F. Bacon "New Organon". Francis Bacon's Philosophy Ideas

The famous English thinker is one of the first major philosophers of modern times, era of reason. The very nature of his teaching is very different from the systems of ancient and medieval thinkers. Bacon makes no mention of knowledge as a pure and inspired striving for the highest truth. He despised Aristotle and religious scholasticism because they approached philosophical knowledge with such points of view. In accordance with the spirit of the new, rational consumer era, Bacon is characterized, first of all, by the desire for dominance over nature. Hence his famous aphorism knowledge is power .

Before he devoted himself entirely to philosophy, Francis Bacon was one of the most prominent officials of the English royal court. His public activities were marked by extreme unscrupulousness. Having started his parliamentary career as an extreme oppositionist, he soon turned into a loyal loyalist. Having betrayed his original patron, Essex, Francis Bacon became a lord, a member of the privy council and keeper of the state seal, but then was caught by parliament in large bribes. After a scandalous trial, he was sentenced to a huge fine of 40 thousand pounds and imprisonment in the Tower. The king forgave Bacon, but he still had to part with his political career (for more details, see the article Bacon, Francis - a short biography). In his philosophical works, Francis Bacon proclaimed the goal of conquering material power with the same merciless one-sidedness and dangerous disregard for moral laws with which he acted in practical politics.

Portrait of Francis Bacon. Artist Frans Pourbus the Younger, 1617

Humanity, according to Bacon, must subjugate nature and dominate it. (This goal, however, animates the entire Renaissance.) The human race moved forward thanks to scientific discoveries and inventions.

Recognizing the genius of many ancient philosophers, Bacon argued, however, that their genius was of no use, since it was misdirected. All of them selflessly sought abstract metaphysical and moral truths, without thinking about practical benefits. Bacon himself thinks that “science should not be reduced to the fruitless satisfaction of idle curiosity.” She should turn to extensive material and productive work. The practical Anglo-Saxon spirit was fully embodied in Bacon's aspirations and personality.

Bacon's "New Atlantis"

Francis Bacon was imbued with the idea that the development of science would lead in the future to the onset of a golden age. Despite his almost undoubted atheism, he wrote about the upcoming great discoveries with the elevated enthusiasm of a religious prophet and treated the fate of science as a kind of shrine. In his unfinished philosophical utopia “New Atlantis,” Bacon depicts the happy, comfortable life of a wise, small nation of islanders who systematically apply all previously made discoveries to new inventions in the “house of Solomon.” The inhabitants of “New Atlantis” have a steam engine, a hot air balloon, a microphone, a telephone and even a perpetual motion machine. In the brightest colors, Bacon depicts how all this improves, beautifies and lengthens human life. The thought of the possible harmful consequences of “progress” does not even occur to him.

Bacon "The Great Restoration of the Sciences" - briefly

All of Francis Bacon's major books are combined into one gigantic work called The Great Restoration of the Sciences (or The Great Revival of the Sciences). The author sets himself three tasks in it: 1) a review of all sciences (with the establishment of the special role of philosophy), 2) the development of a new method of natural science and, 3) its application to a single study.

Bacon’s essays “On the Advancement of Knowledge” and “On the Dignity and Augmentation of the Sciences” are devoted to solving the first problem. The book “On the Dignity and Increase of the Sciences” constitutes the first part of the “Great Restoration.” Bacon gives in it review of human knowledge(globus intellectualis). According to the three main abilities of the soul (memory, imagination and reason), he divides all sciences into three branches: “history” (experimental knowledge in general, humanitarian and natural), poetry and philosophy.

Philosophy has three objects: God, man and nature. However, the knowledge of God, according to Francis Bacon, is inaccessible to the human mind and must be drawn only from revelation. The sciences that study man and nature are anthropology and physics. Bacon considers the experienced physicist “ mother of all sciences" He includes metaphysics (the doctrine of the primary causes of things) among the sciences, but is inclined to look at it as unnecessary speculation.

Monument to Francis Bacon in London

State budgetary educational institution of higher professional education

“Krasnoyarsk State Medical University named after Professor V.F. Voino-Yasenetsky"

Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation

In the discipline "Philosophy"

Theme: "Francis Bacon"

Executor

First year student of group 102

Faculty of Clinical Psychology KrasSMU

Chernomura Polina.

Krasnoyarsk 2013

Introduction

New times are a time of great efforts and significant discoveries that were not appreciated by contemporaries, and became understandable only when their results eventually became one of the decisive factors in the life of human society. This is the time of the birth of the foundations of modern natural science, the prerequisites for the accelerated development of technology, which will later lead society to an economic revolution.

The philosophy of Francis Bacon is the philosophy of the English Renaissance. She is multifaceted. Bacon combines both innovation and tradition, science and literary creativity, based on the philosophy of the Middle Ages.

Biography

Francis Bacon was born on January 22, 1561 in London at York House on the Strand. In the family of one of the highest dignitaries at the court of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Nicholas Bacon. Bacon's mother, Anna Cook, came from the family of Sir Anthony Cook, the tutor of King Edward VI, was well educated, spoke foreign languages, was interested in religion, and translated theological treatises and sermons into English.

In 1573, Francis entered Trinity College, Cambridge University. Three years later, Bacon, as part of the English mission, went to Paris, carried out a number of diplomatic assignments, which gave him a wealth of experience in getting acquainted with politics, court and religious life not only in France, but also in other countries of the continent - the Italian principalities, Germany, Spain, Poland, Denmark and Sweden, which resulted in his notes “On the State of Europe”. In 1579, due to the death of his father, he was forced to return to England. As the youngest son in the family, he receives a modest inheritance and is forced to consider his future position.

The first step in Bacon's independent activity was jurisprudence. In 1586 he became the elder of the legal corporation. But jurisprudence did not become Francis's main subject of interest. In 1593, Bacon was elected to the House of Commons of Middlesex County, where he gained fame as an orator. Initially, he adhered to the views of the opposition in protest about an increase in taxes, then he became a supporter of the government. In 1597, the first work was published that brought Bacon wide fame - a collection of short sketches, or essays containing reflections on moral or political topics 1 - "Experiments or Instructions", belong to the best fruits that by God's grace my pen could bear "2. The treatise “On the meaning and success of knowledge, divine and human” dates back to 1605.

Bacon's rise as a court politician came after the death of Elizabeth, at the court of James I Stuart. Since 1606, Bacon has held a number of high government positions. Of these, such as full-time Queen's Counsel, senior Queen's Counsel.

In England, the time of absolutist rule of James I was coming: in 1614 he dissolved parliament and until 1621 he ruled alone. During these years, feudalism worsened and changes in domestic and foreign policy occurred, which led the country to revolution after twenty-five years. Needing devoted advisers, the king brought Bacon especially close to him.

In 1616, Bacon became a member of the Privy Council, and in 1617 - Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. In 1618, Bacon was made Lord, High Chancellor and Peer of England, Baron of Verulam, and from 1621, Viscount of St. Albanian.

When the king convenes parliament in 1621, an investigation begins into the corruption of officials. Bacon, appearing in court, admitted his guilt. The peers condemned Bacon to imprisonment in the Tower, but the king overturned the court's decision.

Retired from politics, Bacon devoted himself to scientific and philosophical research. In 1620, Bacon published his main philosophical work, The New Organon, intended as the second part of the Great Restoration of the Sciences.

In 1623, the extensive work “On the Dignity of the Augmentation of the Sciences” was published - the first part of the “Great Restoration of the Sciences”. Bacon also tried the pen in the fashionable genre in the 17th century. philosophical utopia - writes “New Atlantis”. Among other works of the outstanding English thinker: “Thoughts and Observations”, “On the Wisdom of the Ancients”, “On Heaven”, “On Causes and Beginnings”, “The History of the Winds”, “The History of Life and Death”, “The History of Henry VII”, etc. .

During his last experiment in preserving chicken meat by freezing it, Bacon caught a bad cold. Francis Bacon died on April 9, 1626 in the house of the Count of Arondel in Guyget.1

Human and nature. The Central Idea of ​​Francis Bacon's Philosophy

Appeal to Nature, the desire to penetrate into it becomes the general slogan of the era, an expression of the hidden spirit of the time. Discussions about “natural” religion, “natural” law, “natural” morality are theoretical reflections of the persistent desire to return all human life to Nature. And these same trends are proclaimed by the philosophy of Francis Bacon. “Man, the servant and interpreter of Nature, does and understands exactly as much as he embraces in the order of Nature; beyond this he does not know and cannot do anything.”1. This statement reflects the essence of Bacon's ontology.

