The philosophy of the New Age is an era of independence of reason, its liberation from the authorities of the past. In many ways, this liberation was due to the split in Western European Christianity in the 16th century, which created a “neutral” territory of pure rationality, which the best minds began to explore. The desire for independence was also present in the Renaissance, but the philosophers of that time still looked back to ancient sources. Modern European thinkers rely on their own thinking, reinforced by empirical knowledge of nature. But the liberated mind needed internal discipline. Otherwise, it could not become an effective tool for obtaining truths that transform the environment of human existence and turn the world into a comfortable habitat for rational beings. It is no coincidence that the problem of method came to the forefront of philosophical research in the New Age. But it soon became clear that it would not be possible to develop unambiguous methodological recipes.
Some philosophers believed that reason could discover new things without the participation of experience, while others believed that it could not cope with this task on its own, without the help of the senses. Differences in this matter led to the emergence of rationalistic and empiricist lines. The first comes from Descartes, the second from Bacon. But these thinkers are united by the desire to make man the center and final goal of their research. Modern European philosophy was a philosophy of the subject. The cult of human subjectivity gradually became common property, and the Age of Enlightenment legitimized this tendency in the cultural space of Europe. The culmination of the anthropology of the New Age was the system of Kant, who declared that man possesses “absolute value.” Kant, however, avoided the deification of the human Self and insisted on the imperfection of human knowledge and will. His followers, Fichte and Schelling, crossed this line and proclaimed the rootedness of human consciousness in the Absolute. Hegel strengthened this tendency and theologically interpreted philosophy. The theocentrism of Hegel and his disciples reawakened interest in ancient and medieval philosophy, which was characterized by similar guidelines. All this became the property of modern thought.
Francis Bacon was born in 1561 in London to the family of the Lord Privy Seal. He studied at Cambridge for three years, but the scholastic atmosphere at the university obviously did not suit his character, and he left the university without receiving a degree in favor of diplomatic service and the associated travels around Europe. After his father’s death, the bulk of the inheritance went to his elder brother, and Francis was forced to return to England and professionally engage in jurisprudence. Bacon’s versatile creative nature manifested itself in scientific experiments, literary and scientific writings, most of which he did not complete, in politics and court diplomacy. His political projects as a member of the House of Commons did not find understanding at court, so Bacon’s successful career growth became possible only under the new king, James I Stuart. Bacon became Keeper of the Seal, like his father, Lord Chancellor (Minister of Justice), Baron of Verulam and Viscount of St. Albans, a profitable marriage and his brother’s inheritance brought him wealth. This brilliant career was suddenly put to an end when in 1621 Bacon was accused of bribery and deprived of all his positions. In retirement, Bacon continued his active literary and scientific pursuits. In order to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the king, he wrote “The History of Henry VII” (1621). One of the experiments with freezing organic bodies ended for Bacon with a severe cold, from which he died in 1626.
Bacon’s main work in the field of philosophy and scientific methodology is the “Great Restoration of the Sciences”, which included six parts according to the plan, but Bacon was unable to fully implement this extensive plan. He wrote several works representing parts of this work. He did not manage to complete all of them, but nevertheless he published the first part – “On the Dignity and Advancement of Sciences” (1623), devoted mainly to the classification of sciences, and the second part – “New Organon, or True Directions for the Interpretation of Nature” (1620). The unfinished part, entitled “Natural History”, was published posthumously in 1627.
Empirical methodology. Bacon saw his task in the field of science as turning the process of scientific cognition into a practical activity, carried out with the support of human abilities: reason, imagination and feelings. For this, from his point of view, it is necessary first of all to establish the correct relationship and connection between human abilities and provide each of them with the appropriate methods and methods of action. Only man himself can and must turn his reason and his cognitive abilities into an effective tool, direct them to the high goal of understanding nature.
However, before moving forward in the matter of science, it is necessary to work on the very tools of knowledge. The course of human knowledge must be changed and improved, and for this it is necessary to learn to control the mind in a new way. Bacon’s idea is that “the whole work of the mind should be begun anew, and that the mind should not be left to itself from the very beginning, but should be constantly guided and the work done as if mechanically” (1: 2, 8). Success in the matter of knowledge does not lie in the natural talent or the scientist’s own mind, as Bacon emphasizes, action with the help of an instrument depends more on the instrument itself than on the skill of the hand; “neither the bare hand nor the mind left to itself has much power” (1: 2, 12). This should be the advantage of the new philosophy over the ancients, who only used the power of reason and applied it in its natural form, without subjecting it to either improvements or criticism. In the matter of science, it is not important when and by whom this or that truth was discovered; the authority of antiquity should not hinder the progressive development of science, which moves forward, accordingly, with time penetrating deeper and deeper into the secrets of nature. “Truth must be sought not in the luck of any time, which is fickle, but in the light of the experience of nature, which is eternal” (1: 2, 25).
