Civil Knowledge

Abstract

One thing which nearly everyone knows about Francis Bacon is his painstaking concern with classification and the impact of that concern on academic discipline even at the present time. The importance of classification to Bacon makes it imperative to see the relation between moral and political philosophy in terms of the organization of the Advancement of Learning and its Latin enlargement, the De Augmentis. There the fundamental division of all human philosophy (that “beam of knowledge” whereby “man beholdeth and contemplateth himself”) is into knowledge of man segregate and of man congregate. Moral philosophy is part of the knowledge of man segregate while political philosophy is part of the knowledge of man congregate.¹ Preceding moral philosophy in the former group are logic and rhetoric, while along with political philosophy are joined what we should call the social sciences, but Bacon calls them “civil knowledge.” It is clear from the classification that what Bacon means by “civil knowledge” is, on the one hand, a broadening of the ancient and revered science of politics, broadened by the inclusion of the knowledge of “conversation” and “negotiation or business,” sciences much less ancient and revered. It is equally clear that civil knowledge is, on the other hand, a narrowing of the ancient science, because it eliminates or divorces moral philosophy, which becomes a separate and distinct category.