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Abstract Baudrillard’s concept of simulation originates from his philosophizing of its counterparts such as “simulating” or “simulator” in the technological context. With Borge’s fable of the map, he reveals that the concept of simulation breaks through the traditional dichotomies between the real and the fictional, reality and imagination, and thereby demonstrates a possibility of hyper-reality. The structure of “hyper-”, drawing on its Greek sense of “transcending” or “trespassing”, transcends the traditional concept of mimesis (μ?μησι?) , allowing the simulacrum to assert its autonomy against the original text. From this post-modern aesthetic perspective, Baudrillard posits a foundational change triggered by digital technologies, in which artificial representation gradually acquires an ontological status that is independent of natural representations and becomes a totally new ground for the human life-world. Here, the aesthetic thinking demonstrates a capacity for critical reflection on technological modernity. In the realm of popular culture, Baudrillard’s aesthetic reflection is embodied in various sci-fi works. However, in Baudrillard’s context, the introduction of aesthetic vision is not merely a decorative or external addition to theoretical thought. Rather, it is deeply rooted in the vital construction of the concept of simulation, serving as a form of aisthesis or aesthetics within a postmetaphysical horizon. In the scope of post-metaphysical aesthetics, Baudrillard’s concept of simulation provides an ontologically grounded theoretical scope for the historical analysis of digital modernity, which entails an inner unity between ideality and historicity. With regard to its ideality, it is essentially a semiotic variation of Nietzschean nihilism. According to Heidegger’s interpretation, Nietzschean nihilism represents the end of Western metaphysics, which is essentially the invalidation of the division between the sensible and the non-sensible. Baudrillard reconstructs this theme on the layer of semiotics by blurring the boundary between reality and simulacrum. With regard to the historicity of simulation, its prospective analysis of post-modernity is grounded in a retrospective reflection of early development in digital technology, and it follows McLuhan’s theory of implosion to capture how digital technology changes human cognition. Thus, Baudrillard extends the structural connection between technology and history to the layer of ontology, and thereby shapes a synthesis between ideality and historicity within the concept of simulation. It is exactly with this synthesis that Baudrillard’s concept of simulation demonstrates a post-metaphysical vision of aesthetics, which in his late terminology is expressed as “trans-aesthetics”. In the vision of trans-aesthetics, the concept of simulation is a meta-narrative of digital modernity.
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Published: 30 November 2025
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