A Study Of Tomonobu Imamichi's Aesthetic Thoughts

A famous aesthetician and philosopher of modern Japan, Tomonobu Imamichi named his own system of aesthetics as Calonologia meaning "thinking about beauty with reason" and he hoped that with this system he could replace the aesthetic system Aesthetica founded by Baumgarten in the 18th century. To Tomonobu Imamichi, modern society is one in which many things have the same form with different functions due to the advanced technology. What is more, the traditional system of knowledge based on "Form" has experienced a fundamental change. Consequently, Aesthetic systems such as Aesthetica have become more and more inappropriate for a technology-oriented era. Tomonobu Imamichi thinks that aesthetics is no longer knowledge based on sensibility and theories on aesthetics should have a complete renewal. Within the system of Calonologia, beauty is no longer the target of sensibility. Instead, it is the target of reasonable thinking. Or, in other words, beauty does not respond to sensibility but to reason.In Tomonobu Imamichi's Calonologia, two important concepts—Extasis and Imagination are the two key props for the construction of Calonologia. And the analysis of these two concepts may be conducive to the understanding of the basic thoughts of Calonologia.Tomonobu Imamichi reformed Plato's Extasis from God with Chuang Tzu's thought of "I lost myself, getting rid of its mysticism and asserting that extasis is not from God but from man's own efforts. Therefore, Tomonobu Imamichi thinks that extasis is the result of spirit surpassing flesh and the reality world and real experience of beauty is achieved in this extasis.As far as imagination is concerned, Tomonobu Imamichi things that it is a kind of thinking ability higher than understanding but lower than reason. Imagination is based on image and this ability of imagination must combine with the Oriental aesthetics which, according to Tomonobu Imamichi, is the way of thinking based on image. Image is the crystallization of human efforts and is similar to "Form". Thus, imagination is indispensable to Calonologia, that is, thinking about beauty with reason.Tomonobu Imamichi's Calonologia is basically a theoretical system of aesthetics based on thoughts ever since Confucius and Chuang Tzu, focusing more on "Ideal" than on "Form" and exploring beauty from the perspective of spirit. In the light of the Oriental aesthetic tradition, Tomonobu Imamichi, making use of Calonologia, tries to solve problems existing in reality. It is therefore of great importance to study Tomonobu Imamichi's aesthetic thoughts.