Great Ideas of Philosophy

Lecture Twenty-FiveFrancis Bacon and the Authority of ExperienceScope: Francis Bacon (1561–1626) would come to be regarded as the “prophet” of Newton and the father onceremoved of the authority of experimental science. The Elizabethan Age, which nurtured his earlier years,was an epoch of imperial expansion and growing confidence, and in his philosophical works, Bacondeploys his great literary style—and a depth of thought at once original and powerful—to argue for a GreatInstauration, or “new beginning” of knowledge.In his groundbreaking Novum Organum, Bacon establishes the authority of observation in discovering thenature of the external world—the authority of experimental method as the way to select the correct fromcompeting theories of causation.Less a critic of antiquity than one who recognizes its deadening effect on the present, Bacon would lead hiscontemporaries and successors along the path less taken. Disinterested and objective inquiry, with theresults added steadily to the Table of Discovery, will alone enlarge our understanding and, at key points,raise theoretically rich and revealing possibilities.OutlineI. Experimental science is not “play” for individuals who just want to keep their hands busy, following a templateor model that is used in higher science.A. In experimental science, all the “good” thinking should be done before one goes into the lab. The work inthe laboratory is where one finally settles on one of several possibilities—all of which are equally plausibleat the start—and determines what conclusion the experimental findings favor.B. When the writers of the 18 th -century Enlightenment looked back at the preceding century, they judged it tobe the dawn of the new age of science, the age of the great Isaac Newton, whose name is frequently pairedwith that of Francis Bacon. Bacon is considered to be a prophet of Newton. The Renaissance can be seenas an age in transition, looking for inspiration both forward and back. Bacon and the Elizabethans werefirmly looking toward tomorrow.C. The Elizabethans and Elizabeth herself believed that her reign was a singular one, out of which somethingnew would come. If the Renaissance was an age in transition, the age of Elizabeth was an age thatunderstood itself and saw itself largely in futuristic and evolutionary terms; this was an age looking towardtomorrow, not being distracted by the celebrated achievements of the past.D. Bacon’s Novum Organum—“New Method”— is central to a Great Instauration, or “new beginning.”Bacon is not setting out to disparage but to move on from what he takes to be the ancient world. TheNovum Organum proclaims the epistemological authority of experimental science.E. Bacon truly does offer a more modern conception of the nature and promise of a developed experimentalscience. The foundation of modern experimental science can be found in what Bacon calls the Table ofDiscovery, a set of disciplined and systematic observations.F. Even Bacon’s powerful prose style urges us to prepare for a new age. His considerable eloquence as amoral and legal essayist is put to use prosecuting the agenda of what is recognizable to us as science.II. What, then, is Bacon’s new method? Is it more than mere fact-gathering? The right method by which touncover nature’s secrets is the experimental method, which can be divided into two categories.A. The experimenta lucifera are the “light-shedding” experiments, alerting us to factors operative in the causalmatrix that brings things about.1. In and of themselves, these studies are mere exercises in fact-gathering—systematic studies of theinfluence of A on B; the routine mechanical, causal relationships that one observes among events inthe external world. The results are stored in the ever-expanding Table of Discovery.2. Nothing is off limits! Things that are “mean and sordid” may be explored (including dissection ofcorpses). “What there is” is what the experimenta lucifera are all about.3. The gradual expansion of the Table of Discovery leads inevitably to telling questions regarding basiclaws.2©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership