Beauty is an integral part of concrete things. Without concrete things, beauty cannot exist alone.
Beauty exists in specific environments, phenomena, things, behaviors and objects. Beautiful scenery, fine wine, beautiful jade, beautiful things and beautiful life are all concrete things that contain beauty.
Zhuangzi pointed out that there is great beauty in heaven and earth without saying anything; Needless to say, the four seasons have clear methods; Needless to say, everything is rational. Damei, Dawu and Dali exist in heaven and earth, four seasons and all things, and are the components of heaven and earth, four seasons and all things.
Plato believes that beauty is not a concrete thing of beauty. Beauty is an idea (abstract thing), and it is the concrete thing of beauty that makes it beautiful.
Specific things are the combination of various regulations and the unity of diversity. Beauty is the special nature and ability of concrete things that contain beauty. If beauty is extracted from concrete things that contain beauty, what remains is not concrete things that contain beauty, but abstract things.
Beauty is the special nature and ability of concrete things that are beneficial to the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people, and is the positive significance and value of concrete things that are beneficial to the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people.
Specific things generally have the nature and ability of interaction and interconnection. Natural things, natural environment and natural phenomena have the nature and ability to affect human survival and development. Human beings have the nature and ability to transform and influence the environment and change objective things. Various chemical substances have the properties and abilities to react with each other and fuse with each other to generate new substances.
People call the interactive nature and ability of concrete things use value, exchange value, labor value, combination value, birth value, cultural value and religious value. Value is what people call the interactive and interrelated nature and ability of concrete things.
Value is an integral part of concrete things, an interactive nature and ability of concrete things, a cognitive object composed of universal laws decomposed and abstracted from concrete things on the basis of sensory observation of concrete things, and an absolutely abstract thing or meta-ontology that exists in every concrete thing but can be known by people.
Concrete things have the nature and ability to function and influence human survival and development, and have the value to function and influence human survival and development.
The bad environment, phenomena, things, behaviors and objects in nature and society are closely related to the survival and development of human beings. Some specific environments, phenomena, behaviors, things and objects are beneficial to human survival and development, and have positive significance and value for human survival and development. Some specific environments, phenomena, behaviors and things are harmful to the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people, and have negative significance and value to the survival and development of mankind. The significance and value of social and natural environment, phenomena, things and behaviors to the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people are the unity of positive significance and negative significance, positive value and negative value.
Truth, goodness and beauty are the special attributes and abilities of concrete things, which are beneficial to the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people, and are the positive significance and value of concrete things to the survival and development of mankind; False, evil, ugly and bad are the special attributes and abilities of concrete things that are harmful to the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people, and they are the negative significance and value of concrete things to the survival and development of human beings.
Beauty is a component of concrete things, one of the concrete existence and manifestations of value, a positive value as opposed to negative value, and a relatively abstract thing or meta-entity as opposed to ugliness. It is generally believed that the beauty of environment, behavior, language and mind refers to the special properties and abilities contained in specific environment, behavior, language and mind that are beneficial to the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people, and refers to the positive significance and value of specific environment, behavior, language and mind to the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people.
The world is a unified whole composed of countless individual concrete things. Concrete things are the realistic foundation of the world, the sum of various regulations and the unity of diversity. Abstract things are the thinking decomposition of concrete things, the components of concrete things, the rules, laws, manifestations and essence of concrete things, and concrete things and abstract things are closely related organic whole.
The unity of the world lies not only in the connection and unity of individual concrete things, but also in the connection and unity of various provisions within concrete things, in the connection and unity of various abstract things, and in the connection and unity with abstract things and concrete things. Without the connection and unity between individual concrete things, concrete things and abstract things, and all kinds of abstract things, it is impossible to unify the world, and a unified world can only be a human guess.
Beauty is a relatively abstract thing or meta-entity that exists in concrete things.
Aesthetic feeling is a special feeling of human brain, and it is the premise for people to discover beauty from concrete things and decompose and abstract beauty from concrete things.
Before human beings came into being in nature, the rules, laws, nature and essence of concrete things were like mineral deposits stored underground, which existed quietly in concrete things. At that time, there were no abstract things in a complete sense, no so-called values, and no concrete existence and expression of these values, such as beauty and ugliness, good and evil, and good and evil.
