A Study On Shusterman's Neo-pragmatism Aesthetics

Richard Shusterman is regarded as one of the foremost representative of the neo-pragmatism aesthetics who is becoming more and more popular on the international aesthetic forum today. His great contributions on aesthetics lie in his synthetic absorption of the two main schools of aesthetics—analytic aesthetics and deconstructive aesthetics. Through the synthesizing assimilation from the analyze aesthetics and deconstruction aesthetics, while using for the reference of the ideas of the classical pragmatist James and Dewey, Shusterman has formed his own new pragmatic aesthetics thoughts. His aesthetics comes down to many hot issues which are being discussed by the Europe and American academics, these issues including interpretation, aesthetic experiences, the definition of art, the organic unite and popular arts. Some propositions such as validity interpretation, dramatic art and somaesthetics which are brought forward by professor Shusterman have aroused the attentions of many aestheticians, and engendered great influence in the world academe. As to the construction of the current Chinese aesthetics, Shusterman's new pragmatism aesthetics is both a mirror and a bridge. As a mirror, it reflects the tendency of the development of the western aesthetics; meanwhile, the use of Chinese ancient aesthetics provides us a new approach and vision to reconsider it. As a bridge, his "somaesthetics" has aroused great attention of the world academics and his theories on aesthetics shall play a great role in constructing Chinese aesthetic thoughts.Introduction is about the basic writing goal and an analysis of the difficult points of the thesis; Shusterman's influences on today's international; aesthetic forum and his views on neo-pragmatism. During the research, the author always feels confused on the distance problem. Although the existence of distance brings trouble to analyze and define the object topics, it also provide a space for the author to develop his own ideas. The first part of the introduction focuses on Shusterman's standpoints and logic on neo-pragmatism. It indicates that Shusterman chooses to stand on a mediate position between Neo- classical-pragmatism and Neo-analysis-pragmatism, that is to say, he not only agrees with the experience of the classical pragmatism thoughts but also absorb the "linguistic analysis" method of the analytic aesthetic pragmatism. Generally speaking, based on his "inclusive disjunctive' and his "either ...or" logic, Shusterman shows a mediate attitude between the two most popular philosophical traditions-analytic philosophy and deconstruction. This kind of attitude, on one hand, adds thick dialectic color to his perspectives and on the other hand, it also makes his thoughts become complex and relative.Chapter one focuses on the way how Shusterman's neo-pragmatism is cultivated. Chapter one is consisted of three parts. Part one analyzes how Shusterman is influenced by the pragmatists' aesthetic thoughts, including the prosperous, declination and regeneration of American pragmatism. Frankly speaking, American pragmatism can be divided into two traditional periods—classical pragmatism period and neo-pragmatism period. The representatives of the first periods cover James and Dewey and the most important pragmatist of the second period is Rotty. There are also some differences between the two periods: the former emphasizes the importance of experience in philosophy and the latter emphasizes the important functions of linguistic narration to social practice. Despite the differences, there are also some similarities between the two trends for they are both anti-foundationalism and conceive in transforming realism through narration. Shusterman is defined as a neo-pragmatist because he analyzes and criticizes the two trends during his process of synthetism and absorption of the main themes of these two trends. The second part includes the genealogical system of the pragmatists established by Shusterman through narration. In his genealogical system of the pragmatists, he not only adds Emerson, Luke to the school of classical pragmatists, but also puts Narlson Goldman, Joserff Margrete, Rotty, and Stanley Fish into the neo-pragmatists school , and in this way, he successfully established a perfect, whole genealogical of the pragmatists, which embodies his unique " democratic-multiple" view on neo-pragmatism. Part three is an analysis of Shusterman' individual personality and his living experiences, which influenced his neo-pragmatism thoughts profoundly. His rebellion and secularity prompts him to transfer from analytic aesthetics to pragmatism, as well as determines his emphasis on the hedonistic on aesthetic experiences. His multiple views on aesthetics and positive view on the value of different aesthetic theories from different cultural conventions originated from his dual nationalism and his living experience in different cultural traditionsThe second chapter of this dissertation is about Shusterman's interpretation theory. Interpretation, an issue which interests Shusterman the most in his critic career, is the most important ingredients in his neo-pragmatism thought, and it also indicates the character of his aesthetic views. Richard Shusterman on the plurism view on interpretation. In his opinion, although different critics have different perspectives on the logical position, the function of rationalism and the form of the interpretation, their theories on interpretation have values on the same level. Facing the plurism interpretation theories, the best way is to choose a plurism vision on interpretation theories. Through the analysis of the different visions on interpretation of the analytic and deconstruction aesthetics, Shusterman proposed his own aesthetic theory and he asserts that the purpose of interpretation as not to discover a certain objective truth but to cultivate and fabricate the meaning of the context. He defined this kind of view as pragmatist interpretation and called it performing interpretation. As a neo-pragmatist, Shusterman conceives in the objection of the general interpretation to the foundationlism as well as the generalism of interpretation and its undisplacable function. However, he opposes