Research On Adam Smith 's Aesthetic Theory

Adam Smith as the famous modern British moral philosopher,political economics book the wealth of the nations is well known,it has epic influences for economics.In the same way,his ethical work,the theory of moral sentiments,has a great influence on the field of ethics.In the theory of moral sentiments,Smith spent two chapters to express his own understanding for beauty,Smith argued that the origin of beauty comes from sympathy,because the sympathy is a kind of innate nature.Therefore,the pursuit of the essence of beauty,it is necessary to find the root of beauty,find it in the human nature to look for.The sympathy theory is not only is the core of Smith's theory of aesthetics,but also it is the main idea of the wealth of nations and the theory of moral sentiments,the sympathy theory is his theories center,especially for the theory of moral sentiments,theory of sympathy is carried out in every chapter and section.Smith is trying to explain the virtue of witness from the theory of sympathy,and what factors will be affected,let people really understand virtue,so that people from the essence of the pursuit of harmony and beauty of human nature.The domestic and foreign scholars' research on the theory of sympathy is mainly from angles of economics and ethics,it is unusual to study Adam Smith's sympathy theory from aesthetic perspective.But Smith's theory of aesthetics is real exist,and it has a great influence on the political economy theory and the ethics theory.Therefore,this paper attempts to take Smith's aesthetic thought as the object of study,a systematic study of Adam Smith's aesthetic theory.