|
1 BACON Preface to The great instauration; The new organon, Aphorisms
1-46; selections
from The advancement of learning (The Works of Francis Bacon, James Spedding, Robert Ellis, and Douglas Heath, eds. 14
volumes (London: Longman, 1858-1874), vol. IV, pp. 13-17,
20-27, 47-57, and 294-98)
There are a couple of
reasons why this rebirth occurred when and where it did. One is that early modern People in the Ancient
world lived behind what historians of technology have described as an energy
bottleneck. The amount of energy
available to them from plants, animals, and their own labour was too little
to allow them to readily produce yet more energy. Consequently, they believed that there are definite, and very short limits to what they could do to
control the forces of nature or improve the conditions of their lives. Consider, by way of example, the following
passage from the Roman poet, Lucretius, writing in the first century CE, at a
time when the period of ancient philosophy was drawing to a close: Quis regere
immensi summam, quis habere profundi indu manu
validas potis est moderanter habenas, quis pariter
caelos omnis convertere et omnis ignibus aetheriis
terras suffire feracis, omnibus inve
locis esse omni tempore praesto? Who could rule the whole of the
universe? Who could hold in coercive hand the
strong reins of the unfathomable? Who could spin the firmament and
ferment with the fires of ether all the fruitful earths? Who could be in all places at all
times? [De
rerum natura II
1095-1099] Lucretius’ unspoken
answer to this question was that no one could do these things — not even the
Gods. This last idea, that not even
the Gods could intervene in the course of nature, was a minority view at the
time, but it gave all the more eloquent expression to the view that mere
human beings are certainly incapable of intervening in the course of nature
to improve their circumstances. By the beginning of
the early modern period this outlook on the amount of power within our grasp
had begun to change. The energy
bottleneck had been traversed, first by water mills, which came to be widely
employed in feudal times, and then by wind mills, which by the fourteenth
century were able to produce energy equivalent to 20-30 horsepower. During the middle ages and the Renaissance
a number of other inventions and discoveries had been made that had
significantly improved the material conditions of life and given people far
greater control over their circumstances: galleys that did not need to be
rowed by slaves and that could harness enough wind energy to sail even though
outfitted with heavy cannon; gunpowder to fire the cannon and to use in
mines; the magnetic compass, which allowed people to sail out of sight of land;
the mechanical clock; and the printing press, to name some of the most
important. Accordingly, when we
look at the works of an early modern thinker like Francis Bacon, we find a
more optimistic attitude about the potential for human beings to acquire the ability
to intervene in the course of nature.
[We] ought on the contrary
to be surely persuaded of this; that the artificial does not differ from the
natural in form or essence, but only in its efficient [cause]. Since [we] have no power over nature except
that of motion, [we] can put natural bodies together and can separate them,
and therefore wherever the case admits of the uniting or disuniting of
natural bodies by joining (as they say) actives with passives, [we] can do
everything. [Works IV 294] Interestingly, there
is nothing new to the conception of the nature that Bacon was giving voice to
here. It is shot through with ideas
and distinctions drawn from ancient, and
particularly Aristotelian philosophy.
Bacon’s distinction between “the artificial” (that is, what is made by
human beings) and “the natural” is Aristotelian, as are his notions that
these things are characterized by a “form” or “essence” and that they are
brought into being by “efficient causes.”
