Philosophy of the Modern Era

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon (1561—1626), although his philosophy is unsatisfactory in many respects, holds an enduring significance as the founder of the modern inductive method and the initiator of the logical systematization of scientific inquiry. He was the son of Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and his aunt was married to Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley; thus, he grew up in an atmosphere steeped in public affairs. At the age of twenty-three, he became a member of Parliament and an advisor to Essex. However, when Essex fell into disfavor, Bacon aided in his prosecution. He faced severe condemnation for this, notably from Lytton Strachey in his book Elizabeth and Essex, which portrays Bacon as a monster of treachery and ingratitude. Yet, this assessment is thoroughly unjust. He worked alongside Essex while the latter was loyal, but departed when continued loyalty would have amounted to betrayal; there was nothing here that could be condemned by even the most stringent moralist of the era.

Despite his abandonment of Essex, Bacon was never in high favor during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. However, with the accession of James II, his position at court improved. In 1617, he obtained his father's former position as Keeper of the Great Seal, and in 1618 he became Lord Chancellor. Yet he held this crucial office for only two years before being accused of accepting bribes from litigants. He conceded that the charges were correct, merely pointing out that these gifts had never influenced his decisions. Regarding this, one may form their own opinion, as there is no evidence to suggest how Bacon might have decided under different circumstances. He was fined £40,000, sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower until the king's pleasure, permanently removed from court, and barred from holding public office. This sentence was executed only in part; he was not compelled to pay the fine and was held in the Tower for only four days. Nevertheless, he was forced to renounce public life and spent the remainder of his days writing significant works.

The ethics of the legal profession in those days were not high. Almost every judge accepted gifts, typically from both parties involved. Today, we consider it atrocious for a judge to accept bribes, but even more abhorrent to render a decision against someone who had given them. Yet in those times, gifts were commonplace, and a judge demonstrated his "virtue" precisely by resisting their influence. Bacon was condemned by chance, caught in a political quarrel, rather than due to any exceptional guilt on his part. He was not a man of high moral integrity, like his predecessor Thomas More, but neither was he wholly corrupt. Morally speaking, he was an ordinary man, neither better nor worse than the mass of his contemporaries.

Five years after retreating into seclusion, he died from a cold contracted while experimenting with preserving fowl by freezing them in the snow. Bacon's most significant work, On the Dignity and Advancement of Sciences, is remarkably modern in many respects. He is often regarded as the author of the phrase "knowledge is power"; and although he may have had predecessors who expressed similar sentiments, he underscored the importance of this assertion in a new light. The foundation of his philosophy was practical: to enable humanity, through scientific discoveries and inventions, to harness the forces of nature. He believed that philosophy should be separated from theology and not interwoven with it as closely as it had been in scholasticism. He accepted orthodox religion; he was not the sort to quarrel with the government over such matters. However, while he thought reason could prove the existence of God, he held that all other aspects of theology were knowable only through revelation. In truth, he believed that the triumph of faith is greatest when dogma seems most absurd to helpless reason. Nonetheless, philosophy should rely solely on reason. Thus, he was an advocate of the doctrine of "double truth": the truth of reason and the truth of revelation. This doctrine had been posited by certain Averroists in the thirteenth century but was condemned by the Church. The "triumph of faith" was a perilous motto for official church representatives. Later, in the seventeenth century, Bayle used it ironically. He articulated in great detail all the points that reason could raise against any orthodox belief, concluding, "The triumph of faith is the greater, because despite all this, we believe in it." The sincerity of Bacon's devotion to faith remains indeterminate.

Bacon was the first among a succession of philosophers interested in science who emphasized the importance of induction as opposed to deduction. Like most of his followers, he sought a superior form of induction beyond what is known as "induction by simple enumeration." Induction by simple enumeration can be illustrated by a parable. Once there lived a census officer who was tasked with recording the names of all the homeowners in a Welsh village. The first person he asked identified himself as William Williams, and the same was true for the second, third, and fourth… Finally, he thought to himself, "This is tedious; evidently, they are all William Williamses. Thus, I shall record them all as such and be free." However, he was mistaken, as there indeed was one man named John Jones. This illustrates that we can arrive at incorrect conclusions if we too uncritically accept induction by simple enumeration.

