Japanese (and Ainu) Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art

Japanese aesthetics have impacted global arts and aesthetics through traditional, modern, and post-modern aesthetic categories (mononoaware, iki, or moe, haikyo respectively) and qualities (vagueness, spontaneity). This chapter traces accomplishments of Japanese aesthetics, analyzes their complexities, highlights some challenges to philosophy of art, and introduces some emerging aesthetics and new analyses of traditional aesthetics, including Ainu. Japanese aesthetics offer valuable opportunities for developing abilities that extend, modify, and deepen our range of emotional, sensory, and artistic feeling (joy, awareness of seasonal change, the beauty of folk arts) commonly recognized as the purview of aesthetics. They also enhance a range of cognitive skills, such as comprehending the ineffable, and strengthen social and personal skills such as expressing individuality, experiencing community, encountering the other and the land, and/or surviving atomic destruction. Sections address the unparalleled millennia-old importance of women’s gaze/voices and the interactions of aesthetics with fascism and with war.