外國人最想和你聊的名人話題：大衛(wèi)·休謨

　About Hume　關于休謨

     David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume is often grouped with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others as a British Empiricist.
     Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In stark opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behavior, saying famously:"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." A prominent figure in the skeptical philosophical tradition and a strong empiricist, he argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding instead that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. Thus he divides perceptions between strong and lively "impressions" or direct sensations and fainter "ideas," which are copied from impressions. He developed the position that mental behavior is governed by "custom"; our use of induction, for example, is justified only by our idea of the"constant conjunction" of causes and effects. Without direct impressions of a metaphysical "self," he concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self. Hume advocated a compatibilist theory of free will that proved extremely influential on subsequent moral philosophy. He was also a sentimentalist who held that ethics are based on feelings rather than abstract moral principles. Hume also examined the normative is-ought problem. He held notoriously ambiguous views of Christianity, but famously challenged the argument from design in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779).
     Kant credited Hume with waking him up from his "dogmatic slumbers" and Hume has proved extremely influential on subsequent philosophy, especially on utilitarianism, logical positivism, William James, philosophy of science, early analytic philosophy, cognitive philosophy, and other movements and thinkers. The philosopher Jerry Fodor proclaimed Hume's Treatise "the founding document of cognitive science". Also famous as a prose stylist, Hume pioneered the essay as a literary genre and engaged with contemporary intellectual luminaries such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith (who acknowledged Hume's influence on his economics and political philosophy), James Boswell, Joseph Butler, and Thomas Reid.
     大衛(wèi)·休謨，蘇格蘭哲學家，出生在蘇格蘭的一個貴族家庭，曾經學過法律，并從事過商業(yè)活動。1734年，休謨第一次到法國，在法國他開始研究哲學，并從事著述活動。1763年，休謨又去法國，擔任英國駐法國使館的秘書，代理過公使。1752年至1761年，休謨曾進行過英國史的編撰工作。休謨的主要著作有：《人性論》(1739--1740)、《人類理解研究》(1748)、《道德原則研究》(1752)和《宗教的自然史》(1757)等。與約翰·洛克（John Locke）及喬治·貝克萊（George Berkeley）并稱三大英國經驗主義者。
     他最先是以歷史學家的身份成名。他所著的《英格蘭史》一書在當時成為英格蘭歷史學界的基礎著作長達60至70年。歷史學家們一般將休謨的哲學歸類為徹底的懷疑主義，但一些人主張自然主義也是休謨的中心思想之一。研究休謨的學者經常分為那些強調懷疑成分的以及那些強調自然主義成分的人。他首倡近代不可知論，對感覺之外的任何存在持懷疑態(tài)度，對外部世界的客觀規(guī)律性和因果必然性持否定態(tài)度。他認為，感性知覺是認識的唯一對象，知覺分印象和觀念兩類，但認為人們不可能超出知覺去解決知覺的來源問題。否認因果聯(lián)系的客觀性，認為因果聯(lián)系只是由于印象出現(xiàn)先后而形成的一種觀念。在倫理觀上，主張功利主義，認為快樂和利益是一致的。他還用其經驗論、懷疑論和功利主義倫理學論述了有關上帝觀念和宗教問題。