The Research Of Hume’s Political Thought

David Hume is a great British philosopher, thinker, as well as one of the most important persons to the history of western philosophy. His thought is very extensive coverage, and he contributed involving philosophy, politics, history, economy, aesthetics criticism. But the interpretations of Hume’s thought in the domestic academic circles mainly concentrate on the philosophy of Hume, his political thoughts are occasionally mentioned but not thoroughly. I think, although Hume is a great philosopher at first, he also has the achievements in the political field, putting forward many insightful political theories. In the problem of the origin of the country and the government, he criticizes the oretical assumptions of the natural law and the contract theory, and choses the interests and the pleasure principle of Utilitarianism. His political theories become the important transition of social contract theory and utilitarian theory. From a human perspective analyzing the problem of the origin of state and government, he puts forward the famous political theory called "rascal supposition" and the idea of turning evil to good in the system design, which provided abundant thought materials for constitutional thought. He respects the traditions and customs, and advocates the gradual change, praised as the core representative of "the Anglo American tradition" by the liberal master Hayek. Hume’s political views and attitude also influence the American politics.This paper aims to research Hume’s political thought combined with Hume’s life experience, historical background and his philosophical basis. Through researching the necessary conditions, philosophical origin, main content and important influence of Hume’s political thought, I hope that I can achieve the connotation of Hume’s philosophy and political thought from the various interpretations of Hume’s thought, and reproduce objectively his political ideas, as well as enriching the research of Hume’s political thought.