5 main directions of Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon's Philosophy Ideas

F. Bacon (1561 - 1626) is considered the ancestor of New European philosophy, since it is he who owns a new view of philosophy, which was later widely developed: "... the fruits brought ... and practical inventions are, as it were, guarantors and witnesses of the truth of philosophies." His dictum: "Knowledge is power" expresses the attitude towards science as the main means of solving human problems.

By his origin, Bacon belonged to the circles of the court bureaucracy, received a university education. His most important works are New Organon (1620) and On the Dignity and Growth of Science (1623). In them, the author proceeds from the objective needs of society and expresses the interests of the progressive forces of that time, focusing on empirical research, on the knowledge of nature. The main goal of cognition, as F. Bacon believed, is to strengthen the power of man over nature. For this, it is necessary to abandon the scholastic speculative methods of cognition, to turn to nature itself and the knowledge of its laws. Therefore, the subject of it epistemology matter itself, its structure and transformations appeared.

For an objective study of nature, he turns to experience, for the best of all evidence is experience. Moreover, experience in Bacon's view is not an assimilation to the old empiricists who “... like an ant only collect and use what is collected”; experience must be combined with reason. This will help and avoid the limitations of rationalists, "... like a spider from themselves ..." create a fabric. His experience, according to his own remarks, rather resembles the actions of a bee, which chooses the middle way, "she extracts material from the flowers of the garden and field, but disposes and changes it with her own skill." He divides the experiments into "luminiferous", which "... by themselves do not bring benefit, but contribute to the discovery of the causes and axioms", and "fruitful", which directly benefit.

In his positions, F. Bacon entered the history of philosophy as a representative empiricism ... In his opinion, the conclusions of knowledge - theory should be based on a new, inductive, method, i.e. movement from the particular to the general, from experiment to mental processing of the obtained material. Before Bacon, philosophers who wrote about induction paid attention mainly to those cases or facts that support provable or generalized positions. Bacon emphasized the importance of those cases that refute the generalization, contradict it. These are the so-called negative instances. Already one - the only such case is capable of completely or at least partially refuting a hasty generalization. According to Bacon, neglect of negative instances is the main cause of mistakes, superstitions and prejudices.

The new method, first of all, requires the release of the mind from preconceived ideas - ghosts, idols. He designated these idols as "family idols", "cave idols", "market idols", "theater idols". The first two are congenital, and the second are acquired in the course of individual human development.

"Idols of the clan" means that a person judges nature by analogy with himself, therefore, teleological errors of ideas about nature occur.

"Idols of the Cave" arise as a result of subjective sympathies, antipathies to certain prevailing ideas.

"Idols of the market", or otherwise, "squares" arise as a result of communication between people through words that make it difficult to understand things, because their meaning was often established by chance, not on the basis of the essence of the subject.

The "idols of the theater" are generated by the uncritical assimilation of the opinions of authorities.

Bacon also creates one of the first classifications of sciences, based on the abilities of the human soul: history is built on the basis of memory, poetry is based on imagination, reason gives rise to philosophy, mathematics and natural science.

In his opinion, the immediate task of cognition is the study of the causes of objects. Causes can be either acting (what are usually called causes) or final causes, i.e. goals. The science of effective causes is physics, of goals or ultimate causes is metaphysics. The task of the science of nature is to investigate the acting causes. Therefore, Bacon saw the essence of natural science in physics. Knowledge about nature is used to improve practical life. Mechanics is concerned with the application of knowledge of acting causes. The application of the knowledge of the ultimate cause is in "natural magic." Mathematics, according to Bacon, has no purpose of its own and is only an auxiliary tool for natural science.

However, the views of Francis Bacon were of a dual nature: his ideas about the world could not yet be free from an appeal to God, he recognizes a double form of truth - scientific and the truth of "revelation."

Based on cognitive tasks, Bacon builds ontology ... In solving the problem of substance, he belonged to the materialistssince believed that matter itself is the cause of all causes, not being itself caused by any cause. He uses the traditional concept of form to describe matter. But Aristotle's form is ideal, while Bacon understands form as the material essence of the properties of an object. According to him, form is a kind of movement of material particles that make up the body. The properties and qualities of an object are also material. Simple forms are carriers of a certain number of basic properties, to which all the variety of properties of things can be reduced. There are as many elementary properties of things in nature as there are simple forms. Bacon refers to such forms - properties as color, weight, movement, size, heat, etc. Just as a huge number of words are made from a small number of letters of the alphabet, so an inexhaustible number of objects and natural phenomena are made from combinations of simple forms. Thus, Bacon regards every complex thing as a sum of simple compound forms, which means the principle of mechanism, i.e. reduction of the complex to the simple - to the primary elements. The quantitative side of things, he also refers to one of the forms, but believes that it is insufficient to define a thing.

