Francis Bacon that he opened briefly. francis bacon

Francis Bacon was born in London to a noble and respected family. His father Nicholas was a politician, and his mother Anna (nee Cook) was the daughter of Anthony Cook, a well-known humanist who raised King Edward VI of England and Ireland. From a young age, the mother instilled in her son a love of knowledge, and she, a girl who knows ancient Greek and Latin, did it with ease. In addition, the boy himself, from a very tender age, showed a great interest in knowledge.

In general, not much is known about the childhood of the great thinker. He received the basics of knowledge at home, as he was distinguished by poor health. But this did not prevent him at the age of 12, along with his older brother Anthony, to enter Trinity College (Holy Trinity College) at Cambridge. During his studies, the smart and educated Francis was noticed not only by the courtiers, but also by Queen Elizabeth I herself, who enjoyed talking with the young man, often jokingly calling him the rising Lord Keeper.

Upon graduating from college, the brothers entered the community of teachers at Grace's Inn (1576). In the autumn of the same year, with the help of his father, Francis, as part of the retinue of Sir Amyas Paulet, went abroad. The realities of life in other countries, seen then by Francis, resulted in notes “On the State of Europe”.

Misfortune forced Bacon to return to his homeland - in February 1579, his father passed away. In the same year, he began his career as a lawyer at Grace's Inn. A year later, Bacon petitioned to seek some position at court. However, despite the rather warm attitude of Queen Elizabeth to Bacon, he did not hear a positive result. After working at Grace's Inn until 1582, he was promoted to junior barrister.

At the age of 23, Francis Bacon was honored to hold a position in the House of Commons. He had his own views, which sometimes did not agree with the views of the Queen, and therefore soon became known as her opponent. A year later, he was already elected to parliament, and the real " finest hour Bacon came when James I came to power in 1603. Under his patronage, Bacon was appointed Attorney General (1612), five years later Lord Privy Seal, and from 1618 to 1621 was Lord Chancellor.

His career collapsed in an instant when, in the same 1621, Francis was charged with bribery. Then he was taken into custody, but only two days later he was pardoned. During his political activity, the world saw one of the most outstanding works of the thinker - "New Organon", which was the second part of the main work - "The Great Restoration of the Sciences", which, unfortunately, was never completed.

Philosophy of Bacon

Francis Bacon is not unreasonably considered the founder of modern thinking. His philosophical theory fundamentally refutes scholastic teachings, bringing knowledge and science to the fore. The thinker believed that a person who was able to cognize and accept the laws of nature is quite capable of using them for his own benefit, thereby gaining not only power, but also something more - spirituality. The philosopher subtly noticed that during the formation of the world, all discoveries were made, in fact, by chance - without special skills and possession of special techniques. Therefore, while learning about the world and gaining new knowledge, the main thing to use is experience and the inductive method, and research, in his opinion, should begin with observation, not theory. According to Bacon, a successful experiment can only be called such if conditions are constantly changing during its implementation, including time and space - matter must always be in motion.

The Empirical Teachings of Francis Bacon

The concept of "empiricism" appeared as a result of the development of Bacon's philosophical theory, and its essence was reduced to the proposition "knowledge lies through experience." He believed that it was possible to achieve something in his activity only if he had experience and knowledge. According to Bacon, there are three ways through which a person can gain knowledge:

  • "Way of the Spider". In this case, the analogy is drawn with a web, like which human thoughts are intertwined, while specific aspects are skipped by.
  • "Way of the Ant" Like an ant, a person collects facts and evidence bit by bit, thus gaining experience. However, the essence remains unclear.
  • "The Way of the Bee" In this case, the positive qualities of the way of the spider and the ant are used, and the negative ones (lack of specifics, misunderstood essence) are omitted. When choosing the path of a bee, it is important to put all the facts collected empirically through the mind and the prism of your thinking. This is how the truth is known.

Classification of obstacles on the way to knowledge

Bacon, in addition to the ways of knowledge. He also talks about constant obstacles (the so-called ghost obstacles) that accompany a person throughout his life. They can be congenital and acquired, but in any case, it is they that prevent you from tuning your mind to cognition. So, there are four types of obstacles: “Ghosts of the clan” (come from human nature itself), “Ghosts of the cave” (own errors in perceiving the surrounding reality), “ghosts of the market” (appear as a result of communicating with other people through speech (language)) and “ the ghosts of the theater” (inspired and imposed ghosts by other people). Bacon is sure that in order to know the new, one must abandon the old. At the same time, it is important not to “lose” the experience, relying on which and passing it through the mind, you can achieve success.

