| For a long time, aesthetics of the Han Dynasties has been a weak part in the study of the history of the Chinese aesthetics. The ultimate reason is not that aesthetics ideas are lacked in this period, but that the views on the history of the aesthetics in the contemporary era prevent a lot of thoughts from being discussed as aesthetics problems. Meantime, in this period, because feudal empire required a holistic knowledge of administration, theology, philosophy, science, aesthetics and art were often intertwined. It's difficult to delimit them definitely according to modern classification of subjects. Under this circumstance, first of all, it's necessary to expand properly the studying area of aesthetics. For instance, the study of aesthetics should not only involve literature and art, but also should properly extend its limit to philosophy. Secondly, although there are some difficulties in the classification of knowledge, philosophy of the Han Dynasty and aesthetics have their own major concerns. The monographs on these objects can peel them off the confused materials, and make them form the independent and clear knowledge system. In this thesis, I study the philosophy of the Han Dynasty and the body in aesthetics. Firstly, I discuss the sensitive qualities of the body. This sensibility means it's a unavoidable studying object in such a sensitive subject as aesthetics. In the meantime, among the heterogeneous thoughts of the Han Dynasty, body, as a materialistic form of human beings, was almost considered by all the thinkers at that time, which last over four hundred years along with this empire. Thus, researching philosophy of the Han Dynasty and the history of the body in aesthetics is a convenient way to understand the holistic style and features of ideas in this era.In Chinese philosophy, Tao and nature are talked about in metaphysics area, however, which is ultimately attributed to human's body and life. The concern about the state of human's exist has always been the basic subject of Chinese philosophy and aesthetics, and the most direct point of this concern is, the realistic shape in which human exist, body. Different from western views, which is based on soul independent of and controlling the body, in Chinese philosophy, the body is not pure material, but a whole of a human's body and soul. According to the interpretations of Huai Nan Zi, body is at least composed of the physique, numen, mind and Qi, the physique or flesh is only one of the elements. Judging from this definition, the body the Chinese talk about is first the aggregate of a human's cognizing himself, then, it's an entity existingas the flesh. It not only has intrinsic spiritual depth, but also manifest itself in apperceive sensitive image in the form of the flesh. This is a kind of composing almighty body. Only understanding this, you can understand why I choose it as an important problem in the study of the philosophy and aesthetics of the Han Dynasties.Compared with the era before the Qin Dynasty, the thinkers in the Han Dynasty were not good at abstract thinking. An important character of the philosophy of the Han Dynasties was that the thinkers embodied the things as appreciable object. This philosophy transition from the abstract to the concrete not only makes the philosophy of the Han Dynasties have aesthetic significance on the whole, but also makes body, the sensitive existence, the jumping-off the Han people know themselves, even the world . As the embodiment of this character, the thinker of Han replaced the theory of Tao creating everything in the era before the Qin Dynasty with the Qi Hua. Here, all the existence including human's body are considered as agglomeration of Ylng and Yang. This theory not only makes the material world vivid and actively because of the filling of Qi (gas), but also breaks the abruption between body and soul, and form an organic body in aesthetics sense. Thus, understanding human's body is understanding the whole human, and is understanding the world. That is, on the one hand, the views on organic body and nature based on the theory of Qi Hua makes the study of body the epitome of the world, on the other hand, it makes human and nature form aesthetic harmony in same Qi(gas), essence, form and conformation.The Han Dynasties is one of the eras in which Chinese philosophy and aesthetics are richest and most diverse. During four hundred years, the Taoists, the Confucianists , Taoism and Buddhism all show the influence upon the spirit of human. Among them, the Huang Lao-Taoism in the early West-Han Dynasty, the Confucianism in Han Wu Emperor era and the Taoism in the middle and late East-Han Dynasty consist of three keys to understand the theory of body. Among them, the Huang Lao Taoism advocates that one should keep one's health in the inner life while should preserve himself in the outer life; the Confucianists maintain that one should cultivate one's morality in the inner life while should regard one's courtesy and appearance in the outer life; And Taoism try to realize the ideal that people can live forever through medicines and theurgy. The three separately stand for three aspects of human's concerning for themselves, that is, the individual, social and the ideal value of body. Meantime, in the Ming Emperor era of East Han Dynasty, the Buddhism spread to china, it ulteriorly lead the body ideal of Taoism to Faramita. Itcan be thought that the transition of the body ideal from the Huang Lao Taoism the Confucianism and to Buddhism stands for the basic aspect of Chinese people's expecting of themselves.During the era before the Qin and Wei-Jin Dynasty, the Han Dynasties are the transitional period. Because the theories are sensitive, they are not as profound as the era before the Qin Dynasty. Because their ideas are heterogeneous and ponderous, the aesthetic sensibility of them can't develop as well as Wei-Jin. However, it's because this kind of transitional character that the Han Dynasties become an important link between the era before the Qin and the Wei-Jin. That is, at first, from the abstract of the era before the Qin to the sensibility of Han, and then to the effulgently sensibility of Wei-Jin, it shows that the history of the thoughts evolve in an ordinal way. In this evolvement, the theory of body of Han Dynasties plays an enlightening role, making great contributions to the aesthetics of Wei-Jin. For