Chinese aesthetics is rooted in the unity of heaven and man, presenting a metaphysical spirit of aesthetics and art. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "excellent traditional Chinese culture is the cultural root of the Chinese nation" and "we must adhere to the position of Chinese culture, inherit the genes of Chinese culture, and demonstrate the aesthetic style of China". It can be said that the Chinese aesthetic style is filled with a metaphysical pursuit of transcending the realm of life and spirit. Our magazine invites two scholars to conduct in-depth analyses from two dimensions: the metaphysical tradition of Chinese aesthetics, traditional Chinese metaphysics, and aesthetic spirit, in order to explore the metaphysical wisdom of Chinese aesthetics and observe the development of contemporary aesthetics, with the aim of arousing more attention and reflection in the academic community. Over the past century, the great changes that the Chinese nation has experienced have been comprehensive. In terms of humanities alone, although we are still discussing Chinese traditions today, the way we talk about them has undergone a disruptive change. For example, traditional China does not have philosophy in the Western sense, nor does it have independent aesthetics and art studies. This means that studying Chinese philosophy, aesthetics, and art using Western paradigms is not an inherent form of Chinese history. Traditional Chinese disciplines such as literature and history, such as literature in the "Four Disciplines of Confucius" and history in the "Four Ministries" classification, are also vastly different from literature and history in the Western academic system. Like Sima Qian's use of "investigating the relationship between heaven and man, understanding the changes of ancient and modern times, and forming a family's opinion" to characterize the Records of the Grand Historian, the "heaven and man" is spatial, the "ancient and modern" is temporal, and the "family's opinion" is subjective. This framework makes it closer to philosophy. It can be considered that since modern times, the debate over knowledge and disciplinary systems between ancient and modern China and the West has changed the way Chinese people understand their own history. On the one hand, it provides a new perspective and modernity for historical research; On the other hand, it is inevitable that the pre intervention of Western or new learning will lead to a distance between related research and China's natural history. In this context, if modern scholars have to understand Chinese history based on Western paradigms while remaining faithful to its inherent characteristics, they must find a compromise solution to make it more suitable for Chinese history itself. In terms of aesthetics alone, traditional China does not have an aesthetic discipline, which naturally gives Chinese aesthetic research the nature of observing the past from the perspective of the present, and its limitations are self-evident. As Ye Lang said, in the history of Chinese aesthetics, the status of "beauty" is far less important than in Western aesthetics. Compared with "beauty", "Dao", "Qi", "Xiang", "Yi", "Wei", "Miao", "Shen" and so on constitute the true foundation of Chinese aesthetics. There are two ways to understand Mr. Ye's views: first, if we believe that "Dao", "Qi", "Xiang" and other concepts are closer to philosophy, then Chinese aesthetics and philosophy are inseparable and have unity; Secondly, if they are considered as aesthetic categories themselves, then the discipline of aesthetics has achieved philosophization and has a universal perspective on par with philosophy. In short, in China, a pan philosophical aesthetic view will inevitably surpass the sensory positioning of aesthetics given by the West and ultimately reach metaphysics as the first philosophy. Or rather, the metaphysical tradition constitutes the most localized tradition of Chinese aesthetics. How to understand the tradition of Chinese aesthetics in relation to general knowledge? According to Aristotle's positioning of metaphysics, it first refers to the universal knowledge that humans have formed about the world, or in other words, human knowledge can refer to the most universal things. From the history of Western aesthetics, beauty is often viewed as a limited type of knowledge and cannot possess such universality. For example, when German scholar Baumgarten referred to aesthetics as sensory learning, the scope of beauty must accept the external limitations of reason. When Kant equated aesthetic judgment with emotional judgment, there was a juxtaposition between intellect and reason. Similarly, when Hegel referred to aesthetics as the "philosophy of beautiful art," this concept clearly lost its inclusion of the non beautiful parts of art and the entire nature. That is to say, in the Western modern knowledge framework, beauty has various boundaries, and it cannot reach the universal understanding of the world by humans, nor can it represent the highest wisdom of humanity. In this context, even if someone talks about the universality of beauty, it is limited universality and cannot touch on people's overall understanding or worldview of the world. In contrast, traditional China's understanding of beauty is comprehensive. From the perspective of Chinese history, this tendency is first manifested in the overlap between its national and global perspectives. That is to say, in the eyes of the Chinese people, the world is the country, and the country is the world, and both are boundless. This makes people's understanding of China also a universal understanding of the world. Secondly, according to the views of modern Western philosophy and psychology since Kant, human perception of the external world is not limited to knowledge, but has a natural constructive nature. Or in other words, the process of seeing the world is the process of endowing it with perfect form and order. This was particularly evident in ancient China. For example, the Chinese people's understanding of the world is based on the self-centered concept of a round sky and a square place. Then, in order from near to far, they arrange the Five Sacred Mountains, Nine Provinces, Four Seas, and Eight Wilderness, until finally merging with the Heavenly Kingdom in a circular form. Compared to the real world, this orderly and layered space is clearly constructive, with the property of shaping according to the laws of beauty. Or in other words, the world is perceived and thought about in a beautiful way, forming the foundation for Chinese people's understanding of the world. Besides space, there is also time. Chinese people's understanding of the world is a spatiotemporal interaction, where "world" refers to intergenerational changes over time, and "boundary" refers to spatial boundaries. The same goes for the universe. The ancients said, 'The four directions up and down are called the universe, and the past and present