Bacon's activities as a whole were aimed at promoting science, indicating its paramount importance in the life of mankind, and developing a new holistic view of its structure, classification, goals and methods of research.

The purpose of scientific knowledge is invention and discovery. The purpose of inventions is human benefit, satisfying needs and improving people's lives, increasing the potential of its energy, increasing human power over nature. Science is a means, not an end in itself, knowledge for the sake of knowledge, wisdom for the sake of wisdom. The reason that science has so far made little progress is the dominance of incorrect criteria and assessments of what their achievements consist of. Man is the master of nature. “Nature is conquered only by submission to it, and what appears to be the cause in contemplation is the rule in action.” To subjugate nature, a person must study its laws and learn to use his knowledge in real practice. It is Bacon who owns the famous aphorism “knowledge is power.” What is most useful in action is most true in knowledge.2 “I build in human understanding the true image of the world, as it is, and not as each person’s mind suggests. And this cannot be done without carefully dissecting and anatomizing the world. And I believe that those absurd and monkey-like images of the world that are created in philosophical systems by the imagination of people should be completely dispelled.

Therefore, truth and usefulness are the same things, and activity itself is valued more as a guarantee of truth than as a creator of life’s goods.”1 Only true knowledge gives people real power and ensures their ability to change the face of the world; two human aspirations - to knowledge and power - find their optimal resultant here. This is the main idea of ​​Bacon's philosophy, which Farrington called the "philosophy of industrial science." Thanks to Bacon, the man-nature relationship is understood in a new way, which is transformed into the subject-object relationship, and enters the European mentality. Man is represented as a cognizing and active principle, that is, a subject, and nature is represented as an object to be known and used.

Bacon is dismissive of the past, biased toward the present, and believes in a bright future. He has a negative attitude towards past centuries, excluding the era of the Greek Pre-Socratics, the ancient Romans and modern times, since he considers this time not the creation of new knowledge, but even the failures of previously accumulated knowledge.

Calling on people, armed with knowledge, to subjugate nature, Francis Bacon rebelled against the scholastic learning and the spirit of self-abasement that prevailed at that time. Bacon also rejects the authority of Aristotle. “The logic that is now used serves rather to strengthen and preserve errors that have their basis in generally accepted concepts than to find the truth. Therefore, it is more harmful than useful.”2 He orients science towards the search for truth in practice, in direct observation and study of nature. “Can we not take into account the fact that long voyages and travels, which have become so frequent in our time, have discovered and shown many things in nature that can shed new light on philosophy. And of course, it would be shameful if, while the boundaries of the material world - earth, sea and stars - were so widely opened and moved apart, the mental world continued to remain within the narrow limits of what was discovered by the ancients. Bacon calls to step away from the power of authorities, not to take away the rights of Time - this author of all authors and the source of all authority. “Truth is the daughter of Time, not Authority.” The central problem of F. Bacon's philosophy can be called the problem of the relationship between man and nature, which he solves by assessing all phenomena from the point of view of their usefulness, the ability to serve as a means to achieve any goal.

Criticism of ordinary and scholastic reason

“In future times, I believe, the opinion will be expressed about me that I did not do anything great, but only considered insignificant what was considered great.”1

Important questions leading to the very essence of philosophy as a science are the “truth” and “imaginary”, “objectivity” and “subjectivity” of the components of human knowledge. Bacon was critical of the Idols of Reason and believed that the study of nature and the development of philosophy are hampered by misconceptions, prejudices, and cognitive “idols.”2

From English, idol (idolum) is translated as vision, ghost, fantasy, misconception3. There are idols of four kinds. The first idols “Idols of the race” come from the very character of the human mind, which feeds the will and feelings, coloring all things in subjective tones and thereby distorting their real nature4. For example, an individual is inclined to believe that a person’s feelings are the measure of all things; he draws analogies with himself, rather than basing his conclusions about things on “analogies of the world,” thus, a person introduces a goal into all objects of nature.5 “The human mind becomes like an uneven mirror, which, mixing its nature with the nature of things, reflects things in a distorted and disfigured form.”6 “Idols of the cave” entered the minds of people from various current opinions, speculative theories and perverse evidence. People for the most part tend to believe in the truth of what they prefer and are not inclined to try in every possible way to support and justify what they have already once accepted and are accustomed to. No matter how many significant circumstances there are that indicate otherwise, they are either ignored or interpreted in a different sense. Often the difficult is rejected because there is no patience to study it, the sober - because it depresses hope, the simple and clear - because of superstition and admiration for the incomprehensible, the data of experience - because of contempt for the particular and transitory, paradoxes - because conventional wisdom and intellectual inertia.7

Also to this innate type of Idols of the Family, or Tribe, Bacon attributes the tendency to idealization - to assume more order and uniformity in things than is actually the case, to introduce imaginary similarities and correspondences into nature, to carry out excessive distractions and mentally imagine the fluid as permanent. Examples are the Perfect Circular Orbits and Spheres of ancient astronomy, combinations of the four basic states: heat, cold, moisture, moisture, dryness, forming the quadruple root of the elements of the world: fire, earth, air and water. Bacon uses the image of Plato's philosophy to explain the Idols of the Family. “Thus, some minds are more inclined to see differences in things, others - similarities; the former capture the most subtle shades and particulars, the latter capture imperceptible analogies and create unexpected generalizations. Some, committed to tradition, prefer antiquity, while others are completely embraced by a sense of the new. Some direct their attention to the simplest elements and atoms of things, while others, on the contrary, are so overwhelmed by the contemplation of the whole that they are not able to penetrate into its component parts. These Cave Idols push both of them to extremes that have nothing to do with actual comprehension of the truth.”

Eliminating innate idols is impossible, but by realizing their significance for a person, their character, it is possible to prevent the multiplication of errors and methodically correctly organize cognition. You need to be critical of everything, especially when exploring nature, you need to make it a rule to consider everything that has captured and captivated the mind as doubtful. One must incline towards the ideal of clear and critical understanding. Bacon wrote about the “Idols of the Square” or “Idols of the Market”: “The bad and absurd establishment of words besieges the mind in a wonderful way.”2 They arise as a result of the acceptance of words by the “crowd”, with the “mutual connection” of people, when the words either have different meanings , or denote things that do not exist. When they are included in the researcher's language, they begin to interfere with the achievement of truth. These include names of fictitious, non-existent things, verbal carriers of bad and ignorant abstractions.

The pressure of these idols is felt when new experience reveals to words a meaning different from that which tradition ascribes to them, when old values ​​lose their meaning and the old language of symbols ceases to be generally accepted. And then what once united people is directed against their reason.3

Francis Bacon is especially critical of the “Idols of the Theatre” or “Idols of Theories”. “These are certain philosophical creations, hypotheses of scientists, many principles and axioms of the sciences. They were created, as it were, for a theatrical performance, for “comedy,” for playing in imaginary artificial worlds.”1 “In the plays of this philosophical theater we can observe the same thing as in the theaters of poets, where stories invented for the stage are more coherent and refined and more capable of satisfying the desires of everyone than true stories from history.”2 Those obsessed with this kind of idols try to enclose the diversity and richness of nature in one-sided schemes of abstract constructions and, making decisions from less than they should, do not notice how abstract cliches, dogmas and idols rape and pervert the natural and living course of their understanding.

The products of people's intellectual activity are separated from them and subsequently confront them as something alien and dominating them. For example, Francis often refers to the philosophy of Aristotle. It is sometimes said that Aristotle only points out the problem, but does not give a method for solving it, or that on a certain issue Aristotle publishes a small work in which there are some subtle observations, and considers his work exhaustive. Sometimes he accuses him of ruining natural philosophy with his logic by building the whole world out of categories.3

Of the ancient philosophers, Bacon highly values ​​the ancient Greek materialists and natural philosophers since they defined “matter as active, having a form, as endowing this form with objects formed from it, and as containing the principle of motion.”4 Also close to him is their method of analyzing nature, and not its abstractions, ignoring ideas and subordinating the mind to the nature of things. But for Bacon, doubt is not an end in itself, but a means to develop a fruitful method of knowledge. The critical view was first and foremost a way of liberation from the scholastic mind and prejudices with which the world is burdened. Methodology of natural science, experimental knowledge.