So also is his notion that the reason things change is because bodies
with a certain “active potency” to transmit a form (“actives” as Bacon called
them) have come into contact with bodies with a certain “passive potency” to
receive that form. But while the theory
of nature that is expressed by this text is very old, the optimism it
expresses about human abilities to intervene in the course of nature was
quite new. There is a hint here that
we might be able to do anything — even “control nature in action,” as Bacon
put it elsewhere — if only we could discover what “actives” to move into
contact with what “passives.” Of
course, this presumes an ability to mine “actives” and “passives” and to move
them appropriately. But the
technological innovations of Bacon’s day made him think that there was no
longer an obvious limit to the extent of our power to mine, smelt, and move
materials. New machines were giving us
new powers, and those new powers were making it possible to make yet stronger
machines that would give us yet greater powers. Bacon wanted knowledge and philosophy to
become like mechanics: to yield inventions that would produce yet more
knowledge, setting them on an ever-increasing path of development. At the same time that
Bacon was convinced that there is more knowledge to be gained, he was also
led to make a very different assessment of the worth and nature of knowledge
than any that had been expressed in the centuries before him. The ancient pessimism about our ability to
intervene in the course of nature had led people to suppose that even if we
could come to understand what makes things happen in nature, this knowledge
would be largely useless. Not
possessing the energy to intervene in the course of nature, the best
knowledge could give to us would be some ability to predict what would happen
next, not an ability to prevent it. Not surprisingly,
those ancients who valued knowledge found it valuable for other purposes than
those of gaining control over nature.
Plato and Socrates supposed that wickedness and evil are products of
ignorance of the ultimate consequences of our actions, so that no one could
knowingly do wrong. For them,
knowledge would make us virtuous and honourable. Aristotle supposed that the very essence of
humanity involves rationality, so that we can only be truly happy when
fulfilling this end and living a life of quiet contemplation. Lucretius maintained that knowledge of the
workings of nature would teach us that not even the Gods can do anything to
change the course of nature. In
learning this, we would be freed from superstitious fears and would acquire a
sort of peace of mind that would enable us to live happy and blessed lives. And the Stoics supposed that knowledge of
the workings of nature would help us appreciate the inevitability of things
and see how even our own misfortune is part of an inexorable development
towards the greater good. This
knowledge would reconcile us to our fate and make us better able to endure
adversity. In sharp contrast to
these assessments of the practical worth of knowledge in making us better,
happier, more self-reliant, more honourable, and better able to endure
adversity, Bacon thought that the proper end of knowledge is to show us how
we can transform nature so as to improve the material conditions of
life. As he put it, the proper goal of
knowledge is to “command nature in action” and come up with “inventions” that
can “in some degree overcome the necessities and miseries of humanity” (Works
IV p.27). Looking back at the
philosophy that had preceded him, and seeing how little it had managed to do
in this regard, he charged that the ancient and medieval tradition
represented the “boyhood” of human knowledge, and had the characteristic
property of boys: it could talk (produce thick volumes of incomprehensible
jargon), but it could not reproduce (Works IV p.14). And he even compared moral knowledge
unfavourably to practical knowledge, observing that, according to accepted
Christian mythology contained in the Book of Genesis of the Bible, it had
been the pursuit of moral knowledge (of good and evil) that had gotten Adam
and Eve expelled from the Garden of Eden, not the pursuit of practical
knowledge (represented by Adam’s activity of classifying and naming the
species of living things). For Bacon, any
knowledge worthy of the name ought to be useful for producing something. It ought to show us how to invent machines
and devices that improve the material conditions of our lives. Most importantly, it ought to generate new
knowledge and works and inventions that put us in a position to invent and
produce yet more powerful or yet finer instruments and devices. But Bacon’s
comparatively traditional physics of “actives” and “passives” (alluded to
above) also has implications for how one is to go about getting this
knowledge. The kind of knowledge he
wanted, knowledge that gives us power over nature, is knowledge of what
“actives” to combine with what “passives” in order to produce change. The trouble is that when an active is
combined with a passive, the change is brought about by nature “working
within,” as Bacon put it in Aphorism IV of the New organon. We usually cannot isolate what it is in the
actives and passives that makes the change occur (what Bacon called the “latent constitution” of objects and
“latent processes” they perform).
