Sources of the Francis Bacon's Idea of Wisdom - Assignment Example

It is evident from the essays of Francis Bacon and from his New Atlantis that he values the application of scientific process to nature. In this sense, he has helped legitimize a field of knowledge – natural philosophy – which would create waves in influencing other thinkers both of his time and of later decades. Bacon’s description of what the value is of the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom can be summarized in a passage from his utopian romance New Atlantis: “to have light, I say, of the growth of all parts of the world” (Francis Bacon: Essays and New Atlantis, p. 273). The New Atlantis In describing the fundamental purpose of the building of Solomon’s House in New Atlantis as possessing the knowledge of all things and their practical applications through scientific research, he says: “the end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible” (Bacon, p. 288). He made elaborate descriptions of advanced scientific endeavors which would have, at the time of the publication of his essays, inspired awe and wonder from his colleagues. Some of the technology described in the treatise were not even considered remotely possible at that time, so it is no doubt that he was considered one of the greatest thinkers of Europe. A look at Bacon’s biography would reveal that the publication of his treatises and books was spurred on by a desire to create a world which would be vastly different from the one that he inhabited; he propagated the value of advancing one’s learning and perfecting the process and means by which knowledge of things could be attained, i.e. scientific method and technology. However, his was a method that did not rely heavily on hypothesis as experiments; indeed, the indirect cause of his death was his zeal for conducting experiments (Bacon, xiv). In describing the paradisiacal world which is the new Atlantis, Bacon made mention of the ultimate purpose of the existence of Solomon’s House, and further on, the areas where learning and advanced technology have been applied to. This world is isolated and enclosed, and the means by which the inhabitants constantly invented and discovered many things was through a methodical process of gathering information and observing how things occurred in nature, extending into society and relations, how they have men who scout other nations and cultures and come back to apply those learnings to their own civilization. He described how laws considering monogamy and marriage helped stabilize the society and dispelled many of the corruptions which have constantly besieged Bacon’s own high society. One of the fathers on Solomon’s House who came back from a twelve-year stint in the outside world described to the narrator the intricacies of the mechanisms in Solomon’s House, the “preparations and instruments we have for our works” (Bacon, p. 288). He spoke of caves which were used for the “thickening, hardening, chilling, and preserving, for scientific research” (Bacon, p. 288). He described their processes for burials, how to deal with the adverse weather, preservation, mining, natural and alternative medicine, gardening, animal experimentation, art, animal husbandry, food and drink processing and preservation, medicinal storage, mechanical arts, insulation, observatories, jewel-making, auditory studios, perfume-houses, engine-houses, and mathematical-house; they even have their own version of a circus. He also went on to enumerate the “several employments and offices of our fellows” (Bacon, p. 299). He called them Merchants of Light, Depredators, Mystery-men, Pioneers or Miners, Compilers, Dowry-men or Benefactors, Lamps, and finally, Interpreters of Nature. All of them had something to do with the gathering, storing, refining, and application of knowledge in the city, aided by their novices and assistants. Lastly, Bacon described how ordinances and rites were observed, from awarding and honoring a prestigious thinker or inventor whose work has been beneficial to the continuous survival of that city, to the hymns and services performed to honor God for continually blessing the city in its pursuit of intellectual endeavors. The New Atlantis is Bacon’s attempt to spread his doctrine of scientific technology. At the end of the treatise, he also subtly hints at the profits that could be gained in using such methods, because he attributes the wealth and success of this city to its application. William Sessions, in his analysis of Francis Bacon’s works, contends: “The new science works, the reader-convert has learned; ready cash promises a consumer society with all its technical freedoms and liberation of self into fascinating technology.” (Sessions, p. 162) With this, one might say that Bacon was very practical and a realist in that he applied the mechanics of his own world to this utopia, culling out the finer and workable points in trying to picture out a better world. Despite his desire to make things as they ought to be, he was well-grounded enough, from his experience with high court and the politics of England, to realize that the ideal world could be shaped from nature and, in this sense, control and dominate nature for man’s own purpose and end. We come to one of the central tenets of Bacon’s philosophy, in that he regarded the natural world as one to be dominated and manipulated to satisfy man. To this end, he very much concludes that man can only be truly happy if he is able to develop love of self. However, he goes further as to say that this love of self will not work out if this is not reflected outwards as love of others in the society, for in his