According to Nietzsche, Wang Guowei believes that "the essence of life" is "desire". If you have a desire, you will often take it. When you ask for it, you often feel overwhelmed. If you feel inadequate, you will often feel pain. He said: "The desire of life is nothing more than life, and the essence of life is nothing more than pain, so desire is only one of life and pain."
He went on to say: "On the other hand, our knowledge and practice are related to the desire of life, that is, to pain." There is something that makes us transcend interests and forget the relationship between things and me. At this time, there is no hope, no fear and no desire for me in our hearts, but we know me. ..... However, if things can make us detached from interests, it must have nothing to do with us. What is easy to say clearly must be immaterial. However, how can non-art be enough? "
He went on to say: "However, since this thing has a stake in us, we have to look at it from its relationship. It is not a genius. How easy is it?" So genius came out, and what he saw in natural life reappeared in art, so that people with average intelligence were beyond their interests because their things had nothing to do with themselves. "
These paragraphs show the essence of art and the role of artists, which is the main point of Wang Guowei's first aesthetic program.
The second chapter of this paper turns to the theme of A Dream of Red Mansions. Wang Guowei pointed out that the main purpose of A Dream of Red Mansions is to explain that "the desire of life precedes life, and life is nothing more than the discovery of this desire." This shows that our depravity is the evil of free will that we want. "He quoted Jia Baoyu from A Dream of Red Mansions for the first time 1 17, and gave up his Baoyu after the monk's enlightenment. This treasure jade is his desire for life. Wang Guowei believes that Jia Baoyu gave up his desire for life and fundamentally solved all the problems in his life, freeing him from the shackles he suffered in life. This is the only way out of life. Neither becoming a monk nor committing suicide can free life. However, how did Jia Baoyu get rid of his desire for life? And a monk.
The third chapter holds that the aesthetic value of A Dream of Red Mansions lies in its complete tragedy. He said: "According to Schopenhauer, there are three kinds of tragedies. The first kind of tragedy is constructed by evil people as much as they can; Second, because of the blind carrier of fate; The third kind of tragedy must be because of the position and relationship of the characters in the play. It is not necessary to have the nature of snakes and scorpions and unexpected changes, but to be forced by ordinary people and ordinary environment. They know the harm, give them, do their best, and don't take responsibility. This tragedy is far more touching than the first two. ..... if a dream of red mansions is the third kind of tragedy. " So "it can be described as a tragedy in tragedy." The aesthetic value of A Dream of Red Mansions is that it is a tragedy among tragedies.
Wang Guowei said from his own narrative that he wrote a review of A Dream of Red Mansions. "Although all his arguments are based on the position of his uncle (Benhua), he raised a lot of questions in the fourth chapter. His understanding of his uncle's theory is partly due to his subjective temperament, but he has no objective knowledge." So he "went back to read Kant's book". (Introduction to Selected Works of Jing 'an)
What is this big problem? Schopenhauer believes that the root of life is "the will of life" and the main content of life is "pain", that is, anxiety. Human beings are particularly sensitive to suffering, so the need for liberation is also the most urgent. Trouble and relief are mutually treated, so are heaven and hell. Wang Guowei said: "Today, people are worried every day. They are worried, but they have no courage to seek relief. Then heaven and hell are lost. "
How to get rid of it? Wang Guowei said: "the philosophy of uncle is the foundation of all mankind and everything." Therefore, according to Uncle Chong's theory of rejecting will, unless all human beings and everything reject their own will to survive, then a person's will cannot be obtained and rejected. What is this? The will of life exists in me, but only a small part, mostly in all human beings and everything, which is the same as my will. And the difference between this thing and me is only due to the form of our knowledge. Therefore, from this form of knowledge, fundamentally, then the will of all mankind and everything is my will. But I refused my wishes, and my sister-in-law said she was relieved. What's the difference between it and that ravine filled with water, and the world can live in peace? Buddha said, if you don't spend your whole life, you will never become a Buddha. If his words were still capable, he wouldn't want them. But, from our point of view, can this be done? Will you want it, but you can't. So as Schopenhauer said, the liberation of a person, not the liberation of the world, is actually the same as his will. Uncle also unconsciously touched this problem. "
In other words, human beings and all other creatures are a universal expression of "will to survive". A person's rejection of his "will to live" does not mean that all living things reject his "will to live", which is impossible.
