Commenting On The Aesthetics Of Confucius

Confucius is one of the most effective thinkers and educators. The most tribute what he made is his "Education of Aesthetics". Confucius is the first original aesthetician through poem education, music education and art education. The Aesthetics of Confucius and his "Humanity" coincided, so the important part of his aesthetics is not to train professional artist, but to train moral character through Education of Aesthetics.This paper consists of eight parts:The first part: Introduction. In this part, some ideas of aesthetics before Confucius is simply introduced. It is very plain and non-systemic, but seen from its nature it has touched some important problems about aesthetic nature, and it is some of philosophy, thus make a preparation for the formation of aesthetics of Confucius.The second part: Confucius discussed aesthetics. The aesthetics discussed by Confucius must be in line with the ideas of "humanity", "kind" and "true", which is the standards for criticizing aesthetics. Not like the west philosophers, Confucius didn't directly give a definition to "aesthetics", but his view of aesthetics is deeply reflected.The third part: the formation of the experience of aesthetic feeling. The author thinks that this counter should consist of three parts after studying the aesthetics of Confucius: first, the unity of subject and object. That is to say, it is necessary for producing the experience of aesthetic feeling that the aesthetic subject must have comprehension first, and add to the special property of aesthetic object. Second, subjective emotional appeal cannot deeply realize the beauty of artistic conception before it has a sufficient humane attainment. Third, that the subject has different choices because ofits different inclination produces different experience of aesthetic feeling.The forth part: the aesthetic standards. The aesthetic standards of Confucius include the unity of "content" and "form", "elegant" and "kind" and "the way of neutralization", which affect the culture of China deeply.The fifth part: the discussion about the original motive power of the art creation of Confucius. Confucius raised that poem can "rise", "observe", "crowd" and "complain", which were treated as the original motive power of the art creation. The ideas of Confucius are fairly brief provoking and considerable, which plays a very important role in the world culture.The sixth part: the discussion about artistic social function of Confucius. Confucius regarded aesthetics as a social education, namely aesthetic education. It can not only promote the mortal character of individual, but also help to change the social atmosphere, thus save the people's spirit and assist to run a country.The seventh part: the aesthetic comparison of Confucius and Plato , Aristotle of the old Greeks. Their aesthetic ideas are identical in many ways. for example, they all emphasized the "beauty of Neutralization", but there are some different ways between them because of the different style of the Chinese philosophy and the west philosophy.The eighth part: ruminating the devotion of Aesthetics of Confucius to our modern society. The present human is facing the predicaments of existence, artistic predicaments and the crises of value, but the traditional aesthetics of the Confucianists filled with the east witness provides precious enlightenment for breaking away from predicaments and crises.