Research On The Effectiveness And Limitation Of Li Zehou’s “Emotion ‘Noumenon’”

“Emotion ‘Noumenon’”, as the focus of Li Zehou’s Practical Aesthetics in the past 30 years, integrates various ideological elements, so it’s difficult to comprehend the connotations and significances of this concept correctly and completely. And with the advance of times and the continuous progress of Li Zehou’ s theory system, the idea of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” has been deepened and developed in the debate, opening new problem domains continuously. From the current academic research status of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’”, we can see that most of them were scattered in the holistic study about Li Zehou’s Subjective Practical Philosophy or Practical Aesthetics theory system, the thematic research achievements which focused on “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” are relatively few and rarely comprehensive as well as in-depth. So the study on this topic still has a larger theoretical research space.In this article I chooses an independent sense to study “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” and comprehend its philosophical and aesthetic meaning from four aspects as “Cultural Psychological Structure”, “New Harmony of Nature and Humanity”, “Religious Morality” and “Harmony higher than Justice”. With the objective attitude of “not praise too much, not hide the shortcomings”, I affirm that “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” is full of contemporary, creative and forward-looking characteristics, as well as sense of responsibility, sense of morality. And I deny that the relationship between “Instrument Noumenon” and “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” can be both dependent and resistant. I hope my research can fully get the theoretical connotation of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” and dialectically understand the academic value of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’”, and can contribute to the development of Practical Aesthetics.This paper is based on the framework of “What is Emotion ‘Noumenon’?— Why put forward Emotion ‘Noumenon’?—How about Emotion ‘Noumenon’?”, combining narration with comment. The thesis includes three parts.Part one is an introduction. Firstly, summarizes the research status of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” from two aspects—“decentralized research” and “monographic study”, and then illustrates the significance and contents of this thesis.Part two is the body of this thesis, and consists of four chapters.Chapter one analyzes the multiple display forms of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” from the visual angle of Psychology, Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics. They are psychological dimension of “Cultural Psychological Structure”, aesthetic dimension of “New Harmony of Nature and Humanity”, ethical dimension of “Religious Morality”, political dimension of “Harmony higher than Justice”.Chapter two summarizes the multiple harmonious characters of the “emotions” which Li Zehou considers as ‘noumenon’, based on the analysis of the texts. The ‘noumenal’ emotions must be harmonious ones that under the regulation of “degree”, and must be the unity of subjective feeling and objective condition, the unity of transcendental emotional form and empirical emotional mood, the unity of sensibility and reason, the unity of secularity and transcendence.Chapter three studies the social and cultural background and the effectiveness of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’”. The reason that Li Zehou put forward this proposition was to cope with the influx of western Anti- Rational and Anti- Enlightenment philosophy, the domestic Anti- Confucian and the Anti- Traditional modern ideological trend, as well as the growing spiritual and cultural crisis. Li Zehou combined “‘Noumenon’ of Emotion” with the Confucian culture, expecting that “practical rationality” which integrates emotion with reason can rectify the extreme rationalism and irrationalism, shaping the human nature by aesthetic education instead of religion to deal with the crisis of modern spiritual culture. And on the basis of the criticism of modern Neo-Confucianism’s misunderstanding of Confucian tradition, Li Zehou creatively divided the Confucianism development into four periods and proposed the famous proposition—“The four periods of Confucianism development”.Chapter four analyzes the limitations of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’”, narrates and comments on the problems that discussed most, such as the legitimacy and the practical feasibility of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” and the relationship between “Instrument Noumenon” and “Emotion ‘Noumenon’”, and then put forward my own opinion. First of all, as to the legitimacy of “Emotion ‘Noumenon’”, we should take a dialectical view based on the correct comprehension of “Emotion”. It will be understandable if the “Noumenon” refers to “fundamental and ultimate reality”, but it will be not tenable if “Noumenon” as the original meaning of philosophy and opposites to “phenomenon”. Secondly, although the noumena can be used as the ultimate reality in different levels or different regions, under the framework of Li Zehou’s Anthropological Ontology, it’s too difficult to understand the relationship which both dependent and resistant. Finally, due to the social and cultural status, its own paradox and the lack of empirical support in other related disciplines, which makes “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” has little practical operability.Part three is the conclusion, summarizes this thesis. “Emotion ‘Noumenon’” is a Chinese-style answer given by Li Zehou for the fundamental problem of life in postmodern society, showing a new model and hope. Although there are contradictions and limitations, it still has its unique value and charm in today’s society. Despite the continuous efforts of academia and Li Zehou, it can’ t be achieved overnight to solve the paradox of “Eemotion ‘Noumenon’”, only can be slowly solved in the dynamic development of human long- term mental activities and social practice.