Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon - biography, information, personal life. Bacon's New Organon

The pioneer of the philosophy of modern times, the English scientist Francis Bacon, is known to contemporaries primarily as the developer of scientific methods for studying nature - induction and experiment, the author of the books "New Atlantis", "New Orgagon" and "Experiments, or Moral and Political Instructions".

Childhood and youth

The founder of empiricism was born on January 22, 1561, in the Yorkhouse mansion, on the central London Strand. The scientist's father, Nicholas, was a politician, and his mother Anna (nee Cook) was the daughter of Anthony Cook, a humanist who raised King Edward VI of England and Ireland.

From a young age, the mother instilled in her son a love of knowledge, and she, a girl who knows ancient Greek and Latin, did it with ease. In addition, the boy himself from a tender age showed an interest in knowledge. For two years, Francis studied at Trinity College, Cambridge University, then spent three years in France, in the retinue of the English ambassador, Sir Amyas Paulet.

After the death of the head of the family in 1579, Bacon was left without a livelihood and entered the school of barristers to study law. In 1582, Francis became a lawyer, and in 1584 - a Member of Parliament, and until 1614 played a prominent role in the debate at the sessions of the House of Commons. From time to time, Bacon composed Messages to the Queen, in which he strove to approach pressing political issues impartially.

Biographers now agree that if the queen had followed his advice, a couple of conflicts between the crown and Parliament could have been avoided. In 1591, he became an adviser to the queen's favorite, the Earl of Essex. Bacon immediately made it clear to the patron that he was devoted to the country, and when in 1601 Essex tried to organize a coup, Bacon, being a lawyer, participated in his condemnation as a traitor.

Due to the fact that people standing above Francis in rank saw him as a rival, and because he often expressed his dissatisfaction with the policies of Elizabeth I in epistolary form, Bacon soon lost favor with the Queen and could not count on promotion. Under Elizabeth I, the lawyer never reached high positions, but after James I Stuart ascended the throne in 1603, Francis's career went uphill.

Bacon was knighted in 1603 and raised to the title of Baron of Verulam in 1618 and Viscount of St. Albans in 1621. In the same 1621, the philosopher was accused of taking bribes. He admitted that the people whose cases were tried in court repeatedly gave him gifts. True, the fact that this influenced his decision, the lawyer denied. As a result, Francis was deprived of all posts and forbidden to appear at court.

Philosophy and teaching

The main literary creation of Bacon is the work "Experiments" ("Essayes"), on which he continuously worked for 28 years. Ten essays were published in 1597, and by 1625, 58 texts had already been collected in the book "Experiments", some of which appeared in a third, revised edition called "Experiments, or Instructions moral and political."

In these writings, Bacon reflected on ambition, friends, love, science, the vicissitudes of things, and other aspects of human life. The works abounded with learned examples and brilliant metaphors. People striving for career heights will find advice in the texts built solely on cold calculation. There are, for example, statements such as:

“All who rise high pass along the zigzags of the 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.”

Despite Bacon's occupations with politics and jurisprudence, the main business of his life was philosophy and science. He rejected Aristotelian deduction, which at that time occupied a dominant position, as an unsatisfactory way of philosophizing and proposed a new tool for thinking.

The outline of the "great plan for the restoration of the sciences" was made by Bacon in 1620, in the preface to the New Organon, or True Directions for Interpretation. It is known that this work included six parts (a review of the current state of the sciences, a description of a new method for obtaining true knowledge, a set of empirical data, a discussion of issues to be further investigated, preliminary solutions, and philosophy itself).

Bacon only managed to sketch the first two movements. The first was entitled "On the Usefulness and Success of Knowledge", the Latin version of which "On the Dignity and Multiplication of the Sciences" was published with corrections.

Since the basis of the critical part of Francis's philosophy is the doctrine of the so-called "idols" that distort people's knowledge, in the second part of the project he described the principles of the inductive method, with the help of which he proposed to overthrow all the idols of the mind. According to Bacon, there are four types of idols that besiege the minds of all mankind:

1. The first type is the idols of the family (mistakes that a person makes by virtue of his very nature).
2. The second type is the idols of the cave (mistakes due to prejudice).
3. The third type is the idols of the square (mistakes caused by inaccuracies in the use of language).
4. The fourth type is the idols of the theater (mistakes made due to adherence to authorities, systems and doctrines).