Not being able to see the small mechanism responsible for the change,
we are in no position to tell in advance, just by looking at different kinds
of material, what kinds of change they will produce in combination. We have no choice but to make the
experiment of actually combining them, in various proportions and under
various circumstances, and seeing what will happen. This meant that Bacon
was thrown back on the use of essentially the same scientific methodology
that Aristotle had used: a method of what is called resolution and
composition (or induction and deduction or analysis and synthesis). The method is fundamentally empirical or
experimental. It requires that we go
out and observe nature, combining different substances in all sorts of
different ways, in order to see what changes result. This investigation would hopefully put us
in a position to move, by a process of what was variously called “induction”
or “analysis” or “resolution” from a study of particular events to a
discovery of general laws governing those events. It would also put us in a position to
identify which objects are “active” in which ways and which are “passive” in
which ways and to move from a study of these macroscopic objects to a theory
of the underlying “latent constitution” and “latent processes” in the actives
and passives responsible for making the change occur. Once having done this, we would be in a
position to move on to the second stage of the method, the stage variously
referred to as “deduction” or “synthesis” or “composition.” In contrast to the first stage, which
proceeds from the “bottom up,” as it were (from sense experience of particulars
and events to general theories about what particulars are made of and what
causes change), this stage moves from the “top down” (from general theories
back to particular facts). It appeals
to general rules and principles both to explain why what is happening is
happening and to predict what will happen next. However, while Bacon
had essentially the same picture of how we must proceed to build up a system
of knowledge or science or philosophy (at the time these were all the same),
he differed with Aristotle over a number of details. These differences are examined in the notes
that follow. QUESTIONS ON THE
1. What did
Bacon mean by comparing the wisdom of the ancients to the boyhood of
knowledge?
2. How is it
that the mechanical arts are superior to philosophy?
3. How did
Bacon respond to the charge that the works of the ancients have withstood the
test of time, and that if more could have been done
to improve the sciences it would have been done already?
4. How did
Bacon respond to the charge that the pursuit of knowledge of nature may be
impious and contrary to divine commands?
5. What are
the true ends of knowledge?
6. What was
the chief effect Bacon took the new science he was proposing to promise?
7. What is the
proper method to pursue when inquiring into the nature of things?
8. How does
the type of induction Bacon recommended differ from traditional forms of
induction?
9. What is the
key to rectifying the defects of sense experience, according to Bacon? 10.
What is the “fixed and established maxim” that
we must not forget on pain of being seduced by the insidious action of
ineradicable idols? NOTES ON THE In the selections
assigned for reading, we see Bacon offering three principal objections to
Aristotelian philosophy and science. A
fourth is not mentioned but will be discussed here as well. The first three objections concern the
Aristotelian approach to induction, the fourth concerns the Aristotelian
approach to deduction. •
The Aristotelians had wrongly placed an
implicit trust in their senses, when in fact the evidence of sense needs to
be “sifted and examined” (the way we pan gold at a river bed, where most of
what the river gives to us is not worth much) •
The Aristotelians had based their general
theories on a hasty induction, drawn too quickly from too few experiences,
and had focused on the wrong sorts of experiences (experiences of what is
“naturally” or normally the case as opposed to experiences of what is
preternatural, that is, uncommon, and experiences of what is constructed by
human craft) •
The Aristotelians had arrived at the wrong
general theory of the latent constitution of things and the latent processes
between things (one proven false by the fact that it has failed ever since
Aristotle to yield new knowledge or new inventions that might improve the
material conditions of life). This is
the theory that change is ultimately due to the contact and reaction of
active and passive potencies or forms in things. Bacon thought that a more thorough
examination of the evidence would lead to a deeper account of what latent
constitution makes “actives” active and “passives” passive. This theory would have more in common with
what had been thought by the ancient atomist philosophers, who had attempted
to account for all change as a consequence of the motion of differently
shaped particles. (This is the feature of Bacon’s critique that does not come
up in our readings) •
Having arrived at an incorrect general theory,
the Aristotelians had given that theory a specious appearance of truth by
relying on syllogistic logic to deduce consequences from the theory. But syllogistic logic does not allow us to
discover new truths. It only allows us
to draw out consequences already contained in the general rules and
principles we have previously accepted as premises. The adequacy of a system of knowledge
cannot be judged by its success as yielding these sorts of question-begging
results. It needs to be judged by
whether it leads to progress and improvement. In seeking to rectify
these inadequacies, Bacon developed three boldly original new notions, the
notion of a controlled experiment, the notion of a crucial experiment or
“cross instance” and the notion of a collaborative research institution. He also developed an account of “idols” or
false inclinations of the understanding.
