The Aesthetic View Of Darwin

Darwin thought that animals also have a sense of beauty. Due to various reasons, this view has not accepted by the mainstream aesthetic community. Because once admitted to the correctness or part of the rationality of this view, it will touch the contradiction between humanity and animality, and the traditional academic foundation will be damaged, thus affecting the whole aesthetics research. In academic research, the researchers want to establish the independence of their discipline, draw a line for their study, and obtained certain research results within it. Based on this study attitude, Darwin’s theory about "beauty" are relentless refused in the mainstream of aesthetic study, even mentioned, also as the opposite point of view and the target of criticism. With the progress of modern science and technology, the correctness of Darwin’s theory was proved again and again, we have to rethink and explore its value on aesthetics research.As the basic theory of Darwinian Theory, the theory of natural selection and sexual selection can also be used to explain the issues about "beauty". The Beautiful shape and appearance of animals can be observed through two aspects, the first one is the beauty of other species from human eyes, the second one is the beauty of the shape and appearance of the same species between the opposite sex. In discussing the beauty of other species from human eyes, the theory of natural selection and sexual selection can have certain effect to explain. In the discussion of the beauty of the shape and appearance of the same species between the opposite sex, the interpretation of the sexual selection theory plays a main role. But no matter from which angle to observe, the species itself is showing the features of beauty, all because of the need of survival. Here, the word "survival" has two meanings, one is lengthen their survival time as far as possible, and the other is to do whatever it takes to improve the quality and quantity of reproduction. In order to achieve the dual purpose of survival, every individual has to find the most beneficial food for itself, and through morphology change and adaptation to avoid risk, namely the beauty is needful, and the needful is beauty. In the main time, to pick out the most healthy and the most beautiful companion to mating, namely "vigour and beauty generally coincided"Whether animals have aesthetic ability is the key to judge whether animals have the sense of beauty. We can tease out three steps from Darwin’s book to solve this problem. The first step, some animals have mental ability, including aesthetic ability, which is familiar to human beings. The second step, animas’aesthetic ability do not equal to human’s aesthetic ability, they have a certain amount of difference. The third step, although the aesthetic ability of men and animals has certain differences in quantity, the line of quality is very vague. All in all, animals’ aesthetic ability is similar to humans’ but not identical, and in the long evolutionary process, the animal’s aesthetic ability is bud or prototype of human’s aesthetic ability. On this basis, we can compare humans’aesthetic characteristics and behavioral with the animal’s, so as to understand the aesthetic characteristics and behavior of human beings deeply. On the chain of evolution, the apes is human’s relative, and though the early humans and advanced humans are human beings, they also have some differences, therefore, to compare the similarities and differences between apes and humans, early humans and advanced humans, is an important task of this paper.In the process of contrast, the problem of comparability is produced naturally. The one who is trying to establish the aesthetic relationship between man and animals will be asked a difficult question, i.e., you are not the animal, how do you know animals also have the sense of beauty? To this end, we should distinguish two concepts, one is the conscious aesthetic of human which is based on symbolic communication, and the other is the behavior of animals which is equal to the aesthetic behavior of humans. If only to consider from the angle of symbolic communication, people and animals do not share the same sign system. However, if to examine human and animal behavior from the angle of behavior observation, the aesthetic relationship between them is obvious.Since Darwin’s theory was introduced into the area of research in the humanities and social sciences, many scholars hope to accomplish "the unity of knowledge" on the basis of Darwinian Theory. This is a big challenge to Darwin. The author does not intend to do so. The test of Darwinian aesthetic theory’s meaningfulness and usefulness is not whether it accounts for the entire aesthetic phenomenon. Obviously it does not. The test is whether it provide a more meaningful and useful lens than any alternative paradigm.