الجمعة، 9 نوفمبر 2012

Introduction to Francis Bacon 2

When we think about Bacons four idols, we find that he was right in specifying four different sources of error of which we must get rid when handling things of Nature. Yet, we get disappointed when we realize that these sources of errors are our main source of knowledge. None of us do not use words except in reasoning in the abstract fields of mathematics and symbolic logic. Any philosopher, to be understood, must naturally employ words in common usage, and not devise a jargon of his own. We all are forced to depend on the four sources which, whenever misused, cause the "Idols". As for the method Bacon preaches in his Novum Organum, he intended to substitute the inductive logic for the Aristotelian syllogistic deductive Organon. Things as we directly see them around us are too complex without analysis into the simple natures of which they are formed. According to Bacon, we can understand the simple natures only if we can reveal their forms. The form as defined by Bacon is but the description of a process as it actually occurs. Using the inductive method, he gives us an illustration of heat as a simple nature. Whose form is to be discovered. Thus, Bacon makes a table of all the instances in which he has experienced heat either by observation, by experiment, or even by reading. Then, he makes a table of all the "negative cases" or "instances" which are as similar as possible in all conditions to each item of the first table, except for the absence of heat to be discovered. The discussion of the inductive method in the school book of the Novum Organum, where he uses heat as an illustration, is the most valuable passage in Bacon's philosophical writings. He makes a table of all the instances with which he has become acquainted, either by simple observations, by reading, or by experiment, in which heat is present in objects of any kind or description. Bacon next makes a table of "negative instances," of cases as closely similar as possible in all respects to each item of the first table, except for the absence of heat. Any quality present in this second table which is also present in the first cannot be the form of heat. Then it is our turn to deduce that the quality which is always present when heat is present and absent when heat is absent can be the form of heat. 

To know whether there is any other circumstance which varies directly or reciprocally with the quantity of heat , Bacon makes a third table in which he compares cases in which the amount of heat changes. After he made an effort comparing the three tables with one another, Bacon concludes with what he calls the "first vintage", finding that heat is but motion. For all cases in which heat is present have only the one common circumstance of motion; all cases in which heat is wanting differ from these only in the absence of motion; the amount of heat present in every case is proportionate to the amount of motion. Bacon made new discovery regarding the nature of heat. The world thanks to him has better understood the proper methods of empirical observation. Man cannot impose reason upon nature. He cannot grasp reasonably before experimentation what the laws of nature must be. He has to consult directly nature, patiently observe, make experiments, and make his conclusions from them. Bacon alleged that he has set the modern thought free from blind adherence to, and dogmatism of, the authorities of the past and uncontrolled useless imaginative speculation. In reality, Bacon has theoretically paved the way to the coming thinkers to apply practically the steps of the inductive method he has formulated. Other scientists of his time like, Kepler and Galileo have already undertaken practically some features of what he stated in his Novum Organum, achieving considerable progress on the way of science. Bacon is worthy of more honors for more clearly unfolding the spirit of scientific method than anyone else in his generation, and for doing more to make it generally known and appreciated. 

Bacon has put more stress on the idea that the industrious process of assembling observations according to the methods of his table is the only way to make achievement in science is by. He more than once admonish us not to follow the danger of making inferences at any time that go beyond the evidence thus gathered. However, his admonition proved to be wrong. Scientists have made a breakthrough using their imaginations .None of us saw the atom structure except through imaginations or hypotheses. Once any hypothesis has been advanced, deductions have been drawn that necessarily follow if the hypothesis be true; only after this has been done has the truth or falsity of these deductions been established by the use of methods more or less Baconian.. At the same time, it is a grave mistake to accept any hypotheses as true without testing them carefully. Galileo worked out deductively his hypothesis regarding the laws of velocity, making great use of mathematics; this done , he established its truth by measuring the rate at which bodies in reality fall, when he rolled them down an inclined plane which he built at the leaning tower of Pisa. The rapid advances, especially in physics, the oldest and most successful modern science, have largely been the result of first imagining tentative hypotheses, making mathematical deductions from them, and confirming their truth by actual experiment. Bacon did not fully understand the method that Galileo and other scientists were actually employing in this time and that was a grave limitation of him. Being indignant at the Aristotelian inductive method, he overlooked the great assets deduction has made in the fields of mathematics and astrology. But for the pure imagination supported with the inductive method, the Euclidean geometry would not have come to being; Bacon, in fact, was not a metaphysician on a grand scale. He would, however, be classified as a realist in the twentieth century use of the term, and not as an idealist, a skeptic, or a pragmatist. Like our realists today, he has no doubt that an external world exists independent of our senses and reason. Like them too, he believes that he can gain correct information about the nature of the world. To be sure, Bacon insists that our senses deceive us if we take immediate perceptions at their face value. But, he adds, if we compare our perceptions carefully with one another, we can first know the forms of the simple natures of which everything is composed. Bacon also has nothing in common with modern idealism, because he neither believes that the external world is necessarily mental in its constitution, nor dependent on minds, nor fundamentally purposive or teleological in its organization. Bacon is not a scientific skeptic, because he believes in the unlimited possibility of advance of knowledge. He is not a religious skeptic, because he believes that the existence of God can be established philosophically and that the articles of revealed religion should be accepted on the faith in the authority of the Bible and the church. He is not a pragmatist, because he believes that reality exists independent of anything that we know about it; we must study nature as it is in order to control it.

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