1. Talking about the body is not only one of the most common daily discourses, but also one of the most important cultural phenomena at present. Why talk about the body? What people talk about everyday is relatively simple, mainly physical illness, health and happiness. The discussion of human culture is more complicated. It not only criticizes the absence of body in history, but also pursues the liberation of body in reality. This has become a slogan in body writing (including literature, art and philosophy). What does all this talk about the body mean? Explain that the body is a problem, and it is related to everyone. But what kind of question is this?
There is no doubt that the existence of an individual in time and space is the body. Seemingly direct, simple and self-evident. But in fact, the body lacks the same meaning in our language, but has multiple boundaries. Compared with the animal body, it is the human body; Compared with a dead body, it is a living body; The opposite of the spirit is the body, and so on. At the same time, it is uncertain: is the body endowed by natural genes or constructed by historical discourse? This brings all kinds of difficulties to the discussion about the body.
When it comes to the body, we are actually involved in the problem. The phenomenon of "talking about body" includes at least two elements: talking about body. Speech is thought and language behavior, and the body is what it thinks and says. This forms the so-called relationship between body and mind in philosophy, that is, the relationship between body and mind. Mind and body are not separated as dualism imagines, the former is extensive, and the latter is thinking. But it can't be simply unified into matter or spirit like traditional materialism and idealism. The complexity of the relationship between thought and body is as follows: for the body, thought is not the body itself, and thought is both internal and transcendent. The mind is inside the body. This is because thinking is the function of the human brain. A stone can't think, a tree can't think, an animal can't think rationally, and only people can think. Therefore, people are thinking animals and rational animals. But the mind is also beyond the body. This is because the boundaries of the body are not the boundaries of the mind. Thought not only thinks about the body and its related things, but also thinks about things outside the body and even thinks about everything in the world.
The complete expression of "talking about the body" should be: "People talk about the body". This can be more specific: "People talk about their bodies". In this expression, besides talking about the two elements of the body, there is a third party: people. But how is man built? People will always be me, you and him in the realistic language relationship. Linguistically speaking, as personal pronouns, I, you and he have their own meanings only if they are distinguished from each other. Therefore, I always care about other people's relationships except me. But when people talk about the human body, people return to themselves, and at the same time, people are divided into speakers and physical people. As a speaker, people are talking about people's bodies, and people and bodies are all shown in the conversation. But what does this show about the relationship between man and body?
One possible relationship is that people are flesh. In this argument, people and bodies are the same. On the one hand, people are defined by their bodies. People are not anything except the body, such as thoughts and language, but the body itself. Not only that, mind and language are just attached to the body, and they are tools to serve the body. The body is a person's desire for life and death. This requires that people should not be understood as floating souls and language symbols without body, and should not pursue immortality or resurrection after death, but should return to the real world where the body is located. On the other hand, the body is also stipulated by people. As a prescribed body, it is neither an animal, ridiculed and spurned, nor sacred, but a human being, which conforms to human nature and life, so it can be understood and respected.
Another possible relationship is that people have bodies. This argument assumes that people have many things, including their bodies. According to the general view, people not only have a body, but also have different thoughts and languages from the body. People not only have these things internally, but also have some things externally, such as rights, reputation and property. This means that the body is not all of a person, but a part of a person. It is only a necessary condition for people, not a sufficient condition. Compared with the body, perhaps other parts are more important to people, such as thoughts and language. Thus, people can control their own bodies, that is, let them move and grow according to the goals set by people's thoughts and languages. In this sense, people not only have bodies, but also can make them.
The above two theories about the relationship between man and body dominate people's relevant discussion mode. But in history, they have different forms.
China's traditional thought holds a unique concept of body. It emphasizes the integrity of the body and holds that "both form and spirit are harmonious" and "form and spirit are integrated". At the same time, it is believed that heaven and man are isomorphic, the body is a small universe, and the universe is a big body. On this basis, Taoism endows the body with the laws of nature, and the body belongs to nature and should return to nature. Different from this, Confucianism gives the body social discipline, and the body must conform to the standard of etiquette. It is the ritual that explains what the body can and cannot do. China's thought ignores the characteristics of the body itself when thinking about the regulations of nature and society on the body, that is, it is individual, unique and full of infinite desires.
