Xue Fuxing

The study of China's aesthetics in the modern sense began with Wang Guowei, who used modern western academic methods and concepts to examine China's classical aesthetic tradition and found something difficult to find in the traditional academic field of vision. Since then, a new generation of scholars, represented by Zong Baihua and Zhu Guangqian, have gained a lot of sophisticated knowledge in deeply understanding the personality of China's aesthetic spirit. On the whole, however, the early 20th century was a period of concentrated input of western aesthetic theories and construction of basic theories, while China's aesthetic research was in a stage of sporadic discussion and unsystematic.

Since the 1980s, China's aesthetic research has entered a new stage of comprehensive and systematic research, with a number of influential works on Chinese aesthetic history, dynastic history and special research, and a single paper published. Since then, China's aesthetics, aesthetic theory and western aesthetics have been regarded as indispensable branches of aesthetic research, and China's aesthetics has been initially established, which systematically combs the general outline of the development of China's aesthetic concept. This broke the situation that western aesthetics was regarded as aesthetics in the early 20th century, paid full attention to the national cultural individuality in human aesthetic consciousness, and made the ecological structure within the aesthetics discipline richer and more reasonable, which was of great significance to the deepening and healthy development of China's aesthetics. Now, China's aesthetic research has become a fruitful field.

Of course, the study of China's aesthetics in the late 20th century also has its limitations. There are two main reasons: one is the weak foundation. Logically speaking, the establishment of a discipline should start with specific and microscopic empirical research on special topics, and only when the number of special topics reaches a certain level will there be a general historical macro-summary result. However, in the late 20th century, China's aesthetic research was just the opposite. From the beginning, it was a macro-research stage based on general history research. The author has accumulated several years of painstaking efforts to describe thousands of years of aesthetic tradition, and its roughness can be imagined. Even if it is a single academic paper, it is mostly a big topic, lacking solid empirical research on special topics, and it is inherently insufficient. Second, the study of ideas. At present, China's aesthetic research mostly stays at the stage of combing aesthetic concepts, which is only the last stage of human aesthetic activities and the most abstract form. If aesthetic research only stays in the aesthetic concept, it will always be a rootless seedling without simpler and richer aesthetic practice materials. This point has now begun to be recognized by the aesthetic community.

China's aesthetic research is in a new stage of self-deepening, and there are four ways:

Turn the macro into the micro, get out of the general historical complex, return to the specific and empirical thematic research, and do the research work of dynastic history and thematic history again, so as to make up for the shortcomings of the sages and lay a solid foundation for the healthy development of China's aesthetics. At present, little is known about the development of China's aesthetic consciousness, such as China's natural aesthetic history, craft aesthetic history and life aesthetic history, which are of great significance and need to be studied deeply and systematically. Only after these concrete and universally enlightening research results come out can we have a more real, updated and higher understanding of the development of China's aesthetic consciousness.

Turn ideas into activities, get out of theoretical texts, return to vivid and rich mass aesthetic practice, return to simpler and more specific objects and written materials of aesthetic activities, and make systematic classification and arrangement again. The history of aesthetics should first be the history of realistic aesthetic activities, and the combing of ideas should be the end rather than the beginning. Aesthetics is the phenomenology of human perceptual spirit. It is indeed a chore to analyze aesthetic elements from rich and complicated real life activities and sort out aesthetic clues from vast objects and documents. But without such efforts, China's aesthetic research will never be deepened and will always be in the pre-scientific stage. In fact, this is to make up lessons with empirical special research to surpass the conceptual research in the late 20 th century.

Solving the universality of human aesthetics with the special materials of China's aesthetics. For a long time, we have always regarded fully displaying the unique aesthetic spirit of the Chinese nation as the sole goal of China's aesthetic research. In fact, this is only a preliminary study of China's aesthetics. If we only take appreciating the individuality of national culture as our responsibility, and Chinese and western aesthetics will always speak independently, the knowledge system of human aesthetic enjoyment will not be formed, and the study of China's aesthetics will lose its universal academic value. Without the guidance of the universal academic vision and aesthetic basic theory beyond the national cultural standard, it will be difficult to deepen and advance China's empirical research. Therefore, based on the unique materials of China's aesthetics, this paper puts forward some problems of universal significance to the study of the history of human aesthetic consciousness, solves some problems that have not been raised by western aesthetics, or have been raised but have not been well solved, and integrates China's traditional aesthetic wisdom into the human aesthetic knowledge system. Only in this way can the academic value of China's aesthetic research be improved, and the so-called "aphasia" of aesthetics, the lack of equal dialogue rights and the fragmentation of Chinese and Western aesthetics can be effectively solved step by step.

Adhere to the secularization of aesthetics and carry forward China's aesthetic tradition. Aesthetics is the starting point of human spiritual life, and the current perceptual position determines that it will always be the most secular spiritual life. China has a profound cultural tradition of enjoying life with aesthetics. Natural aesthetics, craft aesthetics, life aesthetics and art aesthetics have been fully developed in China's classical culture and become an important part of the spiritual life of the Chinese nation. These just need to be carried forward in contemporary society. Compared with the western tradition of taking aesthetics as truth and belief, China's tradition of taking aesthetics as fun is more in line with the essence of human aesthetic activities. China's aesthetics is rich in ideological and cultural resources in aesthetic concept and practice. Therefore, the study of China's aesthetics should have an excellent prospect in promoting the basic theoretical construction of contemporary aesthetics and realistic humanistic care.