The Body Turned Aesthetic Transformation

Since1970s and80s of the last century, as the more comprehensive consumer society came, flourish of various kinds of body industry and the rediscover of importance of body by many theoretical researches marked the coming of a time named body social rise" by Bryan S. Turner. In the context era, as the representative of Pragmatism Philosophy after Dewey and Rorty,Richard, Shusterman put forward the concept of Somaesthetic firstly based on its unique position of neo-pragmatism Philosophy and Aesthetics, and devoted himself actively to the discipline construction and theory improvement of the Somaesthetic. As a theoretical expression and theoretical response to era symptoms, Richard Shusterman's Somaesthetic received extensive attention naturally by the academic circles at home and abroad.Based on reading Richard Shusterman's related original works, the paper tries to comb and analyze the origin and development of Richard shusterman's Somaesthetic in detail, and aims to highlight Somaesthetic's theoretical background, philosophical foundation, the basic content, as well as theoretical progress, and then to discuss the historical circumstances and development trend of Somaesthetic, and think about the enlightenment to construction of Chinese aesthetics, thus present the full picture of Richard Shusterman's Somaesthetic comprehensively and systematically and reveal Somaesthetic's theoretical characteristics, philosophical contribution and the times significance. Based on this, the paper's basic idea and main contents are as bellow.Besides the summarization of the subject origin, the research significance, the present situation of research, the basic concept and main content, research methods, key points and difficult points as well as innovation points, the introduction takes the relevant statement of "body" of Bryan S. Turner, John O'Neill, Marcel Mauss, Dame Mary Douglas and Richard Shusterman as an example to clarify the prescriptive and the basic connotation of the concept "body".Body subject is one of the center subjects throughout the whole history of western philosophy and aesthetics. It can be said that the whole history of western philosophy and aesthetics is a history of "body" from "absent" to "appearance" and then to "highlight". Body turning history, as a cultural background and theoretical source of the appearance of Somaesthetic, provides rich and valuable theoretical resources for Somaesthetic. Somaesthetic is a kind of reflection and criticism to the ideological trend and the value orientation of mind-body disparity and preference for the heart over the body in western traditional consciousness of aesthetics (Platon, Augustin, Descartes, etc.). Appearance of body in modern aesthetics for example, the focus, thinking and demonstration on the body by Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty provides an inexhaustible ideological source and body highlights in the Postmodern consumer society(Michel Foucault, M. Featherstone, etc.) is directly contributed to the birth of Somaesthetic. The Second Chapter of the paper expounds the history of body turning which as the cultural background of appearance of Somaesthetic through the key person in the history of western philosophy and aestheticsOn the one hand, Somaesthetic's put forward of the theory is consciousness to the reflection and criticism of western traditional aesthetics. On the other hand, it is an inevitable result of the deepening and expanding of pragmatic aesthetics. As the representative of neo-pragmatism philosophy and aesthetics, Richard Shusterman's research employs the methodology and theoretical purport of Pragmatism. After reflection on Rorty's pragmatism, and based on the thought of Dewey, he reconciled the contradictions between analytic philosophy and deconstruction, and formed his own unique philosophy and aesthetics eventually. So the Third Chapter of the paper discusses pragmatism which is the philosophical basis of Somaesthetic from two aspects. One is the birth of pragmatism and its historical development, the other is Richard Shusterman's neo-pragmatism philosophy and aesthetics construction. The latter includes three aspects:Richard Shusterman inherited the basic idea of pragmatism; Richard Shusterman discarded Rorty's Pragmatism and Dewey's thought, and the Unique position of Richard Shusterman's neo-pragmatism.The subject construction of Richard Shusterman's Somaesthetic experienced a process of theory brewing, formally proposing, and developing into to perfect. The two changes(from analytical philosophy to pragmatism, furthermore, to focusing on body) in Richard Shusterman's academic course and his repositioning to the philosophy and aesthetics of, as well as his reflection on Aesthetica of Alexander Gottliel Baumgarten, promoted his disciplinary proposal on Somaesthetic. Somaesthetic can be divided into two basic levels. One is the theoretical construction of Somaesthetic, and the other is practice application of Somaesthetic. In particular, it has three fundamental dimensions, which are analytic Somaesthetic, pragmatic Somaesthetic and practical Somaesthetic. Richard Shusterman's analys is on body feelings, Somatics experience and Body consciousness, which shows Somaesthetic's theoretical progress. Somaesthetic received a great deal of affirmation and supports, and meanwhile, it also suffered from the question and critique from all sides inevitably. So Chapter Four expounds in detail the theoretical construction of Richard Shusterman's Somaesthetic from three aspects, which include theoretical brewing of Somaesthetic, basic content of Somaesthetic and criticisms encountered by Somaesthetic and its response.Chapter Five explains characteristics of Somaesthetic and its contributions. The characteristics of Richard Shusterman's Somaesthetic mainly lie on the following three aspects:unity of theory and practice, implementation of dialogue consciousness and pluralism, integration of body care and humanitarian. Contributions of Somaesthetic include its philosophical value, reconstruction of aesthetic, and its practical significance. Its philosophical value is the theoretical value demonstrated in Philosophy, ethics, political science, dance and music education, as well as feminist and other fields. The transformation to aesthetics by Shusterman's Somaesthetic reflects on the following four aspects:digestion on dualism tradition, breakthrough of aesthetic attribution (non-utilitarianism aesthetics and aesthetics as disinterestedness), aesthetic defense to popular art, and boundary expansion of aesthetic theory. Its practical significance lies on the wide application on the practical field such as sports, fitness, diet, fashion, beauty, disability treatment, performance art, computer design and so on.In the contemporary cross-cultural and interdisciplinary context, as a theoretical system in the process of development, there are Indispensable Tension between Richard Shusterman's Somaesthetic and Practice Aesthetics, the most influential aesthetics school in China, and some emerging branch discipline of aesthetics, such as Environmental Aesthetics and Aesthetics of Daily Life, In addition, in the process of Somaesthetic construction, Richard Shusterman absorbed and drawn lessons from many resources of body theory of ancient Chinese philosophy and aesthetics, which provided a new perspective and research dimensions for Chinese aesthetics theory undoubtedly. Therefore, Chapter Six aims to explore interaction between Somaesthetic and practical aesthetics, aesthetics of daily life and environmental aesthetics as well as the reference significance and the enlightenment value of Somaesthetic on Chinese aesthetics theory.The author points out In the Conclusion part that there are field needs to be explore further for Shusterman's Somaesthetic, and reiterate the particular value and contribution of Somaesthetic.