A Study On Lyotard's 'Aesthetics Of The Sublime'

Jean-Francois Lyotard is one of the most representative contemporary postmodern philosophers in the West; People even take him as the synonym of Postmodernism. From the 1970s, Lyotard's postmodernism has attracted much concern from different domains of social sciences and human sciences, and has led to many discussions, so as to have had a large influence in the West academe. His postmodern philosophy depicts a painting of postmodernity in the realm of scientific knowledge, ethics, aesthetics and politics. His central idea is to spurn totality, determinism and other modern pattern, so to build the postmodern order with multiplicity and heterogeneity. The artistic ideal of antagonizing'inhumanity' with'inhumanity'and the social ideal of rewriting the Modernity that Lyotard brings forward, are actualized at last by his aesthetics of the Sublime in Art and Politics. Lyotard's aesthetics of the Sublime is not only the organic part of his postmodern philosophy, but takes more and more important position with the development of his own idea. To research Lyotard's aesthetics of the Sublime can help us to deepen our understanding of his postmodern philosophy, to find out its particular value to Art and Politics and to make its limitations clear. These are the main objects of this dissertation.This dissertation contains a preface, five chapters and a conclusion.In the preface, I introduce the significance of the topic, review the research to Lyotard's philosophy and aesthetics from different scholars in and out of China, and the main task and the innovations of my thesis. As the significance of the topic, the first reason I choose it is that Lyotard is one of the most important contemporary philosophers to the Sublime, and his aesthetics of the Sublime is so unique because of its close relationship with his postmodernism. To research Lyotard's aesthetics of the Sublime, can not only help us to deepen the understanding of his philosophy, but can make us more clear with the new development of the aesthetics of the Sublime in contemporary society as well. What's more, it can offer new possibilities for us to think contemporary aesthetics, politics and ethics. The second reason is that we can learn the good points from Lyotard's aesthetics of the Sublime and his critics of the contemporary western culture and art, so to well develop our own culture and art. As the review of Lyotard studies, I introduce the studies of him in and out of China these years. What's more, I find that our Chinese scholars' study to Lyotard is just as a corner of a huge iceberg, compared with the scope and the depth of foreign scholars'study.In ChapterⅠ, I generally discuss the development of Lyotard's philosophy. Compared to many other philosophers who only concern philosophy, Lyotard has more passion to the social politics. His social practice and affiliation affects his philosophy in a large scale. And his concerns to Aesthetics and Art accompany his philosophy all the time. There are three period of the development of his philosophy. The first is in the 1950s and the 1960s. He took mental weapon from Husserl's Phenomenology and Marxism to unfold his social critics. At that time, he fell over himself for the revolutionary practice of the proletariat revolution in Marxism. The second is before the 1970s. To his philosophy, it was a time of driftage. After losing the belief to Marxism in front of the diverse conflict in society, he firstly developed a'philosophy of desire', to reverse the theory of Freud and Marx with Nietzsche's philosophy. Then he cast off it and raised the theory of paganism, in which we can see the clue of his postmodernism. The third is after the 1970s until his death. This is the last developing period of Lyotard's theory. He formally brought forward his postmodernism, advocated his aesthetics of the Sublime on the basis of it and went deep into the problems of justice.In ChapterⅡ, I analyze Lyotard's aesthetics of desire, which is the initial declaration of his aesthetics of the Sublime. Discourse, Figure, this book is mainly about his aesthetics of desire, and it deploys in two aspects. In the first, Lyotard re-explains discourse and figure, then deconstruct their opposite relationship. He treats figure as discourse's Other, and it lets us realize that there is something in discourse can't be presented or different from presentation. Taking this point as a basis, he opposes Aesthetics and Theory, and uses artistic figure to reverse theory discourse. He claims that senses and experiences are better than abstract concepts. Poetry and paintings are the simultaneous extending of heterogeneous spaces. In fact, Postmodernism and the Sublime are ways that Lyotard used to explain'figure'. His ideas of'figure', his insistence of heterogeneity and relevant analysis to Art all settle a basis for his aesthetics of the Sublime. In the second, borrowing Freud's psychology, Lyotard examines figure in detail. He sees figure as the direct expression of unconscious desire. He distinguishes figure-image, figure-form and figure-matrix. It is figure-matrix, gathering the things that can't coexist, that leads us to approach unconscious desire. Art works, as the collection of intensity and structure, disclose the limits of structure and keep the openness of distortion. They are not the finished of desire but the unfinished. Lyotard develops this idea in his theory of avant-garde.In ChapterⅢ, after introducing the history of the Sublime and its condition in contemporary society, I focus on the headstream of Lyotard's theory of the Sublime, and then particularly explain Lyotard's core idea about the Sublime. His understanding to the Sublime bears on Habermas's project to Modernity and has close relationship with the rewriting of the Modernity meanwhile. He thinks that Habermas's court to order and stability is to make artists withdraw to the public. It is a return to the aesthetics of realism. He opposes to the trite realism ih the