Research On Donald Crawford’s Natural Aesthetic Thought

Based on the study of Kant’s aesthetic thought,Crawford presents a unique natural aesthetic view.After the revival of western natural aesthetics in the 1960s,a group of scholars stood in their respective positions to correct its name.And Crawford’s natural aesthetic theory with starting from comparing the natural beauty with artistic beauty,natural beauty of the artistic beauty triple relations,proposed to natural aesthetic object definition,to "picturesque" appreciation of defense,the subjective and objective position of aesthetic point of view,in the home and the natural environment aesthetics characteristic is bright,very has the research value and significance.In the introduction,this seemingly unknown scholar will be introduced.Including academic research fields,academic achievements,all kinds of academic social positions.In addition,the reasons,significance and difficulties of the topic will be explained in this part.In chapter I,the focus of the study is one of the core issues in the history of aesthetics,that is,the comparison between natural beauty and artistic beauty.What does Crawford think of the relationship?Can we compare?Why do we think so?These issues will be addressed in chapter 1.First of all,starting from the comparison of natural beauty and artistic beauty,this is the starting point of western natural environment aestheticians as a whole.Crawford,however,does not highlight the priority of natural beauty,but discusses how beauty can be compared,which many scholars generally default to,and Crawford seeks justification for beauty comparison in the Critique of Judgment.On the one hand,it removes unnecessary misunderstandings for Kant’s research;on the other hand,it also seeks a reasonable starting point for the comparison between natural beauty and artistic beauty.Although this starting point relies on Kant’s teleological thought in the third critique,its essence is rooted in Kant’s transcendental deduction.On this basis,this chapter sorts out and evaluates Crawford’s views on the two forms of beauty in the history of aesthetics,which lays a foundation for Crawford to put forward the three interactive relations between the two kinds of beauty(symbiotic,dialectical and parasitic)at last.Chapter 2 focuses on Crawford’s other contribution to natural aesthetics,that is,the definition of the object of natural aesthetics.This is significantly different from the natural aestheticians of the same period.This chapter will mainly solve the definition of the natural aesthetic object proposed by Crawford,and explore the deep reasons for the definition of the concept combined with his deep knowledge of Kant’s aesthetic academic background.This chapter introduces how Crawford breaks through the separation between nature and artificiality and constructs an "aesthetic nature" that is different from pure nature and wild nature.In addition,the definition of this concept seems to be very similar to the core issue in the philosophy of art--the definition of art,but this is only in appearance,and the deep reason for existence is another key point to be solved in this chapter,that is,where is the root of the pure barrier between nature and art in Crawford’s view?In order to solve this problem,this chapter will start from Aristotle’s concept of substance,to find the first reason for Crawford’s view.The second reason goes back to Kant’s aesthetics.In Kant’s aesthetics discourse about the two always is a hot topic in the academic circles,and Crawford,a different approach,"imagination" of Kant goes through nature and art,by emphasizing its subjective dynamic role,finally it is concluded that rational interest between nature and art and the transition function of common characteristics,to break through the boundaries of nature and art to find the basis of a priori.All of these originated from Crawford’s explanation that "beauty is the symbol of morality".Based on this,Crawford put forward the "aesthetic nature",and clearly opposed the contemporary academic opposition to the popular view of art and nature.If the first two major problems in this study are purely speculative theoretical exploration in philosophical aesthetics,then the third major problem and its solution will be the concrete practice of Crawford’s natural aesthetics.This is chapter 3 of this paper to solve the problem.First of all,the concept of "picturesque" theory will be introduced in the first section,and the second section will focus on why Crawford supports this theory and on what basis.Through this aspect,Crawford once again embodies the thought characteristics of a natural aesthetician.In addition,Crawford mainly applies the "picturesque" mode of appreciation to two scenes,one is the scenery and the other is the ruins.Through the appreciation of these two objects with distinct picturesque characteristics,Crawford again verified that another characteristic natural aesthetic view is the defense of "picturesque" appreciation mode.In the conclusion part of this paper,it will make a general summary of its natural aesthetic view.It includes its characteristics,shortcomings and defects,its value to contemporary Chinese aesthetics and the direction of subsequent research.