Chinese aesthetics facing modern transition
Life aesthetics becomes a research fashion in recent years in China.
“During a period of more than one hundred years, Chinese esthetics not only reflects the temporality, but also constantly responds to the changes of times and has a breakthrough in theory.” said Wang Que, Director of Liberal Arts of Northeast Normal University, who has been dedicated to the transition research of Chinese aesthetics.
The opening and discussion meeting titled “Modern Transition Research of Chinese aesthetics”, presided over by Wang, was held in Beijing on October 25. It is one of the major issue research projects of social science and philosophy of the Ministry of Education.
He told the journalist that “modern” was a concept of time dimension and it had difference from the “ancient” of Chinese aesthetics, which meant Chinese aesthetics stepping into another historical stage.
Chinese aesthetics research has passed one hundred years, and it made twice “aesthetic waves” respectively in 1950’s and 1980’s. Today, in face of the increasingly wide and complex social reality, can aesthetic studies provide the ultimate thinking for mankind? Will China come to a new upsurge of aesthetic study?
“Since the 1990’s, history research of Chinese aesthetics has achieved great progress, and the existing works about history of aesthetics provide us a simple framework of thinking and main source of historical data.” said Wang. Peng Fuchun, Professor of philosophy of Wuhan University, indicated that modern transition of Chinese aesthetics should still focus on traditional historical study and basic theory research. He believed that western and eastern aesthetic research both had to be built upon the basic theory research.
Liu Yuedi, Delegate at large of International Association for Aesthetics (IAA) and Associate Professor in Institute of Philosophy at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that currently Chinese aesthetics is facing the opportunity for developing. In the “intercultural turn” tide advocated by IAA, Chinese aesthetics academy is entering into “global dialogue”. Chinese aesthetics is aware of the motto “What national is what worldwide” only in the international exchange. Thus, “internationalization” of Chinese native aesthetics is the trend of development.
Liu also considered that “life aesthetics” is an aesthetic fashion growing up both in China and the West for nearly 10 years, which is the product of aesthetic diversification. Chinese aesthetics enriches with the traditions of life aesthetics. In the new period of “life aesthetics”, the strength of Chinese aesthetics will facilitate itself integrating into the world.
(Translated by Yang Lu)