first half of the 20th century and all the postmodernism being consistent with the capital consumer values. He points out that the rewriting of the Modernity can only belong to the subject of the Sublime. Excepting for thinking the Sublime in contemporary society, Lyotard also borrows ideas about the Sublime from different Western philosophers. He especially attaches importance to Burke's point of the tension and Kant's point of negative representation, although the sublime in his mind has already turned to ontology, and obviously connected with Heidegger. It is the self presentation of the moment. With these preparations, Lyotard stipulates his understanding to the postmodern Sublime. There are three aspects. Firstly, the Sublime is a feeling to present the unpresentable, which means that the Sublime is the witness to the unknown new power. In the feeling of the Sublime, the distance between the subject and the object will disappear; this is a disturbance to the unity of the subject. With this point, Lyotard wants to release the subject from the Kantian subject's dogmatized will by some intricate happening. Secondly, the Sublime happens instantly, it has the unfinished quality that can't be absolutely understanded and held. So the nature of the sublime can be seen as Lyotardian event happening'here and now'. It means contradictoriness, particularity and uncertaintity, also a status of disruption and breaking the rule. Then we need new way to experience it and new forms to judge it. Thirdly, it is differend being in the center of the Sublime, which is a feeling as the representative from the 'indeterminate'judgment. Differend is the condition that the dispute between two parties or various parties can't be resolved evenly because of the lack of the consensus rule. In the suffering silence, the differend can be testified; meanwhile, with a pleasure, it calls for the discovery of new rules—it is just the Sublime. From these points, we can find that Lyotard in fact espress a value oriention by sublime, which is to emphasize or to protect different livings of single lives.In ChapterⅣ, I introduce the artistic theory of Lyotard's aesthetics of the Sublime. The unique point of Lyotard's sublime is that he connects the aesthetics with the avant-garde. He poses that we need to resist the inhumanity of the capital society and the development of science and technology with the inhumanity of the avant-garde. We can realize Lyotard's deep concern to the mental misery in human mind and human survival in society. He believes that there are two kinds of Sublime, the nostalgic sublime and the renovating sublime. He claims that the nostalgic works can't realize the potential of the Sublime. However, the renovating works emphasize the increase of the feeling of existence and the joyfulness of the creation of new rules in Art. They make the essence of Art as a problem by the experiment of the presentation of the unpresentable. Therefore, the artistic works have the characteristic of events; they embody a spirit of the absolutely avant-garde. In fact, postmodernism, the aesthetics of the Sublime and the art of avant-garde are all to dismiss the totality and the last answer, to emphasize the feeling of infinity and fragments, and to reject the old rules while keeping the exploration to new ones. This is his intension to stress the avant-garde. Surrounding the center of the Sublime, Lyotard poses the idea of creations of the avant-garde, which is'here and now'. He puts forward the instance, and claims that the Sublime in the avant-garde is represented as an unconsummated condition. What's more, he thinks that the form of Art can't bear the weight of the presentation of the unpresentable anymore. The creation of the avant-garde should pay more attention to the immaterial.In ChapterⅤ, I discuss Lyotard's aesthetics of the Sublime in society and politics. By right of the aesthetics of the Sublime, Lyotard tries to find out the reasonable operation of the reflective judgment in the political judgment. He finds out the way out for the postmodern politics in Kant's critical philosophy. In his view, the avant-garde offers a model for his exploration to the politics of the 'differend'. Lyotard never gives up his pursuit to the social lives with equality, justice and freedom. However, this doesn't mean some totality to him, but to keep the history's heterogeneity. He discloses the consistence of the reflective judgment and the political judgment. For the former, what is important is the presentation of the unpresentable; while for the latter, the characteristic of historic events reveals the particularity of the political judgment. He believes that the reflective judgment can be applied to politics excepting for the application in aesthetic objects and nature. In the same time, it should be the judgment in the domain of morality. Art, Philosophy and Politics, are not belong to some given genre of discourse; they can't be sum up to the realm of knowledge. We judge without rule with the application of the reflective judgment in them, to be the witness of the possible differend, and to present the unpresentable; those are the base of Lyotard's aesthetics of the Sublime that can work in the domain of society and politics. We also need to notice that Art, Philosophy and Politics are analogous, but not identical, for there isn't some transcendental grammar. The feeling of the Sublime, as the presentation of the unpresentable, it works as the sign of history in historic events. This contradiction implies a free causality and protests the progress by it's'as if' presentation to social reason and moral reason in human experience.In the conclusion, I analyze the reasonable inspiration to us from Lyotard's aesthetics of the Sublime and its limits. At last, I realize that in contemporary China, if we use Lyotard's aesthetics of the Sublime as reference, we must keep the premise of the insistence of scientific view of history development and the view of dialectical materialism of Marxism.