This is the first question, and there is a second question. Wang Guowei said: "The husband's world is limited, but people are infinite. In a world where life is infinite, there must be people who can't live. " There is a person in the world who cannot live by himself, which is not allowed by the ideal of biological socialism. Therefore, if the ideal of biological socialism wants to maximize the number of life in the world, then everyone's life will have to be minimized. Coverage and quantity are actually an exact inverse proportion, and the so-called maximum quantity of the greatest happiness is only attributed to the dream of ethicists. "This means that the increase in the number of human beings is incompatible with the growth of means of subsistence, and it is impossible for everyone to get his position.
Returning to the book A Dream of Red Mansions, Wang Guowei said, "What is the difference between our fearlessness and children's fear of the dark? From the perspective of people who have liberated themselves, do you know that the beauty of mountains and rivers and the brilliance of the sun and the moon after liberation are not too great in today's world? Reading the song "Birds in the Woods", who said "it's so clean in the white"? Nothing? Don't ask, judging from today's life, his words are sincere. "
Why does it stink? Wang Guowei believes that as an artistic creation, A Dream of Red Mansions is meaningful to people like us now. He said: "The value of art is not absolutely valuable for people who have started living in this world. Its materials are taken from life, and its ideals are also subject to the defects of life and tend to be opposite. Such art is valuable only in such a world and such a life. There are still people today, since there is no beginning, no life and death, no bitterness, no worldly obstacles, only eternal knowledge, then our treasure is the supreme art, and from it, we are just cicadas. What is this? The ideal of art has its own position, and its materials have never been experienced. There is also a way to appreciate the pain in the world, which has entered the realm of liberation, so art is of no value to others. What is this? The value of art lies in making people get rid of the desire of life and enter pure knowledge. He has no desire to live. Returning to art is to give a strong man a medicine stone, but it is more common to see that he doesn't know the amount. However, beyond today's world life, there is no need to ask the survival of art. "
This means that although Wang Guowei has great doubts about Schopenhauer's philosophy, he has no doubts about A Dream of Red Mansions. It can also be said that he has made a higher evaluation of A Dream of Red Mansions, because he thinks that as an artistic creation, it is the most meaningful to human beings as it is now.
In the first chapter of this paper, Wang Guowei put forward an aesthetic program based on Schopenhauer's philosophy. Because he has great doubts about Schopenhauer's philosophy, this aesthetic program is not applicable, so he put forward the second aesthetic program, that is, the words on earth. This is an important development of Wang Guowei's aesthetic thought. What clues can be found in this development process? What turning point can you see? There is also a fifth chapter in Wang Guowei's paper, entitled "Yu Lun". Although it is a conclusion, it is actually a very important text, because he answered the above questions.
This conclusion puts forward two major aesthetic principles. Wang Guowei said: "What a husband writes in art is not personal, but also the nature of all mankind." But the characteristics of art are more concrete than abstract, so all the essence of human beings is placed in the name of individuals. For example, Fu Mo's son and Luo Yong's grandson are our favorite names. People who are good at observing things can see the essence of all mankind from individual facts. Today, for the sake of all mankind, we must make rules and regulations. How can we ask individuals to be practical? Isn't it far that people are more knowledgeable? "Some redologists speculate who Jia Baoyu himself is, some say Cao Xueqin himself, and some say Nalanxingde. Wang Guowei thinks this is a meaningless debate.
The second principle is that the content of a work of art is mainly innate. He said: "the source of husband's art is innate, and the biggest problem of western aesthetics is due to experience." Then he quoted Schopenhauer to answer this question: "The knowledge of beauty has never been gained from experience, that is, it is not acquired, but often innate." Even if it is not, it is often partly congenital. ..... A real artist, his understanding is extremely rapid, and what he shows is better than what nature shows. This is our own will, and what we judge and see here is the complete objectification of the highest level will. Only in this way can we expect beauty. In real genius, the beauty beyond expectation is accompanied by extraordinary ingenuity. In special things, he recognizes the concept of the whole, and then interprets the words of nature and speaks for them, that is, the beauty that nature cannot produce is now in painting and sculpture. If the words are natural, he says, this is what you want to say but can't say. If you have judgment, you will say yes. ..... The expectation of this kind of beauty is what we know from nature, that is, the ideal. In other words, the highest works of art can write things that nature cannot complete. Generally speaking, the highest works of art come from nature and are higher than nature.
Wang Guowei's two aesthetic programs are interlinked, and he mentioned this idea in the above quotation, which is a central idea in Plato's philosophy. According to this quotation, Wang Guowei took Plato from Schopenhauer.
Wang Guowei himself said that after he had great doubts about Schopenhauer's philosophy, he returned to Kant, and after returning to Kant, he did not write down any philosophical research results. Obviously, he caught a glimpse of Plato from Schopenhauer in The Tales of the World. This is the turning point of his two aesthetic programs and the development clue of his aesthetic thought.