Describing the prejudices that hinder the development of science, the scientist proposed a tripartite division of knowledge, produced according to mental functions. He attributed history to memory, poetry to imagination, and philosophy (which included the sciences) to reason. According to Bacon, scientific knowledge is based on induction and experiment. Induction can be complete or incomplete.

Complete induction means the regular repetition of a property of an object in the class under consideration. Generalizations proceed from the assumption that this will be the case in all similar cases. Incomplete induction includes generalizations made on the basis of the study of not all cases, but only some (conclusion by analogy), because, as a rule, the number of all cases is boundless, and theoretically it is impossible to prove their infinite number. This conclusion is always probabilistic.

In trying to create a "true induction", Bacon was looking not only for facts confirming a certain conclusion, but also for facts refuting it. He thus armed natural science with two means of research - enumeration and exclusion. Moreover, exceptions mattered. Using this method, for example, he established that the "form" of heat is the movement of the smallest particles of the body.

In his theory of knowledge, Bacon adheres to the idea that true knowledge follows from sensory experience (such a philosophical position is called empirical). 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 no one had paid attention to before him. The core of Bacon's methodology is a gradual inductive generalization of the facts observed in experience.

However, the philosopher was far from a simplified understanding of this generalization and emphasized the need to rely on reason in the analysis of facts. In 1620, Bacon wrote the utopia "New Atlantis" (published after the death of the author, in 1627), which, in terms of the scope of the plan, should not have been inferior to the work "Utopia" of the great friend and mentor, whom he later beheaded, because of intrigues second wife.

For this "new lamp in the darkness of the philosophy of the past" King James granted Francis a pension of £1,200. In the unfinished work “New Atlantis”, the philosopher spoke about the mysterious country of Bensalem, which was led by the “Solomon House”, or “Society for the Knowledge of the True Nature of All Things”, uniting the main sages of the country.

From the communist and socialist works, the creation of Francis differed by a pronounced technocratic character. The discovery by Francis of a new method of cognition and the conviction that research should begin with observations, and not with theories, put him on a par with the most important representatives of the scientific thought of modern times.

It is also worth noting that Bacon's teachings on law and, in general, the ideas of experimental science and the experimental-empirical method of research have made an invaluable contribution to the treasury of human thought. However, during his lifetime, the scientist did not receive significant results either in empirical research or in the field of theory, and experimental science rejected his method of inductive cognition through exceptions.

Personal life

Bacon was married once. It is known that the wife of the philosopher was three times younger than himself. Alice Burnham, the daughter of the widow of the London elder Benedict Burnham, became the chosen one of the great scientist.

The wedding of 45-year-old Francis and 14-year-old Alice took place on May 10, 1606. The couple had no children.

Death

Bacon died on April 9, 1626, at the age of 66, by an absurd accident. Francis was fond of studying all kinds of natural phenomena all his life, and one winter, riding with the royal physician in a carriage, the scientist came up with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bconducting an experiment in which he intended to test the extent to which cold slows down the process of decay.

The philosopher bought a chicken carcass in the market and buried it in the snow with his own hands, from which he caught a cold, fell ill and died on the fifth day of his scientific experience. The grave of the lawyer is located on the territory of the Church of St. Michael in St. Albans (UK). It is known that a monument was erected at the burial site after the death of the author of the book "New Atlantis".

Discoveries

Francis Bacon developed new scientific methods - induction and experiment:

• Induction is a term widely used in science, denoting a method of reasoning from the particular to the general.
• An experiment is a method of studying some phenomenon under conditions controlled by an observer. It differs from observation by active interaction with the object under study.

