Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon(1561-1626)

a representative of the English Renaissance, a well-known philosopher, scientist and essayist.

Points of View

▪As a philosopher and scientist, he lays the foundation for modern science with his insistence on scientific way of thinking and fresh observation rather than authority as a basis for obtaining knowledge.

▪He contributed to logics by founding the inductive method of reasoning, i.e. proceeding from the particular to the general, in place of Aristotelian method, deductive reasoning, i.e. proceeding from the general to the particular.

Bacon’s works

▪Bacon’s works may be divided into three classes, the philosophical, the literary, and the professional works.

▪The principal philosophical work is The Advancement of Learning(1605) (论科学的价值和发展), written in English; Novum Organum (1620) (新工具), is an enlarged Latin version of The Advancement of Learning.

▪His literary works are in the second group, among which the most famous is Essays. His Essays is the first example of that genre in English literature in the development of English prose.

▪The most important professional works include Maxims of the Law (法律原理) and The Learned Reading upon the Statute of Uses (1642) (法令使用读本).

The Advancement of Learning

▪It is a great tract on education.

▪In Book I, Bacon highly praises knowledge, refusing the objections to learning and outlining the problems with which his plan is to deal. Also he answers the charge that learning is against religion.

▪The second book is a survey of learning, which explains its importance in scholarship. According to Bacon, man's understanding consists of three parts: history to man's memory, poetry to man's imagination and creation, and philosophy to man's reason

Novum Organum

▪It is a successful treatise written in Latin on methodology. It is the most impressive display of Bacon's intellect. The argument is for the use of inductive method of reasoning in scientific study. But Bacon first expounds the four great false conceivings that beset men's mind and prevent them from seeking the truth.

Then in his second book, Bacon suggests the inductive reasoning, i.e. proceeding from the particular to the general, in place of the Aristotelian method, the deductive reasoning, i.e. proceeding from the general to the particular. By putting forward this theory, Bacon, as a humanist intellect, shows the new empirical attitudes toward truth about nature and bravely challenges the medieval scholasticists.

Bacon’s Essays

▪Bacon’s Essays, first published in 1597 and issued in its final form in 1625, have generally been considered as important landmarks in the development of English prose, and the first collection of essays in the English language. These essays, totaled 58, are all short pieces of the author’s reflections and comments covering a wide-ranging subjects, such as philosophy, religion and political system as well as ethics, self-cultivation, almost always showing the practical wisdom of the author and written for successful conduct of life.

The characteristics

▪Bacon’s essays vary in theme, including his personal opinions on friendship, love, old age, truth, beauty, etc. and are famous for their brevity, compactness and powerfulness.

▪His essays are well-arranged and enriched by Biblical allusions, metaphors and cadence.

Of Studies