Author: Gao Nan (Professor, Doctoral Supervisor, School of Liberal Arts, Liaoning University)
Summary: In the 40 years since the new era, Chinese literary theory has followed the path of theoretical construction with Chinese characteristics in the context of the era of social transformation and in the process of absorbing Western theoretical resources, and has formed different theoretical paradigms of categories, propositions, methods, horizons, interpretation fields, and problem domains. This is a major theoretical achievement. This kind of theoretical paradigm can be divided into epistemological paradigm, practical paradigm, cultural paradigm, and so on. Paradigms are the provisions of the standardization of theoretical research, and the paradigm rules are formed in the interaction of theoretical research, which have their own basic categories and research methods. The interaction and interaction composition of the above three paradigms have their own essentials, and they represent a comprehensive and comprehensive reflection of the whole picture of Chinese literary theory over the past few decades.
Continuity is the historical attribute of theoretical disciplines, and the historical trajectory of continuation depicts the construction process of integrating various relevant social practical forces and rational forces of the discipline; while the paradigm is the iconic notch of the continuity of theoretical disciplines on the historical axis. What the iconic notch marks is the systematization of the development of the discipline - only a systematic theoretical discipline has the theoretical value of the discipline. The American philosopher Kuhn, who proposed the theoretical symbol of the paradigm, specifically pointed out that the acquisition of the theoretical paradigm is an important sign of the maturity of the discipline. The historical development of Chinese literary theory in the past 40 years since the new period has entered a stage where paradigm sorting and thinking can be carried out through the run-in, collision, intersection and integration of various social and historical forces, and the development trend of paradigm research can be carried out. Through the analysis and interpretation of the characteristics of the paradigm of Chinese literary theory, the process of paradigm formation, and the interaction and influence of paradigms, the mechanism of interaction between history and reality, internal and external interactions that can be generated is revealed, which is a mechanism that fully reflects the overall characteristics of the theory and is a way to study the characteristics of Chinese literary theory. Paradigms have been found in different fields of study of Chinese literary theory to varying degrees, including epistemological fields, practical fields, cultural theory fields, linguistic fields, aesthetic theory fields, etc.; moreover, in the more subtle constitutive fields, more paradigms can be divided into different layers, such as narrative paradigms, production paradigms, functional paradigms, etc. Starting from the representative significance, this paper studies the epistemological paradigm, the practical paradigm and the cultural paradigm in order to seek the effect of sampling and exploring the mystery.
First, the epistemological paradigm
Paradigms are also known as norms, paradigms, paradigms, structures, patterns. This is an explanation and generalization of the structural science of theoretical composition and constructivity. In The Structure of the Scientific Revolution, Kuhn interprets the paradigm as the overall prescriptiveness of the theory with that paradigm. This overall prescriptiveness is theoretical, including theoretical beliefs, theoretical achievements, theoretical development directions, paths, values, standards, as well as conceptual frameworks and methodological beliefs. Kuhn said: "A careful historical study of a certain profession in a certain period can find a set of recurring and standard-like examples that embody the application of various theories in their concepts, concepts, and instruments." These examples are the paradigm of the community, which exists in textbooks, classroom lectures, and laboratory experiments. Study them and practice them, and the corresponding members of the community will learn their profession." (1) This is a community-style prescriptiveness, and members who join a certain paradigm community accept the overall provisions of the paradigm and share the resources of the theoretical community in the overall regulations, providing their own theoretical results. Kuhn summarized two characteristics of the paradigm: "an unprecedented attraction of a firm group of adherents," which alienated them from other modes of competition in scientific activity; and second, they must be open-ended, leaving many problems for new practitioners who are constantly organized by such models. These two characteristics, in short, the former are already cohesive group achievements, and the latter are group scientific research based on this group achievement. In this regard, Kuhn concluded: "Any achievement that shares these two characteristics has since been called a 'paradigm'". (2) It is in this sense that this paper introduces the key word paradigm, that is, it is a theoretical model condensed in historical continuity, which is a research model that is applied and followed by the group, and it is used in a pattern group in further research- for this group, Kuhn calls the scientific community. He introduced the concept of paradigm with the concept of the scientific community interactively into his research. Ian Harkin emphasized this in particular in the fourth edition of Kuhn's Introduction to the Structure of the Scientific Revolution, "In his 1974 essay Rethinking Paradigms, Kuhn again emphasized that paradigms in Structure were introduced at the same time as the term 'scientific community.'" These scientific achievements serve as examples of what to do, what questions to ask, what to apply successfully, and 'paradigm observations and experiments'. (3) Paradigms and their community prescriptivity are a subtle process of historical continuation, in Habermas's words, a process in which the direction is increasingly clear, and the understanding of different objects is the process of participants' "completed actions" towards objects. (4) For the differences and prescriptiveness of different theoretical paradigms, some scholars in the field of Chinese literary theory continue to form theoretical concerns, and profoundly turn them into the overall difference and innovative research of theoretical construction. In 2010, Ma Dakang of Wenzhou University revealed the significance of the theoretical paradigm on the breakthrough of the previous "literary creation" theory in the research on the "literary production" theory that emerged at that time, and summarized the two different research totalities of the theory of creation and production, believing that they represented two contradictory literary concepts and theoretical paradigms. (5) Ma Dakang's transformational study of the paradigm theory from the West to the Middle has a certain representative representation of the construction of the paradigm theory of Chinese literary theory.
The epistemological paradigm is the most familiar and widely agreed literary theory paradigm in the Field of Chinese Literary Theory. However, since the established model of this paradigm has been constructed in a present way in the familiar set of theories, it is basically in a state of potential presence, which has become a problem in itself, except for the irrelevant debates from epistemology to reflection theory, which have jumped into the field of view of the research community as a theoretical question. Because many literary theoretical constructions since the new period are closely related to this paradigm, they all come from its normative nature, and its potential presence at any time is like an old house that is habitual, and it is taken for granted, so that it cannot be seen to be cleaned up and renovated.