Bacon’s methodology presupposes a critical part devoted to the purification or liberation of human knowledge from everything that occurs spontaneously, that leads the mind away from the true path, that distorts the work of human feelings. On the positive side, the essence of Bacon’s empiricism is that the work of the mind must be based on sensory material, the mind must follow the nature of things themselves and not try to act independently, in isolation from them. For the correct work of the mind, a new logic is needed, a logic that would focus on the application of reason to the creations of nature. Unlike formal logic, which deals with abstractions and thus tries to penetrate the essence of things, “this science proceeds not only from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things” and as a result it will necessarily “be everywhere accompanied and illuminated by observations of nature and experiments” (1:2, 220). This is the main goal of Bacon’s “new organon” – a science that paves the way for reason into the depths of nature, allowing reason to act in such a way that it “would actually dissect nature and discover the properties and actions of bodies and their laws determined in matter” (1:2, 220).
The doctrine of idols. Along with the natural instruments of knowledge – reason and feelings, there are also natural difficulties that prevent a person from embarking on the path of strict scientific knowledge. These forces hostile to science, or idols, as Bacon calls them, are for the most part innate features of human nature, and it is impossible to get rid of them completely, but every scientist must fight them. In total, Bacon distinguishes four types of idols: idols of the clan, idols of the cave, idols of the marketplace and idols of the theater. Particularly dangerous is the “idol of the clan”, which pushes a person to identify his own nature with the nature of things, in modern science this is called anthropomorphism. Each person is inclined first of all to trust his own feelings and think: “This is true, because my eyes say so.” From the position of a scientist, this prejudice hides the natural limitations of our feelings: “It is a mistake to say that human feeling is the measure of things; on the contrary, all ideas, both of the senses and of the mind, are analogies of man, and not of the Universe. The human mind (like an uneven mirror) mixes its own nature with the nature of things, thus distorting and disfiguring it” (1: 2, 53). Nevertheless, our senses, although they are often mistaken, can, as Bacon is sure, help each other and use devices, instruments, to provide reliable knowledge. Emphasizing the need for activity on the part of the scientist, Bacon simultaneously identifies and criticizes the most diverse manifestations of anthropomorphism, which science must eradicate. It is typical for a person to take into account confirmation of his point of view to a greater extent than opposing arguments; a person often follows the lead of his imagination; the inadequacy of these senses inclines him to give preference to the visible over the invisible, which remains outside of research. Another manifestation of the idol of the species is a tendency toward teleological, expedient explanations in nature: “The human mind, by virtue of its inclination, easily assumes more order and uniformity in things than it finds. And while much in nature is singular and completely without parallel, he invents parallels, correspondences and relationships that do not exist” (1:2, 20).
Borrowing an image from Plato, Bacon also exposes the danger to science of the idol of the cave, behind which stand the individual inclinations and preferences of a person, reflecting his unique life experience: very often a person is inclined to think one way or another due to personal circumstances of life, peculiarities of upbringing, established habits, some random personal attachments that have nothing to do with science, or under the influence of the general mobility and changeability of personal character. “The human mind is not a dry light, it is sprinkled with will and passions, and this gives rise to what is desirable for everyone in science” (1: 2, 22). Unlike the idol of the family, the idol of the cave manifests itself in each person in an individual way, and this is the difficulty of fighting it.
