"Taste": Case Study About The Sensuous Terms In Classical Aesthetics Category

The use of the sensuous terms is a very common phenomenon in the history of Chinese classical aesthetics. In the history of aesthetics, the analysis of this phenomenon contributes to the reformation of the materials, the process of which is also the one of sorting out the classical aesthetic thoughts and a try of attaining the historic value from the materials in the history of aesthetics. This thesis selects "taste"梠ne of the basic concepts in the classical aesthetics as the topic of the case study with the attempt to demonstrate the entire look of "taste" on every historical stage, depict the formation of the meaning of "taste" in different historical language situation, and outline the growth and development experience of "taste" from a sensuous term to an aesthetic concept and embody the complicatedness of "taste" as an aesthetic concept. Through remaining the general style and feature of "taste" in the history of aesthetics and at the same time attaching importance to the intervention and interpretation of some specific individual objects in contexts, we can make the comparisons between sense organs and aesthetic judgment, the sensuous terms and aesthetic concepts and everyday language and critical language, and consequently judge the artistic phenomenon of its accepting and refusing and the tendency of its detaching from and puttinginto aesthetic activities. And from the combination of the cultural and the language situations, the close or open characteristic of this aesthetic concept can stand out from the specific language situation.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part is the general introduction. Firstly, it concerns with the basic circumstances of the sensuous terms in the field of the classical aesthetics through tnree aspects 梣uality, applicable objects and distribution and composition; secondly, it goes deep into discussing the important significance of the study about this concept to the writing of Chinese history of aesthetics, divided into five levels according to the inner logic from the whole to the part: as the historical history of aesthetics; as a concept of descriptive parameter in the history of aesthetics; as the depiction of this aesthetic concept itself; as the depiction of the concept originating from the sensuous terms in the category of the classical aesthetics and the descriptive strategy in selecting the individual sensuous term in the category of the classical aesthetics. Provided with the study background, this thesis comes into the second part, which deliberates the original meaning of "taste" from the angle of word phonology as well as the its connection with "beauty". The third part locates itself in the taste of food and the taste of politics to analyze the various roles of "taste" in the ancient world and display the flexibility and variety of "taste" beyond the limitation of organic feeling; and this part also distinguishes the twostages ?the continuous expansion of the intension ,of "taste" and becoming an independent aesthetic concept, discuss comprehensively the basic functioning circumstances of "taste" as an aesthetic concept and analyze the relevant concepts to make clear the difficulty of renewing the aesthetic "taste" in new language situations. The last part focuses on the comparison of the western culture and the eastern culture to embody the describing difference in different cultural and language situations and enlarge the visual threshold of "taste" for observation.