Another source of the appearance of idols is the confusion of natural science with superstition, theology with mythical legends. This is primarily, according to Bacon, due to those who build natural philosophy on the Holy Scriptures.5

Of the "exposure of evidence" Bacon says that "the logic which we now have is of no use for scientific discovery." 1Having called his main philosophical work “New Organon,” he seems to contrast it with Aristotle’s “Organon,” which accumulated the logical knowledge of antiquity, containing the principles and schemes of deductive reasoning and the construction of science. Francis Bacon thus wants to convey that Aristotle's logic is not perfect. If, in a syllogistic proof, one uses abstract concepts that do not fully reveal the essence of something, then such a logical organization can be accompanied by the appearance and persistence of errors. This is due to “the illusion of validity and evidence where there is neither one nor the other.”2

Also criticized is “the narrowness of these inference schemes, their insufficiency for expressing logical acts of creative thinking. Bacon feels that in physics, where the task is to analyze natural phenomena and not to create generic abstractions... and not to “entangle the enemy with arguments, syllogistic deduction is unable to grasp the “subtleties of the perfection of nature”3, with the result that it eludes us true. But he does not consider the syllogism absolutely useless, he says that the syllogism is unacceptable in some cases, rather than useless at all.4 Find examples of deduction and induction.

Therefore, Bacon concludes that Aristotle's logic is "more harmful than beneficial"

Attitude to religion

“Man is called upon to discover the laws of nature that God has hidden from him. Guided by knowledge, he becomes like the Almighty, who also first shed light and only then created the material world... Both Nature and Scripture are the work of God, and therefore they do not contradict, but agree with each other. It is only unacceptable to resort to the same method to explain divine Scripture as to explain human writings, but the reverse is also unacceptable.” Bacon was one of the few who gave his preference to the natural. “... Separating the natural sciences from the theological, asserting its independent and independent status, he did not break with religion, in which he saw the main binding force of society.”1 (op. 27)

Francis Bacon believed that man's deep and sincere relationship with nature brings him back to religion.

The empirical method and the theory of induction

A brief description of the 17th century in ideas about science can be considered using the example of physics, based on the reasoning of Roger Cotes, who was a contemporary of Bacon.

Roger Cotes is an English mathematician and philosopher, famous editor and publisher of Isaac Newton’s “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.”1

In his publishing preface to Principia, Cotes talks about three approaches to physics, which differ from each other precisely in philosophical and methodological terms:

) The scholastic followers of Aristotle and the Peripatetics attributed special hidden qualities to various kinds of objects and argued that the interactions of individual bodies occur due to the peculiarities of their nature. What these features consist of, and how the actions of bodies are carried out, they did not teach.

As Cotes concludes: “Therefore, in essence, they taught nothing. Thus, everything came down to the names of individual objects, and not to the very essence of the matter, and one can say that they created the philosophical language, and not philosophy itself.”2

) Supporters of Cartesian physics believed that the substance of the Universe is homogeneous and all the differences observed in bodies come from some of the simplest and understandable properties of the particles that make up these bodies. Their reasoning would be completely correct if they attributed to these primary particles only those properties that nature actually endowed them with. Also, at the level of hypotheses, they arbitrarily invented various types and sizes of particles, their locations, connections, and movements.

Regarding them, Richard Cotes notes: “Those who borrow the foundations of their reasoning from hypotheses, even if everything further were developed by them in the most precise manner on the basis of the laws of mechanics, would create a very elegant and beautiful fable, but still only a fable.”

) Adherents of experimental philosophy or the experimental method of studying natural phenomena also strive to derive the causes of all things from the simplest possible principles, but they do not accept anything as a beginning, except what is confirmed by occurring phenomena. Two methods are used - analytical and synthetic. They derive the forces of nature and the simplest laws of their action analytically from some selected phenomena and then synthetically obtain the laws of other phenomena.

Referring to Isaac Newton, Cotes writes: “It is this very best method of studying nature that is adopted preferentially by our most famous author.”1

The first bricks in the foundation of this methodology were laid by Francis Bacon, about whom they said: “the real founder of English materialism and all modern experimental science...”2 His merit is that he clearly emphasized: scientific knowledge stems from experience, not just from direct sensory data, namely from purposefully organized experience, experiment. Science cannot be built simply on direct sensory data. There are many things that elude the senses; the evidence of the senses is subjective, “always related to a person, and not to the world.”3 And if the senses can refuse us their help or deceive us, then it cannot be argued that “feeling is the measure of things” . Bacon offers compensation for the inadequacy of feelings and the correction of his errors is provided by a correctly organized and specially adapted experiment or experiment. “... since the nature of things reveals itself better in a state of artificial constraint than in natural freedom.”4

In this case, science is interested in experiments that are carried out with the aim of discovering new properties, phenomena, their causes, axioms, which provide material for a subsequent more complete and deep theoretical understanding. Francis distinguishes two types of experiences - “luminous” and “fruitful”. This is the distinction between an experiment aimed solely at obtaining a new scientific result from an experiment pursuing one or another direct practical benefit. Argues that the discovery and establishment of correct theoretical concepts gives us not superficial knowledge, but deep knowledge, entails numerous series of the most unexpected applications and warns against a premature pursuit of immediate new practical results.5

When forming theoretical axioms and concepts and natural phenomena, one must rely on the facts of experience; one cannot rely on abstract justifications. The most important thing is to develop the correct method for analyzing and summarizing experimental data, which will make it possible to step by step penetrate into the essence of the phenomena being studied. Induction must be such a method, but not one that draws conclusions from a mere enumeration of a limited number of favorable facts. Bacon sets himself the task of formulating the principle of scientific induction, “which would produce division and selection in experience and, by due exceptions and discards, would draw the necessary conclusions.”1

Since in the case of induction there is an incomplete experience, Francis Bacon understands the need to develop effective means that would allow a more complete analysis of the information contained in the premises of the inductive conclusion.

Bacon rejected the probabilistic approach to induction. “The essence of his inductive method, his tables of Discovery - Presence, Absence and Degrees. A sufficient number of different cases of some “simple property” (for example, density, warmth, heaviness, color, etc.) is collected, the nature or “form” of which is sought. Then a set of cases is taken, as similar as possible to the previous ones, but already those in which this property is absent. Then there are many cases in which a change in the intensity of the property of interest to us is observed. Comparison of all these sets makes it possible to exclude factors that do not accompany the property being constantly studied, i.e. not present where a given property is present, or present where it is absent, or not enhanced when it is strengthened. By such discarding, we ultimately obtain a certain remainder that invariably accompanies the property we are interested in—its “form.”2

The main techniques of this method are analogy and exclusion, since empirical data for the Discovery tables are selected by analogy. It lies at the foundation of inductive generalization, which is achieved through selection, culling a number of circumstances from a set of initial possibilities. This process of analysis can be facilitated by rare situations in which the nature under study, for one reason or another, is more obvious than in others. Bacon counts and sets forth twenty-seven such preferential examples of prerogative instances. These include those cases: when the property under study exists in objects that are completely different from each other in all other respects; or, conversely, this property is absent in objects that are completely similar to each other;

This property is observed to the most obvious, maximum extent; the obvious alternativeness of two or more causal explanations is revealed.

Features of the interpretation of Francis Bacon's induction that connect the logical part of Bacon's teaching with his analytical methodology and philosophical metaphysics are as follows: First, the means of induction are intended to identify the forms of “simple properties” or “natures” into which all concrete physical bodies are decomposed. What is subject to inductive research, for example, is not gold, water or air, but such properties or qualities as density, heaviness, malleability, color, warmth, volatility. Such an analytical approach to the theory of knowledge and methodology of science would subsequently turn into a strong tradition of English philosophical empiricism.

Secondly, the task of Bacon's induction is to identify the “form” - in peripatetic terminology, the “formal” cause, and not the “efficient” or “material”, which are private and transitory and therefore cannot be invariably and significantly associated with certain simple properties .1

“Metaphysics” is called upon to explore forms “embracing the unity of nature in dissimilar matters”2, and physics deals with more particular material and efficient causes that are transitory, external carriers of these forms. “If we are talking about the reason for the whiteness of snow or foam, then the correct definition would be that it is a thin mixture of air and water. But this is still far from being a form of whiteness, since air mixed with powdered glass or powdered crystal produces whiteness in the same way, no worse than when combined with water. This is only the efficient cause, which is nothing more than the bearer of form. But if metaphysics investigates the same question, the answer will be approximately as follows: two transparent bodies, evenly mixed with each other in the smallest parts in a simple order, create the color white.”3 Francis Bacon's metaphysics does not coincide with the “mother of all sciences” - first philosophy, but is part of the science of nature itself, a higher, more abstract and deeper branch of physics. As Bacon writes in a letter to Baranzan: “Do not worry about metaphysics, there will be no metaphysics after the discovery of true physics, beyond which there is nothing but the divine.”4

We can conclude that for Bacon, induction is a method for developing fundamental theoretical concepts and axioms of natural science or natural philosophy.

