美学的三种终结方式及其当代复兴

Three Ways of the Disenfranchisement of Aesthetics and Its Rejuvenation

美学是一个多次被宣告终结又几度复兴的学科。从美学史上看,美学自诞生之日起就始终面临着学科合法化的危机,在不同历史阶段被哲学、艺术和"理论"宣告终结,随后又再度复兴。摇摆于终结与复兴之间,美学有时"向外转"以依助相关学科获得认同;有时"向内转"以守住自律自足的理论体系。从现代性视阈看,美学是现代性建构的产物,因而,对当代美学复兴来说,无论是强调政治的美学意义,还是重申美学的政治意涵,其核心的议题依然是:现代条件下人的自由如何可能?

Aesthetics has undergone several times of disenfranchisement or rejunevation. By tracing its history, aesthetics is found to have been in the danger of discipline legitimation since its birth, and has been announced in different periods to be disenfranchised by philosophy, art or 'theories' and then revived again. Swelling between disenfranchisement and rejuvenation, aesthetics has to turn sometimes outwards to other related disciplines for identifi cation and then inwards to insist on its independence of its theoetical system. From a perspective of modernity, aesthetics is constructed by modernity. Therefore, whether the aesthetic signifi cance of politics is stressed or the political connotation of aesthetics is restated, the key point for the rejuvenation of contemporary aesthetics is: how the possibility of human freedom can be achieved?