He was highly celebrated by later philosophers on account of these
inventions. Trust
in the senses and controlled experimentation. I mentioned earlier that the early modern
period was a time of religious upheaval and reformation. In challenging the authority of the
established church the reformers had recovered and revived the works of the
ancient Greek sceptical philosophers, work that they saw as contributing to
the point that no one is in a position to set themselves up as an authority
in matters of religious knowledge and that toleration for how things appear
to each individual needs to be exercised.
Bacon, who was at one point the Prime Minister of England, a “half
reformed” country (it had thrown off submission to the authority of the Pope,
but its national church continued to contain many features that the reformers
objected to, such as an ecclesiastical hierarchy and prescribed ritualistic
forms of worship), serendipitously (or, not surprisingly) proposed a middle
way between the position of the Aristotelians and the sceptics. Following the sceptics, Bacon denounced the
Aristotelians for uncritically relying on sensory experience. But whereas the Aristotelians has
overestimated our store of knowledge, the sceptics had underestimated our
capacities of knowledge. Both had
ended up giving up in the search for new knowledge. The sceptics had given up because they
thought knowledge is beyond our grasp; the Aristotelians had given up because
they thought that they had already discovered everything it is possible for
us to know, and so took themselves to have nothing left to do but exposit and
comment on the works of “the Philosopher.” (Works IV 13). Bacon agreed with the
sceptics that the Aristotelians were wrong.
The Aristotelian philosophy taught in the schools and universities of
his day was bogus, and the sceptics had been right to expose its errors, along
with the errors of all the other dogmatic philosophical schools. But Bacon thought that the sceptics were
also wrong to suppose that we could not do any better. Of course the sceptics had been right when
they argued, as they famously did, that our senses are unreliable and
deceptive, and that our intellect frequently contradicts our senses — even
though it depends on the senses for all its information. But the sceptics had also been wrong, Bacon
claimed, to suppose that we therefore have no criterion for distinguishing
between the deceptive appearances produced by the senses or the intellect and
what is a true reflection of reality.
He had been able, Bacon claimed, to supply certain instruments or
“helps” (i.e., certain methods) that would assist the senses and the
intellect in gaining knowledge, just as recent technological inventions had
supplied his fellows with instruments for bettering the material conditions
of life. Bacon’s answer to the
sceptics is worth quoting at length. the information of senses I
sift and examine in many ways. For it
is certain that the senses deceive.
But then at the same time they supply the means of discovering their
own errors. Only the errors are
[obvious]; the means of discovery are to be sought. The senses fail in two
ways. Sometimes they give no
information; sometimes they give false information. For first, there are very
many things [that] escape the senses, even when best disposed and in no way
obstructed. This happens either
because of the subtlety of the whole body or the minuteness of its parts, or
because of distance, or slowness or swiftness of motion, or familiarity of
the object, or other causes. And
again, when the senses do apprehend a thing their apprehension is not to be
relied upon much. For the testimony and information of the senses has
reference always to [us], not to the universe; and it is a great error to
assert that the senses are the measure of things. To meet these difficulties,
I have sought diligently and faithfully on all sides to provide helps for the
senses — substitutes to supply their failures, standards to correct their
errors; and this I endeavour to accomplish not so much by instruments as by
experiments. For the subtlety of
experiments is far greater than that of the senses themselves, even when
assisted by exquisite instruments — such experiments, I mean, as are skillfully and artificially devised for the express
purpose of determining the point in question.
To the immediate and proper perception of the senses therefore I do not
give much weight, but I ensure that the task of the senses shall be only to
judge the experiment, and that the experiment itself shall judge the thing. [Works IV 26] The sceptics had
famously argued that sense experience is unreliable and cannot be used as a
basis for knowledge because sensory experiences are in conflict with one
another. The same object can appear
differently to different perceivers, or to different
sense organs of the same perceiver, or to the same sense organ at different
times or under different circumstances.