Bacon's materialistic position in understanding nature also contained dialectical positions: motion, for example, was considered an inherent intrinsic property of matter. He even singled out various forms of movement, although at that time it was customary to consider only one - mechanical, simple movement of bodies.

Francis Bacon's materialism was limited. His teaching presupposes an understanding of the world as material, but essentially consisting of a finite number of basic parts, limited quantitatively and qualitatively. This view was further developed in the metaphysical materialism of modern European philosophy.

Bacon's ambivalence manifested itself in the doctrine of man .

Man is dual. By its physicality, it belongs to nature and is studied by philosophy and science. But the human soul is a complex formation: it consists of a rational and sensual soul. The rational soul enters a person by “divine inspiration,” therefore it is investigated by theology. The sensual soul has physical features and is the subject of philosophy.

The contribution of Francis Bacon to science and philosophy was of great importance, since, in contrast to scholasticism, he puts forward a new methodology aimed at genuine knowledge of nature, its internal laws. In fact, his work opened a new historical form of philosophy - the new European one.

In the 17th century, two philosophical doctrines appear, for the first time quite clearly putting forward two main points of view on the sources and criteria of cognition - empirical and rationalistic... These are the teachings of Francis Bacon and René Descartes. The problem of cognition receives in them a completely new formulation. Francis Bacon not only does not repeat Aristotle, but even stands in some opposition to him and develops a completely original theory of knowledge, the center of gravity of which lies in the new idea experiment as a tool of experimental science.In the same way, Descartes does not repeat Plato, but sees in the human spirit, in its organization, data for the discovery of the basic and essential truths of knowledge, similar in their reliability and clarity to mathematical ones and which can serve as the foundation of the entire doctrine of the world.

Portrait of Francis Bacon. Painter Frans Pourbus the Younger, 1617

And yet it cannot be denied that the spiritual father of Rene Descartes is Plato, the spiritual father of the philosophy of Francis Bacon - Aristotle. Despite all the particular disagreements of the mentioned thinkers, their relationship cannot be denied. In general, there are two kinds of minds, of which some are directed outward, towards the external world, and from it they already go to explain the inner man and the inner nature of things, others are directed inward, into the area of \u200b\u200bhuman self-consciousness and in it they seek support and criteria for interpreting the very nature of the world ... In this sense, the empiricist Bacon as a philosopher is closer to Aristotle, the rationalist Descartes is closer to Plato, and the contrast of this two kinds of minds is so deep and difficult to eliminate that it manifests itself in later philosophy. So, in the first half of the 19th century, Auguste Comte was a typical representative of thinkers whose eyes are turned to the outside world and who are looking for solutions to the problem of man in it, and Schopenhauer was a typical representative of that class of thinkers who are looking for clues to the world in human self-consciousness. Positivism is the latest stage in the development of Francis Bacon's empiricism, Schopenhauer's metaphysics - in a sense, the latest modification of Descartes' a priorism.

Francis Bacon biography

The biography of the thinker is of great importance in the analysis of his world outlook. Sometimes the height of the life of a philosopher explains the reasons for the height and superiority of his teaching, sometimes the lowness or inner insignificance of his life throws light on the nature of his views. But there are also more complex cases. Life, which is not remarkable or even morally of poor quality, is not devoid of grandeur and significance in some respects and clarifies certain features of the inner make-up, for example, the one-sidedness and narrowness of the world outlook of the thinker. This is the case in the biography of the English philosopher Francis Bacon. His life is not only not edifying in a moral sense, but one can even regret that the history of new philosophy should place such a dubious person as Francis Bacon in the ranks of the first in terms of its representatives. There were even overly zealous historians of philosophy, who saw in the story of Bacon's life sufficient reason to exclude him from the category of great philosophers, and the dispute about the importance of Bacon as a philosopher, which arose in the 1860s in German literature, undoubtedly had a background ethical considerations. Kuno Fischer was the first to find out the close connection between the peculiar character of Bacon and his great philosophical worldview.

