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Front. Philos. China 2012, 7(1): 90–111 DOI 10.3868/s030-001-012-0005-6

RESEARCH ARTICLE

GUO Zhaodi

Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits∗

Abstract Wisdom and knowledge are the basic spirits of Eastern and Western . The shortcoming of the aesthetics based on knowledge, i.e., the aesthetics of knowledge, lies in the fact that it clings to the opposing differences between Western- and Eastern-centered theories. These differences include essentialism and anti-essentialism; harmonious and non-harmonious relationships between person, self, and society; art or nature as the highest aesthetic realm; or as the aesthetic domain; dualism and Advaita; and so on. The aesthetics based on wisdom, namely aesthetics of wisdom, is valuable due to its adopting an impartial attitude toward Eastern and Western aesthetics, essentialism and anti-essentialism, philosophical horizon and psychological horizon, theory of harmony and theory of antagonism, beauty of art and beauty of nature, dualism and Advaita, up to aesthetics of knowledge and aesthetics of wisdom. Contrasted with this understanding of the aesthetics of knowledge, non-dualism and non-Advaita are the of the spirit of the aesthetics of wisdom.

Keywords Eastern aesthetics, Western aesthetics, aesthetics of wisdom, aesthetics of knowledge, academic spirit

The very height of aesthetics is, without doubt, the aesthetics of wisdom. Wisdom may include technique or knowledge, but the highest is still wisdom, as not all techniques or knowledge can reach the height of wisdom. This is because technique is based on specialty and is nothing more than a sort of “practice makes perfect,” having, as a rule, the shortcoming of knowing one thing well but lacking the line of reasoning that goes beyond it. Wisdom is superior in that it

∗ This paper is supported by the National Social Science Foundation (China) (grant No. 08BZW010).

Received October 7, 2010 GUO Zhaodi ( ) School of Chinese Literature and History, Tianshui Normal University, Tianshui 741001, China E-mail: [email protected]

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 91 captures both knowing everything as well as nothing. The reason is that technique, even knowledge, is mainly faced with and rejection. Comparatively, technique chooses less than it rejects, whereas knowledge, only a little better, is also in the same condition. Wisdom alone is more comprehensive, because it chooses nothing and so rejects nothing. If technique or knowledge were to be considered a sort of wisdom, they could be nothing but wisdom with flaws, i.e., flawed wisdom, whereas true wisdom should be flawless. Under such circumstances, the aesthetics of knowledge based on choice, hence knowing something but not anything on the one hand, and the aesthetics of wisdom based on non-choice, hence knowing everything as well as nothing on the , have their respective spiritual traits.

1

Seen from a theoretical perspective, the aesthetics of knowledge often clings to the differences between Western and Eastern aesthetics. It differentiates and makes judgments between Western-focused and Eastern-focused aesthetics, and hence is either obsessed with western aesthetics and denies the validity of Eastern aesthetics or vice versa. The aesthetics of wisdom, on the other side, does not focus on the contrary positions held by Western and Eastern aesthetics but holds that they are equal; it does not make any differentiations or value judgments, and hence accomplishes a blending and fusing of Western, Chinese, and Indian aesthetics. Aesthetics in the world should include both systems of Eastern and Western aesthetics. Western aesthetics mainly refers to European and Americthe aesthetics, while Eastern aesthetics mainly refers to Chinese and Indian aesthetics. Although Indian aesthetics belongs to the Indo-European family linguistically, which would seem to suggest that Indian aesthetics should belong to Western aesthetics, as a of fact, it still belongs entirely to Eastern aesthetics, whether it is the special influence of Indian aesthetics on Western aesthetics or the academic spirit of Indian aesthetics itself. We can see that the fundamental trait of the aesthetics of knowledge is to divide a thing into two by means of dualism thinking. This includes making dualistic analyses and judgments as to and falsity or right or wrong, taking a stand between seemingly contrary positions, even choosing one pole in favor of the other, and constructing certain knowledge pedigree between positive and negative while waiting for other knowledge to deny and surpass them. One main characteristic of Western aesthetics is that there are considerable, clear-cut differences between it and Eastern aesthetics and it maintains its superiority over Eastern aesthetics. The most striking thing is that under the influence from Western-focused theories, Western aesthetics is taken, more often than not, as the

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access 92 GUO Zhaodi theoretical horizon from which Western and Eastern aesthetics are opposed to each other or, worse still, Eastern aesthetics is degraded or ignored to varying degrees. Although there are many so-called aesthetic histories, they are in effect no more than histories of Western aesthetics, for example Gilbert and Kuhn’s History of Aesthetics or Bosanquet’s A History of Aesthetics. In the sphere of anthropology, there are even more extreme illustrations of this inclination to rigidly oppose Western and Eastern culture, even to the point of denying Eastern culture. For instance, Levy-Bruhl’s Primitive Mentality and Levi-Strauss’ The Savage have, without exception, denounced the Eastern thinking mode, full of intuitive color and holistic , as primitive or savage, whereas Western thinking, which stresses logic and analysis, is deemed modern or civilized. This has endowed them with apparent trait of aesthetics of knowledge. However, we should not call an Eastern-focused aesthetics the aesthetics of wisdom. In fact, some kinds of Eastern aesthetics also participate in the category of aesthetics of knowledge because they degrade or disvalue Western aesthetics. The only differences between the Eastern and Western aesthetics of knowledge are the objects of value and disvalue. Cases in point are ’s , and the views of Fang Dongmei. Fang Dongmei has a deeper understanding of Eastern and Western aesthetics, contending that “With respect to wisdom, Chinese ranks first, Indians second, and Jews third” (Fang 2009a, pp. 341–342). He did at last, however, adopt the attitude of “rebutting the pure dualistic method and, all the more, denying that ‘dualism’ is truth” (Dongfang 2009b, pp. 341–342); he rejected his earlier views that Western aesthetics is full of “evil duality,” “ignoring” or “distorting harmony.” This viewpoint fully confirms, ultimately, Eastern aesthetics due to some differences between Eastern and Western aesthetics, but degrades or even denies to a certain degree a Western aesthetics that has shown an inclination toward an Eastern-focus. As a matter of fact, this clinging to either Western-focused or Eastern-focused aesthetics is the main characteristic of the aesthetics of knowledge in that here one is held to be true while all other notions are refuted. This pursuit of the one right will lead, at most, to constant presentations of new notions which will successively arouse new rounds of defense, suspicion, or refutation from which many schools or theories, even various aesthetics of knowledge, might be formed but none of them can reach the stature of covering all. Knowledge is forever a unilateral idea and is developed by means of movement from one pole to another. The presentation of any sort of idea means, nevertheless, the simultaneous loss of the whole of the things originally planed to be expounded. No matter how cautiously and reasonably this sort of idea is put forward, it is deemed to be a particular view and, due to choosing one kind of idea on the premise of necessarily refuting others, gets enmeshed into one-sidedness or bias. Trying to get rid of this bias with every effort notwithstanding, people’s ideas can, at the