The principle of nominalism has always set the supporters of empirical methodology to an extremely critical attitude towards words, since in science words very often replace the essence of the matter. In this area, the main opponent is the idol of the market or the square, which asserts: “This is true because everyone says so” – such an attitude leads to the uncritical use of everyday ideas, the inclusion of everyday word usage in science. The idols of the market use words of two kinds: first, these are names of non-existent things, and they are quite easy to fight (Bacon considers such words as: “fate”, “prime mover”, “circles of the planets”, “element of fire”), and the second kind – names of existing things, but unclear, poorly defined and thoughtlessly and objectively abstracted from things. Such words have varying degrees of suitability for scientific use: thus, according to Bacon, the concepts of “chalk” and “clay” are good, but “earth” is not due to its uncertainty. This also includes Bacon’s criticism of formal logic and, first of all, the theory of syllogism, which works with words: despite the obvious reliability of such a proof, there is here “the possibility of error, that a syllogism consists of propositions, a proposition of words, and words are symbols and signs of concepts. Therefore, if the concepts of reason … are badly and rashly abstracted from things, vague and insufficiently defined … then everything collapses” (1: 2, 71). Words in any case are nothing more than “images of things” (1: 1, 105), and they arise as a result of a tacit agreement between people, so there is a great possibility of error here.
The next obstacle that accompanies scientific knowledge is the authority of theories inherited from the past and accepted by the majority. This is the idol of the theater, as Bacon calls it, since philosophical theories or uncritically accepted axioms and dogmas create their own imaginary world, like a play on the stage, and scientists are capable of performing a great many of these performances. In objecting to rationalistic philosophers who give precedence to the activity of the mind and limit themselves to a few trivial experiments, Bacon does not approve of those philosophers who confine themselves to the careful study of individual experiments and ignore everything else, and he especially disagrees with those who mix theology or ancient traditions with philosophy.
Having criticized the methods of cognition inherited by science from past centuries, in the positive part of his teaching on cognition, Bacon focused on two main tasks: firstly, to give a detailed program for the development of scientific cognition through the classification of sciences, and to create a “new organon,” a new logic oriented toward the work of the mind not with words, but with observational data and artificially conducted experiments.
The classification of sciences, according to Bacon, should include not only those sciences that are already known, but also those that have yet to be created. Bacon considered it most correct to divide sciences according to the abilities of the rational soul of man. Thus, memory gives us the opportunity to study history. History should be divided into natural history and civil history. The former should study the manifestations of nature in three directions: nature in its natural course, various deviations from the natural course of nature, and, finally, nature transformed by human influence. Civil history, the history of people, should include, in addition to church and political history, also the history of industry, literature and art.
Poetry is the result of the manifestation of human fantasy both in the verbal images of art and in general in knowledge. Bacon is convinced that the images of ancient mythology, presented in poetic language, with the appropriate interpretation are capable of revealing much for modern science. Bacon himself repeatedly resorts to such interpretations in his works.
Science is created by the efforts of reason, it is divided according to the source of knowledge into divinely inspired theology and philosophy, or the Book of Holy Scripture and the book of Nature. Bacon attributes to the field of natural theology or divine philosophy the knowledge of God, angels, demons and spirits, as well as the human soul from its invisible purely spiritual side, but he stipulates that enough has been written about this and that what has been written contains much that is doubtful, and therefore what is needed here is rather clarification and criticism of what has already been written. “For God never performed a miracle to convert an atheist to faith, for he can come to the knowledge of God with the help of the light of nature itself; miracles exist for the conversion of idolaters and superstitious people who have already come to know the deity, but have not found anything worthy of worship” (1: 1, 204). Atheism, Bacon believes, is better than superstition, because it leaves man reason, science, philosophy, while superstition prefers the fanaticism of the crowd. Therefore, science and religion can coexist quite well if they observe the principle of mutual non-interference and agreement.
Science is divided into three parts, dealing with the knowledge of God, nature and man. Bacon pays primary attention to nature and man in their interrelation, which is clearly manifested in practice. The most important thing for understanding the natural science of nature and its connection with practical activity is Bacon’s conviction that “the artificial differs from the natural not in form or essence, but only in the active cause” (1: 1, 151), therefore, two directions should be distinguished in a single doctrine of nature: the study of causes and obtaining results, and divided into theoretical and practical parts. The first of them is divided into physics and metaphysics, and the latter into mechanics and the so-called “natural magic”.
Metaphysics as a doctrine of the forms of nature. Bacon considers it necessary to clarify the understanding of the relationship between metaphysics and first philosophy. First philosophy, which studies being, basic categories, logical and mathematical principles, is criticized as using vaguely defined concepts of “being”, “substance”, “quality”, “action and suffering”, but is preserved by him as a legacy from scholasticism and Aristotle as a single basis for scientific knowledge. Bacon distinguishes metaphysics from first philosophy as the “common mother of all sciences”, which in his understanding should be a doctrine of the forms of nature. Thus, metaphysics, unlike first philosophy, is assigned a special subject area, which is not outside of nature, but is, in the opinion of the thinker, the most important part of nature itself.
