Hou Aesthetic Thought

In the great aesthetic discussion in the 1950s-1960s, Li Zehou introduced the category of Practice to the study of aesthetics. Due to the important influence of the "Practical-Turn" in the philosophy of Marx, leading the category of Practice to the study of aesthetics also has an uncommon significance. The Practical Aesthetics which initiated by Li Zehou has great influence in China. Li Zehou catches the core category of Historical Materialism—the objective social practice which based on using and making physical tools and absorb the subjectivity of Kant to establish the subjective practice philosophy and aesthetics. The most distinct character of Li Zehou's aesthetics is philosophical aesthetics and the subjective practical philosophy is the core of his aesthetics.Li Zehou considers the origin of beauty is the essence of it and they all come from the humanization of the nature. He thinks the essence of human and beauty come from the social practice of human and the essence of beauty completely represents the essence of human. The essence of human and beauty are impartibility and they are all related closely to the freedom. Li Zehou brings forward the famous proposition of Beauty is the form of freedom and points out that beauty is the unification of the purpose and regularity. He thinks that the aesthetic feeling is the outcome of inner humanization of the nature and brings forward the double contradiction of the aesthetic feeling which emphasizes the aesthetic feeling has the individual intuition and social reason. Li Zehou brings forward the concept of accumulation to communicate the society with the psychology, the collective with the individual. Li Zehou emphasizes the collective, the society and the social reason, but he does not ignore the individual and the sensibility. He pursues the harmonious unification of the two kind of category.Combined with the subjectivity practical philosophy, Li Zehou has a deep research to the Chinese traditional aesthetics and brings forwards many concepts such as the mutual complementation between Confucianism and Taoism and musical culture. He thinks that the tradition of the witchcraft and history is the key that formed the character of Chinese traditional culture. This tradition makes China to form the character of one world and has the substitution of aesthetic education for religion.Li Zehou's aesthetics has great influence on the development of Chinese contemporary aesthetics. From the early of the 1990s to now, the Practical Aesthetics had an argument with the Post-Practical Aesthetics and the focus of the argument was aroused by Li Zehou's aesthetics. So, Li Zehou's aesthetics has very important influence on both the construction of the Practical Aesthetics and the deconstruction of the Post-Practical Aesthetics.