Restudy On CAI Yi’s Aesthetic,Literary And Artistic Thought In The New Era Of Ecological Civilization

CAI Yi is one of the representatives of contemporary Chinese aesthetics.As early as before the founding of the People’s Republic of China,CAI Yi had already published his aesthetic treaties on Marxist materialism,and there had been studies on CAI Yi’s New Aesthetics.During the great discussion of aesthetics in 1950s,articles criticizing or supporting CAI Yi objectively formed a part of CAI Yi’s aesthetic research.Since the beginning of the new era of ecological civilization,with the rise of ecological culture,ecological literature and ecological aesthetics,CAI Yi’s aesthetic,literary and artistic thought has been paid attention to again.The discussions and researches on CAI Yi’s aesthetics related to Marxist aesthetics,the great discussion of aesthetics,beauty in objectivity and other old topics continue,while the research results of CAI Yi’s aesthetics related to environmental aesthetics,ecological aesthetics,literary aesthetics and other new topics appear constantly,which effectively shows the vitality and influence of CAI Yi’s aesthetic,literary and artistic thought.The present era is an era that attaches importance to ecological civilization,continues to promote the materialist character of aesthetics,and promotes the in-depth development of literary and artistic aesthetics.The new era has given us a new evaluation scale and standard for CAI Yi’s aesthetics.It is the need of the era to study CAI Yi’s aesthetic,literary and artistic thought again.As far as Marxist aesthetics is concerned,CAI Yi’s aesthetics is not only an important part of Sinicized Marxist aesthetics,but also an important part of the development of contemporary Chinese aesthetics.As far as ecological aesthetics is concerned,CAI Yi puts forward the theory of natural beauty which is advancing and forward-looking,which enables ecological aesthetics to find comtemporary theoretical resources from local sources,such as the discourse construction of contemporary Chinese aesthetics.As far as literary theory is concerned,CAI Yi’s literary and artistic thought is the embodiment of the disciplinization and modernization of the construction of Chinese literary theory in the 20th century,and provides a paradigm with systemic typicality for the construction of contemporary Chinese literary theory.The restudy on CAI Yi’s aesthetic,literary and artistic thought is helpful to deepen the understanding of the development course and trend of contemporary Chinese aesthetics,to adapt to the needs of ecological transformation of aesthetics,and to promote the development of contemporary Chinese literary theory.The formation of CAI Yi’s materialistic aesthetics comes from Marx and Engels’ materialist dialectics.In addition,Japanese scholar Ishisuke Kasamaki’s New Theory of Art,the domestic academic debate on materialism around 1947,MAO Zedong’s speech at the Yan’an forum on literature and art also constitute important sources of thought.CAI Yi’s New strongly criticizes all kinds of idealism aesthetics and closely links the basic problems such as the research path of aesthetics with the basic principles of Marxist philosophy.The rewritten version of New Aesthetics makes a systematic and comprehensive theoretical review and evaluation of the old aesthetics in the western aesthetics history of more than two thousand years from the materialist point of view,and interprets Marx’s theory of "the law of beauty" from the materialist typical view.From the New Aesthetics to its rewritten version,CAI Yi’s materialistic aesthetics becomes more refined and his materialistic stance becomes more determind.The scientism characteristics of CAI Yi’s aesthetics are mainly reflected in the following aspects:objective research attitude and relatively concentrated object research;the dialectical relationship between universality and generality;scientific and rational attitude and rigorous logical reasoning;interpreting the beauty of objective things from both phenomena and essence through the basic steps of scientific cognition;classifying of natural beauty according to the constitutive state of natural things.CAI Yi’s aesthetics is more inclined to scientific analysis and research of beautiful things rather than to real experimental demonstration of natural science.The scientism of CAI Yi’s aesthetics usually only focuses on the scientific analysis of the formation mechanism of beautiful things,and stays on the application of some common knowledge of natural science.CAI Yi’s aesthetics has pointed out the possibility and necessity of proving the objectivity of beauty from the perspective of scientific demonstration,but it is necessary to introduce the theory and tools of scientific demonstration in order to truly continue the path CAI Yi opened up and fill the missing scientism part for the development of contemporary Chinese aesthetics.After the rise of environmental aesthetics and ecological aesthetics,CAI Yi’s theory of natural beauty was valued for its strong objectivity."Objectivity of natural beauty" is the extension of "objectivity of beauty" in the field of natural beauty,and it is the core of CAI Yi’s theory of natural beauty,which contains two meanings:firstly,the beauty of natural objects lies in itself;secondly,the beauty of natural objects