Psychological aesthetics is a study of beauty from the perspective of aesthetic psychology. This is a fundamental break from traditional aesthetics.

The German classical philosopher Hegel was the epitome of traditional aesthetics. His aesthetics, which are part of his vast philosophical system, have little to do with psychology. He argues that beauty is a derivative of the "Absolute Idea"; In other words, "beauty is the sensual form of the Absolute Idea". Therefore, he studied beauty, starting with the "Absolute Idea". Regardless of whether he explained the "Absolute Idea" clearly, and whether later generations understood his "Absolute Concept", one thing is certain, what he established is a "top-down" aesthetics.

Since Hegel, the vast majority of aesthetics have inherited this "top-down" model. Even if they don't agree with the "absolute idea", they will first look for an abstract concept and then make it concrete. Almost all aesthetic texts, including university textbooks, always ask the question: "What is beauty?" The answer to this question is, of course, a definition, which can be long or short, but because of the painstaking generalization and patchwork of concepts, it seems to cover everything, and the result is worthless. To this day, I don't know how many of these "definitions of beauty" have appeared, but none of them can be remembered. What's more serious is that this "top-down" theoretical process has turned a large number of colorful beauties in the world into conceptual derivatives of the same source, which is actually seriously detached from the state of existence of beauty.

Think about it, is it possible to summarize all these beauties into the same definition and reveal the same concept if we want to summarize the terrifying night sea in the storm, the autumn waves of the ancient beauties, the handshake of a centenarian couple, the long howl of the lone wolf in the desert plain, the adjustment of the rhythm of the Song Dynasty, the deliberate pause of the opera woman's voice, the introduction of the physical objects of modern painters, the silent mourning of the gathering, and so on, all of which are summarized into the same definition and reveal the same concept? Is it necessary? Does it make sense?

If you have to generalize, then aesthetics have become unbeautiful from the beginning.

Of course, it can also be defined in a clever way: not ugly is beautiful. But the question remains: what is ugly? There is often only a little bit of the most delicate line between ugliness and beauty, how do you draw this line? There is a vast gray area of "neither ugly nor beautiful" in the world, and how to draw the boundary between this zone and beauty and ugliness? ……

It can be seen that the "top-down" aesthetic will hit the wall as soon as you take a step.

Academically, it is completely tolerable for a small number of philosophers to continue to study the connotation and extension of some ultimate propositions in the human world through metaphysical means, but this is not the aesthetic requirement of the general society. The general society is always and everywhere discovering beauty, accepting beauty, enjoying beauty, and creating beauty, and people hope to obtain theoretical guidance in this regard.

It is in this desire and this dilemma that people find that if the focus of the question is shifted from "what is beauty" to "why is it beautiful", the whole academic framework immediately comes to life.

The question of "why does it make people feel beautiful?" regards the recipient of beauty as the subject. With this, "beauty" is transformed into "beauty". The process of producing "beauty" is called "aesthetics", so this kind of aesthetics can also be called "aesthetics".

How a person produces a sense of beauty is a topic of psychology. As a result, aesthetics has shifted from the door of philosophy to the door of psychology. The difference is that in the courtyard of philosophy, aesthetics has a low status and does not carry much weight; And when he came to the door of psychology, he achieved a special status. Psychological aesthetics boils down to aesthetics, not psychology. Of course, this aesthetic is fundamentally different from traditional aesthetics.