A Comparative Study On Western Environmentalaesthetics And Chinese Ecologicalaesthetics From The Genetic Perspective

In the context of Western philosophy,environmental aesthetics is an emerging discipline in which the status of discipline is fully established.Western environmental aesthetics emerged in the 1960 s and experienced a continuous development stage.Now it has become an important branch of world aesthetics.Professor Ronald Hepburn is the pioneer of Western environmental aesthetics.His main contribution is to promote the return of natural aesthetic status and to inspire the rise of natural beauty research.Professors Arnold Berleant,Allen Carlson and Yrj? Sep?nmaa are the founders of Western environmental aesthetics.They use the "environment" as a target to study environmental aesthetics from different perspectives,propose their own theories,form different theoretical pedigrees,and build the Western Environmental Aesthetics Discipline System together.China’s ecological aesthetics originated in the 1990 s and was formed in the early part of the new century.After more than 20 years of unremitting efforts by the first generation of scholars,it has become an important subject area of Chinese aesthetics in the new era and has established its independent academic position in Chinese academic circles.Among them,important representatives such as Professor Zeng Yongcheng,Professor Xu Hengchun,Professor Zeng Fanren and Professor Yuan Dingsheng are engaged in the construction of the Chinese discourse system of ecological aesthetics with the aim of “ecology”,they enter the field of ecological aesthetics from different fields and extract a series of original concepts,categories and theoretical viewpoint,forming the core theory of humanistic ecological view,ecological beauty essence view,ecological existentialism aesthetic view and the aesthetics of self-sufficent ecology.Taking the aesthetic field as the basic category to form the meta-type view of the subject,with the serialization of the ecological aesthetic field,the realization of the ecological aesthetics from the symbiotic aesthetics,through the aesthetics of self-sufficent ecology,the aesthetics of natural spin & genesis,to the the aesthetics of existentunity,forming a unique theoretical pedigree and jointly constructing a discipline system for the entire Chinese ecological aesthetics.Literature reading shows that since 2000,research on environmental aesthetics and ecological aesthetics has emerged in an endless stream.However,there are not many comparative studies on Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics,and there is still insufficient in theoretical innovation.There are four main points in the academic world about the relationship between Chinese ecological aesthetics and Western environmental aesthetics: independence theory,equivalence theory,affiliation theory and superiority theory.It is not conducive to the healthy and sustainable development of the two disciplines to treat the two subject areas as irrelevant two streams or to confuse them,or to integrate them into each other’s framework,or to distinguish them from each other.The relationship between Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics needs to be thoroughly and comprehensively studied to obtain systematic research results.Hegel’s theory of "differences in the similarities and similarities in the differences" provides us with inspiration for the comparative study of Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics.This study is a comparative study of the history of two disciplines.It takes Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics as the research object.The main content of the ideological and theoretical systems of the representatives of the two disciplines is the main content of the theoretical expansion and the development of the discipline,based on the phylogenetics,using the research methods of comparative study of anthropology,anthropological academic interviews,etc.,using logical development ideas to carry out systematic comparative study of subject history,combing the foundations of the growth,formation,inheritance and development of Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics,comparative analysis of the difference between the two and the internal general relationship.Investigate the "similarities in the differences" and "differences in the similarities" of them,explore the logical development relationship of the corresponding coupling,reveal the general law of the development of the discipline,form the theoretical innovation of the comparative study of Chinese and Western aesthetics,and hope to promote the common development of two disciplines.This research hopes to make certain breakthroughs in theoreticalresearch and applied research,and strives to innovate in research perspectives,methods and results.One of the starting points is the need for theoretical expansion.From the perspective of phylogenetics,Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics are produced in different regions and eras.The roots are based on different Chinese and Western cultural traditions,with different social backgrounds and living environments.Both have experienced growth,formation,inheritance and development,and also subject expansion.The development process of the discipline that is expanding is in line with the general law of the diachronic development of the discipline.However,the diachronic comparative study of Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics based on time nodes is difficult to explore the logical relationship and essential relevance of the two.Therefore,this study attempts to break through the traditional perspectives of historical comparative research,use logical development ideas to carry out systematic,comprehensive and comparative study of Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics history,realize the research and development of western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics theory,and obtain an innovative theoretical achievement of the comparative study of Chinese and Western aesthetics.The second starting point is the need for discipline construction and development.Through the comparative study of Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics,the first is to demonstrate the rationality of the discipline of Chinese ecological aesthetics and to establish the independent academic status of Chinese ecological aesthetics;the second is to promote the equal dialogue and exchange between Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics,and promote healthy and sustainable development in two subject’s area.From the perspective of the origin of the discipline,Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics have different backgrounds and historical reasons,but they face similar environmental damage and ecological crisis,and have the same environmental protection stance.Under different academic traditions,the former starts from an