| Teleology is a distinctive feature of Western philosophy and has always been intrinsically linked to ontology.When ancient Greek philosophers were confronted with the "wonder" of the vast universe and turned their attention to the grounds behind the experience of things,the ground of existence of everything was also the ultimate purpose toward which everything developed,and thus teleology was implicitly rooted in the ontology on which ancient Greek philosophy was founded."Beauty",as metaphysics,must inquire into the ground of its existence,and likewise,the ground of beauty naturally becomes the "purpose" to which beauty must conform,that is,the "purposefulness" of beauty.(Zweckm(?)βigkeit).From ancient Greek aesthetics to modern aesthetics,the idea of purpose has been implicitly present in the inner structure of the metaphysics of beauty in different theoretical forms.Classical German philosophy interpreted "purposefulness" as the inner principle of aesthetic construction,and "teleology" finally presented itself as the root of "beauty".In this way,a metaphysical "aesthetics" based on purpose was constructed,and a logical line of development from "human purpose" to "rational idea of purpose" was deduced in the whole German classical aesthetics.Teleology is based on ontology,which is both the basis and the purpose of all things.This intrinsic connection between the two makes the metaphysical origin of the "purpose of beauty" inevitably trace back to ancient Greek philosophy,which had ontology as its theme.In ancient Greek philosophy,Socrates asked for the highest "good" in man himself,and Plato took the transcendental idea as the basis and purpose of all things,so that they established the subjective and objective paths for the development of the theory of purpose respectively.In the Middle Ages,people believed that all the good things in life were due to the bounty of God,and the purpose of everything was inevitably directed to God himself,and teleology developed into theological teleology.The theme of modern philosophy shifted from God to man himself,and theological teleology lost its transcendental dimension,and the "purpose of beauty",which was originally contained in the divine ground,also shifted to experience,and formed a dichotomy between empiricist aesthetics,which sought ground in the subject’s sensibility,and rationalist aesthetics,which pursued the purpose in the subject’s reason.And since the dichotomy between subject and object cannot be reconciled,even though Baumgarten wishfully establishes the science of beauty as an independent "(?)sthetik",the objectivity on which its aesthetic knowledge is based cannot be free from Humean skepticism.Thus,the metaphysics of beauty as universal knowledge was possible only if aesthetics was built on a solid "base",a task that was accomplished by classical German philosophy,where the idea of the "purposefulness" of beauty was subsequently developed.For the first time,Kant explicitly introduced the thought of "purposiveness" into the metaphysical construction of beauty,and regarded the principle of "purposiveness" as the transcendental mechanism of "beauty".In Kant’s critical philosophy,"beauty" is the intermediary and link between necessity and freedom.Aesthetics is not only the beauty of freedom without cognitive purpose,but also the sublime that is freely coordinated through imagination.However,it is because of the "dualism" of Kant’s philosophy that the purpose of " beauty of freedom " and " beauty of dependence” is limited to the subjective transcendence.This theoretical predicament aroused the thinking of Fichte and Schiller.Fichte took Kant’s transcendental philosophy to the extreme in the subject,and constructed an epistemology based on the absolute self,then broke through the Kant’s transcendental self-binding and pointed to the infinite.The principle of purposiveness breaks through Kant’s transcendental self-binding and points to the infinite "absolute self",which promotes the development of the subjective purposiveness thought of beauty to its extreme.Schiller led aesthetics to "freedom in phenomena" and thus opened up the objective path of the idea of the purposefulness of beauty in classical German philosophy,but it still could not solve the "dualism" problem of the separation between the objective purpose of beauty and the transcendental basis.Schelling synthesized the infinite subjective purposiveness of Fichte’s beauty and the limited objective purposiveness of Schiller’s beauty,which lead the purposiveness of beauty to the "absolute" of the identity of subject and object from a speculative standpoint.The process of artistic creation is that the "absolute" is shaped by "internalization" in reality,and the purpose of artistic creation is also the purpose of “absolute” self-realization.However,Schelling’s philosophical methodology in which he uses "artistic intuition" to penetrate absolute content is full of romantic mysticism,which allows Hegel to see Schelling’s limitations.Hegel’s speculative philosophy realizes the unity of ontology and logic.The absolute concept unfolds in the subject according to the logical sequence of subjective spirit,objective spirit and absolute spirit.Beauty is the sensual form of the "absolute spirit" stage and the sensual manifestation of the idea.In this way,beauty is not only the actualization of the absolute idea in the subject,but the realization of beauty conforms the purpose of the absolute concept.At the same time,aesthetics also allows people to discover the "truth"of the absolute idea through beauty,so "beauty" and "truth" can be unified in the absolute idea.Thus,the evolutionary logic of the "purpose" thought in German classical philosophy from the transcendental "human purpose" to the absolute "ideal purpose" has been clearly presented.Hegel pushed the purpose of beauty to the supreme idea of the unity of subject and object and God,and let purposive aesthetics develop to its highest and final stage.With the end of German classical philosophy,his idea of "purposefulness" of beauty is bound to face the fate of being dissolved and deconstructed.Although postmodern philosophies have tried to dismantle the foundation of Hegel’s "rational idea of purpose" of beauty,the idea of "purposefulness" of beauty itself still remains in the pluralistic construction of aesthetics.For example,in the modern aesthetics of voluntarism,phenomenological aesthetics and existential aesthetics,people can still catch a glimpse of the "purposefulness".The study of the idea of "purposefulness" of beauty in German classical philosophy can not only deepen the understanding of "integration" of classical German philosophy,but also provide theoretical resources for the construction of contemporary Chinese aesthetics. |