After the appearance of human beings in nature, various rules, laws, nature and essence of concrete things, as well as the true, false, beautiful, ugly, good, evil, good and evil components of concrete things, are gradually decomposed and abstracted from concrete things. The formation and production of abstract things such as value, beauty, ugliness, goodness, evil, goodness and evil are closely related to concrete things, the needs of the survival and development of the same person, the thinking decomposition and abstract activities of the same person's brain.
Beauty means that when people are in close contact with specific things and are stimulated, acted and influenced by specific things, they subconsciously compare the specific things in reality with the specific things they have experienced, and are convinced that the specific things in reality meet the wishes of themselves and the vast majority of people in society, can meet some physiological and psychological needs of themselves and the vast majority of people, and make themselves feel happy, cheerful and satisfied. By reflecting on the causes of aesthetic feeling, the cognitive object abstracted from concrete things is the positive value of concrete things, the nature and ability of concrete things, concrete phenomena, concrete things and concrete behaviors to meet people's physiological and psychological needs and produce pleasant and happy feelings, and it is a relatively abstract thing or meta-entity different from ugliness.
Stimulated by the information signal from the sensory organs about external concrete things, the human brain will undergo some biochemical changes, forming and generating a specific chemical substance or electrical signal, thus affecting the changes of related tissues of the body. This change will become a new source of information to stimulate the brain, causing the brain's attention and reflection. This is the mechanism of the formation and generation of aesthetic feeling, that is, people reflect on specific things of beauty after enjoying aesthetic feeling, compare specific things with related things they have experienced, and decompose and abstract the particularity of beauty from specific things with aesthetic feeling.
When everyone tastes the high-quality Moutai liquor stored for a hundred years together, they often say good wine and good wine in unison. The effects and stimulation of Moutai on our olfactory organs, taste organs and digestive organs will be converted into electrical signals by various sensory organs and transmitted to the brain, which will make the brain feel happy and beautiful, thus causing the brain to pay attention to this effect and stimulation source. By comparing the current Moutai liquor with the related specific things in memory, we can find the similarities and differences between Moutai liquor and all kinds of drinks and foods we have been exposed to in the past, and then divide Moutai liquor into specific beauty according to its particularity and beauty standards. The various components and physical and chemical properties of Moutai are the objective reasons and basis for stimulating people's senses and making the brain beautiful. It is the positive significance and value of Moutai, and it is the beauty that exists in Moutai.
Beauty and love of beauty are the same relatively abstract thing or meta-entity.
People's social practice and artistic creation have the nature and ability to guarantee and promote human survival and development, can create materials necessary for human survival and development, can make people increase their knowledge, improve their cognitive thinking ability, gain spiritual freedom, and be transformed, perfected and developed in the process of social practice, which is a concrete thing containing beauty.
Why should people know the world and transform it? Because the world is of great significance and value to human survival and development, because natural and social environment, phenomena, behaviors and things have the nature and ability to function and influence human survival and development, and because people can only achieve their basic goals of survival and development through their own practical behaviors, eliminate the negative significance and value of environment, phenomena, behaviors and things to their survival and development, and increase their positive significance and value to their survival and development.
Human social practice takes place and is carried out under the command of commands, intentions, plans, principles and methods generated by human brain. Social practice is the existence and expression of social consciousness, which is the essence and regulation of social practice. In a sense, people's social practice is a social behavior of loving beauty and hating ugliness, an activity of discovering beauty, pursuing beauty and creating beauty, and the existence and expression of social consciousness of loving beauty and hating ugliness. It is the inevitable requirement, trend and objective law of social development to love beauty and hate ugliness, and it is also the universal social consciousness of mankind.
People's social practice is not only a concrete thing containing beauty, but also a concrete thing containing social consciousness of loving beauty and hating ugliness.
The special nature and ability of social practice, the positive significance and positive value and beauty of promoting human survival and development, the social consciousness of loving beauty and hating ugliness contained in social practice, and the social requirements and principles contained in social practice are the same cognitive object, the same relatively abstract thing and the same meta-ontology. Beauty and love of beauty, existence and existence, the concrete form of value and the concrete form of social consciousness are two different names of the same cognitive object, the same relatively abstract thing and the same meta-entity.
Beauty is the special nature and ability of certain things that are beneficial to human survival and development. In order to achieve the basic purpose of survival and development, human beings should love beauty and hate ugliness. Human beings are born with the consciousness of survival and development, and the basic goal of human life is the road and bridge between "yes" and "should".
Judging whether a specific thing is beautiful is to judge the value nature of this specific thing.