Bacon’s reasoning about “form” in the “New Organon”: “A thing differs from form no differently than appearance differs from essence, or external from internal, or a thing in relation to a person from a thing in relation to the world.”1 The concept of “form” goes back to Aristotle, in whose teaching it, along with matter, efficient cause and purpose, is one of the four principles of being.

In the texts of Bacon’s works there are many different names for “form”: essentia, resipsissima, natura naturans, fons emanationis, definitio vera, differentia vera, lex actus puri.2 “All of them characterize from different sides this concept, either as the essence of a thing, or as the internal , the immanent cause or nature of its properties, as their internal source, then as the true definition or distinction of a thing, and finally, as the law of the pure action of matter. All of them are quite consistent with each other, if only one does not ignore their connection with scholastic usage and their origin from the doctrine of the Peripatetics. And at the same time, Bacon’s understanding of form differs significantly in at least two points from that dominant in idealistic scholasticism: firstly, by recognizing the materiality of the forms themselves, and secondly, by the conviction of their complete knowability.3 Form, according to Bacon, is the material thing itself , but taken in its truly objective essence, and not as it appears or appears to the subject. In this regard, he wrote that matter, rather than forms, should be the subject of our attention - its states and action, changes in states and the law of action or motion, “for forms are inventions of the human mind, unless these laws of action are called forms.” . And such an understanding allowed Bacon to pose the task of studying forms empirically, by an inductive method.”4

Francis Bacon distinguishes two kinds of form - the forms of concrete things, or substances, which are something complex, consisting of many forms of simple natures, since any concrete thing is a combination of simple natures; and forms of simple properties, or natures. Simple property forms are first class forms. They are eternal and motionless, but they are precisely the ones of different quality, individualizing the nature of things and their inherent essences. Karl Marx wrote: “In Bacon, as its first creator, materialism still conceals within itself, in a naive form, the germs of comprehensive development. Matter smiles with its poetic and sensual brilliance on the whole person.”5

There are a finite number of simple forms, and by their number and combination they determine the entire variety of existing things. For example, gold. It has a yellow color, such and such weight, malleability and strength, has a certain fluidity in the liquid state, dissolves and is released in such and such reactions. Let's explore the forms of these and other simple properties of gold. Having learned the methods of obtaining yellowness, heaviness, malleability, strength, fluidity, solubility, etc. in a degree and measure specific to this metal, you can organize their combination in any body and thus obtain gold. Bacon has a clear consciousness that any practice can be successful if it is guided by the correct theory, and an associated orientation towards a rational and methodologically verified understanding of natural phenomena. “Even at the dawn of modern natural science, Bacon seems to have foreseen that his task would be not only the knowledge of nature, but also the search for new possibilities not realized by nature itself.”1

In the postulate about a limited number of forms, one can see the outline of a very important principle of inductive research, which in one form or another is assumed in subsequent theories of induction. Essentially joining Bacon at this point, I. Newton formulates his “Rules of Inference in Physics”:

“Rule I. One must not accept other causes in nature beyond those that are true and sufficient to explain phenomena.

On this occasion, philosophers argue that nature does nothing in vain, but it would be in vain for many to do what can be done by fewer. Nature is simple and does not luxury with superfluous causes of things.

Rule II. Therefore, in so far as it is possible, one must attribute the same causes of the same kind to the manifestations of nature.

So, for example, the breathing of people and animals, the falling of stones in Europe and Africa, the light of the kitchen hearth and the Sun, the reflection of light on the Earth and on the planets.”2

Francis Bacon's theory of induction is closely connected with his philosophical ontology, methodology, with the doctrine of simple natures, or properties, and their forms, with the concept of different types of causal dependence. Logic, understood as an interpreted system, that is, as a system with a given semantics, always has some ontological premises and is essentially built as a logical model of some ontological structure.

Bacon himself does not yet draw such a definite and general conclusion. But he notes that logic must proceed “not only from the nature of the mind, but also from the nature of things.” He writes about the need to “modify the method of discovery in relation to the quality and state of the subject that we are investigating.”1 Both Bacon’s Approach and all subsequent development of logic indicate that for significantly different tasks, different logical models are required, that this is true both for deductive , and for inductive logics. Therefore, subject to a sufficiently specific and delicate analysis, there will be not one, but many systems of inductive logics, each of which acts as a specific logical model of a certain kind of ontological structure.2

Induction, as a method of productive discovery, must work according to strictly defined rules, which should not depend in their application on the differences in the individual abilities of researchers, “almost equalizing talents and leaving little to their superiority.”3

For example, “a compass and a ruler, when drawing circles and straight lines, neutralize the sharpness of the eye and the firmness of the hand. Elsewhere, regulating cognition with a “ladder” of strictly consistent inductive generalizations, Bacon even resorts to the following image: “Reason should not be given wings, but rather lead and heaviness, so that they restrain every jump and flight”4. “This is a very precise metaphorical expression of one of the basic methodological principles of scientific knowledge. A certain regulation always distinguishes scientific knowledge from everyday knowledge, which is usually not clear and precise enough and is not subject to methodologically verified self-control. Such regulation is manifested, for example, in the fact that any experimental result in science is accepted as a fact if it is repeatable, if in the hands of all researchers it is the same, which in turn implies standardization of the conditions for its implementation; it also manifests itself in the fact that the explanation must satisfy the conditions of fundamental verifiability and have predictive power, and all reasoning is based on the laws and norms of logic. The very idea of ​​considering induction as a systematic research procedure and an attempt to formulate its exact rules, of course, cannot be underestimated.”

The scheme proposed by Bacon does not guarantee the reliability and certainty of the result obtained, since it does not provide confidence that the elimination process has been completed. “A real corrective to his methodology would be a more attentive attitude to the hypothetical element in the implementation of inductive generalization, which always takes place here at least in fixing the initial possibilities for culling.” The method, which consists in putting forward certain postulates or hypotheses, from which consequences are then deduced and tested experimentally, was followed not only by Archimedes, but also by Stevin, Galileo and Descartes - contemporaries of Bacon, who laid the foundations of a new natural science. Experience that is not preceded by some theoretical idea and consequences from it simply does not exist in natural science. In this regard, Bacon’s view of the purpose and role of mathematics is such that as physics increases its achievements and discovers new laws, it will increasingly need mathematics. But he viewed mathematics primarily as a method of finalizing natural philosophy, and not as one of the sources of its concepts and principles, not as a creative principle and apparatus in the discovery of the laws of nature. He was even inclined to evaluate the method of mathematical modeling of natural processes as the Idol of the Human Race. Meanwhile, mathematical schemes are essentially abbreviated records of a generalized physical experiment that model the processes under study with an accuracy that allows one to predict the results of future experiments. The relationship between experiment and mathematics for different branches of science is different and depends on the development of both experimental capabilities and the available mathematical technology.

Bringing philosophical ontology into line with this method of the new natural science fell to the lot of Bacon's student and the “systematicist” of his materialism, Thomas Hobbes. “And if Bacon in natural science already neglects final, target causes, which, according to him, like a virgin who dedicated herself to God, are barren and cannot give birth to anything, then Hobbes also refuses Bacon’s “forms”, attaching importance only to material active causes. 1

The program of research and construction of a picture of nature according to the “form - essence” scheme gives way to a research program, but to the “causality” scheme. The general nature of the worldview changes accordingly. “In its further development, materialism becomes one-sided...” wrote K. Marx. - Sensuality loses its bright colors and turns into the abstract sensuality of a geometer. Physical movement is sacrificed to mechanical or mathematical movement; geometry is proclaimed the main science.”1 This is how the main scientific work of the century was ideologically prepared - “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” by Isaac Newton, which brilliantly embodied these two seemingly polar approaches - strict experiment and mathematical deduction.”

