Philosophy of the Modern Age

The Problem of the Method of Knowledge in Early Modern Philosophy

The philosophy of the Early Modern period begins with the name of the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626). He is regarded as the first philosopher of this new era, having been the first to articulate the most essential principles characteristic of the philosophy of this time.

Bacon hailed from a noble lineage and studied at Cambridge University. As a very young man (only sixteen), he participated in diplomatic work in Paris for several years. Following his father's death in 1579, he returned to England with the aim of securing a prosperous future. He studied law and philosophy for some time, engaged in legal practice, and gained a reputation as a skilled orator and competent lawyer. However, this was not his sole vocation. Bacon devised a plan for a comprehensive reform of science and sought a government position that would allow him to implement this plan. Under Queen Elizabeth, he was unable to achieve a significant career. His fortunes changed with the ascension of James I of England, who appointed Bacon as Lord Chancellor of England, granting him the titles of Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans. Yet, in 1621, he was accused of bribery, which marked the end of his political career. In his later years, he focused on literary endeavors while often suffering from illness. One cold spring day, Bacon decided to conduct an experiment on freezing a chicken to determine how effectively snow could preserve meat from spoilage. While stuffing the chicken with snow, he caught a cold, suffered for a week, and passed away on April 9. In his final letter, Bacon remarked that the freezing experiment had "turned out very well."

Among Bacon's works, the most notable are "On the Dignity and Advancement of Sciences" (1623), "Novum Organum" (1620), and the philosophical utopia "New Atlantis," published a year after his death.

The main thrust of Bacon's work is the advocacy for science, demonstrating its paramount significance in human life. He sought to establish a new, comprehensive perspective on the structure of science, its classification, as well as the aims and methods of scientific inquiry. The idea of a Great Renewal of Sciences permeated his philosophical writings. This idea was grounded in a new understanding of the value of science, particularly its practical purpose, which serves human needs and improves people's lives. Bacon was the first to clearly recognize the superiority of scientific achievements over those of antiquity and the Middle Ages.

In his quest to restore the sciences, Bacon first deemed it essential to provide a classification of all known fields of knowledge at the time. He adopted the principle of classification from the traditions of humanist culture, basing it on three principal faculties of the human soul, as it was then believed: memory, imagination (fantasy), and reason. History corresponds to memory, poetry to imagination, and philosophy, which aligns most closely with the concept of science, corresponds to reason.

For philosophy, there are three main subjects: God, nature, and humanity. Bacon resolves his stance on God as an object of inquiry based on the theory of the "two truths," arriving at the conclusion of the mutual non-interference between religion and that philosophy which investigates nature. In natural philosophy, Bacon distinguishes between the theoretical part, which reveals the causes of natural phenomena, and the practical part. He emphasizes the division of theoretical natural philosophy into physics and metaphysics. Physics studies proximate causes, while metaphysics delves into deeper, formal (that is, the forms of things) and final causes. Bacon differentiates first philosophy from metaphysics, considering its subject to be the axioms common to all sciences, as well as the attributes of any being, such as numerical, identical, distinct, possible, etc., understood in a physical sense. The final subdivision of philosophy is the doctrine of humanity. Humanity as an individual is the subject of anthropology, whereas humanity as a member of society is the subject of civil philosophy or politics. Bacon not only provides a classification of the sciences but also examines their history and achievements in detail, indicating their prospects for development.

Bacon devoted special attention to logic, the science of thought. Unlike traditional logic, which remained the logic of proving what had once been discovered, he proposed the task of creating a logic oriented toward discovering new truths. It can be said that Bacon consciously articulated the methodological function of philosophy for the first time. The problems of logic and methodology became the central theme of his work "Novum Organum."

Within Bacon's methodology lies a peculiar "destructive part," where he examines the so-called "idols," or specters of thought, and the ways to expel them from human consciousness, thereby purifying it. Only after this can one expect an adequate reproduction of nature.