Bibliography

• 1957 - "Experiments, or Instructions moral and political" (1st edition)
• 1605 - "On the benefit and success of knowledge"
• 1609 - "On the wisdom of the ancients"
• 1612 - "Experiments, or Instructions moral and political" (2nd edition)
• 1620 - "The Great Restoration of the Sciences, or the New Organon"
• 1620 - "New Atlantis"
• 1625 - "Experiments, or Instructions moral and political" (3rd edition)
• 1623 - "On the dignity and multiplication of sciences"

Quotes

• "The worst loneliness is not having true friends"
• "Excessive frankness is as indecent as perfect nudity"
• "I have thought a lot about death and find that it is the lesser of evils"
• “People who have a lot of shortcomings, first of all notice them in others”

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

In general, not much is known about the childhood of the great thinker. He received the basics of knowledge at home, as he was distinguished by poor health. But this did not prevent him at the age of 12, along with his older brother Anthony, to enter Trinity College (Holy Trinity College) 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 enjoyed talking with the young man, often jokingly calling him the rising Lord Keeper.

Upon graduating from college, the brothers entered the community of teachers at Grace's Inn (1576). In the autumn of the same year, with 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 notes “On the State of Europe”.

Misfortune forced Bacon to return to his homeland - in February 1579, his father passed away. In the same year, he began his career as a lawyer at Grace's Inn. A year later, Bacon petitioned to seek some position at court. However, despite the rather warm attitude of Queen Elizabeth to Bacon, he did not hear a positive result. After working at Grace's Inn until 1582, he was promoted to junior barrister.

At the age of 23, Francis Bacon was honored to hold a position in the House of Commons. He had his own views, which sometimes did not agree 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), five years later Lord Privy Seal, and from 1618 to 1621 was Lord Chancellor.

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

Philosophy of Bacon

Francis Bacon is not unreasonably considered the founder of modern thinking. His philosophical theory fundamentally refutes scholastic teachings, bringing knowledge and science to the fore. The thinker believed that a person who was able 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 noticed that during the formation of the world, all discoveries were made, in fact, by chance - without special skills and possession of special techniques. Therefore, while learning about 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 only be called such if conditions are constantly changing during its implementation, including time and space - matter must always be in motion.

The Empirical Teachings of Francis Bacon

The concept of "empiricism" appeared as a result of the development of Bacon's philosophical theory, and its essence was reduced to the proposition "knowledge lies through experience." He believed that it was possible to achieve something in his activity only if he had experience and knowledge. According to Bacon, there are three ways 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 skipped by.
• "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 way 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 empirically through the mind and the prism of your thinking. This is how the truth is known.

Classification of obstacles on the way 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 and acquired, but in any case, it is they that prevent you from tuning your mind to cognition. So, there are four types of obstacles: “Ghosts of the clan” (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 communicating with other people through speech (language)) and “ the ghosts of the theater” (inspired and imposed ghosts by other people). Bacon is sure that in order to know the new, one must abandon the old. At the same time, it is important not to “lose” the experience, relying on which and passing it through the mind, you can achieve success.

Personal life

Francis Bacon was married once. His wife was three times younger than himself. Alice Burnham, the daughter of the widow of the London elder Benedict Burnham, became the chosen one of the great philosopher. The couple had no children.

Bacon died as a result of a cold, which was the result of one of the ongoing experiments. Bacon stuffed a 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 Arendel, never tired of repeating that science would eventually give man power over nature.

Quotes

• Knowledge is power
• Nature is conquered only by obeying its laws.
• A hobbler on a straight road will overtake a runner who has gone astray.
• The worst loneliness is not having true friends.
• The imaginary wealth of knowledge is the chief cause of its poverty.
• Of all the virtues and virtues of the soul, the greatest virtue is kindness.

The most famous works of the philosopher

• "Experiments, or instructions, moral and political" (3 editions, 1597-1625)
• "On the Dignity and Multiplication of the Sciences" (1605)
• "New Atlantis" (1627)

Throughout his life, 59 works came out from the pen of the philosopher; after his death, 29 more were published.

Francis Bacon short biography English philosopher, historian, politician, founder of empiricism

Francis Bacon biography briefly

The English scientist and philosopher Francis Bacon was born on January 22, 1561 in the family of Lord Nicholas Bacon, keeper of the royal seal, viscount, who was considered one of the most famous lawyers of that time. He was a sickly but talented child.

At 12, Francis attended Trinity College, Cambridge. Studying within the framework of the old scholastic system, he already then came to the idea of ​​the need to reform the sciences.

After graduating from college, the newly minted diplomat worked in various European countries as part of the British mission. In 1579, he had to return to his homeland due to the death of his father. Francis, who did not receive a large inheritance, joined the Grace Inn Law Corporation, was actively involved in jurisprudence and philosophy.