“I do not claim, however, that nothing can be added to this,” wrote Bacon. “On the contrary, considering the mind not only in its own abilities, but also in its connection with things, it should be recognized that the art of discovery can make progress along with the success of the discoveries themselves.”3

The anti-clerical Reformation in England led to significant changes in religious consciousness. The country entered its late Renaissance virtually without a dominant religion. By the end of the 16th century, neither the officially enforced Anglicanism, nor the Catholicism undermined by the Reformation, nor the numerous persecuted sects of Protestants and Puritans could claim this. The crown’s attempts to join the country to a “single religion” remained unsuccessful, and the very fact that the affairs of the church and religion were decided by secular authorities contributed to the fact that secularization also captured other spheres of the spiritual life of society. Human reason, common sense and interest crowded out the authority of the Holy Scriptures and the dogma of the church. Francis Bacon was also one of those who laid the foundation in England for the concept of “natural” morality, the construction of ethics, although involved in theology, but mainly without the help of religious ideas, based on rationally understood this-worldly life aspirations and affects of the human personality.

Francis Bacon's task was, by turning to examples of real, everyday life, to try to understand the ways, means and incentives of that human expression of will, which is subject to one or another moral assessment.

Determining the sources of morality, Bacon decisively asserted the primacy and greatness of the common good over the individual, active life over contemplative life, public prestige over personal satisfaction.

After all, no matter how dispassionate contemplation, spiritual serenity, self-satisfaction or the desire for individual pleasure adorn a person’s personal life, they do not stand up to criticism if we approach this life from the point of view of the criteria of its social purpose. And then it turns out that all these “soul-harmonizing” benefits are nothing more than means of cowardly escape from life with its anxieties, temptations and antagonisms and that they cannot in any way serve as the basis for that genuine mental health, activity and courage that allows you to withstand blows destiny, to overcome life's difficulties and, fulfilling his duty, to act fully and socially in this world.1 He sought to build ethics, both focused on human nature and on the norms of moral axioms, which “within its own boundaries could contain a lot of reasonable and useful."

But in this understanding, the common good was created by the will, intelligence and calculation of individuals, social well-being consisted of everyone’s collective desire for well-being, and public recognition was received by outstanding individuals in one respect or another. Therefore, along with the thesis “the common good is above all,” Bacon defends and develops another: “man himself is the architect of his own happiness.” We just need to be able to intelligently determine the meaning and value of all things depending on how much they contribute to the achievement of our goals - mental health and strength, wealth, social status and prestige. And whatever Bacon wrote about the art of conversation, manners and propriety, about the ability to conduct business, about wealth and expenses, about achieving high office, about love, friendship and cunning, about ambition, honor and fame, he constantly had in mind and based his assessments, judgments and recommendations on this aspect of the matter from the criteria corresponding to it.

Bacon's focus is narrowed and focused on human behavior and its evaluation in terms of achieving certain results. In his reflections there is no self-absorption, gentleness, skepticism, humor, bright and independent perception of the world, but only objectivism and concentrated analysis of what should provide a person with his position and success. “Here, for example, is his essay “On a High Position.” In theme it coincides with Montaigne’s essay “On the Shyness of High Position.” The essence of Montaigne's reasoning is this: I prefer to take third rather than first place in Paris; if I strive for growth, it is not in height - I want to grow in what is available to me, achieving greater determination, prudence, attractiveness and even wealth. Universal honor and the power of government suppress and frighten him. He is ready to give up rather than jump over the step determined by his abilities, for every natural state is both the most just and convenient. Bacon believes that you do not necessarily fall from every height; much more often you can descend safely. Bacon's attention is entirely directed to figuring out how to achieve a high position and how to behave in order to maintain it. His reasoning is practical. He argues that power deprives a person of freedom, makes him a slave of both the sovereign, and people’s rumors, and his business. But this is far from the most important thing, because those who have achieved power consider it natural to hold on to it and are happy when they stop the harassment of others.1 “No, people are not able to retire when they would like; They don’t leave even when they should; Solitude is unbearable for everyone, even old age and infirmities, which should be hidden in the shade; Thus, old people always sit on the threshold, although by doing so they betray their gray hairs to ridicule.”

In the essay “On the Art of Commanding,” he advises how to limit the influence of arrogant prelates, to what extent to suppress the old feudal nobility, how to create a counterweight to it in the new nobility, which is sometimes headstrong, but still a reliable support for the throne and a bulwark against the common people, what tax policy to support the merchants. While the English king virtually ignored parliament, Bacon, bearing in mind the dangers of despotism, recommended its regular convening, seeing in parliament both an assistant to royal power and a mediator between the monarch and the people. He was occupied not only with issues of political tactics and government structure, but also with a wide range of socio-economic activities in which England, which was already firmly embarking on the path of bourgeois development, lived at that time. Bacon associated the prosperity of his country and the well-being of its people with the encouragement of manufactures and trading companies, with the founding of colonies and the investment of capital in agriculture, with the reduction in the number of unproductive classes of the population, with the eradication of idleness and the curbing of luxury and wastefulness.

As a statesman and political writer, he gave his sympathies to the interests and aspirations of those prosperous strata who were simultaneously oriented towards the benefits of commercial and industrial development and the absolutism of royal power, which could protect against dangerous competitors, organize the seizure of colonial markets, and issue a patent. for a profitable monopoly, and provide any other support from above.1

In the essay “On Troubles and Rebellions,” Bacon writes: “Let no ruler think of judging the danger of discontent by how just it is; for this would mean attributing excessive prudence to the people, while they are often opposed to their own good...” “Skillfully and deftly to entertain people with hopes, to lead people from one hope to another is one of the best antidotes against discontent. A government that is truly wise is one that knows how to lull people into hope when it cannot satisfy their needs.”2

Francis Bacon believed that there are no true and reliable moral criteria and everything is measured only by the degree of usefulness, benefit and luck. His ethics were relative, but they were not utilitarian. Bacon sought to distinguish acceptable methods from unacceptable ones, which, in particular, included those recommended by Machiavelli, who freed political practice from any court of religion and morality. Whatever goals people achieve, they act in a complex, multifaceted world, in which there are all the colors of the palette, there is love, and goodness, and beauty, and justice, and of which no one has the right to deprive of this wealth.

For “being itself without moral being is a curse, and the more significant this existence, the more significant this curse.”1 In all the feverish human pursuit of happiness, there is also a higher restraining principle, which Bacon saw in piety. Religion, as a firm principle of a single faith, was for him, as it were, the highest moral binding force of society.

In Bacon's Essays, in addition to the relative moral consciousness that burdens them, there is also a human component that changes incomparably more slowly than the specific social and political conditions of existence.

reason induction nature scholastic

Conclusion

Getting acquainted with the works and life of Francis Bacon, you understand that he was a great figure, deeply involved in the political affairs of his time, a politician to the core, who deeply shows the state. Bacon's works are among those historical treasures, the acquaintance and study of which still brings great benefits to modern society.

Bacon's work had a strong influence on the general spiritual atmosphere in which the science and philosophy of the 17th century were formed.

Bibliography

1) Alekseev P.V., Panin A.V. Philosophy: Textbook - 3rd ed., revised. and additional - M.: TK Welby, Prospekt Publishing House, 2003 - 608 p.

) K. Marx and F. Engels. Soch., vol. 2, 1971- 450 p.

) N. Gordensky. Francis Bacon, his doctrine of method and encyclopedia of sciences. Sergiev Posad, 1915 - 789 p.

4) New large English-Russian dictionary, 2001.<#"justify">6) F. Bacon. Essays. T. 1. Comp., general ed. and will enter. article by A.L. Subbotina. M., "Thought", 1971-591 p.

) F. Bacon. Essays. T. 2. M., "Thought", 1971-495 p.

Francis Bacon was born in London, into a noble and respected family. His father Nicholas was a politician, and his mother Anne (nee Cook) was the daughter of Anthony Cook, a famous humanist who raised King Edward VI of England and Ireland. From a young age, his mother instilled in her son a love of knowledge, and she, a girl who knew ancient Greek and Latin, did it with ease. In addition, the boy himself showed a great interest in knowledge from a very tender age.

In general, not much is known about the childhood of the great thinker. He received the basics of knowledge at home, as he was in poor health. But this did not stop him at the age of 12, together with his older brother Anthony, from entering Trinity College (College of the Holy Trinity) at Cambridge. During his studies, the smart and educated Francis was noticed not only by the courtiers, but also by Queen Elizabeth I herself, who happily talked with the young man, often jokingly calling him the growing Lord Guardian.

After graduating from college, the brothers joined the community of teachers at Gray's Inn (1576). In the autumn of the same year, not without the help of his father, Francis, as part of the retinue of Sir Amyas Paulet, went abroad. The realities of life in other countries, seen then by Francis, resulted in the notes “On the State of Europe.”