The "idols," or "phantoms," are biases that, according to Bacon, partly belong to human reason by its very nature, partly arise during the history of human knowledge, and partly emerge in the process of individual human development. These phantoms constantly accompany humanity, creating erroneous perceptions and ideas. There are four kinds of "phantoms":

1. Phantoms of the Tribe: These are inherent to human nature itself, to their reason and senses. Reason and sensation seem to mix their own nature with that of things, for instance, when they attempt to interpret natural phenomena by analogy to human experiences (anthropo-sociomorphism), or when they seek generalizations that lack sufficient factual support. Phantoms of the tribe are the most persistent, and they can only be overcome by ensuring that "to the wings of reason one must attach weights so that it adheres to the facts."
2. Phantoms of the Cave: Each individual possesses a sort of "personal cave," which distorts their perception of the natural world. The individual physiological and psychological traits determined by a person's character, upbringing, and other unique aspects of their life manifest specifically in the phantoms of the cave. For example, "a person is more likely to believe in that which they favor." These idols can be conquered through the comparison of individual and collective experiences.
3. Phantoms of the Marketplace: These arise from human linguistic communication, during which people assume that their personal reason governs words. These idols are the most burdensome, for contrary to such beliefs, words stealthily penetrate their consciousness and often distort the logic of reasoning. Endless disputes over words serve as examples of the phantoms of the marketplace. By mistaking words for things, people slide into the realm of pseudo-wisdom.
4. Phantoms of the Theater: These arise from blind faith in authorities, particularly in traditional philosophical systems. The artificial constructs of these systems represent a sort of "philosophical theater."

With this, Bacon critiques the absolutization of the syllogism and challenges the deductive method, arguing that its application fails to extend knowledge beyond the confines of concepts.

Having dealt with the "destructive part," Bacon moves on to the constructive, articulating his empirical-inductive method. His own method relies on a newly developed concept of induction. The essence of induction lies in continuous and gradual generalization: from specific facts to "middle axioms" and further to "general axioms." What did Bacon introduce that was new? Prior to him, induction was understood either as complete (though its application in studying nature is limited because we cannot objectively survey all phenomena of infinite nature) or as incomplete induction through mere enumeration. Bacon opposed these forms with what he termed true induction. In this latter case, conclusions can be drawn not solely from observing facts that support the conclusions but also from studying cases that contradict the proposition (conclusion) being established. Considering these so-called "negative instances" necessitates precise fact-finding, achieved not through passive observation but through experimentation.

For induction as a scientific method, the correct organization of the experiment and the ability to process and generalize factual material are crucial. To this end, Bacon introduces three types of tables: 1) a list of cases exhibiting certain characteristics or properties; 2) a list of cases lacking those characteristics; 3) a list of cases in which a particular property is present to varying degrees [table of degrees]. The compilation of such cases constitutes a preliminary phase to the inductive conclusion. Following scientific conclusions, verification through experiments ensues. "Our path and our method," Bacon indicates, "is as follows: we do not extract practice from practice and experiments from experiments (as empiricists do), but causes and axioms from practice and experiments, and from causes and axioms, we derive practice and experiments as legitimate interpreters of nature."

Bacon often presents his reflections on the method in a figurative manner. Among scholars, he distinguishes three categories: ants, spiders, and bees. The first category focuses on chaotic accumulation of information, often assembling entire mountains from debris; the spiders seem to weave webs of "knowledge" from themselves, often mere fabrications; only the third category can be deemed true scholars, thoughtfully processing material to produce useful knowledge.

The work of René Descartes (1596-1650) stands as one of the pinnacle achievements of global philosophical thought and marks him as a foundational figure in the philosophy of the New Age. Born in France to a family of landowners, he attended the Jesuit college of La Flèche from 1606 to 1614. Between 1615 and 1616, he studied law and medicine at the University of Poitiers, where he earned a bachelor's degree in jurisprudence. Later, from 1629 to 1630, he pursued philosophy and mathematics in Holland, residing there until 1644, during which he authored most of his works. In 1649, Descartes accepted an invitation from Queen Christina of Sweden, moved to Stockholm, and there succumbed to illness. Unlike Bacon, Descartes never engaged in politics, adhering to Ovid's principle in both his private and public life: “He who has lived well has hidden well.”

Among Descartes' most significant writings are those dedicated to methodology, much like Bacon's. Notable among these are "Rules for the Direction of the Mind" (1628-1629), "Discourse on the Method" (1637), "Meditations on First Philosophy" (1641), and "Principles of Philosophy" (1643). Additionally, he wrote on optics, ethics, and psychology. It is worth noting that he was the first to propose the idea of conditioned reflexes and was a pioneer of analytical geometry. Let us examine Descartes' principal philosophical ideas.

He distinctly defines the subject of philosophy in "Principles of Philosophy": “All philosophy resembles a tree, the roots of which are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches that extend from this trunk are all other sciences, which can be reduced to three main ones: medicine, mechanics, and ethics. Just as crops are not harvested from the roots or the trunk but only from the tips of the branches, so the particular benefits of philosophy depend on those parts that can be studied only at the end.” Thus, the foundation of philosophy, which encompasses all sciences, is metaphysics.

