Sir Francis Bacon's Influnce

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English Lawyer, statesman, essayist, historian, intellectual reformer, philosopher and champion of modern science.  He lived during the transitional period between the Renaissances to the early modern era. He was very influential in many a fields of study. He is most well known for cultivating the Baconian Method, a precursor to the modern scientific method; He is also considered the founder of empiricism and inductive research, as well as a leading figure in natural philosophy.

Bacon was not satisfied with the current Aristotelian, humanist and scholastic ideas because they had become out of date, and were not easily applied to every branch of science. Bacon dedicated himself to a complete re-structuring and rehabilitation of traditional learning. He proposed an entirely new paradigm for gaining knowledge. To Bacon a clear system of scientific inquiry would assure man's mastery over the world.  His scheme was one based upon empirical and inductive reasoning

Bacon argued in his book Novum Organum that the worlds mysteries could be understood by making hypotheses, collecting information, arriving at careful judgments, and conducting scientific experiment. This is a precursor for "scientific empiricism" or science that is based upon knowledge that can be gleaned from the senses, and natural world. His ideas greatly influenced the development of the scientific method.  Bacons inductive reasoning would proceed “regularly and gradually from one axiom to another, so that the most general are not reached till the last.” This is a stark contrast from (deductive) (a priori) in which a generalization is made first and the examples are found later.3

[pic 1] -Scientific Method-

"In Cogitata et Visa he compares deductive logic (the older ways of scientific research) as used by the scholastics to a spider's web, which is drawn out of its own entrails, whereas the bee is introduced as an image of scientia operativa. Like a bee, the empiricist, by means of his inductive method, collects the natural matter or products and then works them up into knowledge in order to produce honey, which is useful for healthy nutrition." 2

Bacon theorized that for a scientist to get the best work done he must first free himself of false notions, that could distort the truth. Bacon would warn his students and make the analogy of waxed table that needed to rub out the old to make space for the new.  He compiled these false notions and called them the Four Idols, they were as follows, Idols of the Tribe (common to the race or every man has inherent flaws in reasoning because he is a man); "Idols of the Den" (peculiar to the individual such as prejudices held by the person with no evidence to back up the belief); "Idols of the Marketplace" (from the misuse of language think of a game of telephone the message is never quite the same); and "Idols of the Theatre" (from the abuse of authority/ ideas that are never tested because they were postulated by someone like Aristotle).,

Bacon also warned about the distempers of learning, in the book of Advancement. They were Fantastical learning, contentious learning, and delicate learning.

Fantastical learning is what we call pseudo science today, which means a collection of held beliefs that lack any evidence or true foundation. Back then it would include astrology, magic, and alchemy.

Contentious learning is referring to Aristotelian philosophy which was generally not aimed at garnering new knowledge but was usually just debates for the sake of debating.

Delicate learning was bacons label for the new humanism, which to him wasn't really about recovering ancient texts, but was the preoccupation with word use, and prose stylization. 1

All three tempers were to bacon a waste of talent, and didn't contribute to new knowledge.

Bacon also wrote The New Atlantis, which was published after his death. It was a fictitious book about a idealized world -a utopia in which women would have more rights, slavery would be abolished, a separation of church and state, no debtors prisons, and freedom of political and religious expression. His idealized world also included a world that highly regarded and upheld human discovery and knowledge. His utopia would also have cooperative research institutions. The world in which we live in is today would have been the world of which Bacon wrote about, women have almost equal rights, we have freedom of speech, there is a separation of church and state, and there is so many cooperative research institutions now it is almost staggering. Such as the Royal Society of London.