Francis Bacon was born in 1561 and was the youngest son of the great seal keeper in England, Nicholas Bacon. After the death of his father, serving at the embassy in Paris, the future philosopher found himself in a difficult financial situation. Having chosen first the career of a lawyer, and then a parliamentary leader, Francis Bacon, thanks to eloquence, tremendous ambition and indiscriminate means, quickly began to rise in the official field. Following the trial of the Earl of Essex, his former friend and patron, a trial in which he, forgetting feelings of friendship and gratitude, acted as an accuser Essex and a supporter of the government, - Bacon managed to gain a special favor with Queen Elizabeth and achieve high positions by intrigue. Under James I, he became the keeper of the great seal, and then the chancellor, the Baron of Verulam and the Viscount of Saint Alban. Then comes the fall, as a result of the process started by his enemies and the revealed fact that Bacon took large bribes in solving litigations and distributing posts. Bacon is deprived of all posts and distinctions and devotes the rest of his life on the estate to his final development of his philosophical doctrine of knowledge, not agreeing to return to power anymore. Francis Bacon died in 1626 due to a cold during the experience of stuffing a bird with snow.

Bacon: "knowledge is power"

Thus, the life of Francis Bacon, even in terms of the external connection of facts, is a curious phenomenon: signs of a complete absence of moral principles and, despite this, devotion to science and knowledge, reaching the level of self-sacrifice. This contrast reflects the whole spirit of his teaching - the idealistic fanaticism of his faith in science, combined with indifference to the role of knowledge in the creation of the moral outlook of man. “Knowledge is power” is the motto of Bacon's philosophy. But what power? The force that suits not internal, but externala life. Knowledge in the hands of man is an instrument of power over nature - the very thing that knowledge finally became in our time of great victories over nature and the extreme belittling of the moral principles of human life. Francis Bacon gives in his philosophy a kind of prophecy, a proclamation of our time. Francis Bacon, according to Windelband's apt comparison, is an adherent of the "spirit of the earth" in Goethe's Faust. "And who does not recognize in the philosophy of Bacon, - he notes, - the practical spirit of the British, who more than all other nations were able to use the discoveries of science for the improvement of life." Francis Bacon is no exception, Bacon is a type of practical person who, at best, sees in science, in knowledge, a force capable of subordinating the external world, nature to humanity. Bacon's guiding idea in his philosophical works was the idea of \u200b\u200bthe material benefit of all mankind. The merit of Bacon is that he was the first to generalize the principle of the struggle of the individual for the right to life, and Hobbes, who proclaimed the "war of all against all", was the initial beginning of the development of society, in understanding the meaning of life, was only the continuation of the philosophy of Francis Bacon, and both together were predecessors Malthus and Darwin with their doctrine of the struggle for existence, as a principle of development, in the economic and biological spheres. It is difficult to deny the continuity of national ideas and aspirations when they have been so vividly expressed over the course of three centuries.

Monument to Francis Bacon at the Library of Congress

Francis Bacon's scientific method

But let us turn to the philosophical teachings of Francis Bacon. He presented it in two major works - in the essay "On the Dignity and Augmentation of Sciences", which appeared first in English in 1605 and then in Latin in 1623, and in the "New Organon" (1620). Both writings form parts of the conceived but unfinished philosophical work Instauratio magna (The Great Restoration of the Sciences). His "New Organon" Bacon opposes the totality of logical works of Aristotle, which received in ancient times, in the school of Aristotle, the name "Organon" - the tool, method of science and philosophy. What was the "transformation" of Francis Bacon?

Back in the XIII century. his namesake, the monk Roger Bacon, expressed the idea that it is necessary to study nature directly. Bernardino Telesio, during the Renaissance, tried to create a theory of experience as a tool of knowledge, and to prove the inconsistency of inference as a tool of knowledge. Raimund Llull tried to invent in the XIII century. the method of discovering new scientific truths by combining concepts, and Giordano Bruno tried to improve this method in the 16th century. The philosopher Francis Bacon also set himself the goal of improving the art of invention and discovery, but by elucidating the methods of direct, experimental, scientific study of nature. Francis Bacon is the successor of R. Bacon and B. Telesio on the one hand, R. Lullia and Giordano Bruno on the other.