Personal life

Francis Bacon was married once. His wife was three times younger than himself. Alice Burnham, the daughter of the widow of the London elder Benedict Burnham, became the chosen one of the great philosopher. The couple had no children.

Bacon died as a result of a cold, which was the result of one of the ongoing experiments. Bacon stuffed a chicken carcass with snow with his hands, trying in this way to determine the effect of cold on the safety of meat products. Even being already seriously ill, foreshadowing quick death, Bacon wrote joyful letters to his comrade, Lord Arendel, never tired of repeating that science would eventually give man power over nature.

Quotes

  • Knowledge is power
  • Nature is conquered only by obeying its laws.
  • A hobbler on a straight road will outstrip a runner who has gone astray.
  • The worst loneliness is not having true friends.
  • An imaginary wealth of knowledge main reason his poverty.
  • Of all the virtues and virtues of the soul, the greatest virtue is kindness.

The most famous works of the philosopher

  • "Experiments, or instructions, moral and political" (3 editions, 1597-1625)
  • "On the Dignity and Multiplication of the Sciences" (1605)
  • "New Atlantis" (1627)

Throughout his life, 59 works came out from the pen of the philosopher; after his death, 29 more were published.

In modern terms, Francis Bacon was one of the first to describe typical errors of thinking in reasoning, solving scientific problems.

“As for the refutation of ghosts, or idols, by this word we designate the deepest delusions of the human mind. They do not deceive in private matters, like other delusions, which obscure the mind and set traps for it; their deception is the result of a wrong and distorted disposition of the mind which infects and perverts all the perceptions of the intellect. After all, the human mind, darkened and, as it were, obscured by the body, looks too little like a smooth, even, clean mirror that undistortedly perceives and reflects the rays coming from objects; it is rather like some kind of witch mirror, full of fantastic and deceptive visions. Idols affect the intellect either by virtue of the very features of the general nature of the human race, or by virtue of the individual nature of each person, or as a result of words, that is, by virtue of the very nature of communication.

The first kind we usually call the idols of the clan, the second - the idols of the cave and the third - the idols of the square. There is also a fourth group of idols, which we call the idols of the theatre, which are the result of false theories or philosophies and false laws of proof.

But this type of idol can be disposed of and discarded, and therefore we will not talk about it for the time being. Idols of other kinds completely dominate the mind and cannot be completely removed from it. Thus, there is no reason to expect any analytical study in this matter, but the doctrine of refutation is the most important doctrine in relation to the idols themselves. And to tell the truth, the doctrine of idols cannot be turned into a science, and the only remedy against their harmful effects on the mind is some prudent wisdom. We refer a full and deeper consideration of this problem to the New Organon; here we will only express a few of the most general considerations.

The pioneer of the philosophy of modern times, the English scientist Francis Bacon, is known to contemporaries primarily as the developer of scientific methods for studying nature - induction and experiment, the author of the books "New Atlantis", "New Orgagon" and "Experiments, or Moral and Political Instructions".

Childhood and youth

The founder of empiricism was born on January 22, 1561, in the Yorkhouse mansion, on the central London Strand. The scientist's father, Nicholas, was a politician, and his mother Anna (nee Cook) was the daughter of Anthony Cook, a humanist who raised King Edward VI of England and Ireland.

From a young age, the mother instilled in her son a love of knowledge, and she, a girl who knows ancient Greek and Latin, did it with ease. In addition, the boy himself from a tender age showed an interest in knowledge. For two years, Francis studied at Trinity College, Cambridge University, then spent three years in France, in the retinue the British ambassador Sir Amyas Paulet.

After the death of the head of the family in 1579, Bacon was left without a livelihood and entered the school of barristers to study law. In 1582, Francis became a lawyer, and in 1584 - a Member of Parliament, and until 1614 played a prominent role in the debate at the sessions of the House of Commons. From time to time, Bacon composed Messages to the Queen, in which he strove to approach pressing political issues impartially.

