Junyi Aesthetic Thought

Confticianist esthetics thought is one of the important parts of Confticianist culture. Its formation and the evolution closely has been related in together with the Confucianism's prosperity and decline . From pre-qin Confticianist to modern Neo-Confucianist, The Confucianism development has experienced three important stages of the han-Tang jing-xue, the song-ming Neo-Confucianism and the modern new Confucianism. Regardless of any stages, Confticianist esthetics has been abundant in thoughts, and It has been creative explanation and the development to the pre-qin Confticianist thought. Although the Confucianism has separated from modern people's life, life spirit of Confticianist esthetics, some related traditional propositions about literary arts of Confticianist proposed, some categories about theory of literature and art and which tian-dao viewpoint and ethics philosophy of Confticianist grow, it has the important enlightenment significance for constructing China's present theory of literature and art. However, as a result of all sorts of historical reason, the Neo-Confucianism has been not thought highly of as conservatives for a long time. It has been made better since early of 1980s. But The people often have been paid close attention to study about culture of Neo-Confucianism. In fact, achievements in literature and art theory and aesthetics of Neo-Confucianism have been of momentous inspiring significance and for aesthetics and literature and art theory constructing.As one of the important representatives of the Neo-Confucianism, Tang Junyi strives to broadcast Chinese traditional culture and aims at the communication between Sino-west cultures in a contradictory time of rapid progress: the clashes between the West and the East, tradition and modernity. To analyze and reflect on the essence and value of Chinese traditional culture, he resorts to life experiences, culture consciousness and ethical rationality. The final destination of his effort is to reduce the after-effect of technology on Chinese tradition and find solutions for the modernity of Chinese culture. For that reason, he fully respects and absorbs all the useful resources from various peoples and religions. His efforts win him great fames. After the publishing of Life Existence and Mind's Realms in his late years, he was regarded as "one of the five great philosophers in modern China by the Encyclopedia Britannica published in the year of 1980.The present thesis consists of six integral parts.The introduction briefly accounts for the historical and cultural background of Tang Junyi's thoughts, and the current situation on the study of his aesthetic theories. Facing west modern culture impact on the traditional culture, Which kind of manner and what thinking mode to be used for carrying on the creative explanation to the Confucianist thought, to construct the Chinese culture that is in possession of national characteristic and the Eastern charm by itself. The modern Neo-Confucianists having processed relations of tradition and modern, they have been not regarded as their absolute mutual repelled relations, On the contrary, they compared the tradition with the modernization, to make an effort to merge between two sides. Without doubt, it is the China and the West culture conflict which urged Tang Junyi to ponder on esthetics question thoroughly.Chapter one analyzes the developments of Tang Junyi's intellectual ideas. The thesis trails the developments of his intellectual ideas from both diachronic and synchronic points of view. His philosophical system is built around the core concept of "Moral Self, the most important term in his construction of his whole thoughts and a clue to understand all his works. To some extent, his ontology and aesthetics, contained in his cultural philosophy, life theories and Mind's realm theories, are just a logical outcome of this core concept. A study of the developments of his thoughts is thought to be a big help to understand his aesthetic thoughts.Chapter two tackles with the philosophical foundation of Tang Junyi's Aesthetic thoughts. Mind Ontology, a core concept in his philosophy and all his works, is the source of his life-long intellectual endeavor. Originated from the "School of Mind"(XinXue) of Lu Xiangshan and Wang Yangming, Tang Junyi constructed his own Mind Ontology by absorbing all the achievements of Sino-West thinkers as the integral parts in his works. There are three interrelated parts in his Mind Ontology - the discovery of Mind Ontology, the demonstration of the transcendental essence of Mind Ontology and the relationship between Mind and Matter. Tang Junyi's demonstration of his ideas, somehow like Descartes' way of developing his theory-"I think, therefore I am.", begins with an skeptical attitude toward the reality and the benevolence of the world, then turns to the confirmation of skeptical Mind and ends with the testimony of the existence of