Bacon was forced to return to his homeland by misfortune - in February 1579, his father passed away. In the same year he began practicing as a lawyer in Gray's Inn. A year later, Bacon submitted a petition to seek some position at court. However, despite Queen Elizabeth’s rather warm attitude towards Bacon, he never heard a positive result. After working at Gray's Inn until 1582, he received the post of junior barrister.

At the age of 23, Francis Bacon was given the honor of holding a position in the House of Commons. He had his own views, which sometimes did not coincide with the views of the Queen, and therefore soon became known as her opponent. A year later, he was already elected to parliament, and Bacon’s real “finest hour” came when James I came to power in 1603. Under his patronage, Bacon was appointed Attorney General (1612), and five years later Lord Privy Seal, and from 1618 to 1621 he was Lord Chancellor.

His career collapsed in an instant when, in the same 1621, Francis was charged with bribery. He was then taken into custody, but just two days later he was pardoned. During his political activity, the world saw one of the thinker’s most outstanding works - the “New Organon”, which was the second part of the main work - the “Great Restoration of the Sciences”, which, unfortunately, was never completed.

Bacon's philosophy

Francis Bacon is rightfully considered the founder of modern thinking. His philosophical theory fundamentally refutes scholastic teachings, while bringing knowledge and science to the fore. The thinker believed that a person who managed to cognize and accept the laws of nature is quite capable of using them for his own benefit, thereby gaining not only power, but also something more - spirituality. The philosopher subtly noted that during the formation of the world, all discoveries were made, essentially, by accident - without special skills or knowledge of special techniques. Consequently, when exploring the world and gaining new knowledge, the main thing to use is experience and the inductive method, and research, in his opinion, should begin with observation, not theory. According to Bacon, a successful experiment can be called such only if, during its implementation, conditions are constantly changing, including time and space - matter must always be in motion.

Empirical teaching of Francis Bacon

The concept of “empiricism” appeared as a result of the development of Bacon’s philosophical theory, and its essence boiled down to the judgment “knowledge lies through experience.” He believed that it was possible to achieve anything in one’s activities only with experience and knowledge. According to Bacon, there are three paths through which a person can gain knowledge:

• "Way of the Spider" In this case, the analogy is drawn with a web, like which human thoughts are intertwined, while specific aspects are missed.
• "The Way of the Ant" Like an ant, a person collects facts and evidence bit by bit, thus gaining experience. However, the essence remains unclear.
• "The Way of the Bee" In this case, the positive qualities of the path of the spider and the ant are used, and the negative ones (lack of specifics, misunderstood essence) are omitted. When choosing the path of a bee, it is important to put all the facts collected experimentally through the mind and the prism of your thinking. This is how the truth is known.

Classification of obstacles to knowledge

Bacon, in addition to the ways of knowledge. He also talks about constant obstacles (the so-called ghost obstacles) that accompany a person throughout his life. They can be congenital or acquired, but in any case, they are the ones that prevent you from adjusting your mind to knowledge. So, there are four types of obstacles: “Ghosts of the family” (come from human nature itself), “Ghosts of the cave” (own errors in perceiving the surrounding reality), “ghosts of the market” (appear as a result of communication with other people through speech (language)) and “ theater ghosts” (ghosts inspired and imposed by other people). Bacon is sure that in order to learn something new, you need to abandon the old. At the same time, it is important not to “lose” experience, based on which and passing it through the mind, you can achieve success.

Personal life

Francis Bacon was married once. His wife was three times his age. The great philosopher's chosen one was Alice Burnham, the daughter of the widow of London elder Benedict Burnham. The couple had no children.

Bacon died as a result of suffering from a cold, which was the result of one of the experiments being carried out. Bacon stuffed the chicken carcass with snow with his hands, trying in this way to determine the effect of cold on the safety of meat products. Even when he was already seriously ill, foreshadowing his imminent death, Bacon wrote joyful letters to his comrade, Lord Arendelle, never tired of repeating that science would ultimately give man power over nature.

Quotes

• Knowledge is power
• Nature can be conquered only by obeying its laws.
• He who hobbles along a straight road will outpace a runner who has lost his way.
• The worst loneliness is not having true friends.
• The imaginary wealth of knowledge is the main reason for its poverty.
• Of all the virtues and virtues of the soul, the greatest virtue is kindness.

The most famous works of the philosopher

• “Experiences, or moral and political instructions” (3 editions, 1597-1625)
• “On the dignity and increase of sciences” (1605)
• "New Atlantis" (1627)

Over the course of his life, 59 works came from the philosopher’s pen; after his death, another 29 were published.

In the 17th century, two philosophical doctrines appeared, for the first time quite clearly putting forward two main points of view on the sources and criteria of knowledge - empirical And rationalistic. These are the teachings of Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes. The problem of knowledge receives a completely new formulation in them. Francis Bacon not only does not repeat Aristotle, but even stands in some opposition to him and develops a completely original theory of knowledge, the center of gravity of which lies in a new idea experiment as a tool of experimental science. In the same way, Descartes does not repeat Plato, but sees in the human spirit, in its organization, data for the discovery of fundamental and essential truths of knowledge, similar in their reliability and clarity to mathematics and which can serve as the foundation of the entire doctrine of the world.

Portrait of Francis Bacon. Artist Frans Pourbus the Younger, 1617

And yet, it cannot be denied that the spiritual father of Rene Descartes is Plato, the spiritual father of the philosophy of Francis Bacon is Aristotle. Despite all the private disagreements of the mentioned thinkers, their kinship cannot be denied. There are generally two kinds of minds, of which some are directed outward, to the external world, and from there they already go to an explanation of the inner man and the inner nature of things, others are directed inward, to the area of ​​human self-consciousness and in it they seek support and criteria for interpreting the very nature of the world . In this sense, the empiricist Bacon as a philosopher is closer to Aristotle, the rationalist Descartes to Plato, and the contrast of this two kinds of minds is so deep and difficult to eliminate that it also appears in later philosophy. Thus, in the first half of the 19th century, Auguste Comte was a typical representative of thinkers whose gaze is turned to the outside world and who are looking for clues to the problem of man, and Schopenhauer is a typical representative of that class of thinkers who are looking for clues to the world in human self-consciousness. Positivism there is the newest stage in the development of Francis Bacon's empiricism, Schopenhauer's metaphysics - in a certain sense, the newest modification of Descartes' apriorism.

Biography of Francis Bacon

The biography of a thinker is of great importance when analyzing his worldview. Sometimes the height of a philosopher’s life reveals the reasons for the height and superiority of his teaching, sometimes the baseness or inner insignificance of his life throws light on the nature of his views. But there are also more complex cases. A life that is not remarkable in any way or even morally poor in quality is not devoid of greatness and significance in some respects and reveals certain features of the internal make-up, for example, the one-sidedness and narrowness of the thinker’s worldview. This is precisely the case presented by the biography of the English philosopher Francis Bacon. His life is not only not edifying in a moral sense, but one might even regret that the history of modern philosophy should place such a dubious personality as Francis Bacon among its most important representatives. There were even overly zealous historians of philosophy who saw in the story of Bacon’s life sufficient grounds to exclude him from the category of great philosophers, and the dispute about the significance of Bacon as a philosopher, which arose in the 1860s in German literature, undoubtedly had an underlying ethical considerations. Cuno Fischer was the first to discover the close connection between Bacon’s unique character and his major philosophical worldview.

Francis Bacon was born in 1561, the youngest son of the Keeper of the Great Seal of England, Nicholas Bacon. After the death of his father, while serving at the embassy in Paris, the future philosopher found himself in a difficult financial situation. Having first chosen the career of a lawyer and then a parliamentary figure, Francis Bacon, thanks to his eloquence, enormous ambition and unscrupulousness in his means, quickly began to rise in the official field. As a result of the trial of the Earl of Essex, his former friend and patron, - a trial in which he, forgetting feelings of friendship and gratitude, acted as prosecutor Essex and a supporter of the government, Bacon managed to gain the special favor of Queen Elizabeth and achieve high positions through intrigue. Under James I he is made Keeper of the Great Seal, and then Chancellor, Baron of Verulam and Viscount of St. Alban. Then follows the fall, as a result of the process started by his enemies and the discovered fact that Bacon took large bribes in solving lawsuits and distributing positions. Bacon is deprived of all positions and honors and devotes the rest of his life on his estate to the final development of his philosophical doctrine of knowledge, no longer agreeing to return to power. Francis Bacon died in 1626 due to a cold from the experience of stuffing a bird with snow.