The real basis for his philosophical theories was the actual inventions and discoveries of the next era. What is the purpose of science? According to Bacon, it is about contributing to the improvement of life. If science is distracted from life, then it is like a plant torn from its soil and torn from its roots, and therefore does not use any more food. Such is scholasticism; new inventions and discoveries of science were made on the basis of a direct study of life and nature. Francis Bacon, however, does not understand the full complexity of the problem of knowledge, science. He does not explore the boundaries and deep foundations of knowledge; he proceeds in his teaching about the scientific method from certain general assumptions based partly on observation, partly on fantasy. Apparently, Bacon is not very familiar with the original writings of Aristotle on nature and knows, in general, ancient philosophy and science superficially. An admirer of experience and induction, he himself builds his theory of knowledge and its methods in an abstract way, and priori, deductively, not inductively; the founder of the doctrine of experiment, he explores and determines the foundations of knowledge not experimentally and not even inductively, but on the basis general considerations.This is the reason for the weakness and one-sidedness of his theory of knowledge. Bacon's main strength lies in his criticism of the previous insufficient success of the natural sciences.

Idols of Bacon

The philosophy of Francis Bacon recognizes the reason and feelings (sensations) as the basis of knowledge. To make proper use of the former for acquisition, through the latter , true knowledge of nature, must cleanse it of various false anticipations or anticipations of experience, false and unfounded assumptions, make it clean boardconvenient for the perception of new facts. For this purpose, Bacon is very witty and, in a psychological sense, subtly identifies the erroneous images or idols of our mind, which impede its cognitive work. His philosophy divides these idols into four categories: 1) Idols of the kind(idola tribus). These are features of human nature in general that distort the knowledge of things: for example, a tendency to excessive order in ideas, the influence of fantasy, the desire to go beyond the knowledge available in experience, the influence of feelings and moods on the work of thought, the tendency of the mind to excessive distraction, abstraction. 2) Cave idols(idola specus): each person occupies a certain corner of the world, and the light of knowledge reaches him, being refracted through the environment of his special individual nature, formed under the influence of upbringing and relations with other people, under the influence of the books he studied and the authorities whom he read ... Thus, every person learns the world from his corner or cave (an expression taken from the philosophy of Plato); a person sees the world in a special, personally accessible lighting; everyone should try to get to know his own personal characteristics and cleanse his thought from the admixture of personal opinions and from the coloring of personal sympathies. 3) Idols Square(idola fori): the most disgusting and difficult to eliminate errors associated with language, the word, as an instrument of knowledge, and found in the intercourse of people with each other (hence the "area"). Words in the world of thoughts are a walking bargaining chip, its price is relative. By their origin, from the knowledge of direct, coarse words, they roughly and confusedly define things, and hence the endless disputes about words. It is necessary to try to define them more precisely, putting them in connection with the real facts of experience, distinguishing them according to the degree of certainty and exact correspondence to the properties of things. Finally, the fourth category - theater idols(idola theatri) are "deceptive images of reality arising from the erroneous depiction of reality by philosophers and scientists, mixing reality with fables and inventions, as on stage or in poetry." In this sense, Francis Bacon especially points out, among other things, a harmful interference in the field of science and philosophy of religious beliefs.

Monument to Francis Bacon in London

Bacon's method of cognition

No less the reason is subject to purification and refinement, and the very feelings, very often deceive us and yet serve as the only source of the entire content of thought. We still do not find a deep psychological analysis of sensations in the philosophy of Francis Bacon, but he correctly notes some of the weaknesses of the sensory perception process and makes it a general rule that a methodical refinement of sensory perceptions by means of artificial instruments and through repetition and modification of perceptions in the form of testing them with each other is a general rule. But no one can know things through feelings alone - sensations must be processed by the mind, and this gives general truths, axioms that guide the mind during further wanderings in the forest of facts, in the wilds of experience. Therefore, Bacon also condemns those philosophers who like spiders all knowledge weaves from themselves (dogmatists or rationalists), and those who, like ants only collect facts in a heap, without processing them (extreme empiricists), - in order to acquire true knowledge, one must act as one does beescollecting material from flowers and fields and processing it into original products with a special inner strength.