The epistemological paradigm inherits the Epistemological paradigm of Soviet literary theory, and for a period of time in the new period, it was transformed and transformed by scholars such as Cai Yi and Yiqun, and systematically transformed into textbook styles, entering the teaching of literary theory in various colleges and universities, and thus triggering the enthusiasm for the compilation and publication of textbooks for literary theory colleges and universities in the late 1980s and 1990s. Hundreds of textbooks were introduced in a very short period of time, and the epistemological paradigm was thus stereotyped as an almost unified literary theory paradigm. This paradigm has been vigorously extended to the "Literary Theory Course" edited by Tong Qingbing of Beijing Normal University and revised four times by Tong Qingbing, a textbook for national colleges and universities in the 21st century.
The core of the epistemological paradigm of Chinese literary theory is the theory of literary function, and the constitutive provisions of the epistemological paradigm revolve around this core. The theoretical point of functionalism is cognition—the nature and laws of cognitive life and the world. The epistemological paradigm sets the core cognitive function as the object of its study, the first function of literature. The premise of cognitive function is that the literary creator should become the revealer and guardian of the truth, and the way to this should be to adhere to the epistemology of materialism and therefore go deep into life, extract true knowledge from the source of life, and the way to express this true knowledge in literature is the method of combining realism with romanticism. Other paradigm points, literary creation theory, literary methodology, literary composition theory, literary criticism, etc., all focus on the function of cognition and take their place. From this, a set of exclusive categories, propositions, interpretations and arguments is formed.
The validity of the epistemological paradigm's insistence on the function of literary cognition lies in the rationality of the original relationship between cognition and survival, that is, it is impossible to live in this world without knowing the world around it. For this reasoning, Aristotle advocated wisdom, arguing that "wisdom is the science of certain origins and causes." (6) Man falls in the origin and cause of survival, and cognition thus becomes the landing of survival. This is the unquestionable rationality of the function of literary knowledge. The American philosopher William Pepperrell Montague believed that the path to cognition is pluralistic, and he proposed six logical methods, but either method must ultimately be implemented to reality, that is, it must be a cognition of what the cognitive object is actually. (7) That is to say, epistemology ultimately solves the question of what the object is, including what the basis for what the object is, what the object is and how it is obtained from such a basis, why such a basis is the basis for what the object is, and why the object obtained from such a basis is indeed what the object is. The conundrum of the epistemological paradigm, therefore, is how to obtain the origin and cause of existence, and how to prove it. Furthermore, since the way to obtain this book and cause is not certain, and its confirmation is difficult to confirm--this is a difficult problem that has been constantly entangled in epistemology since eternity and the answer is unclear, that is, hegel's "universal spirit" of human existence that expresses the "inner nature" of the history of philosophy and needs to be constantly explored ;(8) Then, from the perspective of literary theory, how can the cognitive function of such a suspenseful conclusion be regarded as the core function of literature? The entangles and suspense that arise from this constantly push the epistemological paradigm into the vortex of debate; moreover, such controversy arises mainly from the members of the community of this paradigm, who feel the theoretical oppression in the face of changing literary objects and literary concepts, and thus constantly produce the impulse to perfect it. At the same time, this also shows that any theoretical paradigm can only be a theoretical follow-up rather than a simple theoretical setting for the research objects it constantly generates and changes.
The adjustment strategy of the epistemological paradigm is to transform into reflectionism, agency, and aesthetic ideology. Reflectionism transforms the previous epistemological view of truth into a comprehensive perceptualism that does not exclude truth, including feelings, perceptions, cognition, and practice. (9) The theory of reflection has released the initiative of the subject of literary creation bound to objective truths that are difficult to confirm. The transformative discussion of epistemological to reflective theory took place in the late 1980s, which retains the imprint of the era of the so-called "inward turn" of the time. The transformation of reflection theory into ideological theory, especially aesthetic ideology theory, is a further result of the transfer of literary theory into the study of literary ontology. The insistence of ideology on epistemology is determined on the basis of the philosophy of dialectical materialism, and the rationality of ideological theory comes from the truth of epistemology. However, ideology expanded a larger space for social psychology and social consciousness activities for itself on the basis of cognition, and this unbridled effort was obviously literary objectivity—at that time, that is, in the 1990s, It was the era when Chinese literature entered an unprecedented "feast of imagination", (10) Therefore, the transformation of epistemology into ideology was an effective theoretical response. The dynamic reason for the aesthetic concentration of ideology theory to aesthetic ideology is the insistence of the epistemological paradigm to further shift to literary ontology. This insistence has won a greater space for theoretical exploration for the epistemological paradigm to construct literary objects. As Qian Chinese said: "Aesthetic ideology is not a simple aesthetic, nor is it a simple ideology, but a natural historical generation of aesthetic consciousness." It treats literature as a relatively independent form, and discusses the essential characteristics of this independent form itself." (11)
Because the epistemological paradigm has been heard and seen by many scholars in the field of Chinese literary theory for many years, it is mainly a theoretical interpretation of historical descriptiveness in the above concentration. As for the theoretical composition characteristics of this paradigm, here is just the following overview:
(1) The premise of the epistemological paradigm is the dual establishment of the subject of knowledge and the object of knowledge. In such a setting, the subject of knowledge becomes the observer of the object of knowledge. In the evolution of the epistemological paradigm from epistemological reflection to dynamic reflection, the identity of the observer of the cognitive subject is flexibly transformed into the identity of the constructed interpreter, which enables the psychological activities of the subject, which were previously alleged to be interfering factors, such as emotions and experiences, to acquire epistemological legitimacy. However, the subject's observation identity of the object of binary setting has not changed substantially.
