Frances Bacon (1561-1626) is one of the most important philosophers who presented favors to formatting the new scientific methods. Pope has said of him that he was the "wisest, brightest, and meanest of mankind, which is too much true to his political career. It is said he has presented very good policies to the English government which could have doubled the public good in case they had been seriously adopted. Yet,to have favor among the court superiors, he had to stick to the old taken political courses ,giving no attention to the harm they would cause. He was very utilitarian in this respect.He,to have favor with queen Elizabeth, even participated in the prosecution of lord Essex, one of Bacon's best friends, who was thought to be guilty of treason. That was very mean of Bacon!It is said that after bacon became lord chancellor in king James 'reign , he accepted gifts in advance from those whose suits he would judge which was considered as corruption. But to be honest, not only Bacon but also most of James the first were corrupt. It is also said that Bacon did not really commit this mistake or even he did it, it did not deserve all its consequences. SIMPLY, Bacon was just a scapegoat for the corrupt court before the indignant parliament. Thogh the king's interference to soften the punishment, Bacon was compelled to seclude away from public life. Thus, he spent the remainder of his life in the historical, philosophical, scientific studies. It is said that he died of a cold he caught while he was examining the way of keeping meat intact by refrigeration.
Bacon's importance is derived from the enthusiasm he cherished for philosophy and science. He is deserved to be conferred upon him the title of "the father of the modern sensualistic philosophy in the world". He taught the world the proper methods of investigation in his new inductive logic (the Novum Organum)He founded the Royal Society of London ,one of whose members was Newton. Really, Bacon is the one thanks to whom the developments in pyre science, the progress in mechanical inventions and the outcomes of the industrial revolution have come true. Bacon was an empiricist, meaning that he believed that human knowledge begins with the sensations that can be verified by empirical experiments and observations. From the latter, logical rational can be made carefully far from blind hasty generalizations.Baconj rejects the deductive method which begins from the so-called rational premises and then infer from them general conclusions that can be applied to the whole reality. For him, philosophy should not revert back to the Middle Ages blind dogmatism or contend with the faulty immature speculations of the Humanistic period. It is far from being true that Bacon belittled the value of rationality in favor of the sensual empirical method. He said, "I think I have united the empirical method with the rational one the divorce of which is fatal both to science and humanity". The truth can only be attained by integrating the five senses, which collects the material inputs of the outside world, and the pure reason whose field of study is the absolute truths like those of geometry.
In his book of"Novum Organum", Bacon differentiates between four classes of "idols" or phantoms which should be rejected when seeking the scientific truth. The first of them are the Idols of the Tribe which are common among all the human race and very rooted in the nature of mankind. Out of those idols, men assume much more order in the world than is really found in that many scientists have believed that celestial bodies, which, according to their preconceived ideas, should be perfect, move in perfect circles. Plato has long assumed that the movement of the earth should be circular as the perfect geometrical bodies are circular .According to Bacon, this is applicable to most members of mankind for once they adopt a certain idea ,they tend immediately to note the confirmatory evidence and neglect the contrary one. By doing so, man began to believe in omens, dreams, astrology and other superstitions. Once an idea is thought, affirmative instances are more likely to notice than the negative ones. Secondly, there are the Idols of the Cave which are the peculiar idiosyncrasies to every human. Each human has his/her own understanding and mind according to which one forms one's ideas about the world. These idols are owing to the factors of heredity, habits, education, and other circumstances which make some men, for example, prefer novelties and the other antiquities. The fourth class of idols is those of the Market Place where people use language with each other. Words have great authority and power in the reasonable faculties, especially those of the man of the street who does not usually differentiate between scientific and figurative expressions. Some words like centaur or Cyclops can perplex and confuse minds in pursuit of truths; therefore, words should be defined accurately as they control people's conceptions after they have coined them clearly-minded. Lastly, the Idols of Theatre have arisen from people's absolute belief in the righteousness of the opinions of the philosophers. The word "Theatre" comes from the analogy Bacon made to the real theatre as it" represents worlds' of men's own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion". Thus, Bacon rejects very hard Aristotle's infallible authority and condemns him as a representative of the rationalists who attempted to fashion the world out of categories of their own creation without consulting nature by observing real facts. Aristotle was wrong, when he proposed rational self evident truths from which he drew conclusions, then only after that, he resorted to experiments to confirm what he had already determined in advance. This is totally wrong method of unfolding nature as it is not necessarily compatible with our reason; only reasonable experimentation can reach to its secrets. An example of the infallibility of Aristotle out of which the Italian Inquisition compelled Galileo to abjure his opinions, is the rational and preconceived idea that heavy bodies fall to ground faster than the light ones.Galilio has proved through observation and experimentation that things, in case forces of friction like air would be put away, fall to ground at the same time irrespective of their heaviness. In addition, bacon opposes that the scientific inquiries should be based on the affirmations of a revealed religion. Some theological issues, like the existence of God , can appeal to human reasoning for a proof ,yet the world phenomenon cannot but resort to reason and senses as their only natural inquiry method.
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