person's psychological feelings are always in a process of continuous change. What's more, people use different value standards to judge objects in aesthetic activities, and they will have different feelings when facing the same object, which is not worth making a fuss about. However, if we examine this issue in a broader context and examine it in the entire history of aesthetic development, we will find that the differences in the aesthetic experience of different individuals are not even just because of their opinions. different value standards. The comfortable pleasure we have when looking at a plain and peaceful scenery is always called "beauty" by aestheticians. However, when we watch Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet" in the theater, our souls may experience a huge shock. Can it also be called “beauty”? Also, should the weird and complex emotions we experience when reading "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by the South American writer Marquez also be called "aesthetic"?
We can’t find a satisfactory answer to such a question from the numerous documents written by aestheticians of all ages. People are always talking about beauty, but they rarely seem to talk about those so-called aesthetics. It is the specific human feeling itself that is called "beauty".
Chapter 2 Aesthetic Feelings Derived from Aesthetics
(1) Aesthetic Feelings
Aesthetics is a human spiritual activity and a kind of activity for the subject. It is a spiritual activity with rich and complex psychological feelings, and it is also an activity that obtains its meaning through the psychological feelings of these subjects. Therefore, when studying aesthetics, the first thing that should be studied is the various psychological feelings that humans obtain in this special spiritual activity. People call this feeling "aesthetic".
When studying "aesthetics", it is difficult for us to directly define "aesthetics" in one or two sentences. This is not only because there have been many debates and objections about this in the long history of aesthetics development, but also because the definition of beauty is actually the same as the definition of beauty, involving almost all important aspects of important issues in the field of aesthetics. The theoretical definition of "beauty", like the previous efforts of aestheticians to define beauty, is actually one of the few core issues in aesthetics.
All debates over different theories and different viewpoints in aesthetics, as long as they are debates with theoretical significance, can generally only be based on two most basic differences. The first is due to the different appreciation tastes of each person, and the second is due to the differences or even opposition in theoretical starting points.
Representatives of different styles and genres often criticize each other. Classicists look down on the Rococo style, realism denigrates Romanticism, Tolstoy dislikes Shakespeare very much, and the right and wrong in it cannot be summed up in one word. Even though we can find many theoretical bases to prove that a certain artistic style is more vital than another style, or that a certain style is more suitable for a specific occasion, our personal experience Aesthetic feeling does not seem to be affected by these rational proofs. It seems to transcend rational thinking and directly collide with the object in the mind. Faced with such aesthetic feelings that are not controlled by reason, if we don’t want to become tyrants in the perceptual field, we can only say this. There is probably no right or wrong in the differences in feelings that arise and appear due to different tastes. points, as long as it is a real and not a false aesthetic experience, it is correct. In the realm of true aesthetic feeling, there is no room for error. Because of this, Hume said that "taste is not controversial", because in the field of aesthetics, what is really worthy of debate is not the authenticity of feelings, but whether a certain feeling belongs to the category of aesthetics, and which psychological feelings should be attributed to it. Within the scope of aesthetics, some psychological feelings should be excluded from the scope of aesthetics. However, such discussions have long gone beyond differences in taste.
There is a fundamental difference between such differences and aesthetic differences arising from different tastes.
To use a perhaps inappropriate metaphor, the aesthetic debate arising from different tastes is like the Europeans in the Age of Discovery looking for sea routes to the East in order to break the Muslim blockade on trade between the East and the West. Traveling on different roads, they never really arrived at the legendary mysterious and alluring golden capital. However, during this adventure, people who went from every direction got what they wanted more or less. The coveted wealth; and the disputes that arise due to different theoretical basis are like the ancient legend of the blind man touching the elephant. The blind man who touched the leg said that the elephant is pillar-shaped, and the blind man who touched the ear said that the elephant is pillar-shaped. It is said that an elephant is like a cattail leaf fan, and the person who touched the belly of the elephant said that it is like a flat plate... Different explorers will deduce their different theories based on their respective positions, so it is inevitable that there will be consequences. The "Pillar Theory", "Pu Fan Theory" about the shape of an elephant, and perhaps even the more plausible "Platformism".
However, just like solving the dispute between the blind people touching the elephant, the most fundamental solution we can achieve is to find out their respective theoretical starting points and compare the effects of these different starting points. What does it mean to be a complete elephant. Just like if a certain syllogism finally leads to an absurd conclusion, and its reasoning process itself is correct, we should go to its premises to discover and search for the source of the error. If a self-complete theoretical system ultimately reaches a wrong conclusion, then it is very likely that the fault lies in its theoretical starting point.