(2) Epistemology is the theory of knowledge that is understood first. The subject's present knowledge of the object is based on the object understanding, and the basis of understanding is not the basis obtained from the object in the present understanding, but the prior basis for concretization in the understanding of the object, which is the experience, knowledge and thought theory accumulated by life, study and research before the concrete understanding. The validity of the epistemological paradigm is inseparable from the depth and breadth of the antecedent subject. This kind of "rational formula", which is similar to Plato's prescience and is constantly concretized in terms of its pre-existent prescriptiveness, is a judgment that precedes concretization, and the ability and condition of application of this pre-existent is also called rationality.
(3) The epistemological paradigm is the same cognitive process, and the dual application in the study of object judgment and comprehension, that is, object analysis and judgment and theoretical research and interpretation of objects, all follow epistemology. For the dominance of China's epistemological process, the epistemology of materialism, superstructure theory, ideology theory, creation methodology, literary functional theory, and literary criticism criticism all adhere to the empirical empirical standards and historical empirical standards of epistemology. And it is constantly incorporated into the framework of logical empirical evidence. The epistemological paradigm often falls into self-contradiction, that is, the contradiction between its pre-epistemology and object positivism, and its obsession with the theoretical interest in pre-existing knowledge and the cognitive interest that pays attention to the observation of reality often forms the opposition, entanglement or confusion between the object and the object when it is constructed into theoretical research.
(4) The epistemological paradigm supports its paradigmized theoretical field by a set of relatively stable propositional research methods formed in historical continuity, in which categories and propositions are continuously imparted through uniformly formulated and distributed textbooks, and thus become the pre-existing knowledge of the epistemological paradigm.
Second, the paradigm of practice theory
For a long time, the practical paradigm of Chinese literary theory did not form a paradigm of theoretical significance, but some theoretical views attached to the epistemological paradigm. Such as the theory of "three directions", the theory of "going deep into life", the theory of "double hundred policies", and the theory of "literary morality". The construction of the theoretical meaning of the pragmatological paradigm should be traced back to the second national aesthetic debate in the 1980s. It was a theoretical in the true sense, even though there was still a lingering sound of political determinism in the main theme of the carnival. The four major aesthetic schools that sprung up in the discussion, the aesthetics of the practical point of view, flourished under the leadership of the representative figure Li Zehou. However, Li Zehou's aesthetics of practical views did not play a greater role in the theoretical paradigm of literary theory and practice, because in addition to the focus of Li Zehou's discussion at that time was on philosophy, I am afraid that there is another very important reason, that is, the influence of political determinism of idealism and materialism, so that his theory of practice slipped from the level of historical activity of practice to the level of practical concepts, and practice became the objective prescribed level of extracting people's subjective initiative, at this level, practice was abstracted into the historical inevitability of regularity and purposefulness. Beauty becomes a free form of historical inevitability. Regarding the practical abstraction tendency of denying people's conscious activities for the sake of objectivity, Zhu Guangqian once criticized this as "to dismantle the unity of the object and the subject and isolate the object, believing that the object determines everything", calling it "the aesthetic of 'seeing things without seeing people'". (12) The practical proposition of eliminating the agency of human consciousness of reality is naturally difficult to accept for the literary theory paradigm that has begun to shift from mechanical epistemology to dynamic reflection theory at that time.
The conscious constructor of the paradigm of pragmatism theory is Jiang Kongyang of Fudan University, who takes the epistemological paradigm of literary theory, but because the epistemological paradigm emphasizes the practical consciousness of grasping the relationship between practice as a whole, thus erecting the theoretical framework of the pragmatism paradigm on the four main points of organic wholeness, creation generativeness, relationship interaction and purpose process. In this theoretical framework, the practical unfolding of human social relations is emphasized as four main points, namely, "establishing a relationship with reality through sensory organs", "aesthetic relations are free", "aesthetic relations are people as a whole to relate to reality", and "aesthetic relations are also an emotional relationship between people and reality". (13) Proceeding from these four main points, Jiang Kongyang confronts literary objects in a relational and realistic manner, not simply as an understanding or reflection of life (including dynamic reflection and ideological reflection), but as a practical activity unfolding in various social relations; moreover, he constantly affirms the cognitive activities and conscious activities in literary practice, so that epistemology becomes an epistemology seen in practice, or rather, an epistemology of practice.
