Abstract
Modernity properly speaking begins with Sir. Francis Bacon. Alternate accounts of modernity as beginning either with secularism or with Machiavelli (Strauss), while having partial validity are less compelling than the account of the genesis of modernity in the birth of the technological mind. Secularism is an effect not a cause of technologism by giving credibility to the idea of human self-sufficiency, while political realism was already a recognized factor in ancient Greece. The centrality of technology to modernity has been recognized as its salient feature by more recent thinkers from Marx to Heidegger. But it was Bacon who inaugurated modernity by his frontal assault on the authority of Aristotle and his conception of rationality. Though drawing on Aristotle for his inductive methodology, he critiques three fundamental assumptions of Aristotelianism. These are first the anti-utilitarian conception of Aristotle which sees wisdom as having inherent nobility quite apart from any practical considerations and consequences. Secondly, is Aristotle’s hierarchy of the sciences which privilege the theoretic sciences over the practical ones, which formed the basis for the historical privileging of the liberal arts over the mechanical arts (technology.) Third, is Aristotle’s characterization of the theoretic life which contemplates truth for its own sake as the highest. All these inter-related claims of Aristotelianism will become increasingly suspect under the impact of Baconianism which provides the foundation stone for much of the later modern outlook.
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Notes
- 1.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr . In Search of the Sacred, 182.
- 2.
Leo Strauss .”The Three Waves of Modernity ” in An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 86.
- 3.
Ibid, 88.
- 4.
Francis Bacon. Novum Organum, Aphorism I.3 http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bacon/bacon.liber1.shtml (accessed 8/12/2018).
- 5.
Rene Descartes . Discourse on Method. 6 in Discourse on Method and Meditations. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Haldane(trans.) (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2003):41 – accessed via Google Books. My italics.
- 6.
Bacon. The Advancement of Learning Book VII. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bacon-the-advancement-of-learning (Accessed August 12, 2018).
- 7.
Thucydides. The History of the Peloponnesian War.III.89.
- 8.
Plato . Gorgias.483d (385 in Loeb.)
- 9.
Plato. The Republic. 338d. (p. 47 in Loeb.)
- 10.
Werner Jaeger, Paideia II., 133.
- 11.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto, 245.
- 12.
Martin Heidegger . “The Question Concerning Technology ” in Basic Writings, p. 311.
- 13.
Ibid., p. 320.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
Jacopo Sadoleto in Sadoleto on Education . A Translation of the De Pueris Recte Instituendis – Primary Source Edition. Ernest Trafford Campagnac (translator.) (Oxford University Press, 1916 – Nabu reprint): 124. (my brackets)
- 16.
Ibid. 125.
- 17.
For my exploration of relevant passages Bacon I am greatly indebted to Dr. James Nicholson, a neuroscientist with a deep interest in Bacon. Emphatically, this assistance in no way suggests his agreement with thoughts and conclusions.
- 18.
Francis Bacon. The Advancement of Learning. In Francis Bacon: The Major Works. (Oxford: OUP, 2008):145 – Herafter The Major Works.
- 19.
Francis Bacon. Novum Organum. Aphorisms Book One, LXXXIV. https://constitution.org/bacon/nov_org.txt (Accessed August 13, 2018).
- 20.
This work can be found here. http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/1200-1300,_Boetius_Dacius,_De_Summo_Bono_Sive_de_Vita_Philosophi,_LT.pdf (Accessed 4/28/18). On the 1277 condemnations see for instance F.C. Copleston. A History of Philosophy. Volume II. (New York: Image-Doubleday, 1993):441.
There is a much larger extensive bibliography on this topic which falls outside the scope of the present treatment.
- 21.
See St. Thomas Aquinas . Summa Theologiae I-II, Q. 3, Article 8. The problem of a natural desire
For a supernatural end has raised issues of great complexity within Catholic theology, which fall beyond the scope of this present work.
- 22.
Martin Luther. An Open Letter to the Christian Nobility. http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/nblty-07.html (accessed Nov 5, 2015).
- 23.
Redargutio Philophiarum. Sp. III, 568–9 –
quoted in Rossi. P. 60. Can be found also in https://books.google.es/books?id=L-mOfwioWYAC&pg=PA49&dq=%22...assert+yourselves+before+it+is+too+late.%22+Bacon&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwid077pzPvaAhXD7RQKHZMQCTcQ6AEILzAB#v=onepage&q=%22...assert%20yourselves%20before%20it%20is%20too%20late.%22%20Bacon&f=false (accessed May 10, 2018).. Excellent also is Rossi’s article on Baconianism in The Dictionary of the History of Ideas. http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=DicHist/uvaBook/tei/DicHist1.xml;chunk.id=dv1-25;toc.depth=1;toc.id=dv1-25;brand=default (accessed 5/30/2016).
- 24.
William of Ockham. Summa Logicae. 14:16 http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Ockham/Summa_Logicae/Book_I/Chapter_15 (Accessed November 2, 2015).
- 25.
Francis Bacon. Of The Colours of Good and Evil:In https://archive.org/stream/worksfrancisbaco02bacoiala/worksfrancisbaco02bacoiala_djvu.txt - (accessed date 11/12/2015). Recently, http://clarityonthesea.org/files/pdf_archive/bacon-1824-works%20of%20francis%20bacon_2.pdf (10/27/2018)
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Rosenthal-Pubul, A.S. (2018). The Rebirth of Time: Sir. Francis Bacon and the Origins of Modernity. In: The Theoretic Life - A Classical Ideal and its Modern Fate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02281-5_6
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