休谟与启蒙运动——基于《人性论》引言的思想史考察

当前对休谟的研究常把他和启蒙运动相隔裂.通过对休谟代表性著作《人性论》引言的分析,可以发现他和法国启蒙思想家共享认识世界的“力学模式”和实验方法,都试图将当时在英格兰兴起的“自然哲学”应用于人类境况,都致力于用对人类生活有用的经验研究所产生的新理论代替传统形而上学.同时,休谟对经验主义方法自身的局限有着更为健全的认识,主张在经验和可观察现象范围内的实验方法.这一认识在我们反思启蒙时极富价值.

David Hume and the Enlightenment:an Analysis Based on Introduction to Treatise

In the Hume study,scholars often separate Hume and the Enlightenment.In analyzing introduction to Hume’s T reatise,we can find he and the French philosophes share same New ton’s Mechanical Model and method of experiments.T hey all try to expand the"natural philosophy"rising in England to analyze human conditions,aiming to use the new theory which was based on empirical research and had utility for human life instead of metaphysics.In this process of the intellectual extension,Hume insists on the limits of his skeptical method.T he experimental method can not inquire the essence of nature and human mind;it must be limited in the sphere of experience and ob-servable things.T herefore,Hume must be fully integrated into the broader Enlightenment.We can see the limitation of the Enlightenment itself on Hume.