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 93 best, transform from one bias to another. This is the drawback of the aesthetics of knowledge. When people cling to one sort of idea, they will surely refute other ideas, and flaws are thus unavoidable. The requirements for true comprehensiveness without flaws are upholding no dualistic judgment and analysis and between two contrary positions never clinging to one idea in favor of another. This is the very characteristic of a wise person, as in the case of “The sage does not have constant mind” presented by Laozi, “The sage suffers no hindrance for not having constant mind” (Laozi 2007, p. 125) interpreted by Du Guangting, “No conceptual knowledge, no strangeness” (Seng 2010a, p. 106) quoted by Seng Zhao, and “Being free wherever one is and suffers no physical or spiritual hindrance” (Tanjing 1997, p. 330) given in Tanjing 坛经. In the true sense of the word, wisdom is, as a rule, a sort of multi-lateral or non-lateral idea that, flexibly moving from one pole to another, never clings to any idea nor refutes any other. In addition, it always holds that all the ideas are equal and hence makes no choice, reaching anywhere as it will. As was said by Seng Zhao, “No choice, know everything” (Seng 2010a, p. 158). François Jullien thoroughly understands the traits of Western philosophy in the form of knowledge and Eastern wisdom, saying, “Philosophical reflection is made in accordance with the mode of omission (true/false, being/non-being) before contrary items are deduced via dialectic methods. That’s how the history of philosophy is generated. Wisdom on the other hand is reflected according to the mode of ‘equal accepting’ (treating ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ equally) as the result of which no history is possible” (Jullien 2004, p. 91). On this ground, the aesthetics of wisdom is against clinging. For example, consider the following quotations: “Those who cling to something will finally lose it” (Laozi 2007, p. 75) by Laozi, “No , no necessity, no fixation, no privacy” (“Zihan” in The Analects) by Confucius, “I hate clinging to one thing for it is not the right way but deters more valuable things” (“Jinxin,” Part A, Mencius) by Mencius, and “Following the Buddhist commandments rigidly is no other than getting enmeshed in a web of one’s own spinning” (Tanjing 1997, p. 338) by Huineng. More than degrading any kind of aesthetic source, the aesthetics of wisdom interprets, compares, and even integrates Western and Eastern aesthetic wisdom in a relatively systematic fashion in the equal context of world aesthetics. It takes into consideration the differences between Western, Chinese, and Indian aesthetics, but also their respective strengths. At most, it will treat Western aesthetics as primary wisdom, Chinese aesthetics secondary wisdom, and Indian aesthetics advanced wisdom. This is because:

Western aesthetics and culture resembles the optimistic and enterprising yet rough and assertive style of man in his youth, Chinese aesthetics and culture

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the enterprising yet not obtrusive, profound yet not backward-looking style of man in his mid-age, and Indian aesthetics and culture the mature and profound but apt to be depressed and conservative style of man in his old-age. Of these three cultures and their aesthetic spirit, insofar as their external exploration is concerned, it’s apparent that Western culture and aesthetics talk; as to their internal profoundness, it’s nothing but Indian culture and its aesthetic spirit. Chinese culture and its aesthetic spirit lie in between. When it comes to the developing level of human wisdom itself, Western aesthetic wisdom is, plainly, the lowest, Chinese aesthetic wisdom relatively higher, and Indian aesthetic wisdom is the highest. (Guo 2008, p.15)

Be that as it may, these differentiations cannot be taken as an excuse for easily denying or degrading some aesthetics in that just like a mature man who should have the enterprising of youth, sedation of the middle-aged, and profoundness of the aged, it stands to reason that a proper aesthetic system should integrate Western, Chinese and Indian aesthetics as its main theoretical resources. Western aesthetics is characterized by the consciousness of self-liberation, the spirit of social criticism and the idea of natural coordination. By comparison, Chinese aesthetics is characterized by the self-surpassing spirit based on cultivating the moral self, harmonious yet characteristic interpersonal communicative and the idea of harmonious , while Indian aesthetics is characterized by the of self-liberation cherishing wisdom, the idea of social equality knowing no stagnation and such life wisdom as the consciousness of cosmic conjunction with infinite life. Particular attention should be given to these before the fusion as well as unity of Western, Chinese and Indian aesthetics can be achieved.

2

In terms of its foundation, the aesthetics of knowledge often clings to the dualistic opposition between essentialism and anti-essentialism, making value judgments and differentiating between the two, going against one in favor of another. The aesthetics of wisdom, on the other hand, holds that essentialism is equal to anti-essentialism, and by not clinging to the dualistic opposition between them, is able to accomplish the fusion and unity of the aesthetics of essentialism and anti-essentialism. There are two contrary positions: one holds that there is in beauty, so propositions as to what beauty is are its favorite; the other holds that there is no so-called essence in beauty, so they do not care what beauty is, nor do they want to obtain an established answer. We usually call the former the aesthetics of essentialism, characterized by believing that everything in the world has essence