utopia, people are only in harmony if they followed rules and contributed to the improvement of the city if they did their part and role in enriching their culture. Because of his experience in being a politician in England, he pretty much considered himself an expert in divining the workings of human nature, so much so that he was able to prescribe a certain way of life and practices to his fellow human beings. Thus has been Bacon’s quest for a new attitude to knowledge and the purpose that it serves. The branch of natural philosophy was an underdeveloped field of study, and his great project, his “grand restoration”, was to cultivate this branch and reform it, as far as possible, “in which the central ingredients were areas such as natural history and alchemy: empirical, labor-intensive disciplines” (Gaukroger, p. 6). The object of his reforms is the practical side of natural philosophy, and, as evidenced in his New Atlantis, the knowledge gained in this field is one he intends to share with anybody who so wishes to know. It is important to note here that this is one of the changes in the way he views knowledge, for whereas previously such highly developed skills and knowledge were contained and specific only to the practitioners of the field, he espouses the spread of such knowledge to the world, as what the father of Solomon’s House in his utopia tasked the narrator to do, after having been told of how things worked and how their city has achieved such advancement in knowledge. Also, it is important to note how he distinguishes which branches in the field of study of natural philosophy are important to pass on to other learners, and which are not proper sciences. The use of the faculty of reason is a strong theme in Bacon’s works, and he warns us to be wary of the pitfalls of the false sciences. Indeed, Bacon writes in his Advancement of Learning, The sciences themselves which have had better intelligence and confederacy with the imagination of man than with his reason, are three in number; Astrology, Natural Magic, and Alchemy; of which sciences nevertheless the ends are noble. For astrology pretendeth to discover that correspondence or concatenation which is between the superior globe and the inferior; natural magic pretendeth to call and reduce natural philosophy from variety of speculations to the magnitude of works; and alchemy pretendeth to make separation of all the unlike parts of bodies which in mixtures of nature are incorporate. But the derivations and prosecutions to these ends, both in the theories and in the practices, are full of error and vanity; which the great professors themselves have sought to veil over and conceal by enigmatical writings, and referring themselves to auricular traditions, and such other devices to save the credit of impostures. (Bacon, p. 289) Not only did Bacon discuss the nature of knowledge which would be most beneficial to man, but he also went on to proceed to tackle the issue of its propagation. The Nature of Knowledge One of the more important questions that Bacon sought to address is whether to keep knowledge - and to that extent, science and technology – limited to a few select practitioners or to make it public and to spread its application far and wide. There have been arguments for keeping it obscure and impenetrable, and valid examples to prove that doing so has in fact improved and advanced its practice. Corollary to this question is the nature of how the institutions dedicated solely to the pursuit of these fields of knowledge will be set up. Today, we have publicly and privately funded scientific research institutions which abound around the globe which have diverse specializations and areas of interest, but in those days, it was a matter of great debate whether there is a right to set up such autonomous bodies. Bacon’s stand on this argument is to criticize the exclusivity of such practices, because for him, to restrict the spread of and access to knowledge is an indication of resistance to new and fresh inputs. For Bacon, the only way to advance knowledge is to constantly sharpen the saw. However, this is not to say that he espouses universal access to such knowledge. One has to remember that in his time, when voyages in pursuit of new discoveries and territorial conquests was very prevalent, the possession of new knowledge is regarded as much of a treasure as a newfound land: And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant also an expectation of the further proficience and augmentation of all sciences; because it may seem they are ordained by God to be coevals, that is, to meet in one age. For so the prophet Daniel speaking of the latter times foretelleth [‘many pass to and fro, and knowledge shall be multiplied’], as if the openness and through passage of the world and the increase of knowledge were appointed to be in the same ages. (Bacon, p. 340) Thus, what he wanted was not to have universal access to such knowledge, but for the supreme ruler of the land, the monarch, to have total control over such discoveries, not to be kept hidden, but for the monarch to put to good and wise use in ruling and governing the state. With this, we see the consistency in Bacon’s desire to use knowledge as a means to the end of the pursuit of happiness for all. And this is another important feature of Bacon’s great project: how to be able to present such newfound knowledge to the monarch as to be rendered useful and practical. The quest to put natural philosophy in the spotlight naturally has to include the matter of how such a branch of knowledge is portrayed or presented, for, just as in art it is extremely important to be discerning