Aesthetics as a Structural Field of Subject-Conditions: An Application of the Self-as-an-End Framework

This paper is the second applied paper in the Self-as-an-End theoretical framework. It applies the framework to the domain of aesthetics, arguing that aesthetic judgment is neither a matter of personal preference nor a problem of cultural critique, but a structural field of subject-conditions. The paper makes five contributions. First, through etymological and structural argument, it reveals that the Chinese distinction between meixue (美学, aesthetic theory/discipline) and shenmei (审美, aesthetic experience/resonance) corresponds to the framework's base layer and emergent layer — meixue is the negativity of boundary-drawing, shenmei is the positivity of subject-resonance. Second, it establishes a three-layer instantiation model for aesthetics — the institutional layer constitutes the boundary conditions, the relational layer constitutes the transmission medium, and the individual layer constitutes the layer of final realization. Third, it proposes a domain-specific distinction — negative shenmei and positive shenmei — and argues for their structural affinity with colonization risk. Fourth, it argues that the core of aesthetic problems is a transmission problem rather than a content problem. Fifth, it proposes four non-trivial cross-layer predictions that are in principle testable. Core thesis: Aesthetic judgment is not a single-layer phenomenon. It simultaneously involves base-layer boundary-drawing, emergent-layer subject-resonance, and cross-layer transmission that alters structural function. Aesthetics is the everyday battlefield of subject-conditions.