The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature: Subjective and Objective

In the debate field of Chinese contemporary aesthetics, the issue of subjectivity and objectivity of aesthetic appreciation of nature takes the debate between subjectivity and objectivity essentially represented by natural beauty as a paradigmatic discourse, in which Zhu Guangqian, Cai Yi and Li Zehou respectively take a subjective, objective position and a conciliation of both concerning to the aesthetic appreciation of nature. In the debate field of Western contemporary aesthetics, Allen Carlson is representative of scientific cognitivism, which claims that the aesthetic appreciation of nature owns objectivity; Malcolm Budd stands for an aesthetic liberalism, which emphasizes the subjectivity of the aesthetic appreciation of nature; Ned Hettinger holds an aesthetic protectionism, which views aesthetic appreciation of nature as a fusion of subjectivity and objectivity. In the course of Chinese and Western aesthetics, the debates between subjectivity and objectivity in the aesthetic appreciation of nature have revealed aesthetic positions, theoretical principles, theoretical motivations of involved aesthetic trends, and attempted to provide a academic foundation to the issue of subjectivity and objectivity of the aesthetic appreciation of nature, even that of beauty itself. Thus, based on it, they can offer further elaborations to this issue. Nonetheless, due to the insistence merely on a part of the theory, they failed to see the truthful issue of natural beauty, which however is an essential issue of this debate, as I argue. And I hold that a sort of unity of subjectivity and objectivity or a monism of the aesthetic appreciation of nature will be an inevitable alternative in the further development of natural beauty.