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 95 and regularities and that human can successfully recognize and interpret them. The latter is often called the aesthetics of anti-essentialism, characterized by refusing to admit that there is a certain essence and regularity in the world, or that human beings can find and succeed in interpreting this essence and regularity, but holding that the so-called essence and regularity is nothing but a subjective delusion of human beings. Customarily, people take as the representative of the aesthetics of essentialism and Nietzsche and Wittgenstein as representatives of anti-essentialism. Judging across , it seems that anti-essentialist aesthetics is more rebellious and revolutionary, mainly due to the fact that during the long-term development of history, people seem to have been more accustomed to thinking in the context of the aesthetics of essentialism. As a matter of fact, both essentialism and anti-essentialism belong to the category of aesthetics of knowledge. Knowledge aims at probing into essence or truth which, once presented, must rely on arguing with others to maintain its authority, and on people’s understanding and acknowledgement to obtain continuity and development. The aesthetics of knowledge thus always clings to the dualistic opposition between essentialism and anti-essentialism and, accordingly, makes value judgments and differentiates between them, denying one in favor of the other. Both essentialism and anti-essentialism are flawed. Discussions pertinent to the essence of beauty in the history of aesthetics fundamentally circled around objective , subjective ontology, and subjective-objective ontology. They are apparently of clear-cut logical correlates, and always logically base themselves on establishing, denying, or reinterpreting an idea and, to a certain extent, showing the tendency, say, of increasing reduction of horizon from wide to narrow, from the beauty of nature and cosmos to that of art, and of increasing degradation from a metaphysical to psychological and intuitive level. It’s not that there was no in ancient and no objectivism in modern times, but that objectivism in ancient times and the Middle Ages was relatively prominent whereas in modern and contemporary times subjectivism and intersubjectivity take priority. An important characteristic of these three ideas or the ideas of these three stages of aesthetic essentialism is protesting against other ideas in favor of one. It is due to this sort of predicament where there can never be a final verdict but only the erratic changing of stances and ideas to which different aesthetics cling that people eventually recognize the necessity of anti-essentialism, which, nevertheless, fails to fundamentally break away from this perplexity, having merely changed its clinging from this to that, even to an opposite, and hence is still in the category of knowledge. The drawback of knowledge lies in the constant forced choice between opposite ideas and clinging to something. It is always flawed because it exclusively clings to one idea. If essentialism is a sort of clinging to an idea, so is anti-essentialism. Knowledge is characterized by exploring the so-called essence or truth in

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access 96 GUO Zhaodi steadiness and constancy, even forming, during the process of approving or disapproving essence or truth, various genealogies and their histories. Wisdom, on the other hand, refuses to differentiate between steadiness and unsteadiness, phenomenon and essence, fallacy and truth—that is to say, it is neither for nor against essence and truth, aiming only at sparking the light of man’s Dharmakaya (the ideal body of Buddha). Unlike knowledge, there is no need for wisdom to communicate or rely on people’s understanding and acknowledgement for its continuity and development. The key of wisdom rests in getting to the external nature of one, as that which is mentioned in Tanjing, namely “Your nature can only be internally seen” (Tanjing 1997, p. 340). Getting to the nature of one internally nevertheless is not replaceable, nor can it obtain efficiency by virtue of others’ teaching. The aesthetics of wisdom hence has never gotten enmeshed in or clung to any pole of the two opposing position, which allows it to find its equilibrium, neither clinging to nor abandoning any pole. Thanks to this idea of clinging to no extreme, the aesthetics of wisdom is able to wander at random between any pair of opposites, and hence owns, in the true sense of the word, the freedom and openness characteristic of wisdom. Confucianism and Taoism have always taken an intermediate stance toward things. People may generally take it for granted that taking an intermediate stance means being proper or finding the mean; nevertheless, the genuine intermediate stance is clinging to nothing, while being proper or finding the mean is still a kind of clinging. On this topic, consider for example the following sayings: Confucius’ “Can do nothing hence can do anything” (“Weizi” in The Analects); Mencius’ “Being an official when you can, stop when you should, persevere when you want, and speed up when you are able” (“Gongsun Chou,” Part A, Mencius); Zhuangzi’s “Those who know everything appear ignorant” (Guo 1961a, p. 51); Guo Xiang’s “The really far-reaching will never stop at one place” (Ibid., p. 72); Huineng’s “The wise man knows everything” (Tanjing 1997, p. 329). Maybe the interpretation by later monks of Zen is the most specific, as was said in Part A of Dunwu Rudao Yaomen Lun 顿悟入道要门论, “The intermediate way refers to the state of clinging to neither the middle nor the two poles.” This alleged idea of “the intermediate stance will not be without the two poles” is in effect the most penetrating elucidation of the intermediate stance. It should be seen that in the primordial stage, nothing is named. But once there is a name, it can refer to anything of the same species, and hence is of universal conceptual . This sort of of name is used for signifying things; however, it can never totally cover things and their eternal regularities but only cover in part the temporary traits of thing. Just as was stated in Daodejing, also Laozi, “The Dao that can be expressed is not the Constant/ Primal Dao, and the Name that can refer to concrete things is not the Constant/Primal Name. Having no name is at the beginning of the cosmos; being named means the start of the

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 97 life-world” (Laozi 2007, p. 1). also contends that “nothing is a single, non-relative , and that you cannot correctly identify anything or describe what it is like. If you call something big, it will also turn out to be small, and if you call something heavy, it will also turn out to be light, and so on for everything, on the grounds that nothing is single and you cannot say what it is or what it is like. In fact, everything which we doscribe as ‘being’ is actually in the process of being generated as a result of movement and change and mutual mixture. We are wrong to describe things in that way, because nothing ever is, but is continually being generated” ( 1987, p. 34). We can see that what is important is not the interpretation of any concept or name. What’s more, due to the limitations of language itself, even if the names and completely accord with the regularities of things, it is still very hard to make precise interpretations by means of language. Only when the two poles are transcended and the state of clinging to neither middle nor opposite extremes is reached, will wisdom appear. Compared with the aesthetics of knowledge that has been clinging to one sort of idea from the very beginning in such a way that it gets enmeshed in prejudice and only shifts from one bias to another, a genuine aesthetics of wisdom does not cling to any idea of essentialism or anti-essentialism, but treats them impartially, holding that they have their respective priorities: Aesthetics of essentialism is helpful for breaking various kinds of subjective assumptions such as that beauty is number, symmetry, harmony, brightness etc. whereas aesthetics of anti-essentialism holds that beauty is objective, subjective, even intersubjective, and the like. The equality between the two aesthetic schools will be more beneficial to the reaching of the stature of wisdom, say, being perfect, deterred by nothing and far-reaching. The Buddhist logic of Vajracchedika-sutra shown in “When the Buddha mentions true wisdom, he does not mean it, but just names it” (Jingang Jing 1997, p. 98) embodies, exactly, the characteristic of aesthetics of wisdom, that is, it denies neither essentialism nor anti-essentialism, and hence makes no differentiation or valuation, clinging to nothing and being impartial. This is what is said by people, namely beauty (essentialism) is not beauty (anti-essentialism) but just named beauty (the equality of essentialism and anti-essentialism). While the aesthetics of knowledge often focuses on the attributes of beauty and ugliness or superficial traits, the aesthetics of wisdom never clings to the characteristics on the surface but can see equality and identity through the seeming contrary polarities of beauty and ugliness. As was said by Laozi, “Beauty and evil, how can we differentiate them?” (Chen 2009, p.137) Guo Xiang has also said, “Albeit different people have different views of beauty, they share the idea of beauty, so the whole world has identical beauty” (Guo 1961b, p. 191). This recognition enables the aesthetics of wisdom to reach the stature of overstepping the boundary between beauty and ugliness before

