As A Scientific Research Programme: Practical Aesthetics And Cognitive Aesthetics--The Methodology Of Scientific Research Programmes, Lakatos, And The Analysis Of Contemporary Aesthetic Conditions In China

In this article, the author firstly summarizes Imre Lakatos's conception of the Research Program and show that the concept of "Aesthetic research program" makes sense.This article reckoned that the analysis of contemporary aesthetic condition in China should be based on two points :on the one hand, static aesthetics framework ;on the other hand, dynamic aesthetic evolvement, by which we would grasp the rules beneath aesthetic phenomena essentially. Focusing on this problem, this article annotated Imre Lakatos' sophisticated falsificationism and scientific research program and exerted those specific categories and brought forward the conception of aesthetic research program by which we would explain the contemporary aesthetic condition in China.PartⅠ: Annotating Lakatos` sophisticated falsificationism and scientific research program, and elaborating the possibility exerting Lakatos` scientific philosophical category to explain the contemporary aesthetic condition in China.In Lakatos`opinion, no single theory can ever be falsified by experiments and Anomalies. The basic unit in scientific research should be some interknitted theories rather than some single theory or proposition. Consequently, he used the conception of Theory system as a substituent for Theory, and pointed out what would falsefy a theory is none but a more progressive one, that also was an important characteristic between his sophisticated falsificationism and Popper' simplicial falsificationism.Based on this theory, the question of appraising a theory then was transited to the question how to evaluate the entire scientific theoretical system which Lakatos intituled scientific research program. These research programs consist of a "hard core" made up of several key theories, a "protective belt" of supporting hypotheses, and a "heuristic" that guides scientists' research methodology.Moving forward, Lakatos created a new dynamic scientific development pattern different from Kuhn's which could be formulized as:Scientific research program` progressive phase-Scientific research program `degenerating phase—Progressive program falsified and substituted the degenerating one—New scientific research program 'progressive phase.Lakatos insisted that a research program would be a successful one when it had made a progressive problemshift at least in theory. As the terminator and integrator of methodology of scientific discovery clued by Popper－Kuhn－Lakatos, apparently, Lakatos' category being more enlightening and fertile than its rivals, should and could be applied also to the field of the arts etc.Part Ⅱ: The Lakatosian methodological analysis to Practical aesthetics and Cognitive aesthetics as a research program.As the dominant pattern of contemporary aesthetic research program in China, Practical aesthetics` development is a historic process. From the point of view of time, it originated from the Aesthetics Debate in 1950s-60s and came into being in the Aesthetics Upsurge in 1980s; From the point of view of logic, it is a process from Subjective Aesthetics and Objective Aesthetics to Unification of the two, afterward, to Practical aesthetics. But, from1990s then on ,it has been in a contemplable condition of self-sound and self-surmountable. This venation of development showed a historical tropism along which Practical aesthetics developed and followed.Giving Practical aesthetics a Lakatosian survey,we would find that Practical aesthetics is a series of rigorous theories, and its structural factors include a "hard core" made up of several key theories, a "protective belt" of supporting hypotheses, and a "heuristic " that guides scientists' research methodology.As an aesthetic research program, Cognitive aesthetic research program also based its theoretical core on Marxism Practical Materialism. But the comprehension is a complete one .On the one hand, starting with Practical Materialism , Cognitve aesthetics kept to the research approach whose logic based on the view of Marxist Practice. Meanwhile, on the other hand, it also follo...