What should be emphasized here is that the organic integrity, historical continuity and openness of reality research methods adhered to in Jiang Kongyang's theoretical research on practical thesis provide a methodological basis for the later practical paradigm. Jiang Kongyang organically understands and interprets objects as a whole, with three characteristics, namely, first, placing literary objects in a larger social practice relationship body, analyzing and thinking about the organic correlation between literary objects and social practice relations, and paying attention to grasping the dynamic situation of the interaction of this correlation. He said: "What man obtains through labor is not only material satisfaction, but also spiritual enjoyment, and what labor creates is not only a material product, but also the realization of the essential power of such people as the thoughts and feelings of the laborer, wisdom and wisdom." (14) This passage classifies the essential power of man, which is seen in art, into the activity of the organic unity of man's material and spiritual, and in turn, this activity is subsumed into man's social labor, and in the practice of this composition and subordination, its integral relationship is revealed. This seemingly easy interpretation in the current theoretical circles clearly defines the methodological paradigm of the organic wholeness of the practice theory. Second, organically and holistically consider the creative process of literary creative subjects. The subject of literary creation, when he enters the creative process, is neither an abstract cognitive tool nor a bearer or demonstrator of a certain ideology, he enters artistic creation as an organic life whole, he is not only a participant in the organic wholeness of reason, emotion, and will, moreover, his creation can only be produced in the organic whole. Jiang Kongyang said: "Anything can be understood from both conceptual and image-based. Concepts are essential properties, abstract, and images are physical, concrete... The artist is able to create beauty because he creates images", (15) This means that the creative subjectivity of art is the organic integral activity of creating images, and in such creative activities, the organic wholeness of the creative subject is realized. This is what is expelled from certainty and universality as the uncertainty of individuality in the epistemological paradigm. Third, the literary works created by the creative subject are works that realize the integrity of the creative subject, and they are also works that are meaningful in the wholeness. This is the criterion of meaning and value that balances the integrity of the work, and it is also the comprehensive criterion of practical thesis criticism. In this practice wholeness, he said, "man not only creates new products that are not originally present in the objective world, but in these new products he appreciates his essential power as a 'race' man, and appreciates the realization of his ideals, wishes, intelligence, wisdom, skills, etc. in the object." (16) This comprehensive scale of value and criticism is the standard and criterion that can only be proposed and grasped in the organic wholeness of practice. As for the method of historical continuity and openness of reality adhered to by Jiang Kongyang, the practice paradigm not only adheres to the traditional basis of national characteristics in the historical dimension for the practice paradigm, but also opens up an open research idea that breaks through the epistemological paradigm and the door of knowledge self-proof, "As the 'beauty of the world', the person is not an isolated individual, but a person in a certain social-historical relationship." Only by placing man in social relations can man create beauty, appreciate it, and become the 'beauty of the world.'" (17) This is a methodology of the paradigm of pragmatism that is fully open to all fields of life and social activities in the correlation of social relations, and this methodology presupposes a broad theoretical space for literary theory.
The successor builder of the practical theory paradigm, represented by Tong Qingbing of Beijing Normal University, is in the position of the editor-in-chief of the "Curriculum Textbook for the 21st Century" "Literary Theory Course", and some of his academic ideas and academic influences have directly entered the national colleges and universities through the "Literary Theory Course" to Chinese professional literary theory teaching, and play a role in the cultivation of master's and doctoral high-level talents. This importance is difficult to replace by other scholars in the field of literary theory. Tong Qingbing's theory of literary practice is based on Abrams' theory of the elements of literary activity, and literary works are placed in a central position; this center is actually only an intermediary, and other elements communicate with each other and combine into literary activities as a whole through works. In Tong Qingbing, literary practice is not only a spiritual activity, but also an communicative material activity, through which the artist obtains inspiration, motivation, opportunity and experience in literary creation, and the text is thus created; the process of creation is also seen in the material communication process of writing, interpersonal communication, delivery and printing, promotion and dissemination; acceptance is also the same, acceptance is exchange consumption, it is not only understanding, but also communication. As for the world, it opens up its full richness to the artist and the appreciator, and through the artist and the appreciator, transforms it into an eternal world in the text. "The world- the writer - the text - the reader, these four elements, which include the three processes of experience, creation, and acceptance, constitute a complete literary activity." (18) This is a grand practical paradigm framework with a broad vision of theoretical construction. The explanatory domain, the problem domain, and the theoretical domain in which it is constructed are all quite far-reaching. Unfortunately, Tong Qingbing opened up this paradigm horizon, but did not have time to sketch the theoretical geography of the meteorological phenomena seen by this horizon as a map for exploration. In the fourth revised edition of the Course of Literary Theory, which he edited, he briefly expounded Abrams' four-element theory and emphasized the formulation of literary activity, and the whole textbook fell back into the obvious epistemological paradigm of the previous three editions. The key here is the problem domain of the pragmatological paradigm, which is based on the unfolding form of practice. Observing the understanding gained from a practical process and constructing the activities carried out in a practical process are not only the differences between external and internal, but also the differences between spiritual activities and material activities, the difference between text creation and text acceptance, which is also a difference in morphological structure, a difference in thinking intentions, and a difference in interpretation methods.
The main points of the theoretical generalization of the pragmatological paradigm are:
(1) The theory of practice is the theory of behavior of prior understanding, which is qualitatively different from the epistemology of preemptive understanding of the epistemological paradigm. The prior understanding of epistemology is the understanding of the definite and inevitable universality; the pre-understanding of practical behavior is the pre-planning of the purpose, method, and constitutive coordination of activities. Comprehension cognition and comprehensible planning, the former is verbal judgment, the latter is behavioral process. Aristotle once made a distinction between epistemology and pragmatism, arguing that speculative knowledge—knowledge of truth—knowledge of truth", is aimed at truth... Although the practicing person also thinks about what things are like, they do not speculate on the eternal aspect, but only think of relationships and this time." (19) This distinction is characteristic and profound. The behavioral planning of literary activities, whether constitutive, coordinated, or continuous, is active and fulfills the sexual experience of sexuality for practical purposes that are avoided, diluted, or powerless by the epistemological paradigm, and the nonverbal points of behavior presented by personality. It is these behavioral points that become the theoretical concerns of the pranayama paradigm. Its theoretical mode of thinking, that is, practical rationality. Practical reason, as Kant puts it, is a life capacity, i.e., "the function of desire is the ability of a being to become, by means of its appearances, the cause of the actual existence of the objects of these appearances." Happiness is the appearance of an object or action in correspondence with the subjective condition of life (i.e., with all the causal faculties of an appearance in relation to the reality of its object)." (20) The four points here, namely life, the senses, appearances, and the intercompatibility seen in pleasure, acquire the legitimacy of theoretical thinking in the practical paradigm.
