审美与生活:康德美学理论的现代应用

Aesthetics and Life: The Modern Application of Kant’s Aesthetic Theory

“什么是好生活”是西方哲学长久以来最为关切的问题之一。虽然每个人对于好生活的理解多有不同,但这并不意味着好生活是虚无的、相对的。通过对康德审美理论的考察,我们可以发现如果人们想要实现一种好生活,一种善与福相统一的生活,就应该对这一生活进行美学分析。好生活与美存在着紧密联系,要想真正理解好生活,我们必须首先理解什么是美。我们知道美既不是来源于主体依据自我自爱的根据而判断的,也不是依照某一确定性的知性概念构建起来的,而是一种无概念的、无利害的、具有必然普遍愉悦的主观合目的性的对象的东西。基于对美的分析,我们能够进一步认识到对于好生活概念与美的概念之间在理解方式上具有内在相通性,好生活也应该是一种带有普遍愉悦性的美的生活,并且是不依赖于任何私人目的的好生活,好生活与美都预设了共通感作为可能性的条件,这是使人相互理解、感知的基础,也是建立好生活的实践信念。

“what is a good life” is one of the most concerned issues in western philosophy for a long time. Although everyone has different understanding of a good life, it does not mean that a good life is nihilistic and relative. Through the investigation of Kant’s aesthetic theory, we can find that if people want to realize a good life, a life of the unity of goodness and happiness, they should make an aesthetic analysis of this life. There is a close relationship between good life and beauty. In order to truly understand good life,we must first understand what beauty is. Beauty is neither judged according to the principle of subject’s self-love, nor constructed according to a certain deterministic intellectual concept, but a kind of object with no concept, no interest and inevitable universal pleasure. Based on the analysis of beauty, we can further realize that there is internal connection between the concept of good life and the concept of beauty in the way of understanding. Good life should also be a beautiful life with universal pleasure, and a good life that does not depend on any private purpose. Both good life and beauty presuppose a common sense as the condition of possibility, which is the basis of mutual understanding and perception, it is also good practice to establish faith in life.