人类理解研究

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作品 · 经验主义、启蒙运动与自由主义

人类理解研究

1748 · 作者：大卫·休谟

对因果关系与归纳问题的更尖锐的表述。

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简介

Hume recast the first book of his Treatise in shorter, more elegant form; it appeared in 1748 as “Philosophical Essays concerning Human Understanding” and received its present title in 1758. Its twelve sections leave out much of the Treatise, such as the theory of personal identity, and add new topics: section X, “Of Miracles”, argues that testimony can hardly ever make a miracle credible, which caused a scandal. The book ends with the advice to burn any volume of divinity or metaphysics that contains neither reasoning about quantity nor about matters of fact. Kant, who did not read English, could know it in a German translation of 1755; it was Hume, he later wrote, who interrupted his “dogmatic slumber”.