are called the universe.' This itself means that the universe comes from the synthesis and interaction of 'space' and 'time'. The relationship between the two can be summarized into two modes: one is to use emptiness to regulate time as recorded in the Book of Documents, and the other is to use time to regulate emptiness as recorded in the Book of Rites. However, overall, both of them aestheticize the world or universe in which humans exist. As Zong Baihua said, "Spring, summer, autumn, winter, and winter are coordinated with the east, west, north, and south. This consciousness is reflected in the philosophical thoughts of the Qin and Han dynasties. The rhythm of time (December 24th of the year) leads the spatial orientation (east, west, north, south, etc.) to form our universe. Therefore, our spatial perception becomes rhythmic and musical with our time perception!" It can be considered that the aestheticization of space and time, reality and history constitutes a grand Chinese aesthetic. Here, aesthetics is not a branch of philosophy, but the foundation of philosophy. That is to say, Chinese people fundamentally think about the world in a beautiful way, and beauty constitutes the underlying thinking and cognitive foundation of their understanding of the world. In terms of the differences between China and the West, this kind of thinking is called "elephant thinking" by Wang Shuren. Meanwhile, Western sinologists also refer to it as "relational thinking" and "situational thinking". In fact, these qualitative analyses of Chinese thinking patterns have a continuous relationship. Among them, analogical thinking is fundamental, relational thinking manifests as the association between images, while situational thinking forms a holistic world context in the association of images, which together lead to an aesthetic worldview and cosmology. In addition to the universality of knowledge, the second provision of metaphysics in Chinese aesthetics and the origin of things is that it has originality for the real world. As Aristotle said in "Metaphysics," "It is evident that we must seek knowledge of the original cause, for only when we believe that we know the first cause of something, do we say that we know it." So, what is the origin or first cause of all things? In the West, Pythagoras' numbers, Plato's ideas, Aristotle's' first mover ', Christian God, Kant's' thing in itself', etc. are all endowed with this property. The same applies to traditional Chinese Daoism. But in terms of its inherent and reflected characteristics in all things, a fundamental view in the history of Chinese aesthetics should be that all things have life. Chinese aesthetics is a product of traditional agricultural civilization. Regarding the nature of this production, Quesnay of the French heavy agricultural school in the 18th century pointed out that neither handicrafts nor commerce can bring about the increase of wealth, because the former only processes natural materials, while the latter transfers products from one person to another. Only agriculture can bring additional wealth to humanity from the land. This viewpoint highlights an important characteristic of land, namely its fertility or vitality. From the perspective of Chinese history, the key to traditional China's emphasis on agriculture is its recognition of its fundamental position in social wealth creation, and correspondingly, its recognition of the life attributes of land. The "Shuowen Jiezi" interprets "earth" as "the place where all things are born," and "life" as "entering, where elephant grass and wood are unearthed. In the eyes of ancient people, soil is a living soil, and life starts from soil, with intertextuality between the two. Against this backdrop, although agricultural production cannot do without land, it also comes from the holistic cultivation of heaven, earth, and the four seasons. Therefore, the recognition of the life of land will ultimately be magnified into a global concept that all things have life. The Book of Changes states, "The great virtue of heaven and earth is life." This is precisely the essence of life that permeates all things. From this perspective, if traditional China has a metaphysics embedded in all things, then its foundation is the shared life of humans and all things. Compared to this, Chinese philosophy also includes preaching theory, vitality theory, and mind nature theory, but overall they should be regarded as variant forms of the concept of life. Laozi believed that the Tao cannot be taught, so he divided it into existence and non existence to preach. But he further believed that 'existence and non existence are interdependent', indicating that 'life' runs through it. The thinkers of the pre Qin and Han dynasties talked about the natural vitality, which refers to the life energy that is inherent in all things and filled with heaven and earth. As for the nature of the heart, in the context of modern dualism of mind and matter, people can consider it to strengthen human subjectivity independent of all things. However, in Chinese philosophy, the nature of the heart is more of a formal manifestation of the nature of natural life. As stated in the Doctrine of the Mean, 'If one can fully embody human nature, then one can fully embody the nature of things; if one can fully embody the nature of things, then one can praise the cultivation of heaven and earth.' It emphasizes that humans and things are first and foremost integrated, and the so-called 'praise the cultivation of heaven and earth' refers to allowing the seemingly external self to return to the endless flow of natural life. Life is a concept shared by Chinese philosophy and aesthetics. Some representative figures of modern Neo Confucianism have noticed the vital nature of Chinese philosophy. Similarly, in the field of Chinese aesthetics, it is common to discuss the life spirit of Chinese aesthetics and art. There are roughly two reasons for the overlap of philosophical and aesthetic discourse: firstly, there is no strict distinction between philosophy and aesthetics in traditional China. The two not only share a set of concepts, but also, in terms of the spiritual temperament manifested by Chinese philosophy, it is itself a broad aesthetic. Secondly, since modern times, Western philosophy has long been dominated by the dualism of mind and matter, which holds that humans are subjective and nature is objective; People are proactive, but naturally they are passive; People are active, but naturally they are silent. This disregard for natural life directly leads to the division between the two. In this context, China's concept of the unity of all things based on life has more aesthetic characteristics and embodies aesthetic ideals. At the same time, this kind of life is not limited to the interior of all things, but is always ready to generate phenomena. That is to say, it is not sensual, but it indicates sensuality and has meta aesthetic properties. Chinese Aesthetics and Fine Arts