the Moral Self. The Mind Ontology, with temperament as its essence, demonstrates itself as eternal, real, moral and perfect. In support of the transcendence of Mind Ontology, Tang Junyi argues that the Mind ontology is the Noumenon (thing in itself) of the practical world and is the final source of truth, goodness and beauty. His way is to prove that individual Mind is the same as the universal Mind by the help of the term "love".In the analysis of the relationship between Mind and Matter, Tang Junyi observes that man is spiritual, free and infinite in nature from the standpoint of its Form of Existence. He thus beholds that spiritual freedom, breaking all the restrictions on the practical Self confined in a particular time and limited space, is a kind of real being. Regarding the body and the whole material world as the media that Mind realizes itself, he concludes that all the activities of man are spiritual in nature. The reason is that, although spirit is infinite and abstract, its manifestations are finite and concrete. The Mind Ontology is the "True Self within which the object and subject, perception and ration, internality and externality are united. And it is on the living Life ontology and Spirit Ontology that his cultural philosophy is founded.Mind Ontology, a static analysis on the relationships between Mind and Matter, belongs to Ontology, while "The Nine Realms of Mind", a dynamic study on the relationships between Mind and Matter, is part of his ontology and also part of his Epistemology. In other words, "The Nine Realms of Mind" is a transitory stage from the study of ontology to the study of Epistemology.Chapter three expounds on Tang Junyi's philosophical thoughts on culture from the point of humanism. According to Tang Junyi', the ideal world is humane. In his philosophical thoughts on culture, the Mind ontology is the basis to illustrate his ideas on culture. As a result, he stresses that all human cultural activities are the phenomena of Moral Self in different circumstances. By a comparative study on the general features of Sino-west cultures, Tang Junyi believes that the essence of Chinese culture is striving for realization in spirit, while the west seeking for representation in reality. The two different types of cultures on ideals can be classified into the subjective outlet and objective outlet. In a long run, western culture should learn from Chinese to remedy its lack of eternality; at the same time, the former's lack of materialization could also be made up by learning from the West. Here we can clearly see the effort of Tang Junyi to revive the Chinese traditional culture by assimilating the essentials of the western culture. The polarity of the two cultures reflects sharply the two different modes of thinking, one emphasizing the unity of subject and object, the other the separation of subject and object. After the above analysis, Tang Junyi proposes that the construction of Chinese culture in the future must start from its own roots and should refuse no useful resources from the west.Of the tasks confronting the Neo-Confucians, nothing is more challenging than the problem of "modernity". Tang Junyi's answer to the problem is to solve it within the re-construction of Chinese humane tradition-to give new life and meanings to the traditional Li and Le culture (old bottles with new wine). Here we can see the aesthetic features of his thoughts on culture.Chapter four studies the aesthetic and artistic views of Tang Junyi. By way of literary appreciation and dialectal analysis, he reveals the national features and aesthetic ideals of Chinese arts and finds answers to the miracles of time and space in Chinese artistic works: time and space are taken from the real world and given new arrangements. The greatly reduced time and space in artistic works can manifest much more than it seems. This is a new record in the study of Chinese artistic natures after Wang Guowei and Zong Baihua.According to Tang Junyi, the development of Beauty from natural beauty, artistic beauty to moral beauty is not only the ascending stages of the spirit of life, but also the transcendence of Moral Self.In the conclusion is an analysis of the significance and limitedness of Tang Junyi's aesthetic thoughts. In a time of globalization and rapid progress of technology, how to deal with the contradictions between science and humanism, man and society, man and nature is a serious task confronting every scholar. Tang Junyi's contributions in this respect provide valuable insights to us for a successful settlement of the present puzzles. To be frank, the thoughts of Tang Junyi have its own limits: firstly, his view that cultures are the manifestations of Moral Self splits ideal and reality; secondly, his ideas on science and democracy are also misleading; lastly, his totally supportive attitude towards Confucianism hinders his study on the shortcomings and setbacks of the Confucianism in modern China.