Contemporary Western Aesthetics

Author: Zhu Di
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-27
Features: The ten representative figures of the schools listed in Chapter are determined based on fragments from certain works or the "aesthetics" entries in various encyclopedias. "School" is both a concept that evolves and one that remains relatively stable, so some representatives of aesthetic schools like Freud, Jung, Santayana, Dewey, and Cassirer, though deceased long ago, are still referred to as representatives of "contemporary" aesthetic schools due to their enduring significant influence. Some philosophical schools or aesthetic theories, such as structuralism, existentialism, and reception aesthetics, are not yet recognized as distinct aesthetic schools in the West, so they are not covered here.
Secondly, in terms of writing methodology, since a Western philosophical or aesthetic school often has multiple names, to avoid unnecessary confusion, we adopt the approach of "introducing schools through figures," using the aesthetic thought of representative figures of a school as the primary method to introduce that school. This method appears to be quite feasible. Hegel once said, "The external appearance of the history of philosophy is composed of individual figures." Since the history of philosophy can be written this way, contemporary aesthetic schools can certainly be presented similarly.
Chapter 2, on the nature of beauty, is entirely set up based on the needs of domestic readers. In contemporary Western aesthetic works, discussions on the nature of beauty are rarely given dedicated chapters, and many aesthetic works no longer address this once-controversial metaphysical issue. However, given the importance of the issue itself and the widespread interest in it among scholars of aesthetics in China, I still include it as a dedicated chapter for introduction and discussion.
Chapter 3, on aesthetic experience, is the opposite of Chapter 2 regarding the nature of beauty. It is the main focus of contemporary Western aesthetic research, with almost no systematic aesthetic work failing to address aesthetic experience. This significant shift in the research objects of aesthetics is one of the most notable features of contemporary Western aesthetics. However, with a wealth of material, it can easily become disorganized. To maintain clarity, I divide it into several subtopics and consider the proposition of "aesthetic disinterestedness" as the core of aesthetic experience. This view is shared by a considerable number of Western aestheticians, and I also agree with it.
Chapters 4 and 5 are both about art. They could have been combined into one chapter, but due to the excessive complexity of the content, I had to split them into two chapters: one on the nature of art, artistic creation, the principles of artistic classification, and aesthetic issues in various arts, and the other for separate discussion. Some topics, such as inspiration in artistic creation and the origins of art, are not covered here as I have already written papers and on them.