Hutcheson's Aesthetic Inquiry Concerning "Aesthetic Subject"

Hutcheson's inquiry concerning aesthetic subject is closely related to the rise of the empirical epistemology of moderm England.The rise of modern British empirical epistemology is actually a manifestation of the awakening of subject consciousness.Philosophers began to think about the problem of thinking and objective reality.They are no longer just focusing on the existence of objective entities like traditional philosophy,and neglecting the subject's perception of objective entities.Under this philosophical background,Hutchison built his aesthetics on the basis of empirical epistemology and began to think about the role of the aesthetic subject in aesthetic activities.Hutcheson noticed that the mechanistic color of epistemology brought difficulties to the aesthetics,and also noted that people's doubts about religion made the foundation of the internal spiritual principles shaky,and found that the era urgently needed to find a general rule for the harmonious operation of the world.Hutcheson's aesthetics was born to solve these practical problems.He showed great concern for the spiritual life of human beings,although his aesthetics did not achieve the transcendence of subject and object,and realized the true aesthetics in the sense.However,his view that aesthetics has no stake and affirms and the creation of relative beauty has transcended epistemological aesthetic characteristics.In the process of solving these problems,Hutcheson used a great deal of scientific induction and causal inference in natural theology in aesthetic inquiry.At the same time,he also absorbed empiricism epistemology and rationalism innate thinking to think about aesthetics subject matter.The study of the inner senses("the sense of beauty"),which exists as the inner aesthetic ability,constitutes the key content in the study of Hutcheson's aesthetic subject.In Hutchison's view,the reason why the aesthetic subject can realize the aesthetic judgment is that there is an internal sense in the subject body.Hutcheson based himself on empirical epistemology and used feeling as the basis of cognition.He used Locke's language to cut into aesthetic research.He and Locke believed that beauty is a concept,and the subject can realize beauty through aesthetic sense.At the same time,on the basis of Shaftsbury's inner eyes,he studied the characteristics of internal senses deeply,and thought that internal senses had the characteristics of purity,non-utilitarianism and directness.Hutcheson attached great importance to the aesthetic ability of the internal senses of the aesthetic subject and its role in aesthetic judgment.However,Hutcheson gave up the practice of exploring the root of beauty from the subject or internal senses,and chose the way of seeking the root of beauty from the aesthetic object.In this way,his research on aesthetic subject caused many problems and was criticized by the latecomers.In order to solve the bridge between subject-object communication,he introduced God as a bridge of communication between subject and object.In his opinion,this kind of god is no longer a traditional revelation God but a god established under natural reason.Once the world is created,it no longer interferes with its operation.It is the foundation of people's inner norms and the ultimate guarantee of their inner senses.This paper believes that the reason why this kind of problem arises is because he uses the subject-object two-point thinking model to study aesthetic issues,and on the other hand because he is deeply influenced by naturalistic thoughts.Due to the limitations of the culture of the times,although there are still some problems and contradictions in Hutcheson's aesthetics,as a thinker at an era and a corner of culture,his thoughts are advanced and have high theoretical value and practical significance.It provides us with the angle and height of thinking about aesthetic problems.