Renaissance/Early Modern
Francis Bacon
1561–1626
“The subtilty of nature is vastly superior to that of argument.”
Francis Bacon, English statesman and philosopher who rose to Lord Chancellor under James I, set out a program for reforming natural philosophy. In and the he urges investigators to leave final causes to ethics and theology and to seek the material and efficient causes that produce effects. His "forms" are laws governing natures, distinct from Aristotelian essences. The method is inductive. He proposes tabulation and exclusion of instances, aimed at discovering those laws through careful comparison of cases. He is the great advocate, in this Conversation, of experimental inquiry against the authority of the schools.
In the Conversation
15 of the Great Ideas
Theology & Metaphysics
Epistemology
Logic & Method
Dialectic
The syllogistic dialectic of the Schools is barren; only induction from observed nature can produce real knowledge.
Logic
The syllogism commands assent but cannot grip the subtlety of nature; a new organon based on systematic experience must replace it.
Induction
Induction, properly reformed, proceeds by systematic exclusion: tabulating presences, absences, and degrees to isolate the true cause of any phenomenon.
Science
The reform of the sciences requires abandoning ancient authority and beginning again from the senses; knowledge is power, and the purpose of science is the relief of man's estate.