Feng Peng

To discern the indiscernibles is the main purpose of Danto’s philosophy of art. Influenced by analytical philosophy, Zen Buddhism, and symbolism, three ways of discernment can be identified in Danto’s text: the external discernment, the internal discernment, and the middle discernment, which, roughly speaking, mean a discernment by means of examining the object, self-reflection or enlightenment, and the relation between experience and expression, in Danto’s terms, the aboutness and embodiment, respectively. However, neither analytic philosophy and its external discernment nor Zen and its internal discernment can distinguish the indiscernible indeed, only symbolism and its middle discernment have the potential to do so. Unfortunately, Danto was so indulged in analytical philosophy and Zen that he could not see this promise from symbolism.

Abstract:The most important themes of Wang Lü's painting theory are the "true self" and the "true thing." One reason this topic has not received sufficient attention is that the original text was altered. This article aims to correct and reinterpret the text. After textual research and interpretation, Wang Lü's paintings and painting theory have been reevaluated. This article also responds to some difficult topics such as the relationship between "form" (ᔶ) and "meaning" (ᛣ) and between "following" (ᕲ) and "not following" (䘩) the rules in Chinese painting theory.

In appreciating paintings, what we experience is either a result of their medium or object, regardless of whether the object is an actual thing, a fictional thing, an internal emotion, an abstract idea, or something else. However, the conceptions of ‘betweenness’ in traditional Chinese aesthetics and ‘twofoldness’ in contemporary Western aesthetics tell us that our experience of paintings might not be simply from the object or the medium itself but rather from a relation between the two. This study considers the intercultural value of the above concepts while examining how our aesthetic pleasure might derive from awareness of the object, the medium, and the play of our mind and body.

Mei in Chinese is normally translated into English as "beauty" or "the beautiful." The nature of mei is not a central theme in Zhuangzi's philosophy; neither is it a concept of particular importance in traditional Chinese aesthetics. The core concepts of Chinese aesthetics, according to historians of Chinese aesthetics, are dao, qi, and xiang, but mei is not one of them.1 In Chinese aesthetic history, we see different points of emphasis in contrast to the prevailing concern with beauty in Western aesthetics. "The nature of beauty," as Crispin Sartwell points out, "is one of the most enduring and controversial themes in Western philosophy, and is—with the nature of art—one of the two fundamental issues in...

Under the influence of the linguistic turn in philosophy, contemporary Western philosophers typically limit their thinking on pluralism to the realm of language. This sort of pluralism can be named as pluralism of significance. I propose another version of pluralism in light of Confucianism, which extends the concerns from the realm of language to the realm of experience – I call it pluralism of presence. In this article, I first expound the aforementioned two versions of pluralism on the basis of Hans-Georg Moeller’s semiotic trichotomy. I then argue that the conflict between multiculturalism and cultural identity in today’s globalized world and the failure of pluralism of significance in resolving this conflict can be overcome by pluralism of presence. Finally, I show a possibility of reconciliation between pluralism of significance and pluralism of presence.

Chinese drama was developed in the thirteenth century, but its roots can be traced back to music, one of the six arts, the main subjects in the Confucian curriculum. Yue is not only a synthesis of instrumental music, song, poetry, and dance as aspects of the fine arts, but also a method to promote moral education. In Confucianism, moral implications trump all other considerations in the discussion and evaluation of yue. This is what makes Confucianism the radical moralism that dominated Chinese aesthetics before the Han dynasty. But Confucian moralism was attacked by Ji Kang 嵇康, a great scholar, musician, and Daoist philosopher who argued for the radical autonomism of music in his..