Although westerners have expressed different ideas about the body in different historical periods, the body has long been stipulated by reason. In the whole existence, minerals, plants and animals are irrational. God is rational, but he is not a rational animal, but a rational existence. Only man is a rational animal. On the one hand, man is different from animals by reason, on the other hand, he is different from God by animality. As a rational animal, man is the unity of body and mind. Of course, people can make a more detailed division: body, soul and spirit, but soul is only an excessive element of body and spirit. So people are mainly described as the duality of body and spirit. The body is human's animality, and it is human's desire and impulse. Spirit is human reason. As the highest element of thought, it is the ability of principle, establishing foundation and explaining foundation. In view of the differences and opposites between body and spirit, the body is evil and dirty, and the spirit is beautiful and pure. So it is not the body that defines the spirit, but the spirit that defines the body. Therefore, it is necessary to control the body and prohibit the body's desires. This is the basic principle of Platonism and Christian thought.
With the rebellion of modern thought against traditional thought, the meaning of body has been re-understood and re-interpreted. What defines the human body is no longer rationality, but existence or life. In the relationship between existence and rationality, existence is more primitive and fundamental, so it is not rationality that determines existence, but existence that determines rationality. At the same time, the relationship between reason and thought has undergone fundamental changes. Reason cannot be equated with thought, or even the principle of thought, but a part of thought, which should be exposed to the experience of thought. This stipulates that the existence of reason has been expressed differently in different thoughts. For example, Marx's existence is "material production practice", Nietzsche's existence is "creative will" as the maintenance and rise of life, and Heidegger is a four-dimensional world of "heaven, earth, man and god". In all these rules about existence, the body has gained new connotations. Marx's body is a sexual act of eating and drinking, which promotes material production and human reproduction; Nietzsche's body is synonymous with vitality. In its relationship with the soul, it subverts the traditions of Platonism and Christianity and becomes the center of philosophy and the principle of thought. Heidegger's body is formed in the world of heaven, earth, man and god, so it is related to the way people live in this land. Here we can see that on the one hand, existence gives the body a very important meaning, on the other hand, the body also gives existence a unique form. Existence is no longer just an abstract and general concept, but an impulse with materiality and vitality.
But in the view of postmodern thought, the body in modern thought has not returned to the body itself. Although the body is no longer defined by reason but by existence, existence is still a setting outside the body. To return to the body itself is to return to the direct materiality of the body. In this sense, the human body is its body, not anything except this body. As a physical existence, the human body is the impulse and realization of its basic instinct. Therefore, the human body is actually a desire machine, a machine that constantly produces and consumes from desire. Based on this setting of the body, the biological basis, physiological mechanism and psychological mystery of body desire have been revealed unprecedented, and gained philosophical significance.
We have investigated various statements about the body, that is, the body is natural and social, and the body is defined by reason, existence or desire, and so on. However, in all these discussions, people have two kinds of settings for the body: the body is either given by reality, like a natural thing, or constructed by words, or a historical work. From reality, the so-called basic perspective is formed, and from discourse, the so-called anti-basic perspective is formed. Of course, both views have their rationality, but any body is a living body constructed by words. Body is a game of desire, tools and wisdom. It is not only the place where these three discourses play, but also the three discourses themselves.
Body desire discourse is the most natural, daily and universal discourse form. Desire, as a subconscious, plays a role with the help of symbols, metaphors and images. In this sense, it is like a language. However, Lacan believes that the subconscious does not really exist until it acquires language. Therefore, desire is not nonverbal at all, but verbal. The words of desire are not "I" talking, but "it" talking. So there is no subject, no self-awareness and no reason. The expression of desire is whether or not. This is because desire itself is lack, need and deficiency, and it always points to people and things other than desire. There are many physiological desires, but mainly appetite and sexual desire. This kind of desire is mainly about appetite and sexual desire. Of course, people's desires are endless. This not only means that the basic desire will never be satisfied, but also means that other desires will be derived from it. In our time, basic desires still exist, but some new desires are constantly emerging, such as various wishes in the virtual world. Desire will eventually become a just desire, that is, a desire for desire. In all these words of desire, the body shows itself and points to other beings in the world.