This is a problem because we have no independent criterion that we can
rely upon to decide which of the conflicting appearances is correct. We cannot appeal to the sense of touch in
preference to that of vision, because it is party to the dispute; or to the
experiences of “the wise” in contrast to those of fools, because we need a
way of identifying which people are wise, which we can’t provide without
begging the question of who perceives correctly (in this case, who perceives
wisdom in others). But Bacon claimed
that there is a kind of sensory experience that is reliable. It is not the experience of a particular
sense organ, or the sense experiences of a particular wise person. Neither is
it the experience of the senses when used under optimal conditions, when they
are healthy and unobstructed. It is
rather sense experience of the results of properly conducted experiments. Bacon’s idea was that
if our senses are inadequate because they give us conflicting experiences of
the same object under varying circumstances, then we can correct for these
errors by controlling the circumstances and relating our observations to
them, that is, by conducting controlled experiments. If, say, the same object looks different
from different angles or in different surroundings, then we need to keep
track of the viewing angle and the surroundings when we make our
observations; we need to actively alter the viewing angle and the
surroundings and record how the appearance of the object changes, and we need
to develop a comprehensive picture of all the different ways the object
appears under all the relevant variations in circumstances. Again, if the same object appears
differently to different people, or to the same
person at different times, then we need to identify what is different about
these people and these times. We need
to work towards a position where all the circumstances producing variety in
the appearance of the object are controlled for. Once in that position, the object will
always appear the same way. Our senses
will not deceive us when judging about the nature of the object under
controlled circumstances — circumstances that take into account all the
different things that can affect the appearance of the object. Moreover, other
investigators, replicating our experiments under the same controls, should
obtain the same results. After all,
under proper experimental conditions, the appearances to different perceivers
should not be conflicting because the circumstances that produce variations
in sensory experience would all have been taken into account. Sensory experience of the results of
properly conducted experiments should therefore always yield the same results
and so should be immune to the sceptical charge that sensory experience is
unreliable because different sensory experiences give us conflicting
testimony regarding the same object. This notion, that
knowledge should not be based simply on sensory experience, but rather on
observations that have been made under rigorously controlled circumstances
and that are replicable by others who repeat the experiment under those same
conditions, still characterizes modern science. Today, a report does not count as
“scientific” unless other researchers can replicate it in their own laboratories,
and reports that fail to meet this test are rejected. Bacon deserves the credit for being the
first to clearly articulate and promulgate this ideal for scientific
knowledge and it is one of his main contributions to the history of ideas. Hasty
induction, crucial experiments, and collaborative research institutions. One thing that getting a complete picture
of how an object varies in appearance with differences in circumstances
should do is identify different factors that affect our experience and so
correct for their influence, enabling us to identify the intrinsic,
circumstantially neutral constitution of the object. But we want to do more than that. We want to work back to the “latent constitution” of its parts, even its unobservably small parts, and use knowledge of that
constitution to predict how that object will affect and be affected by other
objects. In order to do this we need
to study what Bacon called “natural history” and we need to do experiments in
a systematic rather than a haphazard fashion.
Studying natural history involves going out and attempting to identify
all the circumstances in which the phenomenon we are interested in naturally
or commonly appears. Say we are
interested in heat. Then we will want
to go out and identify all the circumstances where heat naturally or commonly
arises (e.g., in fire, under sunlight).
But we will not stop there.
Even more important, in Bacon’s estimation, is collecting experiences
where the phenomenon occurs in surprising or unexpected circumstances (these
are the preternatural or monstrous circumstances). Swishing a piece of limestone under water
produces heat, contrary to all our expectations. A dung heap in winter steams and melts the
snow that falls on it, contrary to all expectations. These recalcitrant instances are
particularly important, in Bacon’s estimation. They provide real clues to the cause of the
phenomenon. The cause can’t just be
something that is common to all the natural circumstances where the
phenomenon occurs (there are typically many things that are common to the
different natural circumstances. It
must also be something that is common to the preternatural circumstances
where it occurs and absent from the preternatural circumstances where it does
not occur though it is expected to.