about the medium used to portray the art, so it was important for Bacon to present knowledge as absolute, irrevocable, with little margin for error. Thus, the core processes of scientific knowledge, i.e. observation of the natural world and experimentation, were regarded as far more superior than the pursuit of debates and public arguments, which he regards as fruitless activities. For him, all knowledge can be arrived at by common consent and compromise, and thus do not need to be argued and disputed over. Thus, the ideal natural philosopher, for him, is somebody who acts in a ‘civil’ manner and presents his ideas and findings in a way that would generate the least bit of dissension and distress. Here indeed we find Bacon’s prescription for a procedure which will greatly influence the way scientists in later centuries would behave. In his attempt to highlight natural philosophy, he maintains that the demeanor and method of a natural philosopher (or scientists, as we have come to know them today), should be balanced and not prone to excesses of any kind. In fact, his essays which were later published provide an almost step-by-step guide not only for scientific practitioners, but for everybody as well, as to how to conduct oneself in almost all matters that concern man: religion, parenthood, marriage, travel, education, policies, customs, and even about more practical matters such as expense, plantations, usury, buildings, negotiations, and gardens. To understand the far-reaching implications of such a regimen and discipline, one can simply look at today’s medical practitioners who follow a strict rule of conduct and medical procedures to be able to perform the functions required of them. Without Bacon’s initiative to prescribe a set of rules on how to conduct one’s self, the attention and importance that the modern antiseptic world place on such matters would not be relevant today. As mentioned, the core of Bacon’s project is to be able to provide new, fresh, and practical knowledge that would be of value to its users. Obviously, he values practical knowledge more than theoretical knowledge – one that can be seen, tested, verified - and thus less prone to useless disputations. His bias towards practical knowledge stems from a great desire to be able to establish a branch of learning which could be constantly improved and ‘reinvented’, as we call it today, and not so much as to have it stabilized. In this sense, Bacon is so much a progressive thinker because he puts forward the need to prove and disprove the state of things by manipulating nature. This indeed became very much the spirit of the century, as other thinkers of the age also expressed, and in fact acted upon, the need to constantly refresh their knowledge. Although, Bacon concedes, we need to give credit where it is due, and we can allude to great past thinkers such as Aristotle for their contributions and works, this will not be enough and that there should be a constant wellspring of new discoveries and methods of ascertaining and using knowledge such as empirical evidence and intensive experimentation. It may be safe to presuppose that Bacon also contributed much to systematizing the bodies of knowledge as we have come to know them today. Indeed, he was able to initially set up a system for the classification of knowledge which would highly influence the systems that are in effect in this age of modern science and technology. What is also interesting to note, and which has been mentioned early on in this paper, is that Bacon highly valued the practical application more than the knowledge acquired, and the purpose it serves which is to improve the general state of mankind. For Bacon, it was clear that this is the end of practical knowledge; however, his colleagues raised issues as to what exactly such an end entails, i.e. whether scientific method should be practiced to verify the evidence, or whether to bring out the true nature of things. For we are all well aware, amidst the modern scientific obsession that pervades our age, that sometimes evidence may not be what it seems, and that the discovery of how things truly are is not really as black and white as it appears to be at first. It should be noted, as an example to elaborate on this point, that Bacon did not believe in the Copernican model of the solar system, for, if we look around us, later scientific proof notwithstanding, there is much evidence that the sun revolves around the earth. However, what is important to note from this illustration, far more than the veracity of evidence and empirical proof, is that Bacon considered knowledge to be power and vice versa, in that there is power to be attained with the vast sums of knowledge acquired, and, at the same time, one who is in power can also gain vast sums of knowledge by virtue of his imbued authority. To this extent, Bacon’s premise is that knowledge should be in the hands of those who are able, by virtue of their position, to responsibly put such knowledge to good and beneficial use. For this, we can say that Bacon indeed has shaped natural philosophy and became a strong influence on how scientific method - and for that matter any pursuit of knowledge - in the later centuries has been refined and redefined to what it is today. Works Cited: Bacon, Francis. Advancement in Learning. New York: Modern Library, 2001. Classics Club: Francis Bacon. New York: Walter J. Black, Inc., 1942. Gaukroger, Stephen. Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-Modern Philosophy. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Sessions, William. Francis Bacon Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1996. Read More