David hume (17 1 1 April 26th, 2006-1August 25th, 776) is a Scottish philosopher, economist and historian. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of Scottish Enlightenment and Western philosophy. Although modern research on Hume's works mainly focuses on his philosophical thoughts, he was first famous as a historian. His book "History of England" became the basic work of British historians during the 60 to 70 years at that time.
Historians generally classify Hume's philosophy as complete skepticism, but some people think that naturalism is also one of Hume's central ideas. Scholars who study Hume are often divided into those who emphasize skepticism (such as logical positivism) and those who emphasize naturalism.
Hume's philosophy was deeply influenced by empiricists John Locke and george berkeley and some French writers. He also absorbed the theories of various British intellectuals, such as isaac newton, Francis hutcheson and Adam Smith.
[Edit this paragraph] Life
David hume (later renamed Hume) was born in an apartment in Edinburgh, Scotland on April 26th in 17 1 year (julian calendar). His father is Joseph Hume, a lawyer in Engwer, and his mother is Mrs. falcone. When Hume grew up, he occasionally returned to his hometown in Ningwell. He changed his name from Hume to Hume on 1734, because it is difficult for the British to pronounce the name Hume correctly in Scotland. Hume was sent to the University of Edinburgh by his family when he was only 12 years old (the normal admission age at that time was 14 years old). At first, Hume intended to pursue a legal career, but soon he found himself "extremely tired of learning everything except philosophy and knowledge". When my family imagined that I was reading Wuette and Venias (two famous jurists at that time), I was actually reading Cicero and Virgil. "Hume doesn't like professors in universities. He once told a friend at 1735: "You can't learn anything from the professor at all. Those things are all in the book. "
At the age of eighteen, Hume made a major breakthrough in philosophical research, which enabled him to completely face this "brand-new field of thinking" and made him determined to "abandon all other happiness and career and devote himself completely to this field." Hume did not explain why there was this major breakthrough, but it is generally speculated that it is probably his causality theory, that is, our understanding of the causal relationship in the world depends on our emotions, customs and habits, not rationality, nor abstract and eternal natural laws. At that time, a poor Scot could choose very few career paths. Hume was faced with the choice of becoming a tutor or a businessman's employee, and he finally chose the latter. 1734, after doing business in Bristol for several months, Hume went to La Flè che in Anjou, France, where Hume often had philosophical discussions with Jesuit students from Pritana Military School, of which rene descartes was also a graduate. During the four years of living there, Hume made a career plan for himself, determined to "live a very simple life to cope with my limited property, thus ensuring my independence, and I don't have to consider anything except enhancing my literary talent." Hume also completed a theory of human nature when he settled in France, when he was only 26 years old. Although most modern scholars regard The Theory of Human Nature as Hume's most important work and one of the most important works in the history of philosophy, it did not receive much attention when it was first published. When recording his lack of public attention at that time, Hume wrote: "The media's response to this book was silent, and even those enthusiastic readers did not get any explanation. But I have developed an optimistic and cheerful personality, and soon stood up from such setbacks and continued to study hard in the countryside. " He continued to write the abstract of The Theory of Human Nature, but did not write his own name. He tried to shorten and streamline his previous novels to attract more readers, but even after such efforts, he still failed to regain the importance of this book.
The arduous process of writing The Theory of Human Nature made young Hume almost insane. In order to restore normal thinking ability, Hume decided to return to ordinary life temporarily.
After the publication of 1744' s collection of essays "Morality and Politics", Hume applied to be a professor in the Department of Ethics and Spiritual Philosophy of Edinburgh University, but was rejected by the university. During the James Party rebellion in 1745, Hume became the governess of Marquis Annadale (1720- 1792), and was described as a "madman" by officials at that time. The job ended after only a year or so. However, it was also during this period that Hume began to write his historical masterpiece "History of Great Britain", which lasted for 15 years and exceeded one million words. Finally, it was published in six volumes from 1754 to 1762. During this period, Hume attended the Carnot Gate Theatre founded by james burnett, and he also met many other Scottish enlightenment philosophers who were in Edinburgh at that time. From 1748, he served as the secretary-general of General St. Clare for three years, and at the same time wrote his book "Inquiry into Human Understanding". However, like previous books, this book was not taken seriously when it was published at that time.
