[职称英语综合类a级考试试题]2017年职称英语综合类A级阅读材料精选(8)

苏格兰启蒙运动

　　18世纪40年代法国哲学家伏尔泰曾经说过：“苏格兰汇集了我们所要寻找的所有文明”。这对一个国家来说无疑是不错的广告，尤其可以吸引那些正在寻求一流教育的人。

　　然而有些人认为还不仅如此。据美国作家阿瑟?赫尔曼所说，是苏格兰人创造了现代社会的一切。他认为苏格兰思想家和知识分子提出了很多现代生活弓[以为据的思想，涵盖科学理论到市场经济等多个领域。他们的思想不仅在学术界广为流传，那些构建西方世界的商人，政府官员及科学家等也深受他们的影响。

　　各种思潮的蓬勃开始于1740年到1800年之间发生的苏格兰启蒙运动。当时苏格兰聚集了一大批使西方哲学产生巨大转变的思想家。在这之前，哲学以宗教作为它的主要研究对象。而苏格兰启蒙思想家则认为人类应以人本身作为研究对象。

　　启蒙思想家们主张分析的实用性。哲学家大卫?休谟认为哲学应把人类作为研究对象，因为这样我们可以审视人的行为从而求证人类究竟是如何思考和感知的。在此基础上我们就可以对我们居住的社会作出评价，进而提出具体的改进意见，造福全人类。

　　休谟本身不是科学家，但他对知识性质的研究为从经验中寻求真理的科学理论奠定了思想基础。他的好友也是他在爱丁堡时的室友，亚当?斯密以将人类学研究应用于经济学而著称。亚当斯密曾经说过贸易是一种信息。金钱是人们相互告知自己需求的一种方式，而人们的消费金额使我们了解一个人对某种商品的需求程度的途径。人们在市场贸易中寻求自身利益的过程是互利互惠的。

　　亚当斯密的启蒙性的 “自身利益”的观点不仅已成为现代经济学的主流，它在其他方面还有更广的应用。他是第一个提出世界各国可以通过和平、贸易和创造发明而不是通过战争和掠夺来变得富裕、自由、强大的哲学家。

　　最初的苏格兰启蒙运动随着亚当斯密，休谟等在苏格兰居住的思想家们的去世而衰落了。但是我们仍可以看到启蒙运动的痕迹，那时产生的思想仍是我们当今很多理论的基础。在今天的苏格兰，其教育传统仍是将学术精湛和实用目的相结合的。

　　系统水平整合研究所就是一个很好的例子。该所1998年由四所苏格兰大学创建，以计算机科学，电子工程和信息学为学术专长。虽然他的许多学科都走在科学前沿，其最终教学目的还是基于现实社会的需求，即为当今全球多变的半导体工业培养高水平的设计工程师和研究者。

　　虽然这只是苏格兰众多教育机构中的一个，但是该研究所的教育理念证实了苏格兰启蒙运动思想在今天仍有体现。苏格兰仍然在创造，发展，并努力地传播着它的启蒙思想。

Finding Enlightenment in Scotland

　　In the 1740s, the famous French philosophy Voltaire said "We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization." That's not a bad advertisement for any country, especially when it comes to attracting people in search of a first class education.

　　Yet some people go even further than that. According to the American author Arthur Herman, the Scots invented the modem world itself. He argues that Scottish thinkers and intellectuals worked out many of the most important ideas on which modem life depends - everything from the scientific method to market economics. Their ideas did not just spread amongst intellectuals, but to those people in business, government and the sciences who actually shaped the Western world.

　　It all started during the period that historians call the Scottish Enlightenment, which is usually seen as taking place between the years 1740 and 1800, At this time, Scotland was home to a number of thinkers who made an important shift in the course of Western philosophy. Before that, philosophy was mainly concerned with religion. For the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, the proper study of humanity was mankind itself.

　　Their reasoning was practical. For the philosopher David Hume, humanity was the right subject for philosophy because we can examine human behavior and so find real evidence of how people think and feel. And from that we can make judgments about the societies we live in and make concrete suggestions about how they can be improved, for universal benefit.

　　Hume was not a scientist himself, but his enquiry into the nature of knowledge laid the foundations for the scientific method - the pursuit of truth through experiment. His friend and fellow resident of Edinburgh, Adam Smith, famously applied the study of mankind to the ways in which mankind does business. Trade, he argued, was a form of information. Money is the way in which people tell each other what they want, and how much people pay is the best way we have of knowing how much somebody wants something. In pursuing our own interests through trading in markets, we all come to benefit each other.

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