Biographers now agree that if the queen had followed his advice, a couple of conflicts between the crown and Parliament could have been avoided. In 1591, he became an adviser to the queen's favorite, the Earl of Essex. Bacon immediately made it clear to the patron that he was devoted to the country, and when in 1601 Essex tried to organize a coup, Bacon, being a lawyer, participated in his condemnation as a traitor.

Due to the fact that people standing above Francis in rank saw him as a rival, and because he often expressed his dissatisfaction with the policies of Elizabeth I in epistolary form, Bacon soon lost favor with the Queen and could not count on promotion. Under Elizabeth I, the lawyer never reached high positions, but after James I Stuart ascended the throne in 1603, Francis's career went uphill.


Bacon was knighted in 1603 and raised to the title of Baron of Verulam in 1618 and Viscount of St. Albans in 1621. In the same 1621, the philosopher was accused of taking bribes. He admitted that the people whose cases were tried in court repeatedly gave him gifts. True, the fact that this influenced his decision, the lawyer denied. As a result, Francis was deprived of all posts and forbidden to appear at court.

Philosophy and teaching

The main literary creation of Bacon is the work "Experiments" ("Essayes"), on which he continuously worked for 28 years. Ten essays were published in 1597, and by 1625, 58 texts had already been collected in the book "Experiments", some of which appeared in a third, revised edition called "Experiments, or Instructions moral and political."


In these works, Bacon reflected on ambition, on friends, on love, on doing science, on the vicissitudes of things, and other aspects. human life. The works abounded with learned examples and brilliant metaphors. People striving for career heights will find advice in the texts built solely on cold calculation. There are, for example, statements such as:

“All who rise high pass along the zigzags of the spiral staircase” and “Wife and children are hostages of fate, for the family is an obstacle to the accomplishment of great deeds, both good and evil.”

Despite Bacon's occupations with politics and jurisprudence, the main business of his life was philosophy and science. He rejected Aristotelian deduction, which at that time occupied a dominant position, as an unsatisfactory way of philosophizing and proposed a new tool for thinking.


The outline of the "great plan for the restoration of the sciences" was made by Bacon in 1620, in the preface to the New Organon, or True Directions for Interpretation. It is known that this work included six parts (a review of the current state of the sciences, a description of a new method for obtaining true knowledge, a set of empirical data, a discussion of issues to be further investigated, preliminary solutions, and philosophy itself).

Bacon only managed to sketch the first two movements. The first was entitled "On the Usefulness and Success of Knowledge", the Latin version of which "On the Dignity and Multiplication of the Sciences" was published with corrections.


Since the basis of the critical part of Francis's philosophy is the doctrine of the so-called "idols" that distort people's knowledge, in the second part of the project he described the principles of the inductive method, with the help of which he proposed to overthrow all the idols of the mind. According to Bacon, there are four types of idols that besiege the minds of all mankind:

  1. The first type is the idols of the family (mistakes that a person makes by virtue of his very nature).
  2. The second type is the idols of the cave (mistakes due to prejudice).
  3. The third type is the idols of the square (mistakes caused by inaccuracies in the use of language).
  4. The fourth type is the idols of the theater (mistakes made due to adherence to authorities, systems and doctrines).

Describing the prejudices that hinder the development of science, the scientist proposed a tripartite division of knowledge, produced according to mental functions. He attributed history to memory, poetry to imagination, and philosophy (which included the sciences) to reason. According to Bacon, scientific knowledge is based on induction and experiment. Induction can be complete or incomplete.


Complete induction means the regular repetition of a property of an object in the class under consideration. Generalizations proceed from the assumption that this will be the case in all similar cases. Incomplete induction includes generalizations made on the basis of the study of not all cases, but only some (conclusion by analogy), because, as a rule, the number of all cases is boundless, and theoretically it is impossible to prove their infinite number. This conclusion is always probabilistic.

In trying to create a "true induction", Bacon was looking not only for facts confirming a certain conclusion, but also for facts refuting it. He thus armed natural science with two means of research - enumeration and exclusion. Moreover, exceptions mattered. Using this method, for example, he established that the "form" of heat is the movement of the smallest particles of the body.