the opinion which concludes all the intellectual activities in interpretation and he believes this kind of view is more dangerous than his suitable interpretation generalism. According to Shusterman, Interpretation should leave room for the things before they are interpreted. He opposes the ideas which attributed all the intelligent experiences to the introspective and non linguistic interpretational experience, that is to say, he affirmed the logical and valuable existence of some kind of understandings before interpretation and the existence of understanding got from the un-introspective, un conscious , nonlinguistic experience and interpretation. His great contribution to interpretation also provides a good theory support to his somaesthetics.Chapter three mainly focuses on Shusterman's artistic theory on neo-pragmatism. Shusterman's artistic theory concerned on mainly three parts: the definition of arts; the attempt to define art through the opera theory and the aesthetic defense on popular art. On the definition of art, Shusterman compares and analyzes different kinds of definitions on art with a method borrowing from analytic aesthetics. His attempt to define art through opera indicates his assertion on "poetic, constructive" pragmatist aesthetic views; on the other side, his aesthetic defense on popular art reflects the meliorate and democratic factors in his aesthetic thoughts. For Shusterman, the natural definition of art can not provide an explanation which is suitable to define both the common and the individual nature of the artistic aesthetic productions, and further this definition and not provide the necessary and sufficient condition which can prove a certain object is an artistic production or not. According to another definition on art, Wrapper definition, Shusterman asserts that although it distinguishes the artistic productions from the common objects by wrapping all the art productions together, it does no benefit to the experience and practice of art. Dewey's "Art as Experience" theory is better than the first two, for, it leads people's concentration to the aesthetic experiences. For a long time, the critics have done researches on aesthetics from the perspectives of naturalism and historicalism, so, in Shusterman's opinion, to define art as "dramatization" is a perfect way to conciliate the conflicts between these two trends and it also can cover the definition on art from the two schools. For Shusterman, this definition could not only convey the main and unique features of art, but also it has great role in reforming and promoting people's interpretation and appreciation of art, because this definition supports both the historical aesthetics who contends art is a special practice and the natural aesthetics who believes that art is rooted in the natural needs of the human needs. Furthermore, this definition is perfect in describing both the system and the function of art. Professor Shusterman is the first pragmatist who defenses popular aesthetics from the perspective s of aesthetic values. His defense mainly advocates the aesthetic value of the popular art and further he makes the popular art a logical part in aesthetics through his aesthetic analysis on this kind of art. He attempts to meliorate the producing process of the popular art and its receiving condition and to break the boundary between popular art and high art. This also to a large extent, indicates his democratic aesthetic thoughtsIn chapter four, it discusses the portion of "somaethetics" of Shusteman's new pragmatism aesthetics. The word "somaesthetics" is created by Shusterman from the word "soma" in Hellenic and the word "aesthetics" in English. It is a new term in philosophy and aesthetics. Shusterman's intention is to build a new discipline in philosophy and aesthetics. In order to connect many researches on the body and make them into a systematic project, Shuterman creatively coins the term. He uses Dewey's stress and emphasize on the non-lingual, non-deductive and immediate experience, thus deducts the body experience. Aiming to make the vary researches on "body" united on structure and make the researches on "body" become a systematic project, Shusterman created the new term "somaesthetics". Shusterman agrees with Dewey's emphasis on the non-linguistic, non-deductive immediate experiences and he further deducts the existence of body experience, and at the same time, Shusterman also borrows the thoughts of Alexander and Foucoult in his analysis on the maintaining of body, the important values of body experience to people and people's experiences, and by doing so, Shusterman provides theory foundations for his "somaethetic aesthetics". Considering "body" as the base of aesthetic appreciation and self-shaped, Shusterman's "somaethetic aesthetics" mainly concerns the "body experience" and the way of using "body". So, in this sense, his "somaethetic aesthetics" covers the knowledge, discourse, practice and exercise which are related to the maintaining and promoting of body. Generally speaking, Shusterman's "somaethetic aesthetics" can be divided into three parts: analytic "somaethetic aesthetics", pragmatism "somaethetic aesthetics" and practical "somaethetic aesthetics". Since 2000, Professor Shusterman has published a lot of essays analyzing his "somaethetic aesthetics" from the perspectives of aesthetic experience, representative aesthetic and cultural significance, and the aesthetic significance of body exercises. His essays promote the theory development of his "somaethetic aesthetics" to a great extent.The conclusion of the dissertation probes into the value and significance of Shusteman's new pragmatism aesthetics to the construction of the Chinese aesthetics in the contemporary. It believes that Shusterman's aesthetics criticize many principles of modem western aesthetics, and reveals great similarity, thus provides us available approach to make use of Chinese traditional aesthetics and his new pragmatism aesthetics. Meanwhile, the analytic and genealogical-poetic approaches that Shusterman adopts possess greater reference value for us. At the end of the dissertation, based on Shusterman's views on "organic unite", the author attempts to propose the "dynamic and pluralism organic unite" concept.