instance, we can't understand why the the intellectuals aspire after grace and ethos in the Wei Jin Dynasty without knowing the recommendation system; we can't well understood the theory of Wen Qi raised by Cao Pi and Lifelike and Vivid( QIYUNSHENGDONG) advanced by Xie He without knowing the theory of Qi Hua about human body in Han; the Lifelike theory of painting raised by Gu Kaizhi can't not be understood without knowing the theories about the relation between the flesh and numen in Han; why the concepts such as Gu-rou, Gu-fa and so on are used to evaluate art can't be understood without knowing the theories of bone-images. At the same time, the art of taking medicine advocated by Taosim in Han makes great influence on the daily life of the nobles in the Wei Jin, and Taoism's failure to realize the dream of living forever by medicine is an importantcause to the ethos of hedonism in the Wei-Jin......This profound influence makesthe study of the body in the Han importantly to grasp the aesthetics spirit of Wei -Jin.Materials concerning with the philosophy of the body and Aesthetics in Han Dynasties were abundant and unorganized, of which the abundance has established the foundation for the literature of the present dissertation, and the unorganized has increased the difficulty of working out the theoretical system. With regard to this situation, the present dissertation attempts to apply a unified method of logic and history, with a consideration of the truthfulness of historical description and the orderliness of logical reorganization. This dissertation is composed of four chapters,focusing on the four issues as follow:Firstly, the theoretical location of the body: thinkers of the Han Dynasties included in their consideration of the body quite a number of categories such as gender, fate, form, spirit, will, air, mind and body, of which the most important are combinations of form-spirit, and mind-body. With respect to the relationship of form-spirit and mind-body, the form is a expression of the body while the spirit is a function produced in mind. In other words, the form takes the body as its base, and the spirit regards the mind as its dwelling. Comparatively speaking, the form-spirit rather than the mind-body is more fontal to the body, which is appropriate for the consideration of philosophy, and the mind-body rather than the form-spirit is more sensible to the body, which is suitable for the focus of aesthetics. Therefore, this chapter tries to study the composition of the theories of the form-spirit and the truth-appearance in Han Dynasties, and their influence upon aesthetics in Wei and Jin Dynasties, and even further touches upon such concepts of health caring as body maintenance, safeguard, management and cultivation in Han Dynasties.Secondly, the existence of the body: this chapter is mainly to study how the people in Han Dynasties come to know the relationship between the body and the world. The philosophy in Han Dynasties, more and more inclined to perceptual senses, rarely discusses the relationship between man and the world in abstract, but explores the isomorphism and homology of the body and the in concrete. Accordingly, the process of their knowledge of the world turns to be the process in which they change their body experience into the world experience, and make the world as an organic extension of their body. The philosophical enquiry concerning the origin of the body in Han Dynasties undergoes various stages of mythology, philosophy, and theology, of which the theological origin of the body lays the theoretical foundation for of the theories of the consistency of Heaven and man, and the principles of the interaction between Heaven and man. They construct the world through the body experience, which has cast great influence upon the theories of natural beauty and landscape painting in China of later ages.Thirdly, the social regulation of the body: this chapter probes into the ethical re-creation of the body through the system of li-yue in Han Dynasties. Confucianism in Han Dynasties beginning with Jia Yi, has been considering the system of li-yue as an important means to achieve the ethical re-creation of man. Li can control theexternal behaviour and Yue can justify the inner spirit. The body, which has undergone the regulation of Ly-yue, must be a body of harmony and elegance. In Han Dynasties, the dress and personal adornment were considered as an important sign to distinguish the civilized and the barbarous, and the different colours and decorations of the official robe can also be regarded as the direct demonstration of social and political status. Therefore, the aesthetic function and symbolic function of the dress, have not only formed the ideology of the body, but also worked together with Li-yue to achieve the transition of the body from natural creation to social re-creation.Fourthly, the ideal of the body: this chapter explores different ideas concerned with the death of the body, mainly focusing on Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in Han Dynasties. The History of China shows that the period of Han Dynasties is a period in which death is most ceremoniously treated, which has already been proved by a large number of unearthed works of art from the tombs of Han Dynasties. Of them, the Confucianism does not believe in any illusions after death, thus they make use of the lavish funeral and three year mourning with an expectation of extending a live memory of the dead. Taoism considers man's final returning to nature as an ideal of the body, thus they object to the lavish funeral. They attempts to take medicine in order to prolong a life, and even become an immortal. Buddhism would guide people into the other world, making the death of the body the opportunity of living forever in the Sukhavati.The inherent cognition of the inter composition of the body, and the consideration of the relationship between the body and nature, society, death are basically the core of man's self-care. The consideration has deeply affected later Chinese Aesthetics, especially the Aesthetics in Wei-Jin Dynasties. Therefore, the last part of this dissertation is supposed to study how the theory of the body in Han Dynasties has started the formation of the Aesthetics in JVei-Jin Dynasty, but in course of the time late, I have to lie it over now.
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