On Debate Between Language And Meaning And Chinese Aesthetics

The problem of "beyond language" has been brought to the attention of Chinese philosophy for quite a long time. The early Qin scholars were devoted to the research and enthusiastic debate on this aspect, and thus the ideology of "Dao above language" of Laozi and Zhuangzi, "meaning beyond words and full expression of meanings by xiang" in Zhouyi. During the time of WEI and Jin dynasty, the criticism of man gave birth to the debate between language and meanings. Wei and Jin' s metaphysics went involved in the analysis at two levels, which was represented by XunCan and Ouyang -jian vs Wangbi and Ji Kang.The former was focuse on whether language could fully express the meanings; while the latter centred on how. Anyway, the above should be classified into the debate within the extent of philosophy. It is necessary to turn philosophy into esthetics. In the course of this change, the artistic ontology of feelings presented by poetry in Chinese esthetics was set up as a consequence of exploration on emotions or emotionlessness on the part of saints. Because of influence of xiang and meaning, Chinese aesthetics has formed the concept of image, and "yi jing" (artistic mood) with the help of Buddhism. But both of them has surpassed the limitation of language itself. It is seeking for a style of implicity. Meanwhile, under the influence of WangBi' s metaphysics of deserting language after obtaining meanings, appreciation which focused on Chinese aesthetics has come into being. However,the theoretical exploration has not ceased yet. The way of thinking on internal ideology covered by external language arising form the above discussion and debate went on for ultimate exploitation, which set a foundation of expressionism on part of writers. It also set an poetry and wisdom and made a functional summary of aesthetics about meaning above language, "Taste" "Melody" "Interest" all originated from it. The theory of internal meaning covered by external language exerted an important function in Xing vocabulary on. So we can see, the debate between language and meaning has close relationship with theories on creation, method, appreciation .writers and so.