Aesthetic And Justice,

As the representative of the Enlightenment, Rousseau inherited the spirit of the Enlightenment, and meanwhile questioned the Enlightenment, opening up the aesthetic Modernity. On one hand, he protested the rationalism of the era, trying to keep human nature and passion alive, and he also resisted the shackles of civilization, fighting for the freedom; On the other hand, he also pay much attention to the corruption of the passion, criticizing the selfishness of individuals, and calling for public spirit and virtue personality. Therefore, as the elements of enjoying the Utopia for Rousseau, passion and virtue constituted two critical dimensions in his aesthetic modernity. Based on the issues, the relationship between aesthetics and justice was responded to in this paper by means of his practice and knowledge about passion and virtue. What about Rousseau's aesthetic modernity criticism? What is the significance of the Philippic? What belief is it based on? Will the criticism, which is for justice, go astray? What is the rational aesthetic modernity criticism?Therefore, Rousseau was concerned about in the paper not in the aspect of pure literary, but the aspect of his aesthetics on the modernity criticism, and it will be more accordant with the original idea of his own. The issue was firstly presented in the paper that passion and virtue is the two important values in Rousseau's aesthetic modernity criticism. Rousseau strongly called for the passion, because he found out that only the nature passion could make virtue possible. From this point, he was different from the Romanticism in 19th-century who considered all rules as the obstacles of passion. Rousseau praised for passion just because it could make people obey the rules of morality consciously. He extolled the nature, but never claimed the return to nature; and he eulogized the passion, but never denied the rationality; he observed the historical particularity, but never neglected the universality of human nature. He criticized the Enlightenment, but he did not wish to overstep the bounds of enlightenment.In order to achieve a proper criticism and effectively adapt the morality to the passion, Rousseau actualized the educations for man from goodness to virtue by means of the ideal politics and Eros. Herein, Virtue and passion lived harmoniously. However, the tension between the two dimensions is also inevitable. Virtue will overwhelm passion for some time, and this is especially notable in his values on arts. Passion will also deviate from virtue for some time, or even ignore the existence of virtue, and this is especially obvious in his late ages. People could not help to ask what had led to the plight of thought.Thereafter, "sincerity" was further introduced in this paper. Rousseau could not agree with the contemporary rationalism in philosophy, and he tried to establish his own philosophy based on his own experience which made his philosophy full of rich existentialism. He pointed out that the value of idea is closely associated with the sincerity. The more sincerely you face yourself, the more effective the criticism will be. Then, emphasis was placed on Rousseau's efforts made for sincerity, and we found out that it is so difficult for man to be completely sincere, and one should pay arduous efforts in order to be sincere. There would be no exception even for Rousseau. In many cases, he was not sincere, but playing to be a sincere man. Only one who had understood the limits of sincerity was possibly sincere. In the same way, there were limits in aesthetic modernity criticism. It would lead to negative consequences, once the reasonable limits were got across.There are two kinds of modern aesthetic criticism: one is positive which is based on the belief of justice, including the respect to the realities as well as thought for self-reflection; the other is negative which does not have any convictions, relieving only self emotions and desire, and everything will be the opportunity of the subject. This subjectivity is concerned only about themselves and but not the world. When aesthetic criticism is induced by such morbid subject, it will lead to a sentimental politics. And such irresponsible political statement will eventually bring out a huge disaster.Therefore, in order to repair and reconstruction healthy aesthetic modernity criticism, we must be alert to our rebellion. In the external aspect, the aesthetic criticism needed the public sphere as limit. Could you image whether criticism would be possible when the public sphere was destroyed? In the internal aspect, the aesthetic criticism is required to construct the public personality and to overcome the subject's selfishness. Base on the respect to the individual, we could establish a kind of more constitutive inter-subjectivity. From that, People can promote the enlightenment as they criticize it. Above all, whether it is positive or negative significance, Rousseau's ideas are meaningful for people to think about the contemporary aesthetics and justice.