英文专业术语与关键词.doc

英文专业术语和关键词 （阅读文献） Aesthetics Aesthetics (from Greek aisthesis, perception by the senses) is a philosophical and critical study which attempts to define the concepts of beauty and taste. The idea itself is ancient--the first-recorded discussion of the nature of beauty is between Hippias and Socrates in Platos dialogue Hippias Major (4th century BCE)--but the term itself was first coined by the 18th-century German philosopher A.G. Baumgarten, and was developed by Kant in his Critique of Judgement (1790), in which he argues that aesthetic appreciation reconciles the dualism of theory and practice in human nature, thereby leaving the way open to identify beauty as a profoundly subjective quality, not necessarily inherent in the work of art. Ever since then, aesthetics has been regarded as one of the major branches of philosophy. Starting from the premise that there are a number of activities described as arts (literature, music, painting, theatre and so on), philosophers ask if there is a definition of art that enables us to see what they have in common. One cannot say that a work of art is a beautiful thing, for there are beautiful things in Nature which are not works of art. But can one say that a work of art is a beautiful artefact? No: it seems that some works of art are not beautiful, but ugly. Can art be characterized in terms of its point or function? Some art represents: novels and certain paintings represent actual or merely imaginary states of affairs. But music and abstract paintings do not seem to be representative. And newspapers represent the world, but are not works of art. Works of art may be said to express their creators feelings. But this is at best a necessary and not sufficient condition for an artefacts being a work of art: spoken and written words are often expressions of feelings but are not works of art. Perhaps art is distinguished by its lack of external point or function. Art, it may be said, is just for arts sake. What is the ontology