Abstract
For a long time, studies on aesthetics and politics in the Western tradition have been situated in the framework of metaphysical philosophy. From Rousseau to Schiller, and further to the writings of European Romanticism represented by the Jena Romantics, scholars have sought to reconstruct the connection between aesthetic ideal and modern politics within the realm of speculative thought. Having undergone the theoretical refinement from Marx to the Frankfurt School, contemporary Western research on political aesthetics has “descended” from the metaphysical domain to the practical domain of social history, consciously distinguishing between the ideological practice of “aestheticized politics” and the critical-theoretical practice of political aesthetics. In the 21st century, research on political aesthetics has unfolded under the “practical turn” in the humanities, and it presents three distinct theoretical paths: aesthetic studies in political thought that are devoid of ethical dimensions, the exploration of heteronomous political aesthetics within the post-structuralist tradition, and the aesthetics revolution within the critical theory framework that abolishes normative ethics. Their diverging paths not only raise new questions about whether the critical paradigm of political aesthetics is compatible with normative ethics but also relate to a persistent puzzle throughout the process of aesthetic modernity: whether the sensus communis has the potential to expand into a social ideal of community. The practical path that is still absent in contemporary Western political aesthetics needs to move beyond the formal predicament of Western-centric modernity. This movement occurs within the historical process of a communist social community that aims at eliminating labor alienation and achieving the human ideal, and it points to Marx's historical-materialist analysis of a community of free individuals.
Keywords
political aesthetics, practical turn, heteronomous ethics, sensus communis, social community
First Page
120
Last Page
131
Recommended Citation
Wang, Xi. 2026. "Three Approaches to the Study of Contemporary Western Political Aesthetics: A Re-examination from the Perspective of Historical Materialism." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 46, (1): pp.120-131. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol46/iss1/12