In his theory of knowledge, Bacon adheres to the idea that true knowledge follows from sensory experience (such a philosophical position is called empirical). He also gave an overview of the limits and nature of human knowledge in each of these categories and pointed out important areas of research that no one had paid attention to before him. The core of Bacon's methodology is a gradual inductive generalization of the facts observed in experience.

However, the philosopher was far from a simplified understanding of this generalization and emphasized the need to rely on reason in the analysis of facts. In 1620, Bacon wrote the utopia "New Atlantis" (published after the death of the author, in 1627), which, in terms of the scope of the plan, should not have been inferior to the work "Utopia" of the great friend and mentor, whom he later beheaded, because of intrigues second wife.


For this "new lamp in the darkness of the philosophy of the past" King James granted Francis a pension of £1,200. In the unfinished work “New Atlantis”, the philosopher spoke about the mysterious country of Bensalem, which was led by the “Solomon House”, or “Society for the Knowledge of the True Nature of All Things”, uniting the main sages of the country.

From the communist and socialist works, the creation of Francis differed by a pronounced technocratic character. The discovery by Francis of a new method of cognition and the conviction that research should begin with observations, and not with theories, put him on a par with the most important representatives of the scientific thought of modern times.


It is also worth noting that Bacon's teachings on law and, in general, the ideas of experimental science and the experimental-empirical method of research have made an invaluable contribution to the treasury of human thought. However, during his lifetime, the scientist did not receive significant results either in empirical research or in the field of theory, and experimental science rejected his method of inductive cognition through exceptions.

Personal life

Bacon was married once. It is known that the wife of the philosopher was three times younger than himself. Alice Burnham, the daughter of the widow of the London elder Benedict Burnham, became the chosen one of the great scientist.


The wedding of 45-year-old Francis and 14-year-old Alice took place on May 10, 1606. The couple had no children.

Death

Bacon died on April 9, 1626, at the age of 66, by an absurd accident. Francis was fond of studying all kinds of natural phenomena all his life, and one winter, riding with the royal physician in a carriage, the scientist came up with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bconducting an experiment in which he intended to test the extent to which cold slows down the process of decay.


The philosopher bought a chicken carcass in the market and buried it in the snow with his own hands, from which he caught a cold, fell ill and died on the fifth day of his scientific experience. The grave of the lawyer is located on the territory of the Church of St. Michael in St. Albans (UK). It is known that a monument was erected at the burial site after the death of the author of the book "New Atlantis".

Discoveries

Francis Bacon developed new scientific methods - induction and experiment:

  • Induction is a term widely used in science, denoting a method of reasoning from the particular to the general.
  • An experiment is a method of studying some phenomenon under conditions controlled by an observer. It differs from observation by active interaction with the object under study.

Bibliography

  • 1957 - "Experiments, or Instructions moral and political" (1st edition)
  • 1605 - "On the benefit and success of knowledge"
  • 1609 - "On the wisdom of the ancients"
  • 1612 - "Experiments, or Instructions moral and political" (2nd edition)
  • 1620 - "The Great Restoration of the Sciences, or the New Organon"
  • 1620 - "New Atlantis"
  • 1625 - "Experiments, or Instructions moral and political" (3rd edition)
  • 1623 - "On the dignity and multiplication of sciences"

Quotes

  • "The worst loneliness is not having true friends"
  • "Excessive frankness is as indecent as perfect nudity"
  • "I have thought a lot about death and find that it is the lesser of evils"
  • “People who have a lot of shortcomings, first of all notice them in others”

scientific knowledge

In general, Bacon considered the great dignity of science almost self-evident and expressed this in his famous aphorism “Knowledge is power” (lat. Scientia potentia est).

However, there have been many attacks on science. After analyzing them, Bacon came to the conclusion that God did not forbid the knowledge of nature. On the contrary, He gave man a mind that yearns to know the universe. People only have to understand that there are two kinds of knowledge: 1) knowledge of good and evil, 2) knowledge of things created by God.

The knowledge of good and evil is forbidden to people. God gives it to them through the Bible. And man, on the contrary, must cognize created things with the help of his mind. This means that science should take its rightful place in the "kingdom of man." The purpose of science is to multiply the strength and power of people, to provide them with a rich and dignified life.