Bacon: “knowledge is power”

Thus, the life of Francis Bacon, even from the external connection of facts, represents a curious phenomenon: signs of a complete absence of moral principles and, despite this, devotion to science and knowledge reaching the point of self-sacrifice. This contrast reflects the entire spirit of his teaching - the idealistic fanaticism of his faith in science, combined with indifference to the role of knowledge in the creation of a person’s moral worldview. “Knowledge is power” is the motto of Bacon’s philosophy. But what kind of power? Power that suits not internal, but external life. Knowledge in the hands of man is an instrument of power over nature - the same thing that knowledge has finally become in our time of great victories over nature and the extreme debasement of the moral principles of human life. Francis Bacon gives in his philosophy a kind of prophecy, a proclamation of our time. Francis Bacon, in Windelband's apt comparison, is a supporter of the "spirit of the earth" in Goethe's Faust. “And who does not recognize in Bacon’s philosophy,” he notes, “the practical spirit of the English, who, more than any other people, were able to take advantage of the discoveries of science to improve life.” Francis Bacon is no exception; Bacon is a type of practical person who, at best, sees in science, in knowledge, a force capable of subjugating the outside world and nature to humanity. Bacon's guiding idea in his philosophical works was the idea of ​​the material benefit of all mankind. Bacon’s merit is that he was the first to generalize the principle of the individual’s struggle for the right to life, and Hobbes, who proclaimed the “war of all against all” as the initial beginning of the development of society, was only a successor of the philosophy of Francis Bacon in understanding the meaning of life, and both together were predecessors Malthus And Darwin with their doctrine of the struggle for existence as a principle of development in the economic and biological spheres. It is difficult to deny the continuity of national ideas and aspirations when they have been so clearly evident over the course of three centuries.

Monument to Francis Bacon at the Library of Congress

Francis Bacon's Scientific Method

But let us turn to the philosophical teachings of Francis Bacon. He outlined it in two major works - in the essay “On the Dignity and Increase of Sciences,” which appeared first in English in 1605 and then in Latin in 1623, and in the “New Organon” (1620). Both works form parts of the planned but unfinished philosophical work “Instauratio magna” (“Great restoration of the sciences”). Bacon contrasts his “New Organon” with the totality of Aristotle’s logical works, which in ancient times, in the school of Aristotle, received the name “Organon” - a tool, method of science and philosophy. What was Francis Bacon's "transformation"?

Back in the 13th century. his namesake, monk Roger Bacon, expressed the idea that it is necessary to study nature directly. Bernardino Telesio, during the Renaissance, tried to create a theory of experience as a tool of knowledge, and to prove the inconsistency of inference as a tool of knowledge. Raymund Llull tried to invent it in the 13th century. a method of discovering new scientific truths by combining concepts, and Giordano Bruno tried to improve this method in the 16th century. The philosopher Francis Bacon also sets out to improve the art of invention and discovery, but by identifying methods of direct, experimental, scientific study of nature. Francis Bacon is the successor of R. Bacon and B. Telesio on the one hand, R. Lullia and Giordano Bruno on the other.

The real basis for his philosophical theories was the actual inventions and discoveries of the coming era. What is the purpose of science? According to Bacon, it is to promote the improvement of life. If science is distracted from life, then it is like a plant torn out of its soil and torn from its roots, and therefore no longer uses any nutrition. Such is scholasticism; new inventions and discoveries of science were made on the basis of direct study of life and nature. Francis Bacon, however, does not understand the complexity of the problem of knowledge and science. He does not explore the boundaries and deep foundations of knowledge; he proceeds in his doctrine of the scientific method from certain general assumptions, based partly on observation, partly on fantasy. Apparently, Bacon is little familiar with the original works of Aristotle on nature and, in general, knows ancient philosophy and science superficially. A fan of experience and induction, he himself builds his theory of knowledge and its methods in the abstract, and priori, deductively rather than inductively; the founder of the doctrine of experiment, he explores and determines the foundations of knowledge not experimentally or even inductively, but on the basis general considerations. These are the reasons for the weakness and one-sidedness of his theory of knowledge. Bacon's main strength lies in his criticism of the previous insufficient success of the natural sciences.

Bacon's Idols

The philosophy of Francis Bacon recognizes reason and feelings (sensations) as the foundations of knowledge. In order to properly use the first for acquisition, through the second , true knowledge of nature must clear it of various false anticipations or preliminary experiences, incorrect and unfounded assumptions, to make it clean board convenient for the perception of new facts. For this purpose, Bacon very wittily and, in a psychological sense, subtly identifies the erroneous images or idols of our mind, which complicate its cognitive work. His philosophy divides these idols into four categories: 1) Idols of the family(idola tribus). These are features of human nature in general that distort the knowledge of things: for example, a tendency to excessive order in ideas, the influence of fantasy, the desire to go beyond the limits of the material of knowledge available in experience, the influence of feelings and moods on the work of thought, the inclination of the mind to excessive distraction and abstraction. 2) Idols of the Cave(idola specus): each person occupies a certain corner of the world, and the light of knowledge reaches him, refracted through the environment of his special individual nature, formed under the influence of education and relations with other people, under the influence of the books he studied and the authorities he revered . Thus, every person knows the world from his corner or cave (an expression taken from the philosophy of Plato); a person sees the world in a special, personally accessible light; Everyone should try to recognize their own personal characteristics and purify their thoughts from the admixture of personal opinions and from the coloring of personal sympathies. 3) Idols of the square(idola fori): the most nasty and difficult to eliminate errors associated with language, the word, as an instrument of knowledge, and which are revealed in the relations of people with each other (hence “square”). Words in the world of thoughts are a walking bargaining chip, their price is relative. By their origin from immediate, crude knowledge, words roughly and confusingly define things, and hence the endless disputes about words. We must try to define them more precisely, connecting them with real facts of experience, distinguishing them by the degree of certainty and exact correspondence to the properties of things. Finally, the fourth category - theater idols(idola theatri) are “deceptive images of reality arising from the erroneous portrayal of reality by philosophers and scientists who mix true stories with fables and inventions, as on stage or in poetry.” In this sense, Francis Bacon especially points out, among other things, the harmful interference in the field of science and philosophy of religious ideas.

Monument to Francis Bacon in London

Bacon's method of knowledge

No less than reason, the feelings themselves, which very often deceive us and yet serve as the only source of the entire content of thought, are subject to purification and refinement. We do not yet find a deep psychological analysis of sensations in the philosophy of Francis Bacon, but he correctly notes some of the weak sides of the process of sensory perception and sets as a general rule the need for methodological sophistication of the perceptions of the senses through artificial instruments and through repetition and modification of perceptions in the form of testing them with each other. But no one can know things through feelings alone - sensations must be processed by reason, and this gives general truths, axioms that guide the mind during further wanderings in the forest of facts, in the wilds of experience. Therefore, Bacon also condemns those philosophers who, like spiders all knowledge is weaved from itself (dogmatists or rationalists), and those who, like ants only collect facts into a pile without processing them (extreme empiricists), – to acquire true knowledge one must act as they do bees, collecting material from flowers and fields and processing it into unique products with a special internal force.

Experiment and induction in Bacon

One cannot, of course, disagree with this general method of knowledge, as Francis Bacon formulates it. The union of experience and thinking that he recommends is truly the only path to truth. But how to achieve it and achieve the proper degree and proportion in the process of cognition? The answer to this is Bacon's theory induction,as a method of cognition. A syllogism or inference, according to Bacon’s philosophy, does not provide new knowledge, real knowledge, for inferences consist of sentences, and sentences consist of words, and words are signs of concepts. It's all about how the initial concepts and words are composed. The method of correct composition of concepts in the philosophy of Francis Bacon is induction, based on experiment Experimentation is the path to artificial repetition and constant mutual verification of sensations. But the essence of induction is not in one experiment, but in a certain development of sensory data acquired through it. To organize this development of sensations and to correctly guide the experiment itself, Bacon proposes to compile special tables of cases of similar, different (negative), parallel changing facts that exclude each other, and so on. This famous Baconian theory tables is supplemented by the doctrine of a system of auxiliary inductive techniques or authorities Bacon's theory of induction, extended Newton And Herschel, formed the basis of the teachings of the philosopher John Stewart Mill about inductive methods of agreement, difference, concomitant changes and residues, as well as about inductive techniques auxiliary to them.

The essence of the inductive analysis of facts comes down to the fact that, through the study of various types of relationships between phenomena in experience, to discover their true causal connections and dependencies on each other, for the task of the science of nature, according to Bacon, is the study of the causal relationship of phenomena, and not their simple material composition , – general forms of phenomena, and not their specific differences. In this teaching, Francis Bacon adheres to the philosophy of Aristotle and by forms he means those general laws or typical relations of phenomena to the discovery of which all experimental science strives.

