On The Somaesthetics Theory Of Shusterman And The Study Of Its Value

The body had always been degraded in the ration-dominated traditional philosophy. But as the change of time, the assessment to body transformed greatly since Nietzsche. Instead the body becomes the main object and writing topic of philosophers. In modern world, the eye-catching consuming idea which is controlled by commercials presents more and more body phenomenon in front of the public. Nevertheless, the highly commercialized visual display enormously threats the aesthetic activity. And this is exactly the social and cultural background of Richard Shusterman who put forward the theory of soma esthetics.Shusterman claims that we should acknowledge the fundamental function of the body in sense and experience. A positive and suffcient understanding and grasp will help us control our body well and realise the goal of happy life. The central premise of Shusterman’s theory is placed on the acurate master of conscious and experience provided by the body. And he discussed the function and significance of it from the standpoint of pramagatics. Therefore, he mentioned much about the practice of body aesthetics such as yoga and taichi in the east.The thesis will concentrate on the theory of soma aesthetics, and begins from the definition of soma aesthetics to make clear the constructing process of this theory and attempts to figure out and summarize the focal theoretical feature of it with combining the reference of other studies. The central point is to explore the theoretical value which will be based on the analysis of the critical reflecting upon its cultural standpoint. The social background and cultural reflection study provides the key to the research of its theoretical value. The paper holds that the consciousness and experience based soma aesthetics is an correction and remedy to the commercialized extremely aestheticized reality. From the view of visual culture and its reflection, this thesis is trying to conclude the special value of the theory.