Bacon died after catching a cold during one of his physical experiments. Already seriously ill, in a last letter to one of his friends, Lord Arendel, he triumphantly reports that this experience was a success. The scientist was sure that science should give man power over nature and thereby improve his life.

Method of knowledge

Pointing to the deplorable state of science, Bacon said that until now, discoveries have been made by chance, not methodically. There would be many more if the researchers were armed with the right method. The method is the way, the main means of research. Even a lame person walking on the road will overtake a healthy person running off-road.

The research method developed by Francis Bacon is an early forerunner of the scientific method. The method was proposed in Bacon's Novum Organum (New Organon) and was intended to replace the methods proposed in Aristotle's Organum (Organon) nearly 2,000 years ago.

According to Bacon, scientific knowledge should be based on induction and experiment.

Induction can be complete (perfect) and incomplete. Full induction means the regular repetition and exhaustibility of some property of the object in the experiment under consideration. Inductive generalizations start from the assumption that this will be the case in all similar cases. In this garden, all lilacs are white - a conclusion from annual observations during its flowering period.

Incomplete induction includes generalizations made on the basis of a study of not all cases, but only some (conclusion by analogy), because, as a rule, the number of all cases is practically unlimited, and theoretically it is impossible to prove their infinite number: all swans are white for us reliably until we see black individual. This conclusion is always probabilistic.

In trying to create a "true induction", Bacon was looking not only for facts confirming a certain conclusion, but also for facts refuting it. He thus armed natural science with two means of investigation: enumeration and exclusion. And it is the exceptions that matter most. With the help of his method, for example, he established that the "form" of heat is the movement of the smallest particles of the body.

So, in his theory of knowledge, Bacon rigorously pursued the idea that true knowledge follows from sensory experience. Such a philosophical position is called empiricism. Bacon was not only its founder, but also the most consistent empiricist.

Obstacles in the way of knowledge

Francis Bacon divided the sources of human errors that stand in the way of knowledge into four groups, which he called "ghosts" ("idols", lat. idola) . These are “ghosts of the family”, “ghosts of the cave”, “ghosts of the square” and “ghosts of the theater”.

  1. The "ghosts of the race" stem from human nature itself, they do not depend on culture or on the individuality of a person. “The human mind is likened to an uneven mirror, which, mixing its own nature with the nature of things, reflects things in a distorted and disfigured form.”
  2. “Ghosts of the cave” are individual perceptual errors, both congenital and acquired. “After all, in addition to the mistakes inherent in the human race, everyone has their own special cave, which weakens and distorts the light of nature.”
  3. "Ghosts of the square (market)" - a consequence of the social nature of man - communication and use of language in communication. “People are united by speech. Words are established according to the understanding of the crowd. Therefore, the bad and absurd establishment of words surprisingly besieges the mind.
  4. "Phantoms of the theater" are false ideas about the structure of reality that a person assimilates from other people. “At the same time, we mean here not only general philosophical teachings, but also numerous principles and axioms of sciences, which have received strength as a result of tradition, faith and carelessness.”

Followers

The most significant followers of the empirical line in the philosophy of modern times: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume - in England; Étienne Condillac, Claude Helvetius, Paul Holbach, Denis Diderot - in France. F.Bacon's empiricist preacher was also the Slovak philosopher Jan Bayer.

Notes

Links

Francis Bacon at Wikiquote
in Wikisource
Francis Bacon at Wikimedia Commons

Literature

  • Gorodensky N. Francis Bacon, his doctrine of method and encyclopedia of sciences. Sergiev Posad, 1915.
  • Ivantsov N. A. Francis Bacon and its historical significance.// Questions of Philosophy and Psychology. Book. 49. S. 560-599.
  • Liebig Yu. F. Bacon of Verulamsky and the method of natural science. SPb., 1866.
  • Litvinova E. F. F. Bacon. His life, scientific works and social activity. SPb., 1891.
  • Putilov S. Secrets of the “New Atlantis” by F. Bacon // Our contemporary. 1993. No. 2. P. 171-176.
  • Saprykin D. L. Regnum Hominis. (Francis Bacon's imperial project). M.: Indrik. 2001
  • Subbotin A. L. Shakespeare and Bacon // Questions of Philosophy. 1964. No. 2.
  • Subbotin A. L. Francis Bacon. M.: Thought, 1974.-175 p.

