Simmel's Cultural Aesthetics In The Sight Of His Modernity

Simmel's analyses of culture, which was based upon the philosophy of life, never deviated from the sight of modernity. This thesis, in the view of aesthetics, makes a sketch of Simmel's thoughts of cultural aesthetics through his scattered description, by regarding him as a cultural esthetician, starting with the philosophy of the money and the life, and taking his diagnosis of modernity as a macroscopic background. It also picks several cultural fragments, the most representative, for microcosmic analysis. These fragments about cultural aesthetics, including the generalized aesthetic phenomena of culture from daily life and the aesthetic idiosyncrasy about art, exhibits Simmel's being superexcellent either in his encyclopedic ideas or in his intensively demonstrating. His unique analysis on the modernistic culture, morn than one hundred years ago, is still unparalleled, and his aesthetic thoughts still has great influence in modern society, enlightening the fashion-covers to keep an aesthetic existence.The introduction recounts the life stories of Simmel and the present research conditions about him. It describes the studying perspective and the conceive of this thesis and draws the outline of Simmel's image on the aspects of his unfortunate experience, his creative adventurous thought, his unique thinking methods and his peculiar ways of scattered expressing. It also reflects an image of a wise, mercy and dejected man.The body is made up of five chapters. Chapter I states the external influence of becoming the matter caused by monetary economy on culture decline and the internal function of the life impulsion which wants to break through the restrain of form and thus encouraged the subjective culture to separate from the objective culture. It cognizes the philosophy of money under the frame of the philosophy of life, and views the thought of life confliction as the ending drive of Simmel's thought of cultural modernity and the basis of his cultural aesthetics theory.Chapterâ…¡is the core of the thesis. It recounts the connotation of Simmel's aesthetic thoughts step by step from four aspects of being the matter, the deviation of the subjective and the objective culture, cultural tragedy and distance.Chapterâ…¢is about aesthetic modernity in daily life and daily culture. It mainly chooses a series of scattered aesthetic phenomena of culture such as fashion, adventure to investigate Simmel's thoughts, and try to open out the connotation of it on multi-facets and multi-angles. Chapterâ…£is about aesthetic modernity of artistic activities in the narrow sense. It is recounted in the nature of art, the present fate of artistic works and the art of modernism.Chapterâ…¤presents Simmel's broad modernity sight from the reversal of purpose and means caused by the changes of social economic system and from the reconstruction of spirits experience resulted in the style variance of urbanism. It also summarizes the basic ideas of Simmel's modernity theory and survey over again on the modernistic connotation of Simmel's cultural aesthetics.The last part mainly analyses the academic personality and historic significance of Simmel's modernity theory, and display the great value of Simmel's cultural aesthetics by stating its influence on academia, its contemporary worth and its instructive meaning on people's existence...