(2) The theory of practice is a theory that synthesizes the interconnection of all aspects of practical activities. Unlike epistemology's one-way reflection of the object from one to the other, the theoretical ascension of the pragmatological paradigm is all aspects of the constructed activity, including the theoretical synthesis reached by the theoretical subjects of the constructed activity through mutual coordination. It maintains the multiple bases of activity planning and unfolding, but it is not the original reservation of these things, but the combination of those things that they are in accordance with the provisions of the activity through the activity, so it is also called interconfiguration. In terms of text acceptance, the text is not only the writer's wishful thinking, but also the writing of a constant subliminal dialogue with the recipient. The written text is the mutual construction of this subliminal dialogue; the text is in the hands of the recipient, and in this hand, in addition to the text, the text is constituted in printing and dissemination, selection and purchase, which are realistically embodied in the text; the text acceptance is also the experience of the receiver, which is the composition of the reader's intermittent or one-stop reading process. At the same time, the factors that previously formed the text's initiation also constitute the real or contextual influence of acceptance. In this case, the text is still the text, but the problem domain and the explanatory field it provides are obviously different from the text in the epistemological paradigm. Habermas explains this cross-constructed synthesis of the pragmatological paradigm: "Speech and action are not the same thing. What direct participants pursue in the practice of daily interaction is the purpose of their actions; the purpose of participating in a common process of interpretation is to form a consensus and, on this basis, to coordinate their plans of action... The interpreter's intended act and the direct participant's intended act must agree on the purpose of the act". (21)
(3) Pragmatological theory is the theory of elaboration. The theoretical stipulation of the epistemological paradigm is what Russell called "assertiveness", that is, it always summarizes preemptive knowledge in the embodiment of the object in a judgmental manner. In contrast, the theory of the pragmatological paradigm is an interpretive theory of meaning. Meaning is a concept that condenses the structure of relationships, like the concept of "love." The various aspects in which the concept is formed are condensed in the concept. Some linguistic studies and structuralist studies in the West have a tendency to search for the meaning of the self in language or structure, and to enclose the language or structure that can only function in the accepting relationship as a kind of meaning storage tank language and structure, and they thus face the critique of deconstruction and decline. It should be pointed out that the theoretical concern of the significance relationality and conditionality of the practical paradigm is not to draw the study into the empirical concreteness or even the individuality. As long as the interpretation of meaning is theoretical, it cannot circumvent universality or generality, although it does not seek the assertibility of epistemology. In fact, this is the specific universality of Hegel's discussion in The Phenomenology of Spirit.
Since the pranayama paradigm is constructed in a wide range of social practice activities with literary activities as the main point, the interaction and mutual composition of literary activities with other social activity fields make it easier to see the presentness and flexibility of its theoretical construction. Such as the study of art production theory, the study of literary sociology, the study of literary politics, the study of literature in mass culture, the study of new media literature, etc. This kind of research is not only focused on by the practical paradigm, but also mutually constructs the practical paradigm.
Third, the paradigm of cultural theory
The cultural paradigm of Chinese literary theory, since it entered the first half of 1990 when it entered the scale of construction, it is a critical paradigm of the epistemological paradigm and aesthetic paradigm of literary theory. Moreover, this critique has always accompanied its paradigm-building process. Its critique of the existing literary theory paradigm, both its criticism and its criticism, is concentrated in the following four aspects:
First, it is a critique of text-centricism that has persisted for many years on the theoretical paradigm of epistemology. In the 1990s, after nearly 10 years of momentum in China's social transformation, the market economy was characterized by a highly active market economy, and the market economy pulled the market culture into people's daily lives as a whole. In this pull, entertainment, aesthetics, art and even literary writing are also swept away. Literature as an activity of social life, with its special identity expressed in language, has become a market cultural phenomenon with outstanding activity nature. When literature appears in social culture with its activity, the study of the social life activity of literature opens the curtain to criticize the theory of textual centrism. In this regard, Yu Hong of Chinese University said in 2003, when the study of mass culture in cultural theory was gradually reaching a climax: "I want to use the concept of 'total literature' to cover literature in the narrow sense and 'non-literary discourse with a broad literary character', because only in this way can we expand the field of literary research." (22) Yu Hong's "literature in the narrow sense" is literary texts, while the "non-literary discourse of generalized literature" not only transcends literary texts, but also transcends literary activities in the general sense, and also pulls social life activities into literature. With the increasing study of active literature, theoretical criticism and counter-criticism have also become increasingly intense. Second, it is a critique of the territorial constraints of literary theory that return to the text. Literary theory's convergence toward the territoriality of literary texts is called inward turning by scholars, that is, turning to the literary object itself in the meaning of the text. This restraint itself is critical, a critical turn of Chinese literature and literary theory away from its previous identity as a political tool. While the literary theory community reveled in this critical turn, cultural studies of literary activity from the 1990s criticized this critical turn, which was a theoretical force pulling outward. Third, it was a critique of the pattern of theoretical knowledge that was being formed at that time. At that time, Western literary theory and other disciplinary theories had poured into the Chinese theoretical circles, and many things were in harmony with the existing epistemological theoretical pattern in China, so a set of content and form, subject and object, creation and appreciation, politics and aesthetics, rationality and perceptual dualism of the knowledge pattern, such a pattern in the blowout launch of a variety of university literary theory textbooks has become a generally determined pattern. The literary study of activity, which was initiated at that time, had to be prescribed by the organic synthesis of the object of activity, and therefore had to criticize the dualistic pattern of sectional knowledge. The "Literature and Culture Studies" edited by Chang Guangyuan of Shaanxi Normal University incorporates literature into cultural research, which is an influential result in the initial stage of the establishment of the cultural paradigm. Its critical orientation lies in the literary theory of the time "the closedness of the concept of disciplines", "the narrowness of the content of disciplines", and the "unity of disciplinary methods". (23) Fourth, it was a critique of the trend towards convergent theoretical construction based on theoretical interests that was emerging at that time. In the 1990s, in the face of the influx of western tides, the Chinese literary theory circles