The value of a concrete thing is the unity of positive value and negative value, and the concrete things of truth, goodness, beauty and goodness are the same as the concrete things of falsehood, evil, ugliness and bad. Man is half an angel and half a beast. Evil without good is a ghost; The supreme good that does all kinds of evil is God, but none of them is human.
The role and influence, significance and value of a specific thing on the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people at a specific time, place and situation are different. Rain is both a good thing and a bad thing, a good thing and a bad thing. Only by analyzing the rain according to the specific situation, specific time and specific place can we determine its significance and basic nature of value for the survival and development of the vast majority of people in society and judge whether it contains beautiful things or ugly things.
Different people have different views on the same specific thing, specific phenomenon, specific thing and specific environment. Some people think it is beautiful, some people think it is not beautiful, and some people think it is ugly. People give different answers to the question of what is food, wine, beauty, beauty, beauty and kindness. Why on earth is this?
Because different people have different cognitive abilities and different knowledge and experience. People with strong cognitive ability, rich knowledge and rich experience can quickly and accurately identify the value nature and value quantity of a knowledge object, and can see the beauty, ugliness, good and bad of a specific thing at a glance. It is difficult for people who lack knowledge and experience to correctly judge the value nature and quantity of a knowledge object, whether it is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Newborn calves are not afraid of tigers, because they have no experience and knowledge about tigers and cannot correctly judge the negative significance and value of tigers to their own survival. Love is blind. This is because lovers spend more time in contact, and they have deeply realized that lovers have positive consciousness and positive value for their own survival and development. They are beautiful women and other beautiful women with special rules.
Because the survival and development needs or interests of individuals and collectives are often different. In daily social life, the survival and development needs and interests of individuals and collectives are both unified and opposite, and the survival and development needs and interests of a few people and the vast majority of people are often different.
Social harmony meets the needs of the vast majority of people in society, but it does not meet the needs of individual people who want to fish in troubled waters. So social harmony is good for most people, but not for individuals.
There are two lyrics in the theme song of TV series Liu: there is a steelyard between heaven and earth, and the weight is our common people. These two lyrics are so well sung that they fully conform to the laws of heaven and social development. There is great beauty between heaven and earth. The survival and development of ordinary people need to be the weight to measure everything, the yardstick to measure the world, and the social objective standard to distinguish beauty and ugliness, good and evil, good and evil, truth and fallacy.
Man is the measure of all things, and beauty is one of all things, so man is the measure of beauty. The so-called people here do not refer to individuals in society, but to the vast majority of people in society, which refers to the majority of people in society. There are objective laws in the development and progress of society. The people are the makers of the laws of social development and change, and they participate in creating their own history. The will, intention and consciousness of the vast majority of people in society are the objective rules and laws of social development and change.
The needs of human survival and development are rich and diverse. People have not only physical and material needs, but also psychological and spiritual needs. Only when people's physiological needs and psychological needs are satisfied at a normal and reasonable level can people feel the beauty and happiness of life.
The physical and chemical properties and abilities of specific things that affect people's physiological changes are the conditions and foundations that affect people's psychological changes. Without the satisfaction of people's material and material needs, it is impossible to meet people's psychological and spiritual needs, and people's good feelings and happy feelings will not happen. Valuable works of art will not cause a good feeling of happiness and pleasure to people who are already hungry. If a person loses his freedom, he will not feel the beauty and happiness of life even if he has rich materials to fully meet his physiological needs.
It is conducive to ensuring and promoting the survival and development of society and the vast majority of people, meeting the physiological and psychological needs of the vast majority of people in society, and meeting the objective standard that the wishes of the vast majority of people in society are beautiful.
The production of material means of subsistence is the foundation of the existence and development of human society. People must first carry out the production activities of material means of life, and on the basis of meeting the needs of material means of life, they can carry out religious, political, ethical, cultural, artistic and aesthetic activities to meet the spiritual needs of psychology. Therefore, people's will, intention and consciousness about social development and progress, and the objective standards about truth, goodness, beauty and goodness are closely related to the mode of production of people's material means of life in a certain period.
Human beings have been discussing and understanding the essence, feeling, definition and activities of beauty for a long time.
The ancient Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato had many expositions on beauty. Plato put forward what is beauty in The Great Hippocampus, systematically discussed the essence of beauty, and finally admitted that the problem of beauty could not be finally solved, ending with "beauty is difficult".
