2018.03.11 约翰-格雷 哲学家

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John Gray is a philosopher. His academic career included professorships at Oxford University and the London School of Economics, and visiting professorships at Harvard and Yale in the USA. He retired from academia in 2008, and has dedicated himself to writing full time since then. He is the lead book reviewer of the New Statesman and a regular contributor to the Guardian.

Born in 1948 in South Shields, his father was a Tyneside dock worker, his mother a homemaker. A voracious reader as a child, and encouraged by his history teacher at his grammar school, he won a scholarship to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. Initially of the political Left, he became an advocate of the policies of the Right before the advent of Thatcherism. He then moved again to the Left. He supported the Leave cause in the Brexit referendum.

John contends that history is not progressive, but cyclical, and that any improvements other than certain scientific discoveries can be easily lost or reversed. He cites the use of torture against terror suspects as an example.

John has written several influential books, including False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (1998), which predicted the global financial crisis; Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002), which attacked philosophical humanism; and Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007), a critique of Utopian thinking in the modern world.



约翰-格雷是一位哲学家。他的学术生涯包括在牛津大学和伦敦经济学院担任教授，以及在美国哈佛和耶鲁担任访问教授。他于2008年从学术界退休，并从那时起致力于全职写作。他是《新政治家》的首席书评人，也是《卫报》的定期撰稿人。

1948年出生于南希尔兹，他的父亲是泰恩赛德的码头工人，母亲是家庭主妇。他从小酷爱读书，在文法学校历史老师的鼓励下，他获得了在牛津大学读哲学、政治和经济学的奖学金。他最初属于政治左派，在撒切尔主义出现之前，他成为右派政策的倡导者。然后他又转到了左派。他在英国脱欧公投中支持脱欧事业。

约翰认为，历史不是进步的，而是循环的，除了某些科学发现外，任何改进都很容易失去或逆转。他列举了对恐怖嫌疑人使用酷刑的例子。

约翰写了几本有影响力的书，包括预测全球金融危机的《虚假的黎明：全球资本主义的错觉》（1998年）；抨击哲学人文主义的《草泥马：关于人类和其他动物的思考》（2002年）；以及《黑色弥撒》。Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007)，对现代世界的乌托邦思想进行了批评。