Categories:

  • Personalities in alphabetical order
  • January 22
  • Born in 1561
  • Born in London
  • Deceased April 9
  • Deceased in 1626
  • Deceased at Highgate
  • Philosophers alphabetically
  • Philosophers of the 17th century
  • Philosophers of Great Britain
  • 16th century astrologers
  • Essayists of Great Britain

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

See what "Bacon, Francis" is in other dictionaries:

    - (1561 1626) English. philosopher, writer and statesman, one of the founders of modern philosophy. Genus. in the family of a high-ranking dignitary of the Elizabethan court. Studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and in the law corporation ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

    Francis Bacon Francis Bacon English philosopher, historian, politician, founder of empiricism Date of birth: January 22, 1561 ... Wikipedia

    - (1561 1626) English philosopher, founder of English materialism. Lord Chancellor under King James I. In the treatise New Organon (1620), he proclaimed the goal of science to increase man's power over nature, proposed a reform of the scientific method of purification ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Francis Bacon is considered the founder of experimental science in modern times. Francis Bacon - English philosopher, founder of empiricism. Empiricism is a direction in the theory of knowledge that recognizes sensory experience as the only source of reliable knowledge. Opposes rationalism and mysticism.

Bacon succinctly expressed one of the fundamental precepts of new thinking: "Knowledge is power."

Francis Bacon substantiated the inductive concept of scientific knowledge, which is based on experience and experiment. Scientific knowledge, according to Bacon, results from purposefully organized experience.

Francis Bacon distinguishes 2 types of experiments:

    fruitful experience (brings direct benefit to a person);

    luminiferous experience (the purpose of which is the knowledge of the laws of phenomena and the properties of things) .

He considered the clogging of people's consciousness with idols, false ideas about the world, as the main obstacle to the knowledge of nature.

Francis Bacon distinguished such idols as:

Idols of the “kind” are conditioned by human feelings and reason;

The idols of the “cave” are individual perceptual errors, both innate and acquired;

The idols of the “square” are generated by the wrong or absurd use of words;

Idols of the "theater" - many delusions are rooted in the uncritical assimilation of other people's thoughts, i.e. a person is often influenced by authorities.

All these idols can be overcome on the basis of the construction of a new science and the introduction of the inductive method. Bacon's doctrine of "idols" is an attempt to clear the mind of the researcher from scholasticism and promote the spread of knowledge.

51. Empiricism, sensationalism, rationalism of modern times

The philosophy of modern times covers the period of the 17th-18th centuries. The philosophy of modern times focuses on the theory of knowledge (epistemology).

During this period, the question of the cognizability of the world appeared. There are two currents in epistemology: sensationalism and rationalism.

Sensationalism(from French sensualisme, lat. sensus - perception, feeling, feeling) – this is a doctrine in epistemology, recognizing sensations and perceptions as the only source of reliable knowledge, that is, the decisive role in the process of cognition belongs to the senses. The basic principle of sensationalism is "there is nothing in the mind that would not be in the senses." The sensationalists were J. Locke, J. Berkeley, D. Hume and others.

Sensationalism is inextricably linked with empiricism( Greek empeiria - experience) is one of the most important directions in the theory of knowledge in the philosophy of the New Age, stating that the source of reliable knowledge is only sensory experience, i.e. all knowledge is substantiated in experience, and thinking, reason are only able to combine the material delivered by the senses, but do not introduce anything new into it. Among the empiricists we should name, first of all, F. Bacon, T. Hobbes, J. Locke, E.B. de Condillac

Rationalism(lat. ratio - mind) - a doctrine that recognizes the mind as the only source of knowledge. Scientists have sought to prove that universal and necessary truths are not derived directly from the data of sensory experience and its generalizations. Such views were developed by R. Descartes, G. Leibniz, B. Spinoza and others.

The rationalism of modern times is characterized by dualism. Two principles of the world are recognized: matter and thinking.

Methods of knowledge of the world are being developed. Sensationalism uses induction- the movement of thought from the particular to the general. Rationalism is based on deduction- the movement of thought from the general to the particular.