Desire must be realized through tools. Tools have always been understood as being made and used by people to serve their purposes. This is true from ancient stone axes to modern computers. But in fact, people's own bodies are tools, such as the activities of hands and feet, so tools are "means". At the same time, the language spoken by people is also a tool and a "medium". For the body, instrumental discourse is a discourse about the body itself being trained as a tool. This mainly includes the training of limbs and five senses, either for work, fitness and self-defense or for performance.
Words of wisdom play a key role in the structure of the body. It is the brain and mind of the body, so it has guiding significance to the activities of the body. As a rule about human beings, wisdom is not only the distinction between existence and nothingness, truth and lies, but also a choice and decision, which makes people walk on the road of truth. On the one hand, the words about human wisdom define people's desires, which desires can be realized and which desires cannot be realized, and on the other hand, define people's means, which means can be used and which means cannot be used. All kinds of wisdom about the body have been formed in history. Taoism should be in harmony with nature, while Confucianism should be in harmony with etiquette. Catholicism calls for abstinence and approaching God through dieting and celibacy. But the post-modern slogan advocates a strong and sexy body and becomes something that can be consumed. Consumption is enjoyment, let yourself enjoy it and let others enjoy it.
Although intelligent discourse is stipulated for the construction of human body, it can only play a role if it enters the game together with desire discourse and tool discourse. Therefore, the construction of human body is a game activity of these three discourses. Every discourse is different and has its own boundaries. But each side points to the other side, impacts the other side, and forms a struggle. Due to their own strength, each party will become the dominant or the dominated, thus forming different discourse patterns, which also shapes the body of intelligence, desire and tools. But the right to speak is produced and changed in the game, so it is also uncertain and accidental.
No matter how people interpret the body in history, no matter how people try to suppress it or liberate it, this is a philosophical problem. But is the body also an aesthetic problem? If aesthetics is a branch of philosophy, then it should certainly think about body phenomena; If aesthetics still claims to be perceptual, then the theme of body should be highlighted. This is because the body itself is emotional, and it is the most emotional. But has aesthetics really considered the body? Especially thinking about the beauty of the body?
Nowadays, it is generally believed that aesthetics is a science to study beauty. For China, although there were words like "beauty" and "learning" in ancient Chinese, there was no such word as aesthetics. This shows that the thinking about beauty has not entered a knowledge-based system, and it also shows that beauty has not been included in various studies as an independent theme. China people's "aesthetics" originated in modern times. This is the Chinese translation of Japanese "sensibility" to German. With the spread of western learning to the east, it was gradually accepted by modern academic circles in China. As a modern Chinese vocabulary, "aesthetics" basically means "science of beauty", "knowledge of beauty" or "theory of beauty". But "science of beauty" is not used in the sense of natural science or technology, but refers to "knowledge of beauty", that is, the systematic expression of knowledge about beauty.
Although there was no independent aesthetics in the modern western sense in ancient China, there were similar thoughts. On the one hand, it is a universal philosophical meditation on the essence of beauty. The basic theme of philosophy is the relationship between truth, goodness and beauty, sensibility and rationality. Therefore, any kind of philosophy is more or less related to the issues of beauty and sensibility. Especially in China's philosophy, the fragmentary meditation on beauty and sensibility has become the main basis of Chinese aesthetic history. This is scattered in the ideological documents of Confucianism, Taoism and Zen. On the other hand, it is the appreciation theory of various artistic phenomena, such as poetry theory, literary theory, painting theory, music theory and so on. They are comments on major art categories. It is either perceptual or analytical. These theories are extremely rich and complicated in China's aesthetic history. They show the aesthetic relationship between people and everything in the world of language, vision and hearing.
