Study On The Basic Issues Of North American Environmental Aesthetics

Environmental aesthetics,together with the somaesthetics and the aesthetics of daily life,constitutes the three frontier topics of contemporary international aesthetics.After about 20 years of introduction,the Chinese academic circles have initially formed the scale of environmental aesthetics.The contradiction between man and the environment is the same context involving China and west.In this context,the Chinese scholars' reference to the western environmental aesthetics is reflected in the sympathy for the tradition-rebellious tendency and the positive recognition for practice.It can be said that this reference is still relatively preliminary,mainly relating to the issues of research,and it lacks of a more clear reflection on the evolution of academic history.Problem view turn vision to the necessity,possibility and reality of theoretical construction of the environmental aesthetics.However,these efforts will undoubtedly need some theoretical accumulation and support.In order to develop and form the Chinese School of environmental aesthetics in China,we need to pay attention to the study of the academic history of western environmental aesthetics firstly and develop into the academic history view from problem view.By clarifying its theoretical source,we can achieve a clear understanding of its theoretical status quo.This could be said the basis of the formation of Chinese view and theory.It is an very important attempt to study the influence problem of North American environmental aesthetics,for the theoretical camp of contemporary western environmental aesthetics is at North America.In the first chapter,we discuss the general situation of American Aesthetics in the twentieth Century and the rise of environmental aesthetics in North America.There are two schools of American Aesthetics in the twentieth Century,one is pragmatic aesthetics and the other is analytic aesthetics.In early twentieth Century,Dewey,as the representative of the "Classical Pragmatism",held a critical attitude toward traditional rational philosophy and he thought the base of the certainty and legality of knowledge does not exist and the knowledge itself is relatively uncertain and open to criticism.What is even more profound is that Dewey's empiricism aesthetics emphasizes the continuous experience which abolish division.It lays the foundation for the extension of aesthetic experience to everyday life and environment.The prominent feature of analytical aesthetics is the utility of linguistic logic for analyzing concepts,especially question of the longtime definition of art and beauty.Since 1930s,analytical aesthetics has almost been dominating the American aesthetics,and environmental aesthetics has also been regarded as the branch of analytic aesthetics.The first definite advocate of environmental aesthetics in North America is Allen Carlson,a Canadian who explores environmental aesthetics from the aesthetic quality of contemporary landscapes.In the following development,the environmental aesthetics of North America has been constructed in contrast with art aesthetics,and the tension between art and environmental discourse has been accompanying by the rise and development of it.In addition,the ecological ethics,which is directly promoted by the contemporary environmental ecology science,attempts to explain environmental aesthetics from an ethical aesthetics perspective,and provides theoretical guidance for the contemporary environmental ecological design.In the second chapter,we discuss the influence of traditional aesthetics on environmental aesthetics from the extension of aesthetic field.In the late nineteenth Century,the movement of environmental protection,which arose in North America,advocated a kind of "positive aesthetics",which acknowledged that the nature,which is not affected by human beings,is aesthetically good in essence.The aesthetics is also known as the notion of "all nature is beautiful".Allen Carlson,who is a contemporary successor of this idea,holds a kind of "positive aesthetics" in his aesthetics of nature.There are two stages of Carlson's positive aesthetics,the first stage is the "scientific cognition" involving in positive aesthetics,and the latter is the new analysis under the influence of "functional beauty" theory.In addition,environmental aesthetics also advocates the unity of nature and art in itself.This unity is not the simple addition of the two heterogeneous fields,but is based on the internal transformation of aesthetics.Dewey's theory of continuous experience provides a theoretical possibility.The American environmental aesthetician,Arnold Berleant,explains the unity of the two from the expansion of contemporary art.Allen Carlson focuses on the aesthetic quality of the environment,including nature and art.In addition to expanding the scope of the field of aesthetics to nature and art,environmental aesthetics also emphasizes the aesthetic significance of everyday life.Different understanding of the nature