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access 98 GUO Zhaodi reaching anywhere, a stature described by the same Guo Xiang in “No improperness would be when there were neither good nor evil, and people would forget properness when there were no improperness” (Ibid.), by the Upanishads in “There is no boundary between beauty and non-beauty” (Xu 1984, p. 996) and by the Bhagavad-Gita in “Where there is no hindrance, there is ever-flowing beauty and evil without happiness or sadness whatsoever” (Xu 2006, p. 18, p. 54). All these are the avatar of the common spirit of Eastern aesthetics. Because the aesthetics of wisdom is not bound by any idea that it can treat concepts like beauty and ugliness impartially; its flawless priority appears in comparison with the aesthetics of knowledge, which clings to the differentiation between beauty and ugliness or essentialism and anti-essentialism.

3

With regard to a theoretical horizon, the aesthetics of knowledge clings, all the time, to the opposition between philosophy and psychology, making between the two and abandoning one in favor of the other; the aesthetics of wisdom on the other hand refuses to cling to the binary opposite, making no judgment or choice between philosophy and psychology, so that it accomplishes the fusion and unity of philosophical aesthetics at metaphysical level and psychological aesthetics at physical level. The issue of horizon in the sphere of aesthetic studies is in effect a very common one the most fundamental trait of which is the necessary choice of a certain horizon and inevitable taking it apart into different or rigid contrarieties. The most influential contrary horizons in the history of aesthetics are philosophical and psychological horizons. If aesthetics since ancient Greece is said to have chosen a philosophical horizon, aesthetics after the appearance of romanticism in the nineteenth century, then, adopted a psychological one. As a matter of fact, whether we oppose philosophy to psychology or cling to any of them, it is not flawless. Aesthetics that has chosen a philosophical horizon often imitates Western aesthetics since ancient Greece, attempting to obtain the ultimate interpretation of various universal regularities as to aesthetics; the aesthetics that chooses a psychological horizon, on the other hand, upholds Western aesthetics since modern time, seeking the delicate description of the psychological phenomenon of aesthetics. In effect, neither of the choices is perfect or holds good for all time: The choice of metaphysical philosophical horizon may make for great achievements in investigations pertinent to nature and the grand art of universal flavor as the result of which many types of formal aesthetics and material aesthetics or artistic aesthetics that believe beautiful things are of general attributes and have regularities to be followed, due to their

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 99 overly pursuing and relying on universality nevertheless, they cannot but base themselves on metaphysical presumptions being under suspicion themselves. The choice of physical, psychological horizon, however, may achieve something with respect to the study of some feelings and individual interest pertaining to art, even forming certain psychological aesthetics, but due to the fact that even psychology itself is unable to present a succinct interpretation as to many core concepts in its sphere, and that its description as regards complicated psychological phenomena appears rather childish and ridiculous, it cannot but lead to the consequence that aesthetics gets trapped in its predicament, since one can hardly tell which is right between the aesthetic interest upheld by aesthetics and pure feeling itself, and since it is overly stuck on the individual between interest and feeling. Adorno has a deep understanding as to this: “The dilemma of aesthetics appears immanently in the fact that it can be constituted neither from above nor from below, neither from concepts nor from a conceptual ” (Adorno 1999, p. 343). This is the typical embodiment of the dualistic thinking mode in aesthetics since Aristotle, especially since Descartes; it is also the necessary result of the adoption of the thinking mode of dualism in the aesthetics of knowledge. This is because the aesthetics of these two horizons is always clinging to the hierarchical opposition between philosophy and psychology, the metaphysical and the physical, always favoring this one over that one. Nonetheless, so long as there is choice, aesthetics cannot but be that of knowledge. Knowledge might originate from a fixed perspective or horizon, striving, as a rule, to construct a certain genealogy of knowledge by dint of rigid conceptual interpretation, even to form the several histories in between suspicion, criticism, subversion and reconstruction among various genealogies of knowledge. Wisdom, on the other hand, never restricts itself to a certain perspective or horizon, neither does it rely on intermediate concepts to form various genealogies of knowledge with professional and disciplinary color; rather, it attains the goal of drastically understanding the wisdom of life via intuitive . This is because knowledge, at any rate, necessarily belongs to certain specialties and disciplines, whereas the case of wisdom is not so, nor can any specialty or discipline transcend others to be the top . Wisdom has transcended all the specialties and disciplines, belonging to as well as surpassing them, embracing as well as not clinging to them. To wisdom, any specialty or discipline is equal. As was stated by Seng Zhao, “The primal Dao does nothing and is impartial” (Seng 2010a, p. 218). The aesthetics of wisdom never clings to any fixed horizon, nor does it make any choice between two seemingly contrary horizons. It does not, as a rule, present subjective experiential judgment with regard to beauty, nor does it cling to an invariable theoretical horizon, nor does it make distinctions as to right and wrong between opposite horizons. In a certain

