Philosophical-aesthetic reflection in China in the century: Wang Guowei and Zong Baihua

Abstract

  This article is dedicated to examination of the philosophical-aesthetic reflection in China in the XX century, and the impact of European aesthetics upon the development and transformation of the traditional Chinese aesthetics. The article employs the method of historical and cultural with elements of structural analysis of aesthetic text of the modern Chinese philosophers. In the XX century, a number of Chinese thinkers made attempts of reforming the traditional Chinese aesthetics, complementing it with the viewpoint of European philosophy. The article examines the paramount aesthetic thoughts of the modern Chinese philosophers Wang Guowei and Zong Baihua, and determines the impact of European philosophy upon them. The scientific novelty of this study lies in assessing the impact of the concepts of European aesthetics upon self-reflection and development of Chinese aesthetics in the context of cross-cultural problematic. It is demonstrated that Chinese modern aesthetics in many ways retains its connection with the tradition, which determines its specificity and imparts peculiar semantic symbolism. The conclusion is made that in the XX century, Chinese philosophers sought to complement the existing traditional Chinese reflection on art, which is based mostly on the ideas of Taoism and Buddhism, with what can be referred to as the Western viewpoint, associated with a scientific approach and scientific interpretation. Another vector in the area of humanistic understanding of the phenomenon of art was related to the attempts of interpretation of the European aesthetic thought from through the prism of Chinese traditional philosophy. The philosopher Wang Guowei tried to incorporate the European aesthetics into the scientific problematic of China. The philosopher Zong Baihua wanted to synthesize the Chinese and European aesthetic theories, and create what he believed is the modern Chinese aesthetics.