Bacon's experiment and induction

One cannot, of course, disagree with this general method of cognition, as formulated by Francis Bacon. The union of experience and thinking, which he recommends, is truly the only path to truth. But how to achieve it and achieve the proper degree and proportion in the process of cognition? The answer to this is Bacon's theory inductionas a method of cognition. Syllogism or inference, according to Bacon's philosophy, does not give new knowledge, real knowledge, for inferences consist of sentences, and sentences consist of words, while words are signs of concepts. It's all about how the initial concepts and words were composed. In the philosophy of Francis Bacon, the method of correctly composing concepts is induction based on experimentExperiment is the way to artificial repetition and constant mutual verification of sensations. But the essence of induction is not in one experiment, but in the well-known development of sensory data acquired through it. To organize this development of sensations and to correctly guide the experiment itself, Bacon proposes to compile special tables of cases of similar, different (negative), parallel changing facts that exclude each other, and so on. This famous Baconian theory tablessupplemented by the doctrine of the system of auxiliary inductive techniques or instances.Bacon's induction theory, supplemented Newton and Herschel, formed the basis of the teachings of the philosopher John Stewart Mill about inductive methods of consent, difference, concomitant changes and residues, as well as about auxiliary inductive methods to them.

The essence of inductive analysis of facts boils down to discovering their true causal relationships and dependences on each other through the study of various kinds of relations between phenomena in experience, for the task of the science of nature, according to Bacon, is to study the causal relationship of phenomena, and not their simple material composition. , - general forms of phenomena, and not their specific differences. In this doctrine, Francis Bacon adjoins the philosophy of Aristotle and by forms means those general laws or typical relationships of phenomena,to the discovery of which all experimental science strives.

Bacon's classification of sciences

Bacon, developing the question of the methods of sciences, also tried to give a classification of sciences, but the latter is undoubtedly weak. He distinguishes the science of nature from the science of man and the science of God. Within the first - physicsor the doctrine of material causes, he distinguishes from metaphysicians,forms science, theoretical physics opposes practical science - mechanics,and metaphysics - of magic.The doctrine of goals in the "New Organon" is completely excluded from the limits of the science of nature, and thus Francis Bacon is in his philosophy the first representative of the purely mechanical tendencies of modern science. Side by side with physics and metaphysics, he sometimes puts mathematics as a tool for the quantitative analysis of phenomena, and, as critics generally admit, poorly understands the meaning and internal cost of mathematical knowledge. In determining the inner essence of the tasks of the science of man and God, Bacon occupies an ambiguous position. He reckons among the human sciences history(natural science of society), logic, ethicsand politics.In man, he recognizes the soul as a principle emanating from God, and in principle, he considers only the animal soul associated with the bodily organization to be the subject of natural scientific knowledge, just as he considers only the lower inclinations of man to be the subject of natural morality, while the nature of the higher soul and higher moral beginnings are subject to definition and clarification only from the side of Divine revelation, like the very nature of God. But at the same time, Bacon, in his anthropology, as well as in the science of God, often oversteps the boundaries of natural science that he himself recognized. As one of the themes is present in Bacon's philosophy and the idea science universal - the first philosophy in the sense of Aristotle, which should be a “storehouse of general axioms of knowledge” and a tool for studying some special “transcendental” concepts of being and non-being, reality and possibility, movement and rest, etc., but we are in We do not find the philosophy of Francis Bacon, which is completely understandable, since he thinks that all the axioms of knowledge are still based on experience, on the sensations of external feelings, and does not recognize other sources of knowledge. Thus, the classification of sciences is the weakest side of Bacon's teaching on knowledge.

In assessing the philosophy of Francis Bacon, it must be admitted that, on the whole, he deserves the merit of the first attempt to develop a comprehensive theory of objective knowledge, to find all the conditions, obstacles and aids for the correct development of the factual material of experience, and one should not be too strict with Bacon for the fact that, setting his task is to study external experiential elements and conditions of knowledge, he has not reached the proper depth in the analysis of the cognitive abilities and processes of the human mind.

Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) was born in London into the family of the Lord Keeper of the Seal under Queen Elizabeth. From the age of 12 he studied at the University of Cambridge (College of the Holy Trinity). Choosing a political career as his life field, Bacon received his law degree. In 1584 he was elected to the House of Commons, where he remained until the accession to the throne of Jacob I (1603) and the dispersal of parliament. From this time on, he quickly climbed the political ladder, reaching the position of Lord Chancellor in 1618. In the spring of 1621, Bacon was accused of corruption by the House of Lords, brought to trial and released from severe punishment only by the grace of the king. This was the end of Bacon's political activity, and he devoted himself entirely to scientific pursuits, which had previously occupied a significant place in his activities.

