大学英语四六级晨读经典365秋日激情篇_大学英语听力

大学英语四六级晨读经典365秋日激情篇

　　220 Human Nature

　　220 人性

　　For most thinkers since the Greek philosophers, it was self-evident that there is something called human nature, something that constitutes the essence of man. There were various views about what constitutes it, but there was agreement that such an essence exists -- that is to say, that there is something by virtue of which man is man. Thus man was defined as a rational being, as a social animal, an animal that can make tools, or a symbol-making animal.

　　对于自希腊哲学家以来的大多数思想家而言，很明显的一点是，存在一种叫做人的天性的东西，它是构成人之本性的一种东西。对于是什么构成了人的本性的观点有很多，但是大家都一致地认为，这样一种本性是确实存在着的，也就是说，确实有这样一种东西，由于它人才成为其为人。因而，人就被定义为一种理性的生物，一种社会动物，一种能制造工具的动物或者一种会制造符号的动物。

　　More recently, this traditional view has begun to be questioned. One reason for this change was the increasing emphasis given to the historical approach to man. An examination of the history of humanity suggested that man in our epoch is so different from man in previous times that it seemed unrealistic to assume that men in every age have had in common something that can be called human nature. The historical approach was reinforced, particularly in the United States, by studies in the field of cultural anthropology. The study of primitive peoples has discovered such a diversity of customs, values, feelings, and thoughts that many anthropologists arrived at the concept that man is born as a blank sheet of paper on which each culture writes its text. Another factor contributing to the tendency to deny the assumption of a fixed human nature was that the concept has so often been abused as a shield behind which the most inhuman acts are committed. In the name of human nature, for example, Aristotle and most thinkers up to the eighteenth century defended slavery. Or in order to prove the rationality and necessity of the capitalist form of society, scholars have tried to make a case for acquisitiveness, competitiveness, and selfishness as innate human traits. Popularly, one refers cynically to human nature in accepting the inevitability of such undesirable human behavior as greed, murder, cheating and lying.