Abstract
Dualism has long been dominant in the history of Western aesthetics, and it has established a hierarchical schema from the day it was born. The mind is imagined as a subjective role, while the body is regarded as a passive object that needs to be driven, enriched and guided. From the point of logic, a paradox is inherent to the schema: if the body and the mind are essentially different, they cannot interact with each other; if their nature is the same in essence, it is equally illogical to distinguish them. In the process of solving this paradox, the significance of the body exposes itself, especially in the modern and post-modern times when natural science continues to reveal the attribution of mental activities to the body, providing evidence for the deconstruction of dualism. Along with the decline of dualism, the body in the modern and contemporary theories gradually assumes the subjectivity of its own, and a revival of the body develops in the new construction of aesthetics. The mid-18th century sees the aesthetics in the form of body discourse, the end of the 19th century sees Nietzsche outlining the prototype of soma-aesthetics, and the 20th century, driven by the combined efforts of phenomenology, pragmatism and cognitive science, sees soma-esthetics upgrading to a discipline. It can be predicted that this process will continue and the era of soma-esthetics has just begun.
First Page
32
Last Page
42
Recommended Citation
Wang, Xiaohua. 2019. "The Decline of Dualism and the Rise of Soma-esthetics in Western Aesthetics." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 39, (5): pp.32-42. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol39/iss5/15