The most famous work of F. Bacon "New Organon" was published in 1620. Bacon wrote many books during his life, of which one should also mention "Refutation of Philosophies" (1608), "On the Dignity and Enhancement of Sciences" (1623) and published posthumously "New Atlantis".

In the history of philosophy and science, Bacon acted as a herald of experimental natural science and the scientific method. He managed to give an image of a new science, starting from firmly accepted and consistently thought out ideas about the meaning of knowledge in society and human life. Already in Cambridge, the young Bacon acutely experienced dissatisfaction with traditional (scholastic) science, useful, in his words, only for victories at university disputes, but not in solving the vital problems of man and society. The old philosophy is sterile and wordy - such is F. Bacon's short verdict. The main business of the philosopher is to criticize traditional knowledge and substantiate a new method of comprehending the nature of things. He reproaches the thinkers of the past for the fact that in their works the voice of nature itself, created by the Creator, is not heard.

Methods and techniques of science must meet its true goals - to ensure human well-being and dignity. This is also evidence of the emergence of mankind on the road of truth after a long and fruitless wandering in search of wisdom. The possession of truth reveals itself precisely in the growth of the practical power of man. "Knowledge is power" - this is the guiding thread in clarifying the tasks and goals of philosophy itself.

"Man, the servant and interpreter of Nature, does exactly as much and understands how much he embraces in the order of Nature; beyond that he knows and cannot do anything" - this aphorism of Bacon opens his "New Organon". The possibilities of human understanding and science coincide, so it is so important to answer the question: what kind of science should be in order to exhaust these possibilities?

Bacon's doctrine solves a two-fold problem - critically clarifies the sources of error in traditional, unjustified wisdom, and points out the correct methods of mastering the truth. A critical part of Bacon's program is responsible for the formation of the methodological discipline of the scientific mind. Its positive part is also impressive, but it was written, according to the great Harvey, Bacon's personal physician, "in the Lord Chancellery."

So, what hinders successful knowledge of nature? The adherence to unsuitable methods of understanding the world is due, according to Bacon, to the dominance of the so-called "idols" over the consciousness of people. He distinguishes four of their main types: idols of the family, caves, market and theater. This is how the philosopher figuratively presents typical sources of human error.

"Idols of the kind" are the prejudices of our minds that result from the confusion of our own nature with the nature of things. The latter is reflected in it as in a distorted mirror. If in the human world target (teleological) relationships justify the legitimacy of our questions: why? for what? - then the same questions addressed to nature are meaningless and explain nothing. In nature, everything is subject only to the action of causes, and here only the question is legitimate: why? Our mind should be cleansed of that which does not penetrate into it from the nature of things. It must be open to Nature and only to Nature.

The "idols of the cave" are prejudices filling the mind from such a source as our individual (and accidental) position in the world. To free ourselves from their power, it is necessary to reach agreement in the perception of nature from different positions and under different conditions. Otherwise, illusions and deceptions of perception will complicate cognition.

"Idols of the market" are delusions arising from the need to use words with ready-made meanings that we accept uncritically. Words are able to replace the thing they designate and take the mind captive. The scientist must be free from the power of words and open to the things themselves in order to know them successfully.

And, finally, the "idols of the theater" are delusions arising from unconditional submission to authority. But a scientist should look for truth in things, and not in the sayings of great people.

"So, we have already spoken about individual types of idols and their manifestations. All of them must be rejected and thrown away by a firm and solemn decision, and the mind must be completely freed and cleansed of them. Let the entrance to the human kingdom based on sciences be like this just like the entrance to the kingdom of heaven, where no one is allowed to enter without being like children. "

Fighting authoritarian thinking is one of Bacon's primary concerns. Only one authority should be unconditionally recognized, the authority of Holy Scripture in matters of faith, but in cognizing Nature, the mind should rely only on experience in which Nature is revealed to it. Dilution of two truths - divine and human - allowed Bacon to reconcile essentially different orientations of cognition, growing on the basis of religious and scientific experience, to strengthen the autonomy and self-law of science and scientific activity. "The apotheosis of delusions is the most evil deed and worship of the vain is tantamount to the plague of the mind. However, plunging into this vanity, some of the new philosophers with the greatest frivolity reached the point that they tried to base natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis, on the book of Job and on other scriptures. This vanity must be restrained and suppressed all the more since not only fantastic philosophy, but also a heretical religion is derived from the reckless confusion of the divine and the human. Therefore, it will be more salvation if a sober mind gives faith only what belongs to it. "