In such a vast field, the body will also be mentioned in the relationship with everything, but it has never been themed. This lies in the limitation of China's ancient concept of beauty. It is generally believed that the original meaning of Chinese "beauty" is "sheep is a great beauty" and "sheep is beautiful". "Beauty of sheep" means not only the fatness of the sheep itself, but also the delicious feeling it gives people. The beauty here has something to do with human feelings, especially taste. Taste is taste, which is to distinguish and compare. Not only the object of feeling, but also the feeling. If "Sheep are Beautiful" emphasizes the physiological and natural significance of beauty, then "Sheep are Beautiful" highlights the religious and social significance of beauty. Mainly refers to people dancing with sheep's head as totem to entertain people and gods, so as to achieve the connection between people and gods. The physical and mental happiness brought by dance itself is very important here. However, the beauty of this understanding should not only get rules from people, but also get rules from God. If only "sheep are beautiful" and "sheep are beautiful" are used to explain the aesthetics of China people, then this is undoubtedly one-sided. In fact, China people's aesthetic standards are mainly reflected in the thoughts of Confucianism, Taoism and Zen. Confucianism believes that beauty lies in rites and music, Taoism advocates the beauty of nature, Zen puts forward the beauty of artistic conception, and so on. In all these rules about beauty, we can see that they are not based on the body and its nature. On the contrary, if the body itself wants to have aesthetic characteristics, then it must obtain these regulations.
Similar to China's classical aesthetics, western traditional aesthetics also forgot the body phenomenon. In ancient Greece, the main body of discussing the basic problems of aesthetics was poetics. Poetics, like other disciplines of philosophy, is the study of different rational regions of human beings. Aristotle divided human rationality into three aspects: theoretical rationality, practical rationality and poetic rationality. Theoretical rationality is related to cognition, practical rationality is related to behavior, and poetic rationality is related to creation. The so-called poetics is a science about poetry or creative rationality. Its basic contents include the general nature of poetry, its creation and appreciation, etc. Poetry is fundamentally understood as imitation of the world, and imitation itself is the instinct of people to seek knowledge, so it is finally stipulated by theoretical reason, that is, epiphany. Based on this concept, the problem of body is not within the scope of poetics.
Aesthetics, as a perceptual science, was established only in modern times. Baum Tong Jia, who is known as aesthetics, thinks that people's psychological activities are divided into three aspects: knowledge, meaning and emotion. There is logic relative to cognition and ethics relative to will, but there is no discipline relative to emotion or perceptual knowledge. Therefore, he founded aesthetics, thinking that the object of aesthetics is the perfection of perceptual knowledge, that is, beauty. Therefore, aesthetics is not only a science of perceptual knowledge, but also a systematic discipline to improve perceptual knowledge. Body appears in the form of contradiction in perceptual science. On the one hand, the perfection of sensibility includes the perfection of body; on the other hand, aesthetics must deny the body and control, improve and guide it. Based on this feature, aesthetics is not only theoretical but also practical.
Since modern times, aesthetics, as a perceptual science, has always been related to human sensibility, senses and feelings. Feeling can be divided into pleasure and non-pleasure. In pleasure, there is a difference between physical pleasure and spiritual pleasure. Aesthetics studies people's spiritual pleasure, mainly the feeling of beauty and art, but besides feeling, sensibility itself also includes perceptual objects, that is, things that can be felt. Finally, sensibility is also manifested as perceptual activity, that is, the world of human life itself. Therefore, aesthetics, as a perceptual science and a science about beauty, studies beauty, aesthetic feeling and art with a very broad vision. Therefore, the general understanding of aesthetics includes the theory of beauty, the theory of aesthetic feeling and the theory of art. But in aesthetics, philosophy of art has a unique position, so that people use it instead of aesthetics. As a philosophical reflection on artistic phenomena, it mainly rose in the period of German idealism. At this time, philosophy, as a typical form of subject philosophy, sets the dual thinking mode of subject and object, thus becoming a philosophy of world outlook and methodology. Art is understood as the emotional spiritual world created by people.
