| Karl Marx's "Perceptual Theory", which is basically defined as the ontologyof Marx's philosophy by many scholars at home, has a strong modern flavor. Seenfrom the angle of ontology, Marx's philosophy takes on a completely new look in studies and a vivid time characteristic, bearing the important practical significance to current aesthetic research. Realistically, however, the aesthetic research in contemporary China has long been carried on under the instruction of materialism-oriented Marxism, which was imported from the former Soviet Union. The new age has seen the attempts of the researchers of aesthetics to break away from the "old materialism", and to learn the Western modern philosophy and aesthetics, in which way many new orientations in aesthetic studies have been discovered. Nevertheless, Marx's philosophy could not hear its own voice in today's prosperous world of aesthetics. It shows that, on the one hand, the study of Marx's philosophy hi the perspective of old materialism has been declined by the aestheticians; on the other hand, its modern characteristics and practical significance have not yet been well explored. Therefore, this essay intends to fill the gap by the study of Marx's "'Perceptual Theory".The dissertation will mainly be evolved around the two subjects: first, the primary content of Marx's "Perceptual Theory" and its modern characteristics; second, the effects on and the practical significance to aesthetic research of the modern interpretation of Marx's philosophy.The first part is contributed to the explanation of the "Perceptual Theory" from four aspects, that is, perceptual consciousness, perceptual requirement, perceptual activity, and perceptual world. Among them, the perceptual activity and perceptual consciousness gain more importance. The former means the current and concrete activity to transform man's self-being, which can be called "practice" as well. It constitutes the basis of Marx's philosophy. Perceptual consciousness, defined as man's subjective function, specifically refers to various psychological functions like sensibility, perception, memory, imagination and emotion. However, this dissertation does not focus so much on its cognitive function as on its role of "an evidence of all existence". It is actually a co-existence of human beings and the world. Marx's philosophy stresses the transformation of "reality" by philosophy. Man's perceptualconsciousness just indicates the way of obtaining such a "reality". In other words, the existence which is not an object of perceptual consciousness can only be a concept rather than realistic being. Consequently, without perceptual consciousness as the basis, the essential characteristics of Marx's philosophy would be far from being able to be explored. Here, "aesthetics" is interpreted as "ganxingxue", i.e., the study of man's perception, which definitely refers to one's perceptual consciousness. In addition, perceptual world is the realistic one for man's existence, driven by his perceptual requirements, based on his perceptual activities, and perceived by his perceptual consciousness. As a matter of fact, the "Perceptual Theory" may come down to such a conclusion that every science should base its studies on this perceptual world.The dissertation then turns to the explanation of "modem" so as to prelude the modern characteristics of Perceptual Theory'. It is assumed that the substitution of folk epistemoiogy by ontology is one of the characteristics of contemporary philosophy, in comparison with modern philosophy.Classical Western philosophies, either the ancient naturalistic ontology, or the ontology of Idea or Geist, always defined the objective world as a subjective in the first place. They claimed that the principal relation between man and the world is the epistemological relation. Those modem epistemologists, including Kant, all felt confused about "thing-in-itself. Existence and Ideology were the radical antinomy which always obsessed the modern philosophers.Therefore, the first job of contemporary philo...
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