In 1586, he headed the corporation, but neither this circumstance, nor the appointment to the post of extraordinary Queen's Counsel could not satisfy the ambitious Bacon, who began to look for all possible ways to obtain a profitable position at court.

He was only 23 years old when he was elected to the House of Commons of Parliament, where he received the glory of a brilliant orator, led the opposition for a while, because of which he later justified himself before the powers that be. In 1598, the work that made Francis Bacon famous was published - "Experiments and Instructions, Moral and Political" - a collection of essays in which the author raised a variety of topics, for example, happiness, death, superstition, etc.

In 1603, King James I came to the throne, and from that moment on, Bacon's political career began to rapidly go uphill. If in 1600 he was a staff lawyer, then already in 1612 he got the position of Attorney General, in 1618 he became Lord Chancellor.

In 1605, a treatise was published entitled "On the Significance and Success of Knowledge, Divine and Human", which was the first part of his large-scale multi-stage plan "The Great Restoration of Sciences".

In 1612, the second edition of "Experiments and Instructions" was prepared. The second part of the main work, which remained unfinished, was the philosophical treatise "New Organon" written in 1620, which is considered one of the best in his heritage. The main idea is the boundlessness of progress in human development, the exaltation of man as the main driving force of this process.

In 1621, Bacon was accused of bribery and abuse. He spent several days in prison and was pardoned by the king, but did not return to public service. After that, Francis Bacon retired to his estate and devoted the last years of his life exclusively to scientific and literary work. In particular, a code of English laws was drawn up; he worked on the history of the country under the Tudor dynasty, on the third edition of "Experiments and Instructions".

During 1623-1624. Bacon wrote the utopian novel The New Atlantis, which remained unfinished and was published after his death in 1627. In it, the writer anticipated many discoveries of the future, for example, the creation of submarines, the improvement of animal breeds, the transmission of light and sound over a distance.
It was Bacon who coined the famous phrase “Knowledge is power”. Bacon died after catching a cold during one of his physical experiments. He died at 66 on April 9, 1626.

The English philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon wrote: "Although justice cannot destroy vices, it does not allow them to harm."
A more reliable way of destroying vices is strict laws and the inevitability of punishment. In each of us there is both a good and an evil beginning. And some people have “no brakes” at all, only the fear of punishment can keep such people from evil.

English philosopher, statesman. Lord, Baron Verulam, Viscount of St. Albans. Francis Bacon was born on January 22, 1561 in London. At the age of 12 he entered the University of Cambridge, and at the age of 23 he was already a member of the House of Commons of the English Parliament, where he opposed Queen Elizabeth I on a number of issues. In 1584 Francis Bacon was elected to Parliament. Political elevation began in 1603, when King James I came to the throne. In 1612, Bacon became Attorney General, in 1617 - Lord Privy Seal, and in 1618 (until 1621) - Lord Chancellor under King James I. In 1621 Francis Bacon was brought to trial on charges of bribery, removed from all positions and, by decree of James I, imprisoned for a period of two days. He was pardoned by the king, but did not return to public service.

“The years of Bacon's Lord Chancellery were marked by executions, the distribution of pernicious monopolies, unlawful arrests, the issuance of personal sentences. A feeble old man, Bacon returned from prison to his estate. As soon as he arrived home, he completely immersed himself in the study of natural sciences. His studies, usually devoted to subjects of vital utility, again and again took him away from the study to the fields, gardens and stables of the estate. He spent hours talking to the gardener about how to improve the fruit trees, or instructing the maids how to measure the milk yield of each cow. At the end of 1625, my lord fell ill and lay near death. He was sick all autumn, and in the winter, not yet fully recovered, he rode in an open sledge several miles to a neighboring estate. On their way back, at the turn at the entrance to the estate, they crushed a chicken that had apparently run out of a chicken coop. Crawling out from under his blankets and furs, my lord got out of the sleigh and, despite what the coachman told him about the cold, went to where the chicken lay. She was dead. The old man told the stable boy to pick up the chicken and gut it. The boy did as he was ordered, and the old man, apparently forgetting both his illness and the frost, bent down and, groaning, scooped up a handful of snow. Carefully he began stuffing the carcass of the bird with snow. "That's how it should stay fresh for many weeks," said the old man enthusiastically. - "Take it to the cellar and put it on the cold floor." He walked a short distance to the door, already a little tired and leaning heavily on a boy who carried a chicken stuffed with snow under his arm. As soon as he entered the house, a chill seized him. The next day he fell ill and tossed about in a high fever. (Bertholt Brecht, "Experience") Francis Bacon died on April 9, 1626 in the town of Highgate.

