Please wait a minute...
Frontiers of Philosophy in China

ISSN 1673-3436

ISSN 1673-355X(Online)

CN 11-5743/B

Postal Subscription Code 80-983

Front Phil Chin    2011, Vol. 6 Issue (1) : 41-56    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11466-011-0124-8
research-article
Mencius’ Aesthetics and Its Position
HU Jiaxiang()
College of Humanities, South-Central University for Nationalities, Wuhan 430074, China
 Download: PDF(578 KB)   HTML
 Export: BibTeX | EndNote | Reference Manager | ProCite | RefWorks
Abstract

Mencius’ aesthetics unfolded around the ideal personality in his mind. Such an ideal personality belonged to a great man who was sublime, practical and honorable, and it was presented as the beauty of magnificence or the beauty of masculinity. Mencius put forward many propositions such as “the completed goodness that is brightly displayed is called greatness,” nourishing “one’s grand qi 气 (the great morale personality),” “only after a man is a sage can he completely suits himself to his own form,” “the saints only apprehended before me that of which my mind approves along with other men,” being “conscious of sincerity on self-examination,” and flowing “abroad, above and beneath, like that of Heaven and Earth,” all of which described an ideal personality through the course of its formation and its psychological experience. As a prominent school before the Qin dynasty, Mencius’ aesthetics greatly developed the Confucian teaching of “internal sage.” It shared many similarities with Zhuangzi’s thought and was also an aesthetic mode opposed to the latter. Both kinds of aesthetics were prominent: Mencius’ teaching was like imposingly towering and muscularly overflowing majestic mountains; Zhuangzi’s thought was like gracefully flowing water with an air of femininity. In real life though, Mencius’ teaching has greater practical significance in addressing the unbearable lightness of being, a disease of modernity.

Keywords Mencius      aesthetics      ideal personality      mode of magnificence     
Corresponding Author(s): HU Jiaxiang,Email:hjx-102@263.net   
Issue Date: 05 March 2011
 Cite this article:   
HU Jiaxiang. Mencius’ Aesthetics and Its Position[J]. Front Phil Chin, 2011, 6(1): 41-56.
 URL:  
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fpc/EN/10.1007/s11466-011-0124-8
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fpc/EN/Y2011/V6/I1/41
[1] Rina Marie Camus. “Athl-Ethics”: Virtue Training in Mencius and Aristotle[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2019, 14(1): 152-170.
[2] Karyn Lai. Emotional Attachment and Its Limits: Mengzi, Gaozi and the Guodian Discussions[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2019, 14(1): 132-151.
[3] LIU Yuedi. From “Practice” to “Living”: Main Trends of Chinese Aesthetics in the Past 40 Years[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2018, 13(1): 139-149.
[4] Jos de Mul. The Earth Garden: Going Back or Going Forward to Nature?[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2017, 12(2): 237-248.
[5] Richard Shusterman. Somaesthetics and Chinese Philosophy: Between Unity and Pragmatist Pluralism[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2015, 10(2): 201-211.
[6] Roger T. Ames. “Bodyheartminding” (Xin 心): Reconceiving the Inner Self and the Outer World in the Language of Holographic Focus and Field[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2015, 10(2): 167-180.
[7] Russell Pryba. Ars Erotica and Ars Gastronomica in Shusterman’s Somaesthetics[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2015, 10(2): 192-200.
[8] Hektor K. T. Yan. Beyond a Theory of Human Nature: Towards an Alternative Interpretation of Mencius’ Ethics[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2014, 9(3): 396-416.
[9] CHEN Lai. The Basic Character of the Virtue Theory of Mencius’ Philosophy and Its Significance in Classical Confucianism[J]. Front Phil Chin, 2013, 8(1): 4-21.
[10] GUO Zhaodi. Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits?[J]. Front Phil Chin, 2012, 7(1): 90-111.
[11] FAN Minghua. The Significance of Xuwu 虚无 (Nothingness) in Chinese Aesthetics[J]. Front Phil Chin, 2010, 5(4): 560-574.
[12] YANG Chunshi, . Transcending the opposition between consciousness aesthetics and somaesthetics[J]. Front. Philos. China, 2009, 4(4): 616-630.
[13] LIANG Tao. Mencius and the tradition of articulating human nature in terms of growth[J]. Front Phil Chin, 2009, 4(2): 180-197.
[14] ZHANG Qian. The boundaries of beauty in Pre-Qin Confucian aesthetics[J]. Front Phil Chin, 2009, 4(1): 52-63.
[15] XIE Xialing. Aesthetic judgment: The power of the mind in understanding Confucianism[J]. Front Phil Chin, 2009, 4(1): 38-51.
Viewed
Full text


Abstract

Cited

  Shared   
  Discussed