Francis Bacon 1561 1626 Francis Bacon an eminent

Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)

Francis Bacon, an eminent English philosopher and statesman (in 1620 – 1621 held the post of Chancellor of England, the second official body after the King himself), was the founder of the so called empiricism in philosophy. His main works are: Essays: Religious Meditations. Places of Persuasion and Dissuasion. Seen and Allowed (firstly published in 1597), De Sapientia veterum (Wisdom of the Ancients 1609), Novum Organum scientiarium (1620), De Augmentis Scientiarum, (The proficiencies and advancement of learning -1623), New Atlantis (1627) which was issued after Francis Bacon’ death (1626).

Francis Bacon, even if was influenced by Aristotle that he can admitted, his attempt to create a new methodological approach to philosophy which is worth of attention, as far as he created a Instauratio magna (The Great Instauration), where we can find such works as: 1. Partitions of the Sciences (De Augmentis Scientiarum) 2. New Method (Novum Organum) 3. Natural History (Historia Naturalis) 4. Ladder of the Intellect (Scala Intellectus) 5. Anticipations of the 2 nd Philosophy (Anticipationes Philosophiæ Secundæ) 6. The Second Philosophy or Active Science (Philosophia Secunda aut Scientia Activa)

As far as Francis Bacon is thought the father of empiricism, is not so hard to understand that main principle of knowledge was experience and the much theoretical and practical experience manhood and men acquired, the closer they are to the real truth. Genuine knowledge is not a goal in itself and ought not to be such. Main tasks of experience and knowledge are helping man in finding out practical results of his work, contributing to development of new inventions, of economics, dominion over nature.

Those ideas he expressed in the The Novum Organum, a philosophical work by Francis Bacon published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism, and is the second part of his Instauration. The book is divided in two parts, the first part being called "On the Interpretation of Nature and the Empire of Man", and the second "On the Interpretation of Nature, or the Reign of Man“. Bacon starts the work saying that man is "the minister and interpreter of nature", that "knowledge and human power are synonymous", that "effects are produced by the means of instruments and helps", and that "man while operating can only apply or withdraw natural bodies; nature internally performs the rest", and later that "nature can only be commanded by obeying her“.

Bacon, taken into consideration the possibility of mankind misusing its power over nature gained by science, expressed his opinion that there was no need to fear it, for once mankind restored this power, that was "assigned to them by the gift of God", it would be correctly governed by "right reason and true religion". For this purpose of obtaining knowledge of and power over nature, Bacon outlined in this work a new system of logic he believed to be superior to the old ways of syllogism, developing his scientific method, consisting of procedures for isolating the formal cause of a phenomenon (heat, for example) through eliminative induction. For him, the philosopher should proceed through inductive reasoning from fact to axiom to physical law.

Bacon would give a new interpretation of outdated Aristotle's syllogism, because he thought that sciences which man possessed at this time were useless for obtaining practical effects, and logics as well. Bacon wrote “The logic in use is of more value for establishing and rendering permanent errors which are based on vulgar conceptions that for finding out the truth; so that it is more harmful than useful”. The point is that syllogism consists of words; and proposition consists of words; and words express concept. So it concepts are confused and if they are the result of over ‘ hasty abstraction, nothing which is built upon them is secure. In force of it, Bacon used induction, which had strong and wake points that can we see in the following slide:

Strong point in Bacon’s induction: 1. Bacon’s deduction was stronger than Descartes’ deduction, as far as the former extends the ways of knowledge and enhances the process of knowledge. Wake point in Bacon’s induction: 1. Its probabilistic character (if representatives of one class have common features, it does not mean that all representatives of this class have them.

A way for overcoming probabilistic character of induction is that human kind must accumulate as much experience as possible in every field of knowledge. Bacon placed emphasis on concrete methods of cognitive activity which he symbolized as spiders, ants and bees: By spider is meant the method for getting knowledge from pure reason. Here are not allowed concrete facts and role of practical experience is ignored or is denigrated.

By ant is meant the way of getting knowledge, when all concentration is given only to experience. It is a dogmatic empiricism (counterpart of rationalism). This method is imperfect as well. “Pure” empirics pay attention only to practical experience, to collection of isolated facts. The get only a superficial presentation of knowledge, they look at problems “from outside”, sideways, and they can’t get into the core of analyzed topics and phenomena, and take a look to the problem from within

By bee is meant the best way to knowledge. Using it, researcher can use the method of spider and ant at the same time and at the fullest extent, but avoiding wake points of these approaches. The method of bee foresees collecting all facts, it means taking a look to the problem from outside, and with the help of mind, understanding inner short of the matter.

This way, in Bacon’s opinion, the best way to knowledge is empiricism based on induction, assisted by rationalistic devices to understand inner essence of things and phenomena by means of mind. Moreover, Francis Bacon gave prominence to four causes or Idols preventing people and human kind from getting knowledge. They are split into four groups: - Idols of the Tribe (Idola tribus) - Idols of the Cave (Idola specus) - Idols of the Market place (Idola fori) - Idols of the Theatre (Idola theatri) The The first ones are common to race, second are peculiar to individual, third come from misuse of language forth stem from philosophical dogmas.

Bacon's doctrine of the idols not only represents a stage in the history of theories of error (Brandt 1979) but also functions as an important theoretical element within the rise of modern empiricism. According to Bacon, the human mind is not a tabula rasa. Instead of an ideal plane for receiving an image of the world in toto, it is a crooked mirror, on account of implicit distortions, underlining that the images in our mind right from the beginning do not render an objective picture of the true objects. Consequently, we have to improve our mind, i. e. , free it from the idols, before we start any knowledge acquisition. When people will be free from idols, the understanding will be thoroughly freed and cleansed. In a certain way, it remembers Descartes, even if theoretical premises are different.