Francis Bacon is considered the founder of English materialism, an empirical trend. He saw the most important task of science in the conquest of nature and the expedient transformation of culture on the basis of the knowledge of nature. Among the works of Francis Bacon are "Experiments, or instructions, moral and political" (1597; essays on various topics from moral and everyday to political), "The spread of education" ("On the dignity and increase of the sciences"; De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum; 1605; a treatise calling for experiments and observations to be the basis of education), The New Organon (Novum organum scientiarum; 1620; part of the unfinished work The Great Restoration of the Sciences), New Atlantis (Nova Atlatis; a utopian story; the work is not finished; a project is presented state organization of science).

Bibliography

Encyclopedic resource rubricon.com (Great Soviet Encyclopedia, World Biographical Encyclopedic Dictionary, Philosophical Dictionary, Encyclopedic Dictionary "World History")

Bertolt Brecht, Experience.

Project "Russia congratulates!"

Francis Bacon is an English philosopher, progenitor of empiricism, materialism and the founder of theoretical mechanics. Born January 22, 1561 in London. Graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge University. He held fairly high positions under King James I.

Bacon's philosophy took shape during the general cultural upsurge of the capitalistically developing European countries, the alienation of the scholastic ideas of church dogma.

The problems of the relationship between man and nature occupy a central place in the entire philosophy of Francis Bacon. In his work The New Organon, Bacon tries to present the correct method of knowing nature, preferring the inductive method of knowing, which is trivially called "Bacon's method." This method is based on the transition from particular provisions to general ones, on the experimental testing of hypotheses.

Science occupies a strong position in all of Bacon's philosophy, his winged aphorism "Knowledge is power" is widely known. The philosopher tried to connect the differentiated parts of science into a single system for a holistic reflection of the picture of the world. The basis of the scientific knowledge of Francis Bacon is the hypothesis that God, having created man in his own image and likeness, endowed him with a mind for research, knowledge of the Universe. It is the mind that is able to provide a person with well-being, to gain power over nature.

But on the way of human knowledge of the Universe, mistakes are made that Bacon called idols or ghosts, systematizing them into four groups:

1. idols of the cave - in addition to the errors inherent in all, there are purely individual ones, associated with the narrowness of people's knowledge, they can be both innate and acquired.
2. idols of the theater or theories - the assimilation by a person from other people of false ideas about reality
3. idols of the square or market - susceptibility to common misconceptions that are generated by speech communication and, in general, by the social nature of man.
4. idols of the family - are born, hereditarily transmitted by human nature, do not depend on the culture and individuality of a person.

Bacon considers all idols to be just attitudes of human consciousness, and traditions of thinking, which may turn out to be false. The sooner a person can clear his mind of idols that interfere with an adequate perception of the picture of the world, his knowledge, the sooner he will be able to master the knowledge of nature.

The main category in Bacon's philosophy is experience, which gives food to the mind, determines the reliability of specific knowledge. To get to the bottom of the truth, you need to accumulate enough experience, and in testing hypotheses, experience is the best evidence.

Bacon is rightfully considered the founder of English materialism, for him matter, being, nature, the objective as opposed to idealism, are primary.

Bacon introduced the concept of the dual soul of man, noting that bodily man unequivocally belongs to science, but he considers the soul of man, introducing the categories of the rational soul and the sensual soul. The rational soul in Bacon is the subject of study of theology, and the sensual soul is studied by philosophy.

Francis Bacon made a huge contribution to the development of English and European philosophy, to the emergence of a completely new European thinking, was the founder of the inductive method of cognition and materialism.

Among the most significant followers of Bacon: T. Hobbes, D. Locke, D. Diderot, J. Bayer.

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