lies in model.In the context of contemporary aesthetics turning to nature,environment and ecology,CAI Yi’s theory of natural beauty can carry on a dialogue with western contemporary environmental aesthetics and ecological aesthetics,and provide inspiration for understanding natural beauty.Through comparison,it can be found that both CAI Yi and Aldo Leopold recognize the intrinsic value of nature,affirm the beauty of nature,oppose to regarding natural beauty as a subservient of artistic beauty,recognize the typicality of natural beauty,recognize the beauty of nature lying in its entirety.Both CAI Yi and Allen Carlson insist on the objectivity and cognizability of nature,oppose appreciating the nature by the way of appreciating art,emphasize the integrity of natural beauty and oppose the isolated and one-sided appreciation of natural things,recognize the important role of the natural sciences and related cognitive categories in the appreciation of natural beauty.CAI Yi’s theory of natural beauty attaches importance to model,which gets along with the theory of "nature as complete beauty" of Allen Carlson.CAI Yi’s theory of natural beauty emphasizes the objectivity,integrity,typicality and scientificity of natural beauty,which makes it possible to be reactivated in the current context.CAI Yi’s innovative achievements in literary theory include the construction of literary theory,literary typical theory,literary realism and the sorting of new literary history.Specifically,CAI Yi defines Marxism as the guidance of literary theory study,makes active exploration in the aspect of the literary theory sinicization,initially tries to systemize the construction of literary theory,and compiles the college textbook Introduction to Literature,which has a wide influence.CAI Yi takes the classical theory of Marxist literary theory as the thought source,absorbs the thought resources at home and abroad extensively,develops the typical theory with remarkable originality,establishes the realistic literary theory based on his own creation under the guidance and influence of LU Xun,establishes the research paradigm of new literary history under the guidance of Marxism.In recent years,with the publication and distribution of CAI Yi’s works and sponsored publications,the overall framework of CAI Yi’s aesthetics is becoming clear,and the local details are becoming more substantial,which lays a good foundation for us to understand CAI Yi’s aesthetic,literary and artistic thought,and evaluate its value and limitations.In terms of materialistic aesthetics,the value of CAI Yi’s aesthetics is mainly reflected as follows:being faithful to Marxism,creating an important school of Chinese Marxist aesthetics,forming the research paradigm of objectivism,promoting the development of Marxism in China,and establishing a new aesthetic system based on dialectical materialism.In terms of theory of natural beauty,CAI Yi aesthetics takes materialism as the basic principle,helps to introspect the anthropocentrism of Western environmental aesthetics,always adhere to the comprehensibility of natural beauty,avoids the mystification and romanticization of natural beauty,forms a serious model of natural aesthetics,avoiding the superficial natural aesthetics.It establishes an effective dialogue relationship with Western environmental aesthetics and ecological aesthetics,and provides enlightenment for the development of Chinese ecological aesthetics.As far as literary theory is concerned,CAI Yi attaches great importance to the study of literature and art by aesthetic discipline,which lays a foundation for the formation of literary and artistic aesthetics.CAI Yi’s realistic art theory,image thinking theory,typical theory,"art of beauty" theory,art education theory and so on all involve the research topic and basic content of the construction of literary and artistic aesthetics,which can greatly promote the construction of literary and artistic aesthetics as thought resources.CAI Yi’s aesthetic research method not only attaches importance to top-down logical deduction,but also pays attention to empirical methods such as psychological research,which is of great enlightening significance to the methodological construction of literary aesthetics.At present,CAI Yi’s aesthetic,literary and artistic thought is not the focus of the academic circle.The limitation of CAI Yi’s thought is an important reason.First of all,the marxist aesthetic system constructed by CAI Yi is not open enough,which lacks the internal driving force of development and the ability to face the present,describe and study new artistic and aesthetic problems to a certain extent.Secondly,limited by the times and personal cognition,CAI Yi focuses on the essence of natural beauty and paid insufficient attention to natural beauty appreciation;he makes no clear distinction between the truth and beauty of natural things,and the discovery and recognition of the special value of natural beauty are lacking;he adheres to the subject-object-dichotomy,which makes it hard to blend his thought with Chinese classical natural aesthetic spirit completely.Thirdly,restricted by the times and influenced by the fierce and repeated struggles in the field of ideology,CAI Yi’s understanding of typical theory,realistic art theory,literary ideology theory and other aspects still has some deviations.