actively absorbed Western theories on the one hand, and on the other hand, they supported their existing theoretical patterns and theoretical systems. At that time, the trend of theoretical construction was the theoretical Ezekiel theory and the Ezekiel. This kind of theory and assistance revolves around the existing theoretical pattern, forming a theoretical framework of aesthetic theory, functional theory, composition theory and criticism. The theoretical construction of literary and cultural theory diverges with literary activities and makes the relevant theoretical research diverge in the face of lively cultural activities. The theoretical framework that has just been formed in the collectivist literature itself is critically deconstructed in this divergent unfolding, and thus there is the theory of "marginalization" that was at its peak at that time. The criticism of the above four aspects naturally becomes its criticism. Both literary theory, with its awakened awareness of the subject field and the awareness of the discipline system that has been filled with Western theory, criticizes the study of literature and culture that is quite an upstart posture, which is the dispute over the literary object that caused a lot of repercussions at that time, that is, the dispute over the homeland of literary theory. Thus, the cultural paradigm is constructed in the process of critique and being criticized. Tao Dongfeng once explained this situation from the perspective of criticalism, and the three main points he explained are generally in line with the four critical aspects pointed out above. (24)
The critique and dynamic tendencies of the above-mentioned cultural paradigms have led this paradigm into a path that cannot be taken in the construction of this paradigm, that is, to leave literary theory. A group of scholars of the construction of cultural paradigms have released a kind of alienating power from literary theory in their own cultural paradigms, and they are more inclined to form their own object concerns, problem concerns, and theoretical resources in the cultural fields they have opened up. They are more about constructing a paradigm of cultural theory in the study of culture, but rather a paradigm of cultural theory that is differentiated from literary theory and then self-contained only related to literary theory. For example, in addition to the leadership of literary theory, the study of cultural industries, the study of the art of living, the study of entertainment culture, and the study of media culture. Tong Qingbing once reminded this worrying tendency of cultural theory to alienate literary theory and take a different path: "We must not give up the pursuit of poetry under any circumstances. In any case, the cultural perspective should not abandon the poetic perspective. We want culture, but we also want poetry, language, and so on. You don't have to go from one extreme to the other. We can and should be the poetic watchmen of literature and art." (25) Poetry, that is, the soul of literature in the creation of language to enhance reality, transcend reality, and bring beautiful social ideals and survival ideals into reality. Whether this literature is a literary text or a literary activity, it is a poetic object of study, leaving or diluting the poetry of literary objects, this kind of cultural research can be erudite, can be profound, can dive into history, can be dynamic, but not necessarily literary theory.
From the perspective of the construction of literary theory of the cultural theory paradigm, there are two orientations, one is the explanatory orientation and the other is the construction orientation. There are two kinds of interpretive orientation, one is to carry out cultural interpretation or cultural critical interpretation of both literary theoretical categories and propositions. The rationality of this interpretation is based on the oneness of the objects of study of literary theory and the history and reality of culture. In such a one-dimensional relationship, the cultural system plays a systematic and prescribing role as the parent system of literature, so the study of literature theory can find the basis for systematic regulation in its cultural matrix, so that the categories and propositions of existing literary theories can be examined and criticized by culture. In his research on the dual category structure of aesthetic modernity, Zhou Xian of Nanjing University used cultural methods and theoretical resources to explain the categories of "charm" and "shock" that literary theory often talks about. He analyzes Benjamin, the proposer of this category, pointing out that "in his view, traditional culture is a kind of handicraft, while modern culture is a culture of mechanical reproduction". Therefore, "traditional art is an art with 'charm'". (26) Arguing benjamin's "charm" of cultural interpretation, Zhou Xian used the cultural prescriptiveness of Wang Xizhi's "Orchid Pavilion Preface" to explain the category of "rhyme" from the perspective of the similarity of cultural regulations to art, resulting in the cultural theory and aesthetic categories having a cultural landing. Another hermeneutic orientation is the phenomenological interpretation or episodic interpretation of the object of literary theory research, for example, some scholars who studied the two scholars who founded the discipline of ancient Chinese literature in the 1920s, Luo Genze and Guo Shaoyu, when analyzing the differences in academic propositions between the two, they put them into the cultural movement of "sorting out the national history" at that time, examined them in cultural studies, and thus evaluated that Luo Genze and Guo Shaoyu "represented the two academic concepts of ancient literary research, and also reflected the time" Sorting out the two aspects of the National History Movement's treatment of traditional culture". (27) The analysis of this kind of cultural theory has given the study of literary theory a broader cultural basis. Different from the interpretive orientation of the cultural paradigm is the theoretical construction orientation. This orientation is based on the interstructural relationship between literature and literary theory and culture and culture. From the perspective of the general and partial provisions of the discipline, literature is an organic component of culture in culture, so the cultural system is the parent system of the literary system; as far as the reality and historical relationship between culture and literature are concerned, not only literary theory is the composition of culture, but culture is also the composition of literary theory, and they are mutually constructed and interacted. When the study of this interconstructive relationship is carried out as a theoretical construction, then the literary theory construction of culture has a literary theory paradigm of culture. Regarding the paradigmatic influence of this interconstructive literary theory, Tong Qingbing pointed out: "The so-called interdisciplinary and anti-disciplinary approach of cultural studies may overwhelm the knowledge system of the original literary theory discipline... Facing the danger of the impact of the disciplinary system, this cannot but be said to be a challenge for literary theory. However, due to the broad vision of cultural studies and the character of caring for reality, it is also possible to expand the field of literary theory research, closely related to social reality, and make literary theory glow with youth again." (28) Tong Qingbing's concern and expectation of cultural criticism for the construction of literary theory have been realized to varying degrees in many theoretical studies. This kind of system construction paradigm mainly takes the integrated composition relationship between culture and literature, culture and literary theory, which is not to focus on which side, but from the perspective of integration relationship, extract the category of the relationship between the two, as well as the critical category of the integration of the two, and form a systematic proposition and interpretation accordingly. Compared with the existing literary theory paradigm, this is obviously a theoretical manifestation of a different problem group.