Socrates and Plato are not the real source of western aesthetics. The real source of western aesthetics is Pythagoras, an ancient Greek philosopher who was a century earlier than them.
The Pythagorean school's theory of cosmic aesthetics is based on the study of mathematics, music and astronomy. Its main content is: number is the origin of the universe, and all celestial bodies in the universe are in the harmony of number. The greater the distance, the faster the celestial body moves and emits high notes; The smaller the distance, the slower the celestial body moves and emits rich tones. Tones proportional to distance form harmonious sounds, which is the harmony of the universe. The visible universe is the highest beauty.
Pythagoras logarithm, harmony and physical phenomena are interrelated, and the understanding and research of them begins with sound. It is said that Pythagoras passed by a blacksmith's shop, heard the sound of a hammer striking the anvil, and recognized three harmonies, namely the fourth, fifth and eighth degrees. He guessed that different weights of hammers lead to different sounds, and confirmed the relationship by weighing the weights of different hammers. Later, he experimented with strings of different lengths and found the relationship between string length and harmony. It can be said that Pythagoras was the first person to discover the corresponding relationship between sound numbers, thus taking the lead in establishing the mathematical theory that will become the basis of western music in the future. Pythagoras can be regarded as the originator of western aesthetics. He put forward the theoretical viewpoint that beauty is the harmony of numbers, which laid a solid foundation for the development of aesthetics.
Descartes put forward the famous proposition of "I think, therefore I am" in Meditations on the First Philosophy, arguing that "beauty and pleasure are only a relationship between our judgment and the object". Hume believes that the decisive factor of beauty lies in "the original structure of human nature", custom or accidental mood.
Kant's Critique of Judgment holds that aesthetic judgment is "the judgment of an object or its expression based on the happiness and unhappiness of completely unrelated ideas" and "the only unique happiness of freedom without considering interests".
Hegel pointed out in Aesthetics that "beauty is the perceptual manifestation of an idea" and that "it is the harmony between an idea and itself in the objective existence that forms the essence of beauty". Natural beauty is the product of concept development to natural stage, artistic beauty is the product of concept development to spiritual stage, and artistic beauty is higher than natural beauty.
Santayana defined beauty from the aesthetic sense: beauty is a positive, internal and objective value.
Chernyshevski put forward the definition of "beauty is life" in the aesthetic relationship between art and reality, insisting that both beauty and art come from real life, emphasizing that the beauty of reality is higher than the beauty of art, and opposing the pure art theory.
Plekhanov pointed out in "Re-discussion on the Art of Primitive Nation" that social people look at things and phenomena from the utilitarian point of view first, and then shift to the aesthetic point of view. What is beautiful for mankind is useful to him, and it is meaningful to fight against nature and other social life in order to survive. Function is recognized by reason, while beauty is recognized by intuitive ability. People seldom think of function while enjoying beauty, but function can be discovered through scientific reflection. However, if there is no function in the root of beauty and pleasure, then things will not be beautiful. Not for beauty, but for beauty.
China people have a long history of understanding and studying beauty, and have made outstanding contributions to the development of aesthetics.
In 1950s and 1960s, around the essence of beauty, China academic circles launched a big discussion and formed some basic viewpoints. One is subjectivism represented by Gao Ertai, who thinks that beauty is totally subjective, and as a kind of consciousness, beauty has nothing to do with objective things. The second is the theory of social consciousness represented by Lv Ying, which holds that beauty is human social consciousness, "a reflection of social existence and a secondary phenomenon". The third is the theory of objective typicality represented by Cai Yi, which holds that beauty is objective, "the essence of beauty is the typicality of things", "it is the commonality among individuals" and "typicality is beauty". Fourthly, the theory of subjective and objective unity represented by Zhu Guangqian holds that beauty is "the unity of subjective and objective". Fifthly, the objective social theory represented by Li Zehou and Liu Gangji holds that beauty has both objectivity and sociality, and it is "the unity of objectivity and sociality".
Looking back on the development history of human thoughts on beauty, we can see that people have realized that beauty is not a concrete thing, but an abstract thing associated with concrete things, a manifestation of concrete things that can arouse people's feelings of beauty, and an object of understanding that meets people's needs for survival and development and is associated with utility or value. However, due to the limitations of philosophical ontology and epistemology in the past, there are still some defects and deficiencies in people's views on the essence, definition and aesthetic problems of beauty, and there is still great controversy.