Bacon took this so seriously as to recommend taking tales of
witchcraft, spirits, and magic seriously — not because he necessarily
believed that there actually are such things, but because he thought that the
investigation of such phenomena would tell us something one way or another,
either about what exists in the world around us (supposing the tales are
true), or about what causes us to adopt false beliefs (supposing the tales
are false). In addition to doing a
“natural history” of natural and preternatural circumstances in which a
phenomenon occurs, Bacon stressed that it is important to study artificial
circumstances in which the phenomenon occurs.
“Artificial” means what is produced by art or human artifice, and as
already noted, Bacon did not think that the artificial really differs from
the natural. We must employ the same
causes to bring about an effect that nature does. That means that that the way we work to
successfully bring about change in things should mirror the way nature
works. There can be no overestimate of
the influence this last factor had on Bacon.
It is what led him to propose a theory of the latent constitution of
things. Many of the most impressive
artefacts of his day were mechanical devices: the clock, the mill, the
printing press. These devices bring
about change by communicating motion through a system of colliding
parts. Their example led Bacon to
think that nature works in the same way, and brings about all change through
motion and collision of particles too small to see Amassing a collection
of natural, preternatural, and artificial instances where the phenomenon we
want to study occurs is tantamount to applying what was later called “Mill’s method”
(from John Stuart Mill, who most famously proposed it) for identifying the
true cause of an event. Mill’s method
has us look at presences (cases where the effect occurs), absences (cases
where the effect does not occur) and concomitant variations (cases where the
effect occurs to a greater or lesser degree) and attempt to identify the
cause of the effect by considering what is present in all the cases where the
effect occurs, absent in all the cases where the effect does not occur, and
variant in all the cases where the effect is variant. Bacon already had the same idea. A “history” of natural, preternatural, and
artificial instances puts us in a position to compare these circumstances,
look for commonalities and differences, and float hypotheses about what
underlying latent constitution and latent processes are responsible for the
phenomenon. Typically, there will be
various alternative hypotheses we can formulate that will all equally well account
for the observations. What we do then
is look for or attempt to design some crucial experiment that is designed to
turn out one way if a hypothesis is correct and another way if it is
incorrect. This will put us in a
position to eliminate false hypotheses.
The notion of a crucial experiment is another of Bacon’s major
contributions to the history of ideas. As noted earlier,
Bacon was concerned to contrast this new, experimental approach to induction
with the rival inductive method of the Aristotelians, as paradigmatically
articulated in Aristotle’s Posterior
analytics. In Bacon’s estimation Aristotle’s inductions had been hasty
and based just on a study of natural phenomena, without due attention to
preternatural and artificial phenomena.
Moreover, Aristotle had gathered his observations haphazardly, as
nature happened to present them to him, rather than systematically by
formulating alternative hypotheses and then testing them
using crucial experiments. As Bacon
(rather disturbingly) put it (in some translations of his Latin), he had sat
like a student at nature’s feet, waiting for instruction, rather than adopt
the attitude of an inquisitor who uses instruments of torture (crucial
experiments) to force nature to yield up its secrets. Bacon charged that the Aristotelians had
not been careful enough in trying to discover general principles by
induction. They had, as he put it, “improperly and overhastily
abstracted from facts, vague, not sufficiently definite, faulty in short in
many ways,” (Works IV 24) so that
they could proceed to give demonstrations and “fly at once from sense and
particulars up to the most general propositions … : a short way, no doubt,
but precipitate; and one [that] will never lead to [an accurate description
of] nature, though it offers an easy and ready way to disputation” (Works IV 25). Demonstration has occupied altogether too
large a role in science up to now, as far as Bacon was concerned. It is a theatrical “idol” used to dress up
fatuous knowledge claims. It needs to
be replaced by more care in the execution of the important prior task of
induction. A significant problem
(and so a significant disincentive) to the important prior task of induction
is that it is a large one, requiring immense time and resources. To do it properly is more than could ever
possibly be managed by any single individual.
