Francis Bacon. The mind left to its own devices has little power
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.