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access 100 GUO Zhaodi sense, the aesthetics of wisdom is even against knowledge in that it refuses clinging, notably opposition, never making value judgments between or clinging to two contrary poles. It’s in this way that the aesthetics of wisdom affirms or negates the negation as to right and wrong more than themselves. All the contrarieties thence will appear synthesized rather than opposite, which resembles the parlance of Laozi, “Nothing and Being generate each other, difficulty and ease amount to one another, length appear short and vice versa, good and evil promote each to each, voice and sound harmonize mutually, and rear forever follows front” (Laozi 2007, p. 4). This reminds people to cease the clinging to the two contrary polarities of Nothing and Being, difficulty and ease, length and shortness, good and evil, sound and voice, front and rear, among others, so as to reach the stature of balance. In effect, only in this way can the meaning of wuwei 无为 (doing nothing) be truly understood. When there is no distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, there is no necessity to repel wrong in favor of right, evil in favor of good, or vice versa. Guo Xiang has similar words, “After dispelling the difference between right and wrong, we may go on dispelling the act itself, and so on and so forth till there is nothing to dispel, then we may reach the stature of dispelling nothing but everything wherein right or wrong cease to be” (Guo 1961a, p. 79). The aesthetics of wisdom is forever engaged in organically fusing metaphysical concepts and philosophical horizons with physical and psychological horizons. The remarks in Zhouyi Xici Shangzhuan 周易系辞上传, say, “The metaphysical is called Dao, the physical is called Qi 器, the compartmentalizing of things and making relevant judgment is called alteration, and promoting and carrying out them is called accommodation” (Li 1994, pp. 611–612). This properly embodies this sort of wisdom. If metaphysical concepts and philosophical regularities are assorted to their ontological level, physical experiences and psychological regularities are then in the milieu of utility. The ontological is invisible while utility is visible. When the noumenon refers to that of the cosmos in the pregnant sense of the word, utility is the disguised form and manifestation of the noumenon of the cosmos. When noumenon is the conceptual grasping of the philosophical categories of cosmic noumenon and its regularities, utility is the experiential reflection in the psychological sphere of this conceptual grasping. The so-called noumenon and utility are not drastically different from each other, and Xiong Shili has even said, “Noumenon and utility are integrated but with difference. Be that as it may, the noumenon is the origin of utility, so the two are at last integrated” (Xiong 1994a, p. 3). The way of changing in Zhouyi, namely that the metaphysical Dao and physical Qi are “compartmentalized” as to which judgment is made, and are “promoted as well as carried out,” is the very embodiment of this sort of wisdom of difference between as well as integration of Dao and Qi,

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 101 noumenon and utility. It is, all the more, the manifestation of the academic spirit of the aesthetics of wisdom with regard to fusing the metaphysical concepts or philosophical horizons and physical experiences or psychological horizons.

4

As regards kernel propositions, the aesthetics of knowledge clings, all the time, to the contrariety with regard to the three kernel , say, the relation between man and self, man and society, and man and nature, and, in the same vein, makes value judgments and differentiates between man and self, society and nature, either clinging to man against self, society and nature or clinging to the latter against the former. Contrariwise, the case of aesthetics of wisdom is not so. It does the opposite and hence accomplishes the fusion and unity of the aesthetics of dualism and the aesthetics of harmonism. People are always treating the relations between man and self, society, and nature in an isolated or oppositional viewpoint, isolating self, society and nature, but also opposing man against self, society and nature. There is tension between man and self, in the internal self, and conflicts between mental and physical aspects or between humanity and animality, among others. Conflict exists between man and society and, worse still, this conflict often evolves into Sartre’s “hell is other people,” or class struggle. It thus seems that problems as to interpersonal relations cannot fundamentally be settled without fierce competition or extreme wars. People even believe that their value will not be realized unless they conquer nature, as Darwin contends, namely that all the creatures in nature accord with the developing regularities of it only by means of the surviving competition of law of the jungle or survival the fittest. This sort of cognition reflects, in the main, the fundamental viewpoints of the aesthetics of knowledge. With the deepening of people’s recognition as well as the progress of science, this sort of cognition has been seen as suspect because many people finally find that the so-called science on which they have been pinning hope is in fact problematic in that with respect to the relation between man and others, notably nature, science often treats others as competitive rivals and nature as the enemy to be conquered. A demand for the construction of a new harmonious relation is then presented, holding that what deserves particular attention is that we exist in such an era when scientific concepts of nature are experiencing profound change and, simultaneously, due to the explosion of population, the structure of human society is also profoundly changing. Consequently, a new relation is needed both between man and nature and between man and man. We no longer accept the ancient transcendental distinction between scientific value and ethical value (Prigogine 2005, p. 313). Only this sort of recognition can bear the fundamental view of aesthetics of Harmony Theory, the idea of which has, as

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access 102 GUO Zhaodi a matter of fact, long been discussed in the “benefiting people” of Confucianism, the “saving people” of Daoism, the “universal salvation” of Buddhism, the “heaven and earth coexist with me, and everything in the world is the same kind with me” (Guo 1961a, p. 79) of Zhuangzi, and the “I share the same root with things” by Seng Zhao (Seng 2010b, p. 37). The spiritual nature of the so-called aesthetics of Theory of Opposition is dualism, whereas that of the aesthetics of Harmony Theory is or Advaita. Advaita is the wisdom of the philosophy of Vedanta, but also that of Buddhism and, all the more, the common wisdom of Eastern aesthetics. Dualism clings, as a rule, to the two poles of opposition between right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, constant and inconstant, bitter and happy, empty and full, ego and non-ego, etc., taking hold, all the time, of one pole of the two. In the view of Advaita, nevertheless, the afore-mentioned oppositions are in fact one (united), even impartial, never clinging to any pole of the seemingly contrary ones, as was mentioned by Cheng Xuanying, “No ego nor others, not nothing nor being” (Guo 1961a, p. 79). Far-reaching wisdom is achieved just thanks to this impartiality. Bhagavadgita has similar discussions, saying that a person with such wisdom would look at everybody without differentiation, be they friends or foes, indifferent or neutral, hateful or beloved, good or evil. So is it the case of Huineng, who says, “clinging to neither right nor wrong, neither good nor evil” and “with regard to the good and evil in the human world, being neither for nor against it, nor clinging to it, so as to keep your heart empty” (Tanjing 1997, p. 330). It thus can be seen that the aesthetics of the Theory of Opposition based on dualism is in effect the aesthetics of knowledge. Knowledge originates from the principle of opposition, prone to this side or that, whereas wisdom clings to neither side, refuting the principle of opposition and, as a rule, having the characteristic of covering all and being impartial. The aesthetics of Harmony Theory based on Advaita, on the other hand, is characterized by the of aesthetics of wisdom due to its refuting of the principle of opposition, never making any choice between the two poles of the opposition. That which is mentioned, namely, “Conceiving the variations between heaven and earth properly and creating the life-world completely” in Zhouyi (Li 1994, pp. 557–558), and “things in the whole life-world coexist with each other harmoniously and compatibly” in Zhongyong (Zhu 1983, p. 37), to name a few. These have explicated the far-reaching spirit of the aesthetics of wisdom. The aesthetics of Harmony Theory embodies a concentrated reflection that only when man integrates himself into nature and the cosmos, conforming to the virtue of heaven and earth, the light with the sun and the moon, the order with the four seasons, can he reach the nature of man, nature, and the cosmos, and thus apprehend nature internally as well as the essence of the generative and creative cosmos in the true sense. Only in this way will the conflict and opposition

