人类历史上最伟大的十大思想家

老几编译

The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time

我们要设定一个标准，这必将是教条的和无情的。我们将把那些没有产生持久人类影响的英雄，排除在名单之外，无论他们的思想是多么微妙或深刻。尽管这样做我们感到伤心。我们必须要这样做最严格的衡量。

对待每个思想家的思想，我们将尽量考虑其原创性和范围，真实性和深度。但是，我们必须记住的是，其观念对人类生活和思想的影响的程度和持久性，才是我们的最高标准。只有如此，我们才可以在某种程度上减少个人的偏见，从而并得出某种不偏不倚的选择。

现在我们应如何定义一个“思想家”呢? 这个名词将会包括哲学家和科学家，但只限于此吗? 我们应包括人们喜欢的欧里庇得斯、或lucretius、或丹特、或莱昂纳多、或莎士比亚、或歌德吗? 不。我们应该谦卑的对待这些伟大的名字并将他们排除在外，因为无论他们达到什么境界，他们首先和最终只是艺术家，是次级思想家。

我们应包括深具影响力的领袖耶稣、或佛、或奥古斯丁、马丁路德金? 不。这些宗教创始人和革新者不符合我们的定义。它们并不是通过思想和推理，而是通过情感和高尚的热情，一种神秘的坚定不移的信仰，使他们用小小的行动来推动世界前进。

我们是否应当允许哪些行动的巨人加入到我们的10名大名单中来，像历史走廊里的响亮人物如佩里克莱斯,或亚历山大或凯撒,或查理,或克伦威尔或拿破仑或林肯?不。如果我们包括这种英雄，那么就将剥夺“思想家”的独特意义，就体现不出思想的意义。

我们必须只包括哲学家和科学家。我们寻求的哪些通过他们的思想，而不是由他们的行动或他们的热情来影响人类的。我们应在远离尘嚣的安静世界里寻觅他们。在这些阴晦的角落里，伟大思想降临他们，“像鸽子的脚”一样， 因为在过一会儿，他们看到，世界将为他们改换真容。

那么，谁将是第一?

1．CONFUCIUS孔夫子At once our doubts and quarrels begin. By what canon shall we include Confucius and omit Buddha and Christ? By this alone: that he was a moral philosopher rather than a preacher of religious faith; that his call to the noble life was based upon secular motives rather than upon supernatural considerations; that he far more resembles Socrates than Jesus. Born (552 B.C.) in an age of confusion, in which the old power and glory of China had passed into feudal disintegration and factional strife, Kung-fu-tse undertook to restore health and order to his country. How? Let him speak: The illustrious ancients,when they wished to make clear and to propagate the highest virtues in the world, put their states in proper order. Before putting their states in proper order, they regulated their families. Before regulating their families, they cultivated their own selves. Before cultivating their own selves, they perfected their souls. Before perfecting their souls, they tried to be sincere in their thoughts. Before trying to be sincere in their thoughts, they extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such investigation of knowledge lay in the investigation of things, and in seeing them as they really were. When things were thus investigated, knowledge became complete. When knowledge was complete, their thoughts became sincere. When their thoughts were sincere, their souls became perfect.When their souls were perfect, their own selves became cultivated.When their selves were cultivated, their families became regulated.When their families were regulated, their states came to be put into proper order.When their states were in proper order, then the whole world became peaceful and happy. Here is a sound moral and political philosophy within the compass of a paragraph. It was a highly conservative system; it exalted manners and etiquette, and scorned democracy; despite its clear enunciation of the Golden Rule it was nearer to Stoicism than to Christianity. A pupil having asked him should one return good for evil, Confucius replied: “With what then will you recompense kindness? Return good for good, and for evil, justice.” He did not believe that all men were equal; it seemed to him that intelligence was not a universal gift. As his pupil Mencius put it: “That whereby man differs from the lower animals is little. Most people throw it away.” The greatest fortune of a people would be to keep ignorant persons from public office, and secure their wisest men to rule them. A great city, Chung-tu, took him at his word and made him magistrate. “A marvelous reformation,” we are told, “ensued in the manners of the people…. There was an end of crime…. Dishonesty and dissoluteness hid their heads. Loyalty and good faith became the characteristic of the men, chastity and docility of the women.” It is too good to be true, and probably it did not last very long. But even in his lifetime Confucius’ followers understood his greatness and foresaw the timeless influence he was to have in molding the courtesy and poise and placid wisdom of the Chinese. “His disciples buried him with great pomp. A multitude of them built huts near his grave and remained there, mourning as for a father, for nearly three years. When all the others were gone, Tse-Kung,” who had loved him beyond the rest, “continued by the grave for three years more, alone.”

2. PLATO 帕拉图

3. ARISTOTLE 亚里士多德

4. SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS 圣托马斯阿奎那

5. COPERNICUS 哥白尼

6. SIR FRANCIS BACON弗朗西斯·培根

7. SIR ISAAC NEWTON牛顿

8. VOLTAIRE伏尔泰

9. IMMANUEL KANT 康德

10. CHARLES DARWIN 达尔文

http://www.topshelfbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/0743235533Minds.pdf

作者William James Durant (/dəˈrænt/; November 5, 1885 – November 7, 1981) was an American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975. He was earlier noted for The Story of Philosophy (1924), described as "a groundbreaking work that helped to popularize philosophy".^[1]

He conceived of philosophy as total perspective, or, seeing things sub specie totius, a phrase inspired by Spinoza's sub specie aeternitatis.^[2] He sought to unify and humanize the great body of historical knowledge, which had grown voluminous and become fragmented into esoteric specialties, and to vitalize it for contemporary application.^[3]

Will and Ariel Durant were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1968 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977.