The main points of a theoretical summary of the cultural paradigm are:
(1) Culture is the general category of theoretical research
The complexity, fragmentation and ubiquity of cultural phenomena provide cultural research with a sampling convenience that is difficult to compare with other disciplines, but at the same time, it also brings a difficulty in subject orientation and positioning. This difficulty has given rise to two situations: First, many researchers are immersed in specific cultural phenomena, mobilizing the extensive relevance of such phenomena to other cultural phenomena, and turning cultural research into a supermarket-like distribution center. All kinds of cultural phenomena for a set cultural topic, like shoppers, crowded to shop, and then crowded to take things, cultural research has become a topic of smorgasbord research. The second is to make culture an all-encompassing concept and conduct an all-encompassing conceptual study of it. As a result, these concepts become small posters, randomly pasted to what phenomenon, such as wall culture, stall culture, bus culture, toilet culture and so on. Concepts are the labels of culture, and culture is an illustration of concepts; and this can easily fall into the logic of concepts. Lawrence Graceberg once outlined the confusion that the labeling of cultural studies has brought about in the West: "It is a dangerous thing to resist, and it may be attacked at any time, such as too theoretical or not theoretical, too politicized or not politicized enough, too abstract or too specific, too critical or insufficiently critical, too elite or too populist, too focused on academic norms or too much weakening of disciplinary norms, contributing to the decline of Western civilization or becoming a servant of Western imperialist interests, and so on." (29) These two situations have been common in domestic cultural studies in recent years, such as the study of the simple classification commonly found in the cultural research of modern and contemporary literary works, as well as the setting of certain types of cultural characteristics first, and then the study of the number of seats, etc. Some scholars have criticized such situations. (30)
Although there are various views on cultural studies, culture is a whole, and therefore a total object of study, which can be said to be consensus among many fruitful cultural studies. Totality means that all kinds of cultural phenomena, spiritual, material, behavioral, and institutional, have a kind of interconnection, and this is a kind of interrelated correlation. This overall association exists and functions in the form of horizontal and vertically intertwined networks at different levels in different fields, and different cultural phenomena are nothing more than the stars on the branches of cultural networks.
The ubiquitous cultural totality summed it up by the 19th-century British anthropologist Edward Taylor as a "composite whole" that encompasses knowledge, beliefs, art, morality, law, customs, and the abilities and habits of any member of society. (31) At the beginning of the 20th century, the English literary anthropologist Malinowski also believed that culture not only encompassed and regulated all aspects of social life, so that all kinds of "specialized studies" and "the comparative study of cultures must be connected and mutually beneficial." (32) Taylor and Malinowski are the initiators and founders of cultural studies, and their overall view of culture is also a groundbreaking view. Culture as a general rule not only restricts all aspects of culture, but also measures its power according to its role. This has reached the operational level of the overall culture.
(2) The totality of culture is realistically seen in cultural activities
The totality of culture can be theoretically analyzed, revealed and expressed, but as the reality prescriptive nature of culture, it is not theoretical, but practical. It exists in concrete cultural practice in a way that interacts with forces. In other words, specific cultural activities, as cultural activities that are being carried out or completed, are activities that are driven or shaped by the interaction force of correlation, which is the process of the interaction force and its results. This is what Habermas calls the "completed act" of intersubjectivity when he speaks of intersubjectivity.
The paradigm of Chinese cultural theory formed in recent years has two problems in the cultural research of literary activities that need to be opened up and the methods are appropriate. It needs to be opened up, that is, to open up the boundaries between literary texts and literary activities, to come out of the still dominant text center, to open up the horizons of literary activities, and to integrate the cultural research of literary theory that has been unfolded from the wandering state outside literary theory into literary theory, which is not only the opening up of text and literary activities, but also the opening of literary cultural research and literary theory research. In this regard, the activity concern of the practical paradigm can be introduced, and then the cultural relevance between different literary activities can be pushed into the study of activities. The method is appropriate, that is, to change the routine research method at the center of the text and to the research method of cultural activities. Such research methods have been developed to varying degrees, such as contextual research methods, field research methods, edge comprehensive research methods, and the above-mentioned practical process research methods. However, there is a need to further highlight the active study. When cultural studies are further transferred to active studies, the pattern of existing literary theories will undergo tremendous overall changes.
exegesis:
(1) (2) (3) Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of the Scientific Revolution (Fourth Edition), Ian Harkin, Introduction, translated by Jin Wulun and Hu Xinhe, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2012, pp. 36, pp. 15-16, p. 15.