No matter how people understand aesthetics in modern times, it has always been placed in the framework of rational philosophy and stipulated by reason. In this regard, we have seen several different ideological systems. Kant's critical philosophy is divided into theoretical rationality, practical rationality and judgment criticism. Among them, judgment criticism, including aesthetics, is the cornerstone of his philosophy and the transition between nature and freedom. Beauty is described here as a universal and inevitable selfless happiness. Schelling believes that beauty and art are the highest functions of philosophy. Because art is a rational intuition, it can achieve the unity of subjectivity and objectivity. In contrast, Hegel advocates that beauty and art are the perceptual expression of absolute concept. Compared with religion as a representation and philosophy as a concept, art as intuition is in the primary stage of absolute concept development, which must be overcome by religion and philosophy. In these theoretical systems, beauty and art are understood as perceptual and related to reason. In the sense that sensibility is defined by reason, German idealism aesthetics is rationalism aesthetics like all modern aesthetics. Of course, there is no physical and physical aesthetics.
The aesthetic significance of body is found in modern thought. Because the mainstream of modern thoughts is to think about the different meanings of existence, they are both "non-"rationalism and "anti-"rationalism, so they are generalized sensibility and aestheticism. The so-called beauty and art are all in existence. Marx believes that beauty is the product of people's material production and labor practice, and art, as an ideology, depends on the economic base. Nietzsche emphasized that beauty is the direct expression of "creative will", so it is the realization of human vitality. Heidegger holds that beauty and art are the truth of existence and embedded in works, and poetry is the way people live in this land. In these modern aesthetic thoughts, the image of people is very prominent. He is either Marx's laborer, Nietzsche's impulsion, or Heidegger standing in the middle of the forest. Especially in Nietzsche's human image, the materiality of the body has gained unprecedented aesthetic significance. This is because Nietzsche's discussion on the origin of beauty and art is fundamentally physical. Beauty and art are anthropological first and the impulse of human life; Secondly, physiology is the strength of the body and the function of the body and blood; Finally, it is psychological, that is, the feeling of creativity. Nietzsche's body aesthetics is of great significance. On the one hand, it is a rebellion against the western traditional classical rational aesthetics, on the other hand, it is an inheritance of post-modern aesthetics.
In postmodernism, just like philosophy without traditional meaning, there is no aesthetics with traditional meaning. Therefore, postmodern aesthetics is "non-aesthetics" and "anti-aesthetics". Postmodernism, based on anti-essentialism and anti-foundationalism, fundamentally opposes the hegemonism of traditional aesthetics' ideological pursuit of beauty, aesthetic feeling and the essence of art. The meaning of beauty and art is uncertain, complex, pluralistic and fractured. Therefore, aesthetics is the interpretation of language and text, and it is a unique field of discourse analysis. Since then, postmodernism has also broken the boundary between reality and art, and dispelled the dual mode of originality and reproduction. In the pluralistic discourse of postmodern aesthetics, the discourse about the body and its desire has become one of the dominant discourses. This is because it is irregular and uncertain. But postmodern body aesthetics is different from modern body aesthetics. Modern body is endowed by reality, while postmodern body is constructed by discourse. Modern body is defined by existence, while postmodern body is defined by desire.
Looking at the history of aesthetics from the perspective of body, we find that traditional aesthetics ignores the meaning of body on the one hand, and contains the possibility of thinking about body on the other. This is that sensibility has always been regarded as the sensibility of the body, and it is a problem that has not been considered in the mind. Modernity provides many ideological resources for the body as existence, while postmodernism provides many ideological resources for the body as desire and body aesthetics.
Of course, it is also necessary for us to look at the reality of contemporary aesthetics from the perspective of body and think about its aesthetic world. As we all know, the phenomenon of beauty is becoming more and more common and important in the contemporary world. Natural beauty enters people's daily life more directly. People not only demand the satisfaction of living space, but also emphasize its ecological environment. No longer just privileged literati, ordinary people also yearn for nature, travel to mountains and seas, and experience the beauty of mountains and rivers personally. As far as social life itself is concerned, people are advocating an aesthetic culture to make all aspects of social life full of aesthetic interest. Of course, various art forms have gone out of the ivory tower through modern information technology, which is no longer the patent of a few people. At the same time, the rise of popular culture makes everyone not only passively appreciate art after work, but also actively create art, just like a singer and dancer.
A special sign of the beauty of the contemporary life world is the so-called aestheticization of life. Life is people's basic necessities of life, labor and communication, and it is utilitarian. And aesthetics is not utilitarian. Life certainly contains aesthetic factors, but only art is a pure aesthetic activity. So there is a certain distance between life and aesthetics. However, this historical alienation has become interrelated in modern society, namely aesthetic life and aesthetic life. This is not a change of life attitude and aesthetic attitude, but the generation of history, that is, life becomes beautiful and beauty becomes life.
