The Study On Huang Chanhua's Brief History Of Aesthetics

At the beginning of the 20 th century,with the social trend of thought of Xinmin,the great development of education,aesthetic education thought spread rapidly,aesthetics formally entered the modern subject system of China.Under the demand of aesthetic discipline construction,aesthetic history writing came into being.Huang Chanhua wrote the first aesthetics history book of China,the Brief History of Aesthetics.The Brief History of Aesthetics summarized the basic problems of aesthetics.After sorting out the history of western aesthetics and choosing the new development of aesthetics in the early 20 th century,Huang Chanhua summarized the subject object,subject nature and subject method of aesthetics on the basis of synthesizing the main translation and research achievements in China.He pointed out that the object of aesthetic research were all the facts related to beauty;the subject nature of aesthetics had experienced the development course of pure philosophy-normative science-empirical science,explanatory science-revival of philosophical tendency;and the research methods of aesthetics were divided into three categories: sociology,psychology and philosophy.The psychology which the aesthetics of the Republic of China attached great importance to was ignored by the later works of aesthetic theory.The Brief History of Aesthetics systematically reviewed the development of western aesthetics from the Greek and Roman times to the end of the 19 th century.HuangChanhua combed Plato's to Kant's aesthetics according to Bosanquet's A History of Aesthetics,Compared with the latter,the Brief History of Aesthetics was brief and crude,but it also referred to some characters who were not seen in A History of Aesthetics.In introducing the western aesthetics from Kant to the end of the 19 th century,Huang Chanhua abandoned the objective idealist tendency of Bosanquet,which had a great relationship with Huang Chanhua's aesthetic thought of emphasizing emotion and practice.The Brief History of Aesthetics selectively introduced the new trend of aesthetics development in the early 20 th century.Huang Chanhua introduced the new development of sociology,psychology and philosophy of aesthetics from the end of 19 th century to the beginning of 20 th century.He focused on the " empathy" theory and referred to a number of aesthetic figures who were striking at the time but are fading out of mainstream research now.At that time,the domestic attention to western aesthetics mainly focused on aesthetic theory,and the Brief History of Aesthetics as the first special book of aesthetic history,remind us to pay attention to the " combination of history and theory" in the construction of aesthetic discipline,not partial theory and light history.In addition,it combs the history of aesthetics on the basis of the discipline research method,summarizes the aesthetic principles in the combing of the history of aesthetics,and brings some enlightenment to the writing of the history of western aesthetics and the writing of aesthetic theory.At the same time,as the earliest special book of aesthetics history in China,the history of aesthetics also has certain historical limitations,such as some of Huang Chanhua's views appear deviation,the term concept used at that time changed,the language expression is fuzzy,etc.