Descartes’ metaphysics is closely tied to method. A method is necessary for constructing a system of true knowledge. To this end, Descartes deemed it essential to begin scientific inquiry with the principle of universal doubt. We can and indeed must question everything that is accepted on faith and deemed true. However, we should harbor no doubt that we possess doubt. Therefore, by following the path indicated by doubt, we arrive at least at one indubitable and certain truth: our doubt exists as a fact. Doubt, then, is an act of thought. Hence, if our doubt exists as a truth, so too is it true that our thinking exists. I doubt, therefore I think. And if I think, then I exist (Cogito, ergo sum). In this way, our thought has a being that is beyond doubt. This truth is fundamentally different from the truth of the existence of our body. One might still have doubts about the existence of the body, for we come to know it through our senses, which often deceive us. For thinking, I do not even require the entire external world, for I can think in my dreams, when I perceive the external world not at all.

Thus, true knowledge, according to Descartes, exists because the thinking person exists. And since this truth is revealed, we can, based on it, demonstrate that not only our thought exists but also our body and the surrounding world. Such reasoning held significant methodological importance, as it countered everything that was taken on faith. Descartes sought the ultimate grounds for constructing a system of true knowledge and discovered them within the individual, in his consciousness.

As a rationalist, Descartes somewhat diminished the epistemological role of the senses, believing that the true essence of things consists not in the qualities perceived by the senses, but only in those that remain unchanged under any circumstances and are independent of the senses. Such qualities are those known by the intellect and studied by mathematics, namely: extension, shape, and motion.

As a mathematician and rationalist, Descartes held that the universal method of knowledge is deduction, that is, the derivation of new truths from those that already exist. However, not every form of deduction suffices. Only general mathematics can serve as such a deduction, and philosophy alone can provide the pathway to it. In this vein of thought, Descartes articulated four rules for the philosophical method he had developed:

1. Rule of Doubt: “Never accept anything as true unless you clearly know it to be such; avoid all haste and prejudice, and do not incorporate into your judgments anything except what presents itself as clear and evident to your mind, so that there remains no possibility of doubt regarding it.”
2. Rule of Analysis: “Divide each of the difficulties that you encounter into as many parts as necessary to solve them better.”
3. Rule of Order: “Arrange your thoughts in such a way that you proceed from the simplest and most easily understood objects step by step to the knowledge of the more complex, even anticipating an order among those things which do not naturally follow one another.”
4. Rule of Systematicity: “Make complete calculations and thorough reviews everywhere, so that you can be convinced that you have overlooked nothing.”

Yet, the most crucial rule of his method, according to Descartes, is the rule of doubt. This rule requires that only that which is perceived with utmost clarity and distinctness be regarded as true. This clarity is nothing other than intuition. “By intuition,” writes Descartes, “I understand not the unstable testimony of the senses, nor the deceptive judgment that is erroneously formed by imagination, but rather the understanding of a clear and attentive mind, so evident and distinct that there remains no doubt about what we understand, or, in other words, the undoubted understanding of a clear and attentive mind, which arises solely from the light of reason and is found to be simpler, and thus more reliable, than deduction itself... In this way, anyone can come to understand that he exists, that he thinks, that a triangle is bounded by three lines, and that a sphere has a single surface, and so forth.”

The intuition referred to by Descartes has been termed “intellectual.” What renders intuition intellectual, and anti-irrational, is that it serves as the starting point for all subsequent deductions. The beginning of each subsequent chain of deductive conclusions is a certain intuition. It would not be intellectual if it could not be elaborated into the following links of deduction.

As previously mentioned, Descartes' metaphysics is closely intertwined with method. The central concept of this metaphysics is substance. Descartes understands substance as that which does not require anything beyond itself for its existence. Strictly adhering to this definition leads us to the conclusion that only God can fully correspond to such a concept. The world created by God is divided by Descartes into two kinds of substances: spiritual and material. The primary characteristic of the former is indivisibility, while that of the latter is divisibility to infinity. The fundamental attributes of spiritual substances are thought, whereas those of material, or corporeal, substances are extension. Spiritual substances possess ideas that are innate to them from the very beginning (innate), rather than acquired through experience. These ideas, which ignite in our consciousness, are the intuitive insights that Descartes places at the foundation of deduction.