Lyotard's Sublime Aesthetics Under Post-modern Vision

In the aesthetics of Lyotard sublime is not only an ordinary concept, but also a core category. The function of sublime is basal. We can say that the basic feature of Lyotard's aesthetics is that he constituted his aesthetics system based on the discourse of sublime. In western aesthetics, in the first instance Casius Langinus paid attention to sublime aesthetics, then in Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant's theories sublime was discussed comprehensively and became a consummate category. According to the research of Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant's theories of aesthetics, Lyotard animadverted on daintiness which was relative to sublime in Immanuel Kant's theory and further dissertated his understanding of sublime. We can say that Lyotard's attitudes and opinions on sublime related to the theory of postmodernism absolutely. It was in his visual threshold on modernism that Lyotard reviewed the evolvement of sublime in western aesthetics, which established his place in the postmodernism.The most affecting place of Lyotard's sublime theory is the combination of his theory with the counterwork of inhuman; he assigned this mission to pioneer art. Lyotard considered that the core spirit of modern art is its ruleless. The modern art dispenses with indited rules and needn't think over catering to the interest of public. Or we can say the modern art pursues the evading of rules, interest and self-identity. Lyotard's sublimity aesthetics pay attention to the fortune of mankind in the exploring of undecidedness and pointed to the deep of human's soul, which worried about materializing of modern society. It seems that the wishes of mankind can come true with full of undecidedness and unknowable, at the same time Lyotard's sublime aesthetics has active significance in modern times.This article is composed of four chapters: The first chapter mainly reviews varies of sublime. After Lyotard described the development of sublime, he related sublime with modernism and put forward his sublime aesthetics; The second chapter expatiates on Lyotard's postmodernism. Because Lyotard's attitudes and opinions are related with his postmodernism, it is in his limit of modernism that he reviews the development of sublime in western aesthetics and established his place in the postmodernism; The third chapter is the emphasis of this article. It mainly expatiates on postmodernism aesthetics in the background of France postmodernism; The fourth chapter summarizes the significance and localization of Lyotard's postmodernism aesthetics.