The Emergence of the Aesthetic Subject in Zhuangzi

Co-sponsored with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

What is East Asian aesthetics? In the study of aesthetics, there has been considerable doubt about the relevance of academic discussions to the East Asian context. However, this study assumes that the aesthetic thinking in East and West is fundamentally interconnected and based on common human emotions. I will endeavor to find a prototype of the aesthetic subject—a figure that represents this emotionally driven perspective in the Zhuangzi. To facilitate this, I divide the subjects depicted in the Zhuangzi into three different types: wo (我), ou (耦), and wu (吾). By examining the unique characteristics of these subjects through their interactions with the things around them, we can better understand the aesthetic subject in the Zhuangzi as one that transcends cognitive limitations by redefining the relationships between subject and things. This approach not only enriches our understanding of East Asian aesthetics, but also emphasizes the universal nature of human emotional experience.