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Francis Bacon (1561-1626) left one of the most complex historical reputations of any of the natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution. Honored as in the English-speaking world for several hundred years as the “father of modern science” or the “founder of the experimental method,” today historians see him in a lesser role historically. Although not unique in his criticism of traditional knowledge and his championing of new methods, he inspired attention to new scientific and technical knowledge. In his own day, English philosophers did rally to his call for new knowledge through empiricism, or direct study of nature’s phenomena.
More important than his particular “experimental” technique was his critique of authority and traditional knowledge, and his promotion of a “new philosophy” to replace Scholasticism. He distrusted its over-dependence on logical arguments. We might better characterize his science as “empirical” rather than “experimental”, keeping the meaning of experiment for the modern protocols of experimental design. His method was “inductive,” making inferences of general propositions from the accumulation of specific cases. Unlike Galileo and Descartes, he did not call for more use of quantitative studies and mathematical models. Bacon suggested that the natural philosopher should
1. purge the mind of prejudices (and thus reject Scholasticism)
2. collect facts by direct observation
3. make a first understanding of the phenomenon, from its pattern of regularities, in order to direct further study.
To this end, he promoted the idea of refashioning the technical knowledge of the world, publishing the popular Essays (1597) and then embarking on a series of treatises which formed parts of his grand comprehensive scheme. This was his Instauratio magna [the “Great Instauration” or a great "fresh start"]. The title page of the 1620 edition is shown here. “De Verulamio” is his name, referring to his elevation to the title Baron Verulam. The picture is a ship sailing through the Pillars of Hercules (the limits of the human world) and beyond to the new. The Latin quotation at the bottom of the image is from the Book of Daniel, translating as “many will pass through and knowledge will be increased.” This is Bacon at his inspirational, seeing the advancement of scientific and technological knowledge as the promise of a better future.
His influential Advancement of Learning (1604) was later reworked and republished in 1623 as De Augmentis Scientiarum, and also forms the first argument of the Instauratio, surveying and classifying all scientific knowledge.
The second part of the Instauratio is the Novum Organum Scientarium, or “New Organon [Instrument] of Science, or True Directions concerning the Interpretation of Nature.” Despite his reputation as the foundation of "the scientific method" (experimental science), it is better to see him as influential in helping to establish some principles or attitudes, the shared ways of thought that characterize modern scientific practice.
In a Preface and with numerous Aphorisms, Bacon explains why he thought natural knowledge was deficient, having no mastery over nature. For example, Aphorism 14 states that
“The syllogism consists of propositions, propositions consist of words, words are symbols of notions. Therefore if the notions themselves (which is the root of the matter) are confused and over-hastily abstracted from the facts, there can be no firmness in the superstructure. Our only hope therefore lies in a true induction.”
Bacon criticized the older method for bringing in reasoning and logic too soon, without weighing enough empirical evidence before trying to connect all with principles and theory. His new method then follows, intended to correct error and establish a true understanding and use of nature, as compared in Aphorism 19:
“There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way [Scholasticism] is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.”
In promoting critical examination of what was known, and emphasizing hands-on empirical knowledge and observation, he aimed for a “middle course” of methods:
“Those who have handled sciences have been either men of experiment or men of dogmas. The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay it up in the memory whole, as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never yet been made), much may be hoped.” [Aphorism 95]
As a goal, science is not to be about the search after truth, but for “operation” in a practical manner, “to endow the condition and life of man with new powers or works” and “to extend more widely the limits of the power and greatness of man” [Novum Organum]. Knowledge should hold promise for life:
“Shall [man’s mind] not as well discern the riches of nature’s warehouse as the beauty of her shop? Is truth ever barren? Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects, and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities?”
Bacon spent most of his life in politics, serving in Parliament during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. Advancement was dedicated to the King as his patron. Under James I, he rose high in the Court, serving as Lord Chancellor before his political downfall in 1621. Thus Bacon was in the central social sphere, able to influence the class of wealthy and educated gentlemen in a flourishing England.
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