A Study Of The Shared Operation Mechanism Between Aesthetic Activities And The Ideal State Of Existence Constructed By Guo Xiang In Annotation On Chuang-Tzu

Human beings have twu basic mental abilities:reason and perceptibility. Saying a person is reasonable means his behaviors will be more effective as a result of persistent accumulation of experiences. People do not only experience what is happening, they also handle it mentally and get benefits from it. In other words, cognitive function is the essence of human reason, and well-developed language ability marks the maturity of it:cognition and language share the same operation mechanism. Perceptibility, as the opposite of reason, is a non-language function. Perception can be separated to two levels:sensations and moods in utilitarian situations. When people had got rid of the specific utilitarian situation, they got some mental impressions about the underway sensation or mood in a utilitarian situation. In others words, body "remembers" something persistently and mentally generate different emotional categories. Emotional categories can be separated to categories related to moods in the utilitarian situations and categories to sensations about the formal properties of objects. Emotional experience is the core of aesthetic activities. The production mechanism of emotions determines that aesthetic activities are not utilitarian. In Annotation on Chuang-Tzu, Guo Xiang constructed an ideal state of existence. The real aim of Guo Xiang is to lead people to practice this ideal category of life, not just to construct a specific theory. This ideal state is against cognition and utility, and emphasizes perceptual contemplations between people and objects. So it is obvious that there is a shared operation mechanism between aesthetic activities and the ideal state of existence.