At this time, Hume was accused of heresy by the church, and a young friend of Hume stood up and defended him, thinking that Hume, as an atheist, did not belong to the jurisdiction of the church. Although Hume was later acquitted, the University of Glasgow still rejected Hume's application as a professor of philosophy, which may also be due to another philosopher Thomas Reid's strong criticism of Hume's metaphysics. According to Hume's autobiography, it was not until 1752 that he returned to Edinburgh, "Edinburgh University asked me to be the librarian of their library. This position only earned a small salary, but it gave me the opportunity to contact such a huge library. " The rich resources in the library of Edinburgh University enabled Hume to continue his research on the history of Great Britain.
Hume eventually became a famous critic and historian. His magnum opus History of Great Britain describes the history from the Saxon Kingdom to the glorious revolution, and it became a best seller as soon as it was published. In this book, Hume portrays people under the political system as products of cultural customs. Traditionally, these people tend to obey the existing government and seek change only when faced with uncertain situations. From this perspective, only religious differences can make people deviate from their daily lives and start to pay attention to political affairs.
Hume's early thesis "On Superstition and Religion" laid the foundation for almost all his later works on religious history. In Hume's time, people who want to criticize religious beliefs should be cautious. For example, just before Hume was born 15, Thomas Aikenhead, a college student aged 18, was sued by the church for criticizing Christianity as "nonsense" and was finally convicted of blasphemy and hanged. So Hume only expressed his theory tactfully, and most of them were presented in the dialogue with fictional characters. Hume didn't admit that he was the author of the theory of human nature until the year of 1776. His papers On Suicide and On Immortality of the Soul, as well as his book Dialogue on Natural Religion, were published after his death (published in 1778 and 1779 respectively), and none of these works have the names of Hume or the publishers. These arrangements made by Hume to hide his authorship also make scholars still have great disputes about whether Hume is a deist or an atheist. In any case, the rumor that Hume was an atheist at that time really hit a wall and was banned when he applied for a job.
Hume once mentioned to a friend that he unexpectedly "converted" to become a Christian: on his way to supervise the construction site of his new home, he accidentally slipped into the mire while crossing a newly dried-up lake in the center of Edinburgh and was trapped there because of obesity. At this time, some fish sellers happened to pass by and saw Hume's predicament, but they quickly recognized him as a famous atheist and refused to rescue him. After Hume promised to become a Christian and was forced to read the Lord's prayer and creed in the mud, these strong fish sellers pulled him up. Hume joked to his friends afterwards that these fish girls were "the smartest theologians he had ever seen".
From 1763 to 1765, Hume served as the secretary of the Earl of Hartford in Paris, where he was admired by Voltaire and was known as a celebrity in the social circle of Paris. At the same time, he also met Jean-Jacob Rousseau, who became good friends at first, but eventually dispersed because of different ideas. Hume described his life in Paris like this: "I really often want to go back to the ordinary and rough poker club in Edinburgh … to correct and relieve so many sensory stimuli these days." Hume returned to Edinburgh and settled in 1768. /kloc-around 0/770, as the German philosopher Immanuel Kant praised Hume for awakening him from the "dogmatic nightmare", Hume's philosophical works began to gain public attention, and only after that did he gain a reputation that he had never gained in his life.
James boswell visited Hume a week before his death, and Hume revealed to boswell that he really began to believe those theories that he had regarded as "the most unreasonable superstition"-that is, there would be an afterlife after death. Hume wrote an epitaph for himself: "Born in 17 1 1, died in […]-let future generations fill in the blanks." After his death in 1776, Hume was buried in the "simple Roman cemetery" arranged by him before his death, which is located on the east side of Carlton in Edinburgh, overlooking his hometown in the city.
Hume noticed that many thinkers often take "what is" as the argument basis of "what should be". However, he noticed that there is a big difference between this descriptive statement (what is it now) and a prescriptive statement (what should it be). Hume pointed out that we should not be used to confusing this statement of what should be and what is now, but at the same time, we did not explain the important difference between the two. How do we deduce what should be from what is now? This question put forward by Hume has become one of the main debates in future ethics. In the eyes of many people, Hume's own position on this issue is that we can't make such a derivative (others have different interpretations, thinking that Hume doesn't mean that moral statements can't be deduced from factual statements, but that we can't make such a derivative without considering human nature, that is, human emotions. Hume may be the first person to put forward the difference between positivism (what is it) and norms (what should it be), and the confusion between them is quite extensive in the fields of social science and moral philosophy. The philosopher G.E. Moore later put forward a similar theory called "naturalism fallacy", trying to refute anyone who tried to confuse moral attributes with natural attributes.
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