Because of the characteristics of the phenomenon of beauty in contemporary life, talking about it has become a familiar oral fact in daily language, and thinking about its "aesthetics" has now become one of the most famous disciplines in philosophy. Compared with the concern of epistemology and ethics in traditional disciplines, perhaps only the question of "what is beauty" in aesthetic thinking is more attractive. On the one hand, aesthetics is metaphysical thinking, such as the pursuit of so-called beauty essence, aesthetic essence and artistic essence; On the other hand, it is metaphysical analysis, such as the description of some aesthetic phenomena and the induction of aesthetic experience. Generally speaking, people divide aesthetics into philosophical aesthetics, psychological aesthetics and sociological aesthetics. Philosophical aesthetics is a philosophical reflection on the basic problems of aesthetics, which puts the basic problems of aesthetics among the basic problems of philosophy. Just as psychological aesthetics studies aesthetic phenomena from the perspective of psychology, sociological aesthetics analyzes the sociological significance of aesthetic phenomena. Modern times have also produced many emerging aesthetic disciplines, such as ecological aesthetics, environmental aesthetics, landscape aesthetics and so on.
But what about body aesthetics? For China's contemporary aesthetics, it is still just a problem, not a theme.
3. Body aesthetics certainly advocates that the body becomes one of the themes of aesthetics. People have many classifications about the scope of beauty. Traditional aesthetics divides it into natural beauty, social beauty and artistic beauty, while modern aesthetics extends its tentacles to the daily life world and the field of science and technology, paying attention to the beauty of life and science and technology. But the body is not only related to them, but also their gathering place. We can say that physical beauty is the peak of natural beauty, the carrier of social beauty and the center of artistic beauty, especially plastic arts and performing arts. The beauty of daily life and science and technology are also directly and indirectly related to body aesthetics. Therefore, the construction of body aesthetics not only highlights the unique significance of body beauty, but also leads to some intersection and reconstruction in the field of aesthetics.
Based on this characteristic of body beauty, body aesthetics not only requires the body to be one of the aesthetic themes, but also reiterates that the body and its related aesthetic phenomena should be discussed from the essence of the body. This must first create the body itself. It can no longer be divided into pieces in different fields of beauty, but should be independent and displayed as a complete organic whole. Secondly, we should understand the body from the body itself. Therefore, we should not only explain the body from different angles such as nature, society and art, but also look at the body itself from the perspective of the body. Finally, based on this, we can watch the corresponding aesthetic expression of the body in nature, society and art.
The key problem here is how to express the body itself as itself. We have various ideas about the body and its aesthetic expression, which may be daily, theoretical and logical. As principles of thought, they require us to describe, understand and explain the body, just as they open the way for all kinds of thoughts. But it may be a maze that prevents us from thinking about the body itself. Therefore, what is needed here is unprincipled criticism, that is, abandoning all kinds of preconceptions and prejudices about the body as principles.
Let's think about the body itself. Any body that exists here is of course endowed by nature, born by parents and inherited by genes; But it is also shaped by culture and the result of society and history. Therefore, the body is a dual product of nature and culture, and it is a work of constant self-renewal.
The direct presentation of this work is flesh and blood, that is, flesh and blood. Explain that the body is the existence of living life. This often leads to people being understood as animals or having animality. In fact, this is just a specious judgment. There is no doubt that people and animals are similar, but there is an insurmountable gap between them, that is, the human body is irreplaceable by the animal body. In other words, the human body is the human body from the beginning, not the animal body, so people are not ordinary animals or just animals from the beginning. At the same time, the human body has feeling, consciousness and language, which fully marks the uniqueness of the human body. People feel and know their bodies and talk about their bodies. Therefore, the human body not only exists here in reality, but also appears in the field of feeling and consciousness. Because language and body are both natural and cultural, it has become the original place where nature and culture interact. We can see that the body is endowed by reality on the one hand and constructed by words on the other.