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 103 between man and self, man and society, and man and nature be dissolved and the harmonious aesthetic wisdom attained. Be that as it may, during the long course of the development of knowledge and aesthetics of knowledge, wisdom and aesthetics of wisdom has been regarded, in lieu of being superior to knowledge and aesthetics of knowledge, as inferior to them, even mistreated as mistaken and insipid thought. This enables knowledge and its philosophy, originally restricted to the level of “the love for wisdom,” to have a special position as superior to wisdom and the aesthetics of wisdom. As a matter of fact, knowledge and the aesthetics of knowledge have, at most, embodied a provincial recognition of the objective world by human beings and only wisdom and the aesthetics of wisdom as the termination or transcendence of knowledge are of lasting meaning. The true value of the aesthetics of wisdom lies in its paying attention to the oppositions between man and self, man and the society, and man and nature, but also in its grasping the harmonious relations between them as the basis of argumentation and, all the more, valuing the three kernel relations mentioned previously as a penetrating core proposition which, as the result, endows it with the academic spirit to organically unify the aesthetics of the Theory of Contrariety and the aesthetics of Harmony Theory.

5

With regard to the of study, the aesthetics of knowledge is forever clinging to the dualistic opposition between art and nature, always making value judgments between them, either laying particular stress on art over nature or vice versa. The aesthetics of wisdom, on the other hand, never clings to the opposition between art and nature, never makes judgments between them as the result of which the fusion and unity of natural aesthetics and artistic aesthetics is realized. From Aristotle onwards, traditional aesthetics has, in effect, been in favor of the idea that historical narration is mainly about particular events, while art and fictional narration can usually embody the universality of things. This idea eventually develops into the idea that artistic beauty is superior to natural beauty, as upheld by people like Hegel. According to Hegel, although natural beauty has the same content as artistic beauty, it is only in the form genuinely according with it that an idea can express the true whole of its content. It is also in virtue of this point that artistic beauty shows more apparent superiority to natural beauty that leads to the following conclusion: Only artistic beauty is the substance that conforms to the idea of beauty and, at least, Ideal (i.e., artistic) beauty is self-perfection, whereas natural beauty remains to be perfected (Hegel 1979, pp. 183–184). It is after the appearance of a positive aesthetics that favors natural beauty over artistic beauty that Hegel’s disparaging of natural beauty in favor of artistic beauty is confronted with attacks. On this Adorno has a profound

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access 104 GUO Zhaodi argument, “The reason for this is not that natural beauty was dialectically transcended, both negated and maintained on a higher plane, as Hegel’s theory had propounded, but, rather, that it was repressed. The concept of natural beauty rubs on a wound, and little is needed to prompt one to associate this wound with the violence that the artwork—a pure artifact—inflicts on nature. Wholly artifactual, the arework seems to be other: nature to the experience of a mediated objectified world, the artwork to nature as the mediated plenipotentiary of immediacy” (Adorno 1999, pp. 61−62). As a matter of fact, be it artistic beauty or natural beauty, to uphold it is not perfectly safe; if the former is upheld over the latter, although superiority in constructing gigantic artistic aesthetics is shown with respect to revealing various artistic types and their developing regularities, and great aestheticians like Hegel have also been brought up thereby, discussions pertinent to the general regularities of art virtually never conform to concrete works of art, the development of which is based, precisely, on the negation as well as innovation of the extant mode. As a result, that which can be grasped by the aesthetics that holds art as the top priority cannot but be provisional rules that will be eventually violated. Insofar as the essence is concerned, that sort of aesthetics has in fact constrained and so forced out of art by means of rules. As was mentioned by Welsch, the aesthetics constrained to art is not artistic aesthetics (Welsch 2006, p. 113). What’s worse, this sort of aesthetics is always revealing the blind expansion of man’s self-esteem and utilitarian purposes blinded by gain and ends up being negated due to environmental degradation and ecological damage. The fact is, from Kant, Schelling, Hegel to Heidegger and Adorno, this tradition has been inherited, i.e. defining aesthetics as artistic philosophy and blindly upholding art as superior to nature. Even now there are still people who consider this tradition as an unalterable principle. On the other hand, if we are apt to favor nature over art, it is true that aesthetics can be expanded to a wider horizon and a wider academic horizon can be shown thanks to the low profile of man’s subjective consciousness and emphasis on natural regularities. When he affirms that there is inseparable wholeness in all the things in nature and their developing process and, as every creature relies on the surrounding group of life, any trait of scenery is an integral part of its whole, man in effect understands no more art than nature. Under such circumstances, that which is reflected by the various natural aesthetics or ecological aesthetics is still not nature but an inflected expression of human thought. If this tendency is expanded into ordinary human life or the spheres of science, politics, or ethics, it is likely that man will head toward the opposite pole due to an overall aestheticization, converting from everything being beautiful to nothing being beautiful. Worse still, constant aesthetic might bring about aesthetic indifference. This tendency that attempts to expand the research realm of aesthetics might reach its goal due to

