I Life Aesthetic Research

From thousands years ago, all the great philosophers have actively been exploring human being's survival problem and showing their keen concern for the individual's freedom and development. Lao Tzu is such a philosopher. This thesis tries to go beyond the traditional studies of Taoism, that is, Taoism is political prescription offering a reference strategy for the turbulent times. The author holds that studying Taoism from the perspective of aesthetics can better grasp the spiritual meaning of the great philosopher Lao Tzu, that is, his respect and concern of individual's temperament and character. The questions Lao Tzu thought about have gone beyond the secular and political levels and looked into the people's"accidental birth, but also inevitable death"paradox. Lao Tzu once lamented,"vanity and body, which is more intimate; body and goods, which is more; gain and death, which is sick"and he thought that even the dignity of a king isn't more important than the physical fitness and self-sufficiency. From Lao Tzu's lamentation, we can get that he cares more about body that vanity. This paper tries to interpret Lao Tzu's aesthetics from the brand-new point of view--dimension of life and figure out that the essence of Lao Tzu's aesthetics lies in the naturalness of the individual unburdened and unfettered by either the inner or the outside world.This thesis holds that the Chinese traditional philosophy focuses on the"utility and rationality"rather than the Ontology advocated by the Ancient Greek philosophers. Lao Tzu's discourses on the "cosmology" are relatively more, but these discourses all serves for his argumentations on life. In the first chapter of this thesis there are many interpretations on Lao Tzu's Life Aesthetics.Chapter One The Essence of Lao Tzu's Life Aesthetics. This chapter mainly gives an In-depth analysis of the two identity cards"Taoism"and"nature"of Lao Tzu's philosophy. Lao Tzu's Taoism is the deconstruction of the religion personality"God"to reveal the position and role of human being. The Taoism itself is a stink of the individual life of great significance. Another reason for Lao Tzu to be considered as a life anesthetist is that after his deconstruction God with Tao, he didn't endow Tao with supreme authority, but"Tao imitates Nature". Therefore,"Nature"is the fundamental purpose of Lao Tzu's aesthetics, that is, the physical fitness and self-sufficiency of the individual life.Chapter Two The Methodology of Lao Tzu's Life Aesthetics. Lao Tzu also provided us with the approaches to achieve the"Tao"Situation. For instance, the"passive inaction"state of mind of the individual life. Just think that Lao Tzu's individual life is an individual removed off the desires, prejudices, how would so many scholars studying on Lao Tzu consider him as a"schemer"? This chapter also analyzes Lao Tzu's"dialectics"ideas—"counter-movement of the Tao"and"extremes meet". At the end of the chapter, the author refers to the"image"problem of Lao Tzu's reasoning and his discourses on"image"itself is kind of essay full of imagination.Chapter Three The Influences and Modern Significances of Lao Tzu's Life Aesthetics. The purpose of studying Lao Tzu's Aesthetics is to find out the modern significances of it. According to the data from Chen Guying that the amount of global translation of "Lao Tzu" is only second to the canon "Bible", we can see the tremendous impact of Lao Tzu. The author thinks that Lao Tzu's care and respect for life is of great value for the present"Man gets tired because of objects"consume society and has major implications for getting rid of personal centrism and anthropocentrism and finally go to the self-fitness of human's inner world and achieve harmony between man and man or that between man and nature...