A Study On The New Sensibility Theory By Marcuse

Marcuse, a main western scholar who studied Marxism, had extensive studies on psychology and aesthetics. His thoughts had been a hit and widely studied by others till today. New sensibility Aesthetic Theory was a very striking theory among his various works and thoughts. This article, based on the sensible existentialism and sensible epistemology, makes an analysis on the "New Sensibility" put forward in the second chapter of On Liberation written by Marcuse to make further study of the double dimensions, namely existentialism and epistemology of New Sensibility. After that, it will deals with the value and limitations of this theory to do an objective comment on the theory.This article consists of three parts:The first chapter is an overview on the origin of Sensibility and New Sensibility from respect of existentialism and epistemology. The second chapter is the content of New Sensibility. Marcuse thought that New Sensibility stands for love from the perspective of existentialism while it is about aesthetic transcending appealing from the perspective of epistemology. Based on this, he put forward two expressions for New Sensibility:Female and Art.The third chapter is about the development of New Sensibility and its influence nowadays, and then gives a analysis on its values and limitations based on the above introduction to give an objective and impartial comment on this theory.Marcuse studied New Sensibility based on the existence of love and aesthetic transcendence, which made it have double dimensions of existentialism and epistemology. These two dimensions exist in the very beginning of the establishment of aesthetics. In this way, the study of New Sensibility is a response to the development of aesthetics, and also a revision of the aesthetic losing transcendence. The New Sensibility inspires the women’s liberation development and maintains the redemption features of art since it is based on women’s liberation and art to create New Sensibility. However, it has an obvious shortcomings. The New Sensibility theory deals with the connation of existentialism from the individual instincts, so its solution is also a kind of impractical hypothesis. So the New Sensibility is not the key to the plights that he had mentioned, it is also an alert to the later development of sensibility.