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 105 the widened horizon, perhaps even offer more opportunities for originality, but it nevertheless cannot alter, from an in-depth essence, the tradition that places emphasis on art. Although in Schiller, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Dewey and Marcuse, there were indications of expanding aesthetics to other spheres, they by no means intended to change the supremacy of art. On the contrary, they tolerated this sort of tradition, saying nothing about changing the traditional idea that nature is inferior to art. In effect, the upholding of artistic beauty or natural beauty belongs to the category of the aesthetics of knowledge, and it extremely exaggerates the opposition between man and nature, clinging to the dualistic opposition between nature and art, always making value judgments between them. It either favors art over nature or favors nature over art. When art is opted for, aesthetics represented by Hegel will be formed and people might be enmeshed into an artistic philosophy stressing the supremacy of art or categories of artistry; when nature is favored, it is often upheld as the top position which results in the view represented by affirmative aesthetics, considering all of nature beautiful. The difference between artistic beauty and natural beauty is, at bottom, necessary only for discussion of concrete works of art and natural : Insofar as general meaning is concerned, there is no absolute difference between artistic beauty and natural beauty, and beauty is everywhere. Wisdom is distinctive from knowledge specifically because the former does not cling to the differentiation and hence reaches far, as was stated by Guang Xiang, “It is overall when bearing on no right or wrong” (Guo 1961a, p. 75). In the view of the aesthetics of wisdom, artistic beauty is equal to natural beauty in being far-reaching, everlasting and full of life and energy, as is the case in Yueji 乐记, namely “The primal music is harmonious with heaven and earth, the primal ritual is in accordance with the rhythm of nature” (Beijing 1980, p. 61). Zong Baihua also holds that both nature and art are full of beauty in that nature can show a sort of “inconceivable virility” everywhere and art can “show natural spirit from the inner spirit of the artist and make the creation of art akin to that of nature.” He further points out that the fruit of both artistic and natural creations is the work of art: “The process of artistic creation is the spiritualization of materials and that of natural creation, materialization of spirit. Being different from beginning to the end, they share the same fruit—the most genuine, the most beautiful, and the most benevolent work of art with the harmony between soul and body, unity of spirit and material” (Zong 1981, p. 273). It is on the basis of the equality between man and nature, art qua artificial product and nature qua objective existence and the absence of value judgments or discriminations between things that aesthetics of wisdom affirms, to the full, the value of nature by means of interpreting the cognitive wisdom of self, society, and nature, but also that of art via the explication with respect to artist and works of art, appreciator and works of art,

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access 106 GUO Zhaodi artist and appreciator, which, in consequence, makes for the fusion and unity of the aesthetics of nature and the aesthetics of art. Only when we accept, it seems, the equality between works of art as artificial product and nature as objective existence, and support the nature-toward-art and art-toward-nature, can we realize the maximum enlargement of man’s aesthetic space thanks to the nature-toward-art and the full esteem for the life structure and virility of art thanks to the art-toward-nature perspective.

6

On recognizing method, the aesthetics of knowledge is forever clinging to the dualistic opposition between and object, always making negative or positive decisions between the two by favoring one part over the other, namely, subject over object, object over subject or the other way around. It clings to either dualism or Advaita. The aesthetics of wisdom, on the other hand, never clings to the dualistic opposition between object and subject, making no judgment, differentiation or choice between dualism and Advaita, so that it realizes, successfully, the fusion and unity of the aesthetics of dualism and the aesthetics of Advaita. The aesthetics of knowledge is forever clinging to the dualistic opposition between subject and object, always making negative or positive decisions between the two by favoring one part over the other, namely, subject over object, object existentialism over subject epistemology or the other way around. In fact, no matter which side one takes, it remains an overall problem; when one takes object existentialism, it means that one holds the view that beauty is an objective attribute which, in fact, has excluded the viewpoint that beauty is subjective perception. To be sure, beauty is not only harmony, proportion, measure, and number, it is plainly illusive or contained in the vividness of aura and richness of free from rules, having little to do with proportion. Sometimes it is apparently a sort of subjective impression, something that is perceived naturally as well as directly by people beyond calculation and measure. On the other hand, if one chooses subject epistemology, it holds that beauty is subjective perception, which denies, needless to say, the view that beauty is objectively existent. This attitude, nevertheless, overstresses the directness of aesthetic perception and aesthetic taste, intuition, or instinct but denies the participation of aesthetic thought. At bottom, as long as there is aesthetic action, aesthetic judgment will necessarily exist. Therefore, when embodied in analysis regarding beauty or ugliness, the situation in which thought participates in judgment becomes a must. This sort of aesthetics is characterized by dualism, always making judgments, differentiating between such seemingly opposing parties as subject and object. This traditional aesthetics manifests itself in the fact that people have been wild

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 107 about judgment, differentiation and choice with regard to subject and object from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle onwards, which even brings about the aesthetics of imitation and participation attaching importance to objectivity etc., aesthetics of expressionism and experimentalism of subjectivity, and the aesthetics of intersubjectivity and custom. Such a distinction between subjectivity and objectivity has virtually penetrated the whole history of Western aesthetics. This is the aesthetics of knowledge as it is. Knowledge differs from wisdom in that it stresses the interpretation of external objective regularities, whereas the latter focuses on perception of internal nature. While knowledge is forever seeking, in the relation between subject and object, for the path to objective regularity, i.e. truth and so forms its own history, wisdom never takes into account the difference between object and subject, that is to say, it neither takes object and its essential regularities as its object of study, nor concerns discussions as regards the psychological regularities of subject but only strives for perceiving internal nature. This nature is not a natural object, nor is it an absolute subject; rather, it is both the nature of self and that of things, as was stated in Buddhism, “Everything in the life-world is of the nature of Buddhism” (Lin 1999, p.770). Under such circumstances, the aesthetics of knowledge is always clinging to the difference and opposition between subject and object, it even treats the difference as an unbridgeable gap, the opposition incompatible, and so addressees itself, on this basis, to the interpretation of conceptual categories and construction of corresponding knowledge genealogy. The aesthetics of wisdom, on the other hand, does not cling to the difference and opposition between subject and object, nor to any pole of the opposition. What’s more, it holds that the gap between subject and object is not unbridgeable or incompatible; rather, subject can be materialized into object and vice versa, object can be materialized into subject, say, the inseparability between Zhuangzi dreaming of becoming a butterfly and the butterfly dreaming of becoming Zhuangzi has in fact proved this. According to the aesthetics of wisdom, subject and object are equal, even one and the same. Just as when Wang Yangming says, “Before you look at this flower, it is the same silent as your heart; when you look at it, its color becomes perspicuous to you and you thus know that it is not outside your heart” (Wang 1992, p.108). And it is only this sort of equality or integration that can make for the supreme stature of aesthetic appreciation and recognition, as was stated by Seng Zhao, “Things are not different from me and I am not different from things. Things and I are integrated intrinsically and belong to wuji” (Seng 2010c, p.218). The aesthetics of wisdom holds that subject and object are equal and integrated with each other in that it contends that things in the life-world, including subject and object, are inseparable, as is held by Cheng Hao, “The man of ren 仁 is en bloc the same as things” (Cheng and Cheng 2000, p. 66) or “In between heaven and earth, man is in common with things, so when

