Book Description

Prologue. Aesthetics is the emotional perception of beauty introduced by Baumgarten (1714-1762) in Germany during the mid-18th century. Aesthetics, with the goal of systematically interpreting aesthetic values, traces its philosophical origins back to ancient Greece. To understand the perception of beauty in both the East and the West, we investigate the philosophical foundations of aesthetic judgment found in Greek aesthetics, Eastern Confucianism, Buddhism, Zen aesthetics, medieval aesthetics, Renaissance aesthetics, modern aesthetics, and contemporary aesthetics. \"Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979)\" by American cognitive scientist Douglas Richard Hofstadter (1945- ) serves as the inspiration for the creation of \"Toegye, Gyeomjae, Chusa (2023).\" Hofstadter investigates the neural mechanisms of cognition in the lives and works of Gödel, Escher, and Bach. Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) poses profound philosophical inquiries about formal logic, mathematical logic, and the foundations of mathematical systems. Dutch printmaker Moritz Escher (1898-1972) ventures beyond the boundaries of reality and imagination by blending mathematical principles and aesthetics within the realm of surrealism. German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) translates the counter-reformation and the upheaval that affected Northern Europe after the Thirty Years\' War (1618-1648) into dynamic, unconventional, and sensuous Baroque auditory art. \"Toegye, Gyeomjae, Chusa (2023)\" is an encounter of philosophy and aesthetics recorded from an artist\'s monograph perspective. Toegye Yi Hwang (1501-1570), a Confucian scholar of the Joseon Dynasty, firmly establishes the dualism of principle and vital forces based on the theory of principle superiority, which dualizes li-ki into enduring li and ephemeral qi. Gyeomjae Jeong Seon (1676-1759), a painter from the later period of the Joseon Dynasty, reinterprets the monism of principle and vital forces, viewing it as a single attribute or order of qi\'s action, and opens up a new horizon in the world of landscape painting. Chusa Kim Jeong-hui (1786-1856), a scholar from the later period of the Joseon Dynasty, creates an ideal new calligraphy style based on his research in Qing Dynasty classical studies, which harmonizes the monism of principle and vital forces of Yulgok and the dualism of principle and vital forces of Toegye, free from the constraints of theoretical Confucianism. Attempting individual reflections on the lives, scholarship, philosophy, and aesthetics of Toegye, Gyeomjae, and Chusa, it approaches the fusion of clarity and universality. Establishing a cosmology based on the dualism of principle and vital Forces, I seek to find the essence of aesthetics in the movement of qi, which is the change in the universe.