The Framework Of Rousseau's Aesthetic Education Theory And Its Impact On Reality

In the Enlightenment, which holds aloft the banner of rationality and advocates scientific spirit, it is generally accepted that aesthetic education thought pursuing rational self-discipline is the only way to achieve equality and freedom. Rousseau, in his own inimitable ways, establishes a court of sensibility. Although he didn't put forward the concept of "aesthetic education" explicitly, his work encompasses rich and profound thought of it. He advocated shaping the sound character and cultivating the people of both perception and reason with the "sentimental education". "Natural person",as a theoretic foundation, is the ideal one in Rousseau's mind. He is inherently good, only desirous of "self-love" rather than "self-respect". He is not a primitive person, but a free man who doesn't labor under the oppression of instrumental rationality and private ownership. Focusing on this goal, Rousseau claims that we should comply with the nature. He sets up three principles that are complying with the natural order of human development, paying attention to the aesthetic sense of human experience, maintaining the natural inner feelings of people, and puts forward two specific approaches that are advocating "natural beauty" and attaching importance on fun. Fostering "natural person" is a process to freeing people from bondage so as to achieve the comprehensive as well as free development. In today's society with dominant instrument rationality, human emotional desertification and deteriorating ecological environment, Rousseau's aesthetic education thought calling "returning to nature" and emphasizing "sentimental education" is still of great significance.