of the environment affects the different paths of the integration of environment and life.Behind it,there is a difference between the theoretical vision of traditional pragmatism and analytical aesthetics.At the third chapter,we discuss the influence of traditional aesthetics on environmental aesthetics from the perspective of inheritance and Transcendence of aesthetic appreciation.We focus on Allen Carlson's aesthetic appreciation theory.In tradition,aesthetic appreciation can't be distinguished from aesthetic experience.The uniqueness of Carlson's theory is that he emphasizes the separation of appreciation and experience.He regards that appropriate appreciation is the sole basis for aesthetic value.Carlson's aesthetic appreciation is a kind of standardized aesthetic judgment,which is scientific and objective.It is similar to a kind of objective epistemology and excluding personal aesthetic experience.If it is defined from the traditional context,the theory is a discussion on the way of appreciation.His theory of appreciation comes from critical inheritance of the aesthetic attitude theory of Stolnitz,and he finally establishes the theory of aesthetic appreciation based on the nature of the object.In this theory,the problem of "aesthetic relevance" of analytical aesthetics is the fundamental problem domain,which is the key problem to determine the criterion of appreciation further.Through the "cognitive science" and "functional adaptation",Carlson takes two paths to solve the problem of "aesthetic relevance",and eventually establishes the supremacy of proper appreciation which is based on the object.At the fourth chapter,we discuss the influence of traditional aesthetics on environmental aesthetics from the kernel continuation of aesthetic experience.Carlson emphasizes the appreciation method in environmental aesthetics,while Arnold Berleant focuses on appreciation experience.This chapter is based on the theory of aesthetic experience of Berleant and we investigate the problem of continuation of traditional aesthetics.Berleant uses a kind of "engagement aesthetics" to explain the aesthetic of art and environment.Berleant learns from the three aspects of Dewey's monism experience:the continuity of experience,the perception of experience,the unity of process and object.On the basis,Berleant explains the fundamental architecture of.environmental aesthetic problems.On the other hand,through the exposition of "aesthetic field" theory to describe the experience,Berleant builds a suitable situation.Since it is impossible to give an objective definition of experience,it is a feasible way to interpret experience in a descriptive way.This is the experiential way which is to interpret experience.In fact,the path become a fundamental way to Berleant's interpretation of the specific aesthetic situation.In environmental aesthetics works since 1990s,a descriptive aesthetic theory of environmental aesthetics is elucidated out.At the fifth chapter,we discuss the inherent inheritance of environmental ethic aesthetics from the fundamental reform of aesthetic value.With the development of the ecology theory in the twentieth Century,the "organic whole",which was developed in North America,began to be the rebel of traditional culture.With the help of the ecological sciences such as "biological community","food chain","ecosystem"and "niche" which were developed in twentieth Century,the rebel enhanced the rational quality.A group of scholars began to explore the ethical relationship between man and the natural environment.From Leopold to Rolston,they were not only environmental ethicists,but also representatives who emphasized on environmental ethic aesthetics outstandingly.It is easy to overlook the fact that their environmental ethic aesthetics were based on the fundamental reform of traditional value theory.On the basis of the existence of ecological organic community,they discussed the ethic and aesthetic linkage between human beings and the ecological environment.Ethical value and aesthetic value are based on a new type of relationship.The value relationship between man and the environment is not the relationship between the subject and the object,but the relationship between the whole and it's portion.The relation of meaning can be expressed as:whole?person?whole.It is on the basis of the core value theory,environmental ethics and environmental aesthetics are closely linked,and point to the real future of environmental aesthetics.In a word,although the North American environmental aesthetics in the process of construction takes analytical aesthetics and traditional art aesthetics as critical targets and builds its own legitimacy,many theoretical basis is still the traditional routine and the fundamental structure is analytical or empirical.As far as Chinese academic development is concerned,it is necessary to understand the relationship between the western environmental aesthetics and its traditional thinking mode,then we can deal with the construction of environmental aesthetics more rationally.