ideological innovation and theoretical debate,while the latter seeks a theoretical solution to solve real problems.In different philosophical systems,both have the needs of disciplinary development,and they all undertake the reconstruction of aesthetic theory.From the perspective of the formation of disciplines,the formation of Western environmental aesthetics and the discipline system of Chinese ecological aesthetics are marked by the representative works of the founders and first-generation scholars.These works discuss the research objects,content and important topics in this research field,extract concepts,categories,viewpoints,propositions and core theories with distinct subject characteristics,construct a theoretical system of initial forms,and gradually determine the status as independent disciplines.The status shows the general law of Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics from the research field to the independent discipline.Representatives of Western environmental aesthetics,Berleant,Carlson and Sepanmaa entered the field of environmental aesthetics from different directions,explored the issue of natural aesthetic appreciation around natural aesthetic objects,and proposed new aesthetic theories that can explain the new problems of natural aesthetic appreciation,forming different research pedigrees of different focuses,and jointly constructing a natural aesthetic system of Western environmental aesthetics.The path of constructing the theoretical system of ecological aesthetics in China is similar to that of western environmental aesthetics,but it is different from the characteristics of the natural aesthetic theory system.Based on different research foundations,Zeng Yongcheng,and Xu Hengchun have carried out ecological aesthetic research from different fields.They pay special attention to the harmonious symbiotic relationship between man and nature,and focus on constructing an ecological harmony system.From the perspective of inheritance and development,Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics borrow resources from each other,develop discipline categories,develop core theories,and gradually mature the theoretical system,gradually moving toward the universality and basicization of basic aesthetics,presenting the general development of disciplines.Western environmental aesthetics absorbs the natural aesthetics,expands the research boundary from the natural environment to the human environment,expands from the scope of nature to everything in the world,and surrounds all environmental aesthetic appreciation issues,placing the core theories of the aesthetics of engagement and scientific cognitivism in a wide range of aesthetic fields for examine and verify.Berleant proposed a new concept of nature,saying that "there is nothing outside of nature","nature" becomes the research ontology,and realizes the gestalt of "environment".The gestaltof the subject ontology,environmental aesthetics has become a philosophical sense of environmental aesthetics,transcending the disciplines of departmental or interdisciplinary subjects,becoming a general universal aesthetic,and gradually moving toward basic aesthetics.Carlson puts forward the concept of "natural beauty" and believes that all the natural world is beautiful.The expansion of natural aesthetic objects has given the environment a rich aesthetic meaning,reflecting the inheritance and development of environmental aesthetic research.Based on Carlson’s scientific cognitive approach and Berleant’s non-cognitive approach,they formed two camps.They explored environmental aesthetic appreciation issues,proposed various environmental appreciation models,and realized the systematization of environmental appreciation models.The gestalt of “environment”,the deepening of environmental aesthetic research and the systematicization of environmental appreciation model indicate that the western environmental aesthetics system is more mature,and its fundamentality and universality are constantly emerging.The Chinese ecological aesthetic system is gradually maturing.It absorbs the rich theoretical resources of ancient and modern China and foreign countries,and extracts the basic categories such as "poetic dwelling" and "homeland consciousness" and the category of ecological aesthetic field,etc.,constantly enriching and developing the core theory of humanistic ecological outlook,ecological ontology aesthetics and ecological aesthetics.China’s ecological aesthetics takes "ecology" as the research ontology,"there is nothing outside of ecology",and everything is in the ecology.From ecology to ecological existence,to the survival of the whole,the realization of the "ecology" gestalt,the ecological aesthetics to the universality of general aesthetics,thus achieving the aesthetics of ecological and ecological aesthetics,from departmental aesthetics to basic aesthetics.The green survival of human beings has moved towards the ecologicalization of the world.The ecological aesthetics system starts from the platform of symbiotic aesthetics,and through the aesthetics of self-sufficent ecology,forms the aesthetics of natural spin & genesis,moves toward the aesthetics of existent unity,and realizes the progressive system of ecological aesthetics.Zeng Yongcheng,Zeng Fanren and Yuan Dingsheng actively carried out systematic research on meta-disciplines,reflecting the consciousness of Chinese ecological aesthetics.From the perspective of subject expansion,Western environmentalaesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics show many common features in terms of theoretical resources,research scope,system theory,and applied research and development.The Chinese and Western ideological resources are mutually borrowed,and the theoretical foundation has been expanded;environmental ecology and natural ecologicalization have been expanded.Western environmental aesthetics has become ecological,and China’s ecological aesthetics has become naturalized,and finally achieved two-way expansion.The research results show that Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics have their own independent academic characteristics,but there is also an universal connection.Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics are based on different Chinese and Western cultural backgrounds and philosophical systems.They have different research objects,different research problems,form different theoretical systems,and produce different research pedigrees,showing relatively independent academic characteristics.However,from the perspective of logical development,Western environmental aesthetics and Chinese ecological aesthetics show many common features of the discipline development law.The two sides share the ideological resources,the development path correspondingly unfolds,the symbiotic discipline quality,the coupling discipline mission,it embodies the universal connection,corresponding development and corresponding coupling relationship between the two.