Abstract
Francis Bacon is the originator of the demand to suspend judgment about a given theory first and then to commit oneself to it only to the degree to which extant evidence supports it, to the degree of belief in it that is rational given available empirical information. This demand is very widespread and deserves special attention. Before showing that it goes back to Bacon and before explaining why he and his followers were and still are its ardent advocates despite all the criticism that diverse critics have leveled against it, let me discuss the view itself no matter who may have been its originator. The best argument in favor of this theory that I have found is in Russell’s charming Skeptical Essays of 1928. His presentation of his view is a part of his introduction:
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- 1.
The classic in this field (Rokeach 1979) is a sad echo of Bacon in a quasi-empirical guise. Amusingly, its immense bibliography mentions neither Bacon nor Russell.
- 2.
This is an exaggeration. In his more mature (if this is the word) works he admits: anticipations have great advantages yet as they impede progress, we should gladly give them up.
- 3.
Although Einstein never agreed with the idea that humans possess knowledge, he did agree with the (mystic) view that “our thinking goes on for the most part without use of signs (words) and beyond that to a considerable degree unconsciously” (Einstein 1949, 9).
- 4.
In Bacon’s view facts seen by the innocent eye are also theory-laden! That theory, however, is true and accessible by induction as a natural process. Spedding was thus very far from jesting when he suggested that all Bacon wanted was no more than a pair of intellectual spectacles; Works, 3, 513. Odd as this sound to us now, it is in tune with the philosophy of nature of the time, as was the (Kabbalistic) demand for humility. More seriously, the current devastating critique of the search for pure data impregnated with theory does not touch Bacon’s inductivism. This again shows how brilliant were his aperçus despite the drabness of most of his texts that Ellis so sadly complained about.
- 5.
This may be the theory of eliminative induction. To repeat, a few commentators attribute it to Bacon. By it, researchers refute and thus eliminate from the set of competing explanations, one option after another and thereby they raise the probability of the remaining options. This may fit the second version of Bacon’s induction—uncomfortably, though. This matters little: the mix of Bacon’s two versions had a great influence in practice; eliminative induction is but a commentator’s nicety.
- 6.
Cp. William Gilbert, On Magnets, Book First Chapter 1 :
… philosophers must be made to quit the sort of learning that comes only from books, and rests only on vein arguments from probability and upon conjecture … they waste oil and labor, because, not being practical in the research of objects of nature, being acquainted only with books, being led astray by erroneous physical systems, and having made no magnetic experiments they constructed certain ratiocinations on a basis of mere opinions, and old womanishly dreamt of things that were not.
- 7.
Hume considered foreigners less prejudiced in favor of Newton. His skepticism was not a matter of disbelief but of logic. Nevertheless, notice that his declaration of a triumph is conditional—just to be on the safe side?
- 8.
A once famous adventurer, Thor Heyerdahl, viewed his research that way (Heyerdahl 1958, concluding chapter). He reported a discussion with his Aku-Aku (fairy godmother), in which he had confessed his sin of anticipation and obtained absolution, since his hypothesis is true.
- 9.
John Aubrey records that Harvey admired Bacon’s “wit and style, but would not allow him to be a great Philosopher. Said he to me, He writes Philosophy like a Lord Chancellor, speaking in derision; I have cured him” (Aubrey 1680, on William Harvey).
- 10.
Maxwell even made an effort to reinterpret Newtonian gravity in his field framework on the way to reconcile Newton with Descartes. He failed, of course, and gave it up.
- 11.
Alas, Carl Hempel, Nelson Goodman and their fans declared that the theory of induction must present rules for the dismissal of leg-pulling hypotheses. This has set many a commentator on a wild goose chase.
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Agassi, J. (2013). Prejudices of Opinions. In: The Very Idea of Modern Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 298. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5351-8_7
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