Bacon's classification of sciences

Bacon, while developing the question of the methods of the sciences, also tried to give a classification of the sciences, but the latter is certainly weak. He distinguishes the science of nature from the science of man and the science of God. Within the first - physics or the doctrine of material causes he distinguishes from metaphysics, science of forms, contrasts theoretical physics with practical science - mechanics, and metaphysics - of magic. The doctrine of goals in the New Organon is completely excluded from the science of nature, and thus Francis Bacon is in his philosophy the first representative of the purely mechanical tendencies of modern science. Next to physics and metaphysics, he sometimes places mathematics as a tool for quantitative analysis of phenomena, and, as critics generally admit, he poorly understands the meaning and internal value of mathematical knowledge. When determining the inner essence of the tasks of the science of man and God, Bacon occupies an ambiguous position. He considers the human sciences history(natural science of society), logic, ethics And politics. In man, he recognizes the soul as a principle emanating from God, and in principle considers only the animal soul associated with the bodily organization to be the subject of natural science, just as he considers only the lower inclinations of man to be the subject of natural morality, while the nature of the higher soul and higher moral principles are subject to definition and clarification only from the side of Divine revelation, like the very nature of God. But at the same time, Bacon, in his anthropology, as well as in the science of God, often transgresses the boundaries of natural science that he himself recognized. As one of the themes present in Bacon's philosophy and the idea universal science- first philosophy in the sense of Aristotle, which should be a “store of general axioms of knowledge” and a tool for researching some special “transcendental” concepts of being and non-being, reality and possibility, movement and rest, etc., but we are in charge of precisely defining the tasks and methods of this science We do not find the philosophy of Francis Bacon, which is completely understandable, since he thinks that all axioms of knowledge are still based on experience, on the sensations of external senses, and does not recognize other sources of knowledge. Thus, the classification of sciences is the weakest side of Bacon’s doctrine of knowledge.

Assessing the philosophy of Francis Bacon, we must admit that in general he deserves the credit for the first attempt to develop a comprehensive theory of objective knowledge, to find all the conditions, obstacles and aids for the correct development of factual material of experience, and one cannot be too harsh on Bacon for the fact that, having put While his task was to study external experimental elements and conditions of knowledge, he did not reach the proper depth in the analysis of the cognitive abilities and processes of the human mind themselves.

BACON, FRANCIS(Bacon, Francis) (1561–1626), Baron of Verulam, Viscount of St. Albans, English statesman, essayist and philosopher. Born in London on January 22, 1561, he was the youngest son in the family of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge University for two years, then spent three years in France in the retinue of the English ambassador.

After the death of his father in 1579, he was left practically without a livelihood and entered the Gray's Inn school of barristers to study law. In 1582 he became a barrister, and in 1584 a member of parliament and until 1614 he played a prominent role in debates at sessions of the House of Commons. From time to time he composed messages to Queen Elizabeth, in which he sought to take an impartial approach to pressing political issues; Perhaps, if the queen had followed his advice, some conflicts between the crown and parliament could have been avoided. However, his ability as a statesman did not help his career, partly because Lord Burghley saw in Bacon a rival to his son, and partly because he lost Elizabeth's favor by courageously opposing, on principles of principle, the passage of the Bill for Grants of covering expenses incurred in the war with Spain (1593).

Around 1591 he became an adviser to the queen's favorite, the Earl of Essex, who offered him a generous reward. However, Bacon made it clear to his patron that he was devoted first of all to his country, and when in 1601 Essex tried to organize a coup, Bacon, as a king's lawyer, took part in his condemnation as a state traitor. Under Elizabeth, Bacon never rose to any high positions, but after James I Stuart ascended the throne in 1603, he quickly advanced in the ranks. In 1607 he took the position of Solicitor General, in 1613 - Attorney General, in 1617 - Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and in 1618 received the post of Lord Chancellor, the highest in the structure of the judiciary. Bacon was knighted in 1603 and created Baron of Verulam in 1618 and Viscount of St. Albans in 1621. In the same year he was accused of accepting bribes. Bacon admitted receiving gifts from people whose cases were being tried in court, but denied that this had any influence on his decision. Bacon was stripped of all his posts and banned from appearing at court. He spent the remaining years before his death in solitude.

Bacon's main literary creation is considered to be Experiments (Essays), on which he worked continuously for 28 years; ten essays were published in 1597, and by 1625 the book had already collected 58 essays, some of which were published in the third edition in revised form ( Experiments, or Moral and Political Instructions, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Morall). Style Experiences laconic and didactic, replete with learned examples and brilliant metaphors. Bacon called his experiments “fragmentary reflections” about ambition, relatives and friends, about love, wealth, about the pursuit of science, about honors and glory, about the vicissitudes of things and other aspects of human life. In them you can find cold calculation, which is not mixed with emotions or impractical idealism, advice for those who are making a career. There are, for example, such aphorisms: “Everyone who rises high passes through the zigzags of a spiral staircase” and “Wife and children are hostages of fate, for the family is an obstacle to the accomplishment of great deeds, both good and evil.” Bacon's treatise About the wisdom of the ancients (De Sapientia Veterum, 1609) is an allegorical interpretation of the hidden truths contained in ancient myths. His History of the reign of Henry VII (History of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, 1622) is distinguished by lively characterizations and clear political analysis.

Despite Bacon's studies in politics and jurisprudence, the main concern of his life was philosophy and science, and he majestically declared: “All knowledge is the province of my care.” He rejected Aristotelian deduction, which at that time occupied a dominant position, as an unsatisfactory way of philosophizing. In his opinion, a new tool of thinking, a “new organon”, should be proposed, with the help of which it would be possible to restore human knowledge on a more reliable basis. A general outline of the “great plan for the restoration of the sciences” was made by Bacon in 1620 in the preface to the work New Organon, or True Indications for the Interpretation of Nature (Novum Organum). This work consisted of six parts: a general overview of the current state of the sciences, a description of a new method of obtaining true knowledge, a body of empirical data, a discussion of issues subject to further research, preliminary solutions, and, finally, philosophy itself. Bacon managed to make only sketches of the first two parts. The first one was named About the benefits and success of knowledge (Of the Proficiency and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Humane, 1605), the Latin version of which, On the dignity and enhancement of sciences (De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum, 1623), published with corrections and many additions. According to Bacon, there are four kinds of “idols” that besiege the minds of people. The first type is idols of the race (mistakes that a person makes by virtue of his very nature). The second type is cave idols (mistakes due to prejudice). The third type is the idols of the square (errors caused by inaccuracies in the use of language). The fourth type is theater idols (mistakes made as a result of the adoption of various philosophical systems). Describing the current prejudices that hinder the development of science, Bacon proposed a tripartite division of knowledge, made according to mental functions, and attributed history to memory, poetry to imagination, and philosophy (in which he included the sciences) to reason. He also gave an overview of the limits and nature of human knowledge in each of these categories and pointed out important areas of research that had hitherto been neglected. In the second part of the book, Bacon described the principles of the inductive method, with the help of which he proposed to overthrow all the idols of reason.

In an unfinished story New Atlantis (The New Atlantis, written in 1614, publ. in 1627) Bacon describes a utopian community of scientists engaged in the collection and analysis of data of all kinds according to the scheme of the third part of the great plan of restoration. New Atlantis is an excellent social and cultural system that exists on the island of Bensalem, lost somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The religion of the Atlanteans is Christianity, miraculously revealed to the inhabitants of the island; the unit of society is the highly respected family; The type of government is essentially a monarchy. The main institution of the state is Solomon's House, the College of the Six Days of Creation, a research center from which emanate scientific discoveries and inventions that ensure the happiness and prosperity of the citizens. It is sometimes believed that it was Solomon's house that served as the prototype of the Royal Society of London, established during the reign of Charles II in 1662.

Bacon's struggle against authorities and the method of "logical distinctions", the promotion of a new method of knowledge and the conviction that research should begin with observations, and not with theories, put him on a par with the most important representatives of scientific thought of the Modern Age. However, he did not obtain any significant results - neither in empirical research nor in the field of theory, and his method of inductive knowledge through exceptions, which, as he believed, would produce new knowledge “like a machine”, did not receive recognition in experimental science .

In March 1626, deciding to test the extent to which cold slowed down the process of decay, he experimented with a chicken, stuffing it with snow, but caught a cold in the process. Bacon died at Highgate near London on April 9, 1626.