While agreeing in general with Aristotle’s teaching on the four types of causes and the idea of knowledge as knowledge of causes, Bacon specifies that final causes are more likely to harm the impartial consideration of things, while material and driving causes, as external to the processes occurring in the form itself, are of subordinate importance for science.
The main correction introduced by Bacon into this teaching consists in the rejection of the conviction that “gives forms the primacy of essence” (1:2, 75); now Bacon understands form not as a special essence, but as a law to which the qualities of bodies and the mutual transformations of some bodies into others are subject. Forms are defined by Bacon as laws “that create some simple nature, such as heat, light, weight in all sorts of matter and objects that perceive them. The same thing is the form of heat or the form of light and the law of heat or the law of light” (1:2, 114).
In the field of practical sciences, physics and metaphysics correspond to mechanics and so-called natural magic, which is intended to serve the completely practical desires of man. With the help of knowledge about the forms of nature, Bacon believes it is possible to go beyond the established order of nature, to solve the problems of prolonging life, rejuvenation, transforming some bodies into others, for example, to obtain gold from other metals. However, first science must develop an accurate methodology that leads the mind to discover the forms of nature exclusively in nature itself.
New logic and induction. The path of reasoning must begin with precisely established facts of nature. Therefore, knowledge should begin with natural and experimental history, collecting material from experiments and observations, arranging it in the form of special tables-lists, and then applying true and legitimate induction. Bacon contrasts deduction as the main method of Aristotelian logic with induction, but not simple, through enumeration, but scientific. “Induction, which will be useful for the discovery and proof of sciences and arts, must divide nature by due distinctions and exceptions. And then, after a sufficient number of negative judgments, it must conclude about the positive” (1: 2, 64). The movement from individual facts to general axioms must be accomplished gradually and consistently by ascending from experiments to axioms of ever greater generality and back – from “luminous” experiments, giving general knowledge, to “fruitful” experiments, giving practical results.
The method of tables, in which the diverse descriptions of nature are organized, is applied by Bacon in the following way: several types of tables are compiled. Tables of presence contain a list of various, dissimilar substances in which the general property of interest to us is present, for example, heat: these are the sun’s rays, flame, hot liquids, animals, etc. Moreover, the necessary connection between the form and the phenomenon of the property in experience is asserted: the form cannot be where the natural property is not. The table of absence lists examples of precisely such substances that are close to cases of presence, but lack this property. For example, the rays of the sun are cold, liquids in nature usually remain cold, in plants and insects, unlike all animals, we do not find heat. These negative examples, or instances, according to Bacon, are extremely valuable in inductive inferences, since they strictly limit the range of possible conclusions. Tables of degree are also compiled, demonstrating various degrees of increase or decrease of the property in various substances: in the same animals, liquids. In general, the actions of reason in reasoning with the help of tables consist in rejecting such natures “that do not occur in any instance where the given nature is present, or occur in any instance where the given nature is absent, or occur increasing in any instance where the given nature is decreasing, or decrease when the given nature is increasing” (1: 2, 113). Thus, in one case, having carried out the appropriate procedures with tables, Bacon comes to the conclusion that the cause of heat lies in the movement of particles of matter, and we can consider heat as a special case of movement. However, Bacon separates heat and cold as two different natures. In this case, as in many others, Bacon, with all his innovation, follows the science of the Renaissance. He is also an opponent of Copernicus’s theory and places the resting Earth in the center of the universe, considers the origin of life from the products of decay possible, uses the doctrine of spirits, dead and vital. Matter is understood by him primarily as diverse qualitatively defined things, the philosopher only postulates that “the study of nature occurs best when physics is completed by mathematics” (1: 1, 89). In this sense, his own methodology was only a project for Bacon himself. In full accordance with the requirements of the new organon, scientific activity is carried out only in the ideal scientific state, depicted by Bacon in the treatise “New Atlantis” (1627), describing the island of Bensalem, where all life is built on the principle of merging social activity with scientific, so that the entire country is transformed in practice into a single gigantic scientific laboratory, which brings power to the state, and well-being and prosperity to its citizens.
Literature
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