On Hume's Historiography

Abstract:David Hume, for his outstanding achievements in the history among history circles of the Enlightenment , had the greatest esteem. However, after his death, people were increasingly concerned about his philosophy which covered up his achievements in history. Actually, his plentiful and intense thoughts on history couldn't be neglected. This article prepared from the perspective of historiography governing Hume's philosophy, history, literature, politics, economic and other types of works, as a whole, to research; to investigate Hume's achievements; to determine its value and significance.Hume's historical thoughts were influenced by the historical background when was social stability, economic and cultural prosperity. Hume's ideas rooted in pre-school education, classical traditional culture, rationalism, empiricism and"History community"of 18th century. Many historians as Thucydides, Bayle, and Voltaire provided a practical rule; Cicero, Bacon, Newton and others provided a methodological principle. Hume pondered deeply over them and built his own history system.Hume's contribution included theory, methods and productions. Hume discussed the purpose, use, attitude and standpoint in historical research. He thought history is to inqury into human nature. and emphasized the moral and entertainment value of historiography. History couldn't advance production like natural science, on the contrary, its value only appeared in society. And skeptical attitude matched pursuit of truth so well that they form a perfect picture. Hume had some unique thinking. For example, distinguishing humanities from natural science, thinking on"be"and"should", concerning with chanciness, which distinguished historiography and natural science, and then given the history an indepandent status. He provided some excellent researching methods, such as empirical induction, historical deduction, retroaction and grasp in mind. Referring to his productions, there were History of England, Nature History of Religion and so on. Hume's historiography resulted in a great influence. His efforts and success in practice, brought up the prosperity of the Scottish historiography and was highly respected by the acdemic circles of Europe and the United States. His rich thoughts had made a great impact on modern historiography. Positivist such as Russell and Popper acquired knowledge of historical thoughts from Hume, and even Chinese scholar were also much to learn from Hume.In a word, Hume was a skeptic, but took on a realistic view in historical knowledge. He occupied a pivotal position in the development of British historiography.