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access 108 GUO Zhaodi has heaven ever differentiate man and things?” (Ibid., p. 80). In addition, it also holds that a certain xinxing 心性 (inwardness) is characteristic of both man and the life-world so that the soul of man and the traits of things are one and the same in lieu of being different. Wang Yangming, for instance, even contends that subject and object and the whole life-world have good conscience, “The things in the life-world are originally the same as man and the most innate point from which their development starts is the very core of human soul” (Wang 1992, p. 106). From the viewpoint of Fang Dongmei, ancient Greek philosophy and medieval philosophy dichotomize, as a rule, the integral world into a metaphysical, spiritual sphere and a physical, material sphere. Descartes again divided the world into an internal, spiritual world and an external, objective world. Due to “forever dichotomizing the world into two parts,” there are “severe problems of association.” Chinese philosophy, unlike Western philosophy, has surpassed metaphysics, “aggregating many relative facts” rather than “separating by means of dichotomy,” “making for the osmosis of and eliminating the gap between the two layers” (Dongfang 2009c, pp. 53–54). This viewpoint is valuable because it reveals the difference between Western and Chinese aesthetic spirits and affirms, fully, the aesthetics of Advaita. But alas, to a certain extent, this view denies dualism because it clings to monism, as the result of which it too falls into the trap of the aesthetics of knowledge. The aesthetics of wisdom in the genuine sense of the word organically combines the statures of the theory of Advaita and the aesthetic of wisdom, holding that aesthetic wisdom in its highest stature forgets, as a rule, the life-world and the self, ignoring the cosmos externally and the self internally and hence eschewing any burden, reaching a harmonious integration with heaven and earth, and enjoying free creation. Aesthetic wisdom at a middle level fails to differentiate the life-world and self although it does recognize that. Having differentiated the life-world and self at the lowest level notwithstanding, it does not make much ado about the if/then between the two and, in addition, it neither clings to dualism, nor to Advaita. Between subject and object as such, aesthetic wisdom makes as well as fails to make judgment, differentiation and choice and the same holds for the opposition between Advaita and dualism. Section 27 (B), chapter 10, Volume 41 of Avatamsaka-sutra, says, “neither dichotomize nor be the other way around,” or in the words by Xiong Shili, namely “being dichotomized but not divided, being divided but not dichotomized” (Xiong 1994b, p. 28), is the very soul of the spirit of aesthetics of wisdom. The aesthetics of wisdom at its highest upholds, in the East, equality and treats dualism and Advaita as equal and, simultaneously, does not cling to any pole of dualism or Advaita. In the West, nevertheless, due to the prevalence of dualism and the denial of Advaita, aesthetics of wisdom or, in the terminology of François Jullien, a philosophy of wisdom (Jullien 2004, p. 75) fails to be

Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 07:06:01PM via free access Wisdom and Knowledge: The Outline of Eastern and Western Aesthetic Spirits 109 produced by reason of the lack of the Eastern thinking mode of Advaita. Cherishing wisdom as it were, the aesthetics of wisdom is against the wit that makes value judgments and differentiates on the basis of dualism, as has been mentioned in the Guodian chujian 楚简 version of Laozi: “abandon wit and speculation” (Chen 2009, p. 429) and in Zhuangzi, “give up form and knowledge” (Guo 1961c, p. 284) and, instead, treats ignorance as the basis of knowing-all as was stated by Seng Zhao: “since the sage keeps ignorant, he knows everything. The knowing of not knowing is called the knowing of all” (Seng 2010a, p. 68). Wang Yangming has a similar phrase: “You know everything when you know nothing, and this is the noumenon as it is” (Wang 1992, p. 109). The aesthetics of wisdom also takes knowledge and ignorance as equal, as was said by Seng Zhao, “To know is to be ignorant, to be ignorant to know” (Seng 2010a, p. 68). It is the concentrated reflection of the spirit of the aesthetics of wisdom that differentiates dualism from Advaita, the aesthetics of knowledge from the aesthetics of wisdom, Eastern aesthetics from Western aesthetics but also treats them impartially, i.e., showing the difference in the name of equality and vice versa, or reaching everywhere without any hindrance and making no choice at all. Opposing a traditional aesthetics of knowledge to the aesthetics of wisdom, we just mean to help people further understand the negative tendency and repercussions of denying and marginalizing the aesthetics of wisdom brought about by the aesthetics of knowledge since modern times. Rather than denying the value and significance of traditional, dualistic aesthetics of knowledge, we do not intend to just construct the aesthetic situation with the aesthetics of wisdom of Advaita. We just aim to intentionally differentiate dualism and Advaita, the aesthetics of knowledge and the aesthetics of wisdom so as to fundamentally eliminate the hegemony of dualism and the aesthetics of knowledge that abandon Advaita and the aesthetics of wisdom, before striving for a certain legitimate position and living room for the latter. Under such circumstances, the far-reaching and omnipresent spirit of the aesthetics of wisdom, the equality between dualism and Advaita, the aesthetics of knowledge and the aesthetics of wisdom would be revived and made widely known.

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