(4) Habermas's discussion of the understanding of the meaning of the social sciences involves the prescriptive problem of understanding structures, the problem of normative moderating behavior, that is, the problem of paradigms, which for different understandings are pre-existent for different interpreters, or are acquired by special training, or are pre-emptively derived from everyday life as laymen. They reach an understanding of an object in the structure of understanding, and this understanding does not belong to the original object nor to the person who understands it, but is a kind of intersubjectivity. He called the resulting understanding "completed behavior," and the overall prescriptiveness (paradigm) obtained from this understanding was called the context of participatory behavior. ([de] Habermas: The Essence of Habermas, selected by Cao Weidong, Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2004, pp. 180, 182)
(5) Ma Dakang analyzed the difference between literary creation theory and literary production theory from the comparative perspective of the difference paradigm, and the overall characteristics of the two were clearly summarized. He believes that "literary creationism and literary production belong to two distinct sets of theoretical discourses." Creationism advocates subjectivity, advocates creative freedom, emphasizes literary self-discipline, and resists the shackles of reality with the absolute priority of the subject's status, which is based on the foundation of man and is a theoretical discourse unfolding from the perspective of humanism. The theory of production places literary activities in the overall process of production, dissemination, consumption, and reproduction, and places them in the context of the whole society and culture to investigate, and strives to reveal the close relationship between literary production and ideology, literary system, production mechanism, artistic productive forces and production relations, and emphasizes the other laws of literary production. They represent two contradictory literary concepts and theoretical paradigms, respectively." (Ma Dakang, "From "Literary Creation" to "Literary Production", Research on Frontier Issues in Literary Theory, Zhengzhou: Henan University Press, 2011, p. 40)
(6) (19) (Ancient Greece) Aristotle," Metaphysics, translated by Miao Litian, Beijing: Chinese University Press, 2003, pp. 4, p. 33.
(7) Montague summed up the sharpest and most meaningful argument in epistemology: "The objects and attributes of the world have a known relationship with the knower or subject, and we have to ask to what extent their existence depends on this known relationship, if anything, depends on it" ([U.S.] William Pepperrell Montague: The Path of Knowing, translated by Wu Shidong, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2011, p. 2). This is the question of the relationship between awareness and survival.
(8) (De) Hegel: Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Vol. 1, translated by He Lin and Wang Taiqing, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2011, p. 9.
(9) Reflection theory explains the rationality of literature, qian Chinese of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: "Reflection is the fundamental characteristic and function of human thinking. The creation of literature and art is a form of consciousness, fundamentally a reflection." (Qian Chinese Anthology, vol. 1, Harbin: Heilongjiang Education Publishing House, 2008, p. 4.) From this, he gave a comprehensive interpretation of the theory of reflection.
(10) Meng Fanhua of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences named the collection of doctoral dissertations in literature and modern and contemporary literature in the 1990s as "Feast of Imagination", which is an image expression of the literary situation at that time, and can also be regarded as an image expression of the theoretical situation. (Kunming: Yunnan People's Publishing House, 2001)
(11) Qian Chinese: The Collected Works of Qian Chinese, Vol. II, Harbin: Heilongjiang Education Publishing House, 2008, p. 413.
(12) Zhu Guangqian: Zhu Guangqian's Collected Aesthetics, Vol. III, Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1983, p. 118.
(13) (14) (15) (16) Jiang Kongyang: Collected Aesthetic Art Treatises of Jiang Kongyang, Nanchang: Jiangxi People's Publishing House, 1988, pp. 8-14, 113, 106, 114.
(17) Jiang Kongyang: "Man is the Beauty of the World", The Complete Works of Jiang Kongyang (Volume III), Hefei: Anhui Education Publishing House, 1999, p. 173.
(18) Tong Qingbing: "Tong Qingbing on Literary Concepts", Zhengzhou: Henan University Press, 2008, p. 7.
(20) Kant: Critique of Practical Reason, translated by Guan Wenyun, Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2002, original preface, p. 7 note (1).
(21) Habermas: The Essence of Habermas, selected by Cao Weidong, Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2004, p. 181.
(22) Yu Hong: "White Literature and Literary Nature", in Chinese and Foreign Culture and Literature, Vol. 10, Chengdu: Sichuan Education Publishing House, 2003, p. 2.
(23) Chang Guangyuan, editor-in-chief: Literature and Culture, Shenyang: Liaoning People's Publishing House, 2000, "Introduction", p. 1.
(24) Tao Dongfeng conducted a retrospective study of contemporary Chinese cultural criticism, explained the three relationships encountered in the development of cultural criticism, namely, the relationship between cultural criticism and literary criticism, the relationship between cultural criticism and literary autonomy, and the relationship between cultural criticism and traditional sociological criticism, and explained these three relationships in combination with Western related theories, the influence of Western related theories, the unfolding process of Chinese cultural criticism, and the controversies in this process. (Tao Dongfeng and Xu Yanrui, Cultural Criticism in Contemporary China, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2006, pp. 25-59.) )
(25) (28) Tong Qingbing: "General Introduction to the Series of Literary studies and Cultural Studies", in Tao Dongfeng and Xu Yanrui: Contemporary Chinese Cultural Criticism, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2006, general preface, page 5, general preface, page 3.
(26) Zhou Xian: A Critique of Aesthetic Modernity, Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2005, p. 188.
(27) Zheng Wei: "Luo Genze and New Ideas in the Study of Ancient Literature", in Tong Qingbing et al., eds., Culture and Poetics, No. 2, 2013, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2014, p. 188.
(29) Lawrence Graceberg: The Crimes of Cultural Research, translated by Zheng Feiyan, edited by Tao Dongfeng, ed., The Quintessence of Cultural Studies, Beijing: Chinese University Press, 2006, p. 120.
(30) Yan Jia once compared the personality differences between modern literati and traditional culture "external patterns" of behavior by some scholars, and then criticized the research classified as "consistency in inner value identity", arguing that the main point of cultural personality research is to "pay attention to the complex interaction between individual differences and collective imagination". (Yan Jia, Mosaicism: A Study of Postmodern Literature and Cultural Theory, Chengdu: Sichuan Publishing Group Bashu Book Society, 2013, pp. 225-227) This makes sense.
(31) Edward Taylor: Primitive Culture, translated by Lian Shusheng, Shanghai: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1992, p. 1.
(32) Malinowski: On Culture, translated by Fei Xiaotong et al., Beijing: China Folk Literature and Art Publishing House, 1987, p. 2.
Fund Project: National Social Science Foundation of China "Research on Literary Theory Criticism since the New Era" (14BZW004).
Source: Chinese Literature Studies, No. 3, 2019