A Study Of Dufrenne’s Theory Of Aesthetic Object

Phenomenology is a very vital component of contemporary western philosophy, upon which many theories in logics、ethics、 theology、aesthetics and other fields are based. It has gone through German stage of Conscious Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl) and Existential Phenomenology (Martin Heidegger), French stage of Imaginary Phenomenology (Jean-Paul Sartre) and Perceptive Phenomenology (Maurice Merleau-ponty), dispersing itself into a lot of branches. Phenomenological aesthetics, an aesthetic school known for its strong flavor of philosophy, maintains the same thinking ways and methods as phenomenology, and has become one of western mainstream aesthetics in the20th century. Mikel Dufrenne, a French aesthetician of the worldwide influence, has epitomized this school in applying in depth the theory and methods of phenomenology into aesthetic issues, and therefore established a phenomenological system of aesthetics.The aesthetic system of Dufrenne is a theory concerning the empirical structure of aesthetic object-aesthetic perception. On the one hand, this system depends on Edmund Husserl’s theory of intentionality. On the other hand, it learns from Immanuel Kant’s transcendental philosophy. Therefore, this structure can be understood as an empirical structure of aesthetic object-aesthetic perception, which is connected with both intentionality and transcendental sentiment. Dufrenne’s aesthetic system is open, and his thoughts are pluralist. In order to master his aesthetic thoughts, one should study French phenomenology at first, which is rooted in its own philosophical tradition. To locate the proper position of Dufrenne, we have to put his thoughts within French philosophy.Dufrenne’s theory of aesthetic object deals first with works of art. As aesthetic objects, works of art must be performed, meanwhile people should be perceptive of them. Besides works of art, other objects have potential aesthetic characteristics. To illustrate this, Dufrenne specially lists a series of items such as living objects, natural objects, utilized objects and signifying objects, enlarging the extension of aesthetic object. Next is the cosmology of aesthetic object, which has two dimensions. One is aesthetic object in the world, concerned with spatial arts (with the temporization of space) and temporal arts (with the spatialization of time). The other is the world of aesthetic object, including the world of representation and of expression. Representation is the possibility of expression, and the latter is the reality of the former, each preconditioning the other. With representation, expression constructs a unified world, while with expression, representation shapes a lively world. The last is the ontology of aesthetic object. Dufrenne criticizes Jean-Paul Sartre’s theory of aesthetic object as imaginary, Roman Ingarden’s theory of aesthetic object as intentional, and Conrad’s theory of aesthetic object as conceptive, and he believes aesthetic object is a sort of perceptive objects, the perception of which, as a kind of pure one, is similar to that perception expounded with the concept of subject—body in Merleau-ponty, merely aiming at aesthetic objects in themselves. For an aesthetic object,’in-itself and’for-itself have no difference initially, thus we must recognize it with an objectifying attitude. Due to such attitude, an aesthetic object is first ’in-itself’, then’for-itself’. Moreover, as a kind of perceived objects, aesthetic objects’’in-itself’ is always ’in-itself’ for us. While as a sort of objects with the aim of self-expression, aesthetic objects’’for-itself possesses the feature of quasi-subject. Therefore, aesthetic objects exist in the form of’in-itself’(for us) and ’for-itself (quasi-subject).Dufrenne’s innovation in the theory of aesthetic object hits some key problems concerning aesthetic experience, his endeavor of integrating aesthetic subject and object still has some traces of cleavage, which attaches more importance to the part of aesthetic object. In view of Dufrenne, aesthetic objects rely on the intentionality of subjective perception, which leads to the contradiction between the object’’in-self’ and the subjectivity of perception. Although Dufrenne’s theory of aesthetic object is not unbiased, it reveals something profound to us. Particularly, it is possible for us to make use of Dufrenne’s theory of aesthetic object to understand the crucial concept ’image’ in Chinese classical aesthetics, which not only enables us to experience the charm of Dufrenne’s aesthetics in Chinese context thoroughly, but also offers us an opportunity to comprehend Chinese classical aesthetics.