What Can Be Learned from the Arts About Aging?

This brief article examines some of the theoretical questions raised by aesthetics. Paintings have not only form and content, but are underpinned by philosophical principles that connect art to gerontology. We examine specific theoretical messages of a trend in art that have important implications for conceptualizing humans, including their interactions and surroundings. Three artists are used to illustrate this trend: Cezanne, Picasso, and Pollock. These and other artists of this century foster a heightened awareness of humanistic concerns. Caught between abstract reason and expert systems on the one hand, and the life worlds of older people on the other, gerontology finds itself in a place where art can speak to its deeper concerns in unique ways.     

The Worldwide Significance of Chinese Aesthetics in the Twenty-First Century

Through comparisons between traditional Chinese and Western aesthetics, this article tries to explain the worldwide significance of Chinese aesthetic tradition in the twenty-first century. In contrast to cognitive-rational spirit and the tendency to distinguish the subjectives and objectives of traditional Western aesthetics, traditional Chinese aesthetics shows a distinctive practical-emotional spirit and a tendency to harmoniously unite human beings with nature, and believes that beauty is, first and foremost, a free state or way (Dao) of human life; the most important thing for human beings is how to make their own lives and existence beautiful. Therefore, it puts forward some persuasive and valuable insights into beauty and art, thus playing an independent and constructive role in intercultural aesthetic dialogues of the twenty-first century. Translated from Journal of Xiaogan College, 2004:5     

对希波克拉底警句的深层解读--审美修养是从医之必需

试图透过医学与艺术的联系,深入到医学与美学关系的层面,进而发掘希波克拉底关于"医学的艺术乃是一切艺术之中最为卓越的艺术"这一论断的深刻内涵,指出希波克拉底警句蕴涵着:医学是美的职业,它具有崇高地位和独特的重要性;医学所追求的是健康而美好的人生,医学所创造的是健康之美、生命之美、至善之美、仁爱之美.既然医学是最为卓越的艺术,医务工作者就应该重视美学修养,并让医学审美意识牢牢植根于自己的医学实践之中.换句话说,审美修养是从医之必需.     

The Significance of Xuwu 虚无 (Nothingness) in Chinese Aesthetics

Just as nothingness is a fundamental concept in Daoist philosophy, it is also a fundamental concept in Chinese aesthetics, where it has multiple meanings: First, nothingness, as a reaction against unaesthetic psychical activity, is a primary precondition of aesthetic and artistic activity. Second, as the void or intangible “stuff” juxtaposed to “substance,” it is an indispensable compositional property of artworks as well as an essential condition for the manifestation of an artistic form. Finally, as a reaction against the unaesthetic world of daily life—the experiential world—nothingness is the fundamental basis and essential provision for establishing an artistic world.     

君子不忧不惧：君子人格与心理健康——自我控制与真实性的链式中介

基于儒学经典命题提出君子人格通过自我控制与真实性的链式中介对心理健康产生正向效应的假设, 运用多种方法进行验证(总样本量为1169)。结果表明, 君子人格正向预测同时测量的心理健康(研究1)和6个月后测量的自尊、核心自我评价、情感平衡, 负向预测心理症状(研究4); 君子人格正向预测自我控制特质(研究1)和自我控制决策(研究3和研究4), 受到情境模拟操纵的自我控制提升心理健康与真实性(研究2), 受到回忆启动操纵的真实性提升心理健康(研究3); 链式中介作用也得到了同时和跨时间点测量、统计控制和实验控制等多方法结果的支持。君子人格水平较高的人, 更易自我控制, 由此感到自己的行为与真实自我更加一致与贯通, 因此具有更积极的心理状态。     

Does authenticity always breed mental health? A cross-cultural comparison between the United States and China

