Abstract
The epochal world-historical significance of Sir. Francis Bacon does not lie principally in an original production of a method for the scientific revolution. The inductive method was already known since the time of Aristotle. His originality rather in providing a new aim for the sciences. Aristotle had conceived of the highest science – metaphysics – as also the least useful. The value of wisdom is intrinsic. For Bacon science takes on the same aim as magic – human power and manipulation over the natural order. The tradition of magic however he regards much like Greek philosophy as fruitless. Bacon’s achievement then was to marry the utilitarian, power centered goals of magic to a systematic method. In so doing Bacon laid the foundation of the modern technological project. This also had effect of overturning the classical hierarchy which subordinated the mechanical arts to the liberal arts.
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Notes
- 1.
Francis Bacon. The Advancement of Learning. In The Major Works, 147–148.
- 2.
Bacon. 1960. The New Organon. Aphorisms I.iii, 39.
- 3.
Ibid. CXXIX, p.118–119
- 4.
Ibid. Aphorisms Book I XCVIII(98), p. 95. (My brackets). The Latin phrase is et occulta naturae magis se produnt per vexationes artium, quam cum cursu suo meant. http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bacon/bacon.liber1.shtml (accessed May 2018). There is an ample secondary literature concerning debates as to how best to understand “vexationes” which is sometimes understood as torments or tortures cf. “Carolyn Merchant. “Francis Bacon and the ‘Vexations of Art’: in The British Journal for the History of Science 46, no. 4 (2013): 551–99.
- 5.
Bacon. The Major Works. 147.
- 6.
I am indebted to my former teacher Jean Loup Seban for the concept of the “domestication of nature” which likely has other sources.
- 7.
Xenophon. Memorabilia. 1.15 (E.C. Merchant Translation) in http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0208%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D1%3Asection%3D15
Cf. also Leo Struass. On Tyranny (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2000):178.
- 8.
The Advancement of Learning. III.5 – http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1433 (accessed Dec. 6, 2015).
- 9.
Cf. Rossi. From Magic to Science.
- 10.
See. Francis Yates. Bacon’s Magic http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1968/02/29/bacons-magic/ (accessed 12/7/2015) – a review of Rossi’s book.
- 11.
Quoted in Rossi, 21.
- 12.
Cf. Bacon. A Letter to Sir. Henry Saville in The Major Works, 118.
- 13.
Cf. Rossi. 19.
- 14.
Bacon. The New Organon.(New York:Macmillan, 1960): p. 83 – Aphorisms I. LXXXV.
- 15.
Bacon. The Advancement of Learning. Book One. The Major Works, p. 143.
- 16.
Quoted in Christopher Dawson. Christianity and European Culture . Selections from the Work of Christopher Dawson. Gerald Russello (ed.). (Washington, D.C.: C.U.A. Press, 1998): 176.
- 17.
As quoted in Rossi. Bacon: From Magic to Science, 49.
References
Bacon, Francis. 1620 (1960). The New Organon, ed. Fulton H. Anderson. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
———. At the Latin Library. http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/bacon/bacon.liber1.shtml. Accessed 14 July 2012.
———. 2008. Francis Bacon: The Major Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. At the Liberty Fund. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1433. Accessed 6 Dec 2015.
Dawson, Christopher. 1998. Christianity and European Culture. Selections from the Work of Christopher Dawson, ed. Gerald Russello Washington, DC: CUA Press.
Merchant, Carolyn. 2013. Francis Bacon and the ‘Vexations of Art’: Experimentation as Intervention. The British Journal for the History of Science 46 (4): 551–599. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087411000665.
Xenophon. 1923 (2013 revision). Memorabilia. Oeconomicus. Symposium. Apology. Trans. E.C. Marchant. O.J. Todd. Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press.
Yates, Francis. 1968. Bacon’s Magic. In New York Review of Books. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1968/02/29/bacons-magic/. Accessed May 2018.
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Rosenthal-Pubul, A.S. (2018). Bacon’s New Magic: The Transfigured Aim of the Sciences. In: The Theoretic Life - A Classical Ideal and its Modern Fate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02281-5_7
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