(1) Aesthetic value and evaluation
The aesthetic value of art is based on practical value and is objective. In appreciation, due to cultural differences such as region and ethnicity, there will be differences in values, and even completely different value standards. But this does not mean that aesthetic value has no objectivity, because value is not equal to evaluation, and they can be unified or opposed. Cultural practices and personal special experiences are the main causes of disunity. In the actual judgment of a certain work, different subjects will have different feelings. For example, when a person loses a loved one, warm and joyful forms will not be perceived as pleasant. On the contrary, a person who is experiencing a happy event will feel the atmosphere of celebration even in the rainy weather. Due to differences in cultural habits, it is difficult for a Westerner to accept a landscape painting. Whether the subject's evaluation is consistent with the objectivity of value also depends on whether the appreciation medium the subject operates is in line with the subject's appreciation habits. People who play Go, no matter how much knowledge and experience they have in aesthetics, can hardly perceive the beauty of the forms on the board. At the same time, it also depends on whether the subject can sublimate ordinary emotions to aesthetic emotions under the influence of reason. A person with an appreciation level can perceive and experience aesthetic phenomena in various media, and can even convert daily information into aesthetic information for experience.
In art appreciation, the aesthetic perception of works has social utility. On the one hand, aesthetic images and information, while stimulating the subject's aesthetic experience, may also stimulate personal awareness of reality, that is, there is a judgment of interests lurking in aesthetic judgment. For example, when you have a sense of beauty in the color and shape of the apple in the painting, it can also be used as an emotional experience of "looking at the plum blossoms to quench your thirst". Even a universal emotion conveyed by pure geometric shapes can arouse an individual's unconscious judgment of interests. On the other hand, beauty contains content that is beneficial to human society. If spectacular war scenes are regarded as a kind of overall art, then people will not think of that kind of art. Because the judgment of aesthetic value is restricted by cognitive value and ethical value, that is, the content that is beneficial to human society restricts the judgment of aesthetic value. For example, works with the style of the era and region or formal norms recognized by the personal emotions of a certain group can be used as standards for aesthetic evaluation.
(3) Analysis of Aesthetics
After the 1990s, the discourse of practical aesthetics that once occupied the mainstream of Chinese aesthetics began to decline. The aesthetics community may reject metaphysics and turn to aesthetics. Empirical research on culture may still replace the foundation of practice with life ontology within the traditional model to advocate life aesthetics or post-practical aesthetics. However, for the basic theory of aesthetics to achieve real development, it ultimately depends on the transformation of the ideological paradigm. Cao Junfeng's "Introduction to Metaaesthetics" is the preliminary result of this transformation. It is undoubtedly one of the most creative works on aesthetic principles since the 1990s. On the basis of criticizing the shortcomings of traditional and contemporary aesthetics, the author finds that their common causes are ambiguous semantics, unclear concepts, insufficient understanding of the nature of aesthetic statements, and a lack of conscious logical awareness when discussing aesthetic issues. Therefore, he proposed using language analysis as a "better diagnostic and treatment technique" for chronic aesthetic diseases. His so-called "metaaesthetics" are essentially language analysis aesthetics. "It takes general aesthetic statements as its object and more specific High-level language semantic and logical analysis of aesthetic statements." According to the diagnosis and treatment plan he proposed, we must first change from the analysis of aesthetics and beauty to the analysis of terms, so as to take aesthetic statements or sentences as the object of analysis, and then examine the internal logical problems of aesthetic statements. Obviously, this methodology comes from European and American language analysis philosophy from Frege, Russell to Wittgenstein. It reflects the efforts to implement this thinking paradigm into the localization of the aesthetic field.
In the specific operation, the author first started from the layering of aesthetic concepts (object description layer, psychological description layer, artistic skill evaluation layer, aesthetic evaluation layer and aesthetic principle layer) to examine the semantic ambiguity of this appreciation concept. Sexual ambiguity, indefinability, and the openness to continuous innovation with aesthetic psychology. Then, he started to conduct semantic analysis of different aesthetic propositions, and thus derived a series of conclusions: all sentences describing aesthetic objects are subjective and emotional, and they are not objective and accurate descriptions. The more unverifiable they are, the more they have aesthetic characteristics; Aesthetic psychological descriptive sentences cannot generalize the description of personal introspective experience. And so on.
There is no doubt that "Introduction to Metaaesthetics" is deeply influenced by the overall "linguistic turn" of modern Western philosophy. It breaks through the previous research on aesthetic principles (which was deeply impregnated with Hegelianism) and was limited to The tradition of humanism, which continues in one continuous line, strives to construct the theoretical outline of metaaesthetics based on the philosophy of language analysis, pointing out a new way of thinking for the diversified development of Chinese aesthetics.
Conclusion: For thousands of years, people have rarely studied aesthetics from the true feelings of specific people, or from the perspective of human nature. Without human feelings, without human nature and its development and change process, beauty will always remain an unsolvable mystery. Such research will never be able to see that as people themselves change, as the natural and social background in which they live change, and as people's spiritual needs change, art and people's aesthetic feelings themselves are changing. There is constant change happening.
So I can only say that since we are born in this era when people's ideological level is not yet high, we can only use a certain definition to consolidate what we call aesthetics. However, I really hope that what we call aesthetics is not just Beauty in the eyes of artists can enter thousands of households and ordinary people! Aesthetic activities are symbolically facing the world and transcending the world.