Numerous studies on Western cultures have suggested a strong linkage between authenticity and mental health. However, little is known about whether such an association can be generalized to Eastern cultures. This study aimed to conduct a cross-cultural comparison on the association between three dimensions of authenticity (authentic living, self-alienation, and accepting external influence) and two factors of mental health (negative and positive) across Western and Eastern cultures. Measurement invariance tests were carried out and multigroup structural regression models developed on two college samples from the US (n = 392) and China (n = 281). Results suggested that the associations between authenticity and the negative factor of mental health were consistent across cultures, where both self-alienation and accepting external influence were positively associated with anxiety. However, the associations between authenticity and the positive factor of mental health were different in the US and Chinese samples. Specifically, both authentic living and accepting external influence were significantly associated with life satisfaction in the US sample but not in the Chinese sample. Findings stress that having a nondistorted perception of the true self is critically related to lower levels of anxiety across cultures and highlighted the need to identify culture-specific promotive factors for life satisfaction.     

John Dewey and the Role of Scientific Method in Aesthetic Experience

In this paper I examine a controversy ongoingwithin current Deweyan philosophy of educationscholarship regarding the proper role and scopeof science in Dewey's concept of inquiry. Theside I take is nuanced. It is one that issensitive to the importance that Dewey attachesto science as the best method of solvingproblems, while also sensitive to thosestatements in Dewey that counter a wholesalereductivism of inquiry to scientific method. Iutilize Dewey's statements regarding the placeaccorded to inquiry in aesthetic experiences ascharacteristic of his method, as bestconceived.     

文化区域与区域文化性格的识别

文化是物质和精神的统一体,因而文化区域的划分亦应是具象因素和非具象因素的统一;文化区域的边界有软硬之分,而区域文化性格却没有边界;文化区域是历史形成的,但在历史演进中往往被行政区划分割,而分割后的行政区随着历史积淀往往又形成新的文化区域;区域文化性格在文化区域中形成,但它与以地域为载体并具有外部特征的区域文化不同,它作为内化于心的文化要素,以人为载体可向其他文化区域四处流动。因此,随着社会的发展和日益开放,就出现了一个在层层嵌套、复合交叉、互渗融会、动态演变的文化区域系统中对不同的区域文化性格的识别问题。     

文化心理学的双重内涵

文化心理学具有双重内涵。一种内涵可以表达为“文化心理”学,关注研究对象的文化特征,以“文化心理”为主要研究内容;另一种内涵可以表达为文化“心理学”,强调研究者的文化负载,以“心理文化”为主要研究内容。当前文化心理学的研究未能有效整合“文化心理”与“心理文化”,这妨碍了对文化心理学的整体理解     

The quest for identity

This paper offers an analysis of the notion the quest for identity. The discussion emphasizes the importance of communal belonging, but rejects the view that one ought to belong to the community one was born to. It suggests that the quest for identity may lead individuals to follow many avenues: while some individuals might affirm their inherent affiliations and traditions, others may remain within their community of origin and strive to change its ways, or chose to leave their social group and opt for membership in a new one. This analysis suggests that choice, characteristic of the liberal conception of the person, and rootedness, characteristic of the communitarian conception of the person, both play an important role in the formation of personal identity.     

The Rothko Chapel Paintings and the ‘urgency of the transcendent experience’

Since the Romantic period, painters have no longer made use of traditional Christian iconography to express religious transcendence. Taking their cue from Schleiermacher’s Reden Über die Religion, painters have sought for new, personal ways to express religious transcendence. One example is Caspar David Friedrich’s Monk by the Sea. Rosenblum argues, in his Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition, that there is a parallel between Friedrich and the abstract expressionist Rothko with respect to the expression to religious transcendence. In this article I investigate how the experience of transcendence that Rothko’s paintings want to evoke is to be described. Is it an experience of the sublime in the Romantic tradition? Is it the evocation of the ultimate in accordance with Tillich’s broad concept of religion? Does it display affinity between Rothko and the first generation of abstract painters such as Kandinsky and Malevich? Or is it a transcendent experience that cannot be situated so easily within the options supplied? After determining Rothko’s understanding of transcendence, some issues will be brought up that could be fruitful for Christian theology.