This led Bacon to propose the formation of research institutions
which, unlike the medieval universities, would be dedicated to the advancement (as opposed to mere
transmission) of learning. These institutions
would be dedicated to the execution of large, collaborative research
projects, involving extensive, programmed experimentation, carried out under
the guidance of directors, and aiming at the eventual formulation of theories
describing latent configurations and latent processes. The Royal Society of England was formed on
this Baconian model. The
doctrine of the Idols. As
Bacon saw it, a proper induction is further hampered by the fact that we have
certain intellectual weaknesses that constantly tempt us to jump to accept
grand theories even though the evidence for them is weak. (i) We like theories that are simple,
elegant, and analogous to other theories because they are easier for us to
understand and remember; and often we will accept a theory just because it
has these features. (ii) We like
theories that confirm our own personal prejudices, gleaned from education,
conversation or accidental experience, and will often accept theories merely
for that reason and in defiance of contrary evidence. (iii) We like theories that are dressed
up in fancy jargon and unintelligible technical terminology, and even though
we might not be able to make any sense of them we will repeat them as if they
were profound truths. Finally,
(iv) we like theories that are pompously displayed in the full
theatrical dress of an Aristotelian deductive system from supposedly first
principles (or some other equivalent).
All of these features are tempting to us. We have an inclination to want to assent to
theories that exhibit these features without adequately investigating the
evidence that they are based on. And
even should the evidence be against them, these same factors will make us so
enchanted with the theories that we will strive to preserve them anyway, by
making fine distinctions or trying to salvage them with ad hoc hypotheses. Bacon referred to
these four inducements to hasty generalization as “idols” of the
understanding. (He named them idols of
the tribe, idols of the cave, idols of the marketplace, and idols of the
theatre respectively.) The force of
this term is lost on us today unless we recall that Bacon was writing at the
time of the Protestant reformation and in a country that had just undergone a
reformation. In his day, a violent
reaction had set in against all the exterior forms of religious worship —
rituals, liturgies, vestments, statuary, music, incense, and so on — and a
alternative, purely inward form of worship — focusing on an intense personal
experience of God — was in vogue. By
talking about the evil influence of “idols” Bacon was presenting his point by
means of an analogy that would have been powerfully evocative for his
contemporaries. He was telling his
readers to smash the idols of the understanding as the Protestant reformers
had smashed the idols in the churches, and focus on an intense engagement
with the evidence of experience. ESSAY QUESTIONS AND RESEARCH PROJECTS
1. Over the
opening aphorisms of Book II of the New organon (not assigned as part of the reading for this
section) Bacon articulated what he meant by the form of a thing and took a
position on why it is that change occurs when “actives” and “passives” are
brought into contact with one another.
Obtain a copy of the complete New
organon and, proceeding from a study of the
opening aphorisms of Book II as well as of the assigned readings, attempt to
answer as many of the following questions as you can: What was the extent of Bacon’s commitment
to an atomistic or at least corpuscularian account of nature (one that
attributes all change to the mixture and separation of particles)? Is this commitment consistent with his inductivism, that is, can it plausibly be supposed to be
inductively well grounded? Is the
commitment, if there is any at all, only partial, that is, does Bacon think
that corpuscular accounts are correct only for certain phenomena but not
all? What hope did Bacon hold out for
our ever being able to reach an exact knowledge of the forms of things,
whatever their exact nature may be?
2. Kant
famously observed that while experience is able to tell us that something is
now the case, it is not able to tell us that is must always or everywhere be
so. In light of this observation, is
Bacon’s inductivist method feasible? Could any process of induction ever be
adequate to put us in a position to make a general assertion or would a leap
(i.e., a “hasty generalization” of some sort) always have to be involved if
we were to formulate any general theories of nature whatsoever? How rigorous was Bacon’s inductivism, that is, how much experiment and testing did
he think we must do before being entitled to make a generalization? Might he have thought that an inductive
leap becomes legitimate after a certain point? In answering this question, give careful
attention to the example Bacon gives of inductively discovering the cause of
heat. This example is given in Book II
of the New organon
(which you will have to obtain separately, since it is not included in the
readings for this course).
3. How
adequate is Bacon’s answer to scepticism?
Assess whether a committed sceptic might or might not be able to mount
a challenge to Bacon’s position. |