Bacon believed he possessed a method by which induction could achieve something greater. For example, he aimed to uncover the nature of heat, which he presumed (and was correct) consists of the rapid and disorderly movements of the tiniest particles of bodies. His method was intended to lead to the creation of tables of hot bodies, cold bodies, and bodies of varying degrees of warmth. He hoped these tables would reveal that certain qualities are always inherent solely to hot bodies and absent in cold ones, while in bodies with varying degrees of warmth, these qualities would be present in varying degrees. By applying this method, he aspired to establish general laws that initially had the least degree of universality. From a series of such laws, he hoped to derive laws of a higher degree of generality, and so forth. The proposed law was to be tested by application under new conditions; if it held true in these circumstances, it would be confirmed. Certain examples are especially valuable because they allow us to choose between two theories, each of which is viable in terms of previous observations. Such examples are referred to as "privileged examples."

Bacon not only scorned syllogism but also underestimated mathematics, viewing it as insufficiently experimental. He regarded Aristotle with open animosity, yet he held Democritus in high esteem. Although he did not deny that nature serves as an example of divine purpose, he rejected any admixture of theological explanations in the factual investigation of phenomena; he believed everything must be explained as a necessary consequence of operating causes.

He valued his method for demonstrating how to classify observed facts upon which science must be based. We should not, he asserted, resemble spiders that weave threads from themselves, nor ants that merely collect, but rather be like bees, which both gather and organize. There is something unjust in this comparison regarding ants, but it serves to illustrate Bacon's thought.

One of the most renowned aspects of Bacon's philosophy is his enumeration of what he calls "idols," which he understands as the bad habits of the mind that lead people to error. He identifies five types. The "idols of the tribe" are those inherent to human nature itself; in particular, he mentions the habit of expecting greater order than can truly be found in the phenomena of nature. The "idols of the cave" are personal superstitions peculiar to individual researchers. The "idols of the marketplace" are those related to the tyranny of words. The "idols of the theater" are linked to commonly accepted systems of thought; naturally, the Aristotelian system and that of the scholastics are among the most noteworthy examples.

Although it was science that captivated Bacon and his general perspective was scientific, he overlooked much of what science had accomplished in his time. He rejected Copernicus's theory, which was excusable since Copernicus had presented no compelling argument. Yet Bacon might have been persuaded by Kepler, whose New Astronomy appeared in 1609. It appears Bacon was unaware of Vesalius's work, the founder of modern anatomy, although he admired Gilbert, whose work on magnetism splendidly illustrated the inductive method. Remarkably, he seemingly did not grasp the significance of Harvey's discoveries, despite Harvey being his physician. It is true that during Bacon's lifetime, Harvey did not publish his discovery of the circulation of blood, but one might surmise that Bacon was aware of his research. Harvey did not hold Bacon in high esteem, remarking that "he writes philosophy like the Lord Chancellor." Undoubtedly, Bacon could have written better had he paid less attention to the worldly success of his writings.

Bacon's inductive method is flawed due to its insufficient emphasis on the importance of hypotheses. He hoped that merely ordering facts would make correct hypotheses evident, but this rarely occurs. Generally, the formation of hypotheses is the most challenging part of scientific work and that aspect requiring the greatest capabilities. To date, no method has been found that would allow for the invention of hypotheses according to predetermined rules. Typically, some hypothesis serves as a necessary prerequisite for the collection of facts, as a method for determining the relevance of the facts at hand is required to select them. Without this, the mere accumulation of facts becomes bewildering.

The role that deduction plays in science is far more significant than Bacon had assumed. Often, when it is necessary to test a hypothesis, a lengthy deductive process unfolds, moving from the hypothesis to certain consequences that can be verified through observations. Typically, deduction is mathematical, and in this regard, Bacon underestimated the importance of mathematics in scientific inquiry.

The problem of induction through simple enumeration remains unresolved to this day. Bacon was entirely correct in rejecting mere enumeration when it pertains to the details of scientific investigation, as we can indeed assume general laws regarding these details. Based on these accepted laws, one can construct a method that is more or less convincing. John Stuart Mill formulated four rules of the inductive method that can be successfully applied as long as the law of causality is accepted; yet, this very law, he acknowledged, must in turn be accepted solely on the basis of induction through simple enumeration.

What the theoretical apparatus of science achieves is the aggregation of all subordinate inductions into a few comprehensive ones, potentially into a singular overarching induction. Such comprehensive inductions are confirmed by so many examples that it seems reasonable to accept induction through simple enumeration in their regard. This position is profoundly unsatisfactory, yet neither Bacon nor any of his successors has found a way out of it.