An impartial mind, freed from all kinds of prejudices, open to Nature and attentive to experience - this is the starting point of Baconian philosophy. To master the truth of things, it remains to resort to the correct method of working with experience. Bacon points out two possible paths of seeking and discovering the truth, from which we must choose the best and guarantee our success. The first takes us from feeling and special cases "directly to axioms of the most general nature, and then gives way to judgments on the basis of these principles, already fixed in their firmness, in order to derive intermediate axioms on their basis; this is the most common way. from feeling and particular it leads to axioms, gradually and continuously climbing the steps of the ladder of generalization until it leads to axioms of the most general nature; this is the surest road, although it has not yet been traversed by people. " The second path is the path of methodically thought out and improved induction. Complementing it with a number of special techniques, Bacon seeks to turn induction into the art of questioning nature, leading to certain success on the path of knowledge. On this methodically verified path, the role of pure chance and luck in finding the truth, as well as the differences in intellectual discernment that exist between people, is overcome. “As the saying goes, a lame man walking on the road is ahead of the one who runs without a road. It is also obvious that the more agile and quick the off-road runner, the more his wanderings will be.

Our way of discovering sciences is such that it leaves a little to the power of gifts, but almost equalizes them. Just as hardness, skill and testing of the hand means a lot to drawing a straight line or describing a perfect circle, if you act only with your hand, it means little or nothing if you use a compass and a ruler. This is the case with our method. "

Having based his philosophy on the concept of experience, having interpreted sensuality as the only source of all our knowledge, Bacon thereby laid the foundations of empiricism - one of the leading philosophical traditions of modern European philosophy.

At the same time, the founder of empiricism was in no way inclined to underestimate the importance of reason. The power of reason just manifests itself in the ability of such an organization of observation and experiment, which allows you to hear the voice of nature itself and to interpret what she said in the correct way. Distinguishing himself from those whom Bacon himself called empiricists and dogmatists, he explains the essence of his position as follows: “Empiricists, like an ant, only collect and are content with what is collected. Rationalists, like a spider, produce tissue from themselves. The bee, on the other hand, chooses the middle method: it extracts material from garden and wildflowers, but arranges and changes it according to its skill.No different from this and the true business of philosophy. For it is not based only or predominantly on the forces of the mind and does not deposit intact into consciousness material extracted from natural history and mechanical experiments, but changes it and processes it in the mind. So, good hope should be placed on a closer and more indestructible (which has not yet been) union of these two abilities - experience and reason. " Why does he nevertheless remain a philosopher of empiricism? The value of reason lies in its art of extracting truth from the experience in which it is contained. Reason as such does not contain the truths of being and, being detached from experience, is incapable of discovering them. Experience is thus fundamental. Reason can be defined through experience (for example, as the art of extracting truth from experience), but experience in its definition and explanation does not need an indication of reason, and therefore can be considered as an instance independent and independent from reason.

The foundations of a rationalist tradition alternative to empiricism were laid by the French philosopher René Descartes. But before proceeding to its characteristics, let us dwell briefly on the picture of the world that Bacon proposed, based on the systematic application of his method of cognition.

Bacon's doctrine of being is taking shape in the context of the researcher's tirelessly emphasized active contact with nature. The scientist is primarily not an observer and contemplator, but an experimenter. "The business and purpose of human power is to produce and impart to a given body a new nature or new natures." And Bacon builds such a concept of being, which, as it were, guarantees the researcher the very possibility of achieving success in the practical mastery of the world, for "the paths to human power and knowledge are closely intertwined with one another and are almost the same." He singles out in the world around us, formed by the innumerable variety of specific things and phenomena, simple natures and their forms, the knowledge of which allows us to master the course of processes and be able to control them. Forms are those that are characterized by qualitative indivisibility, which have constancy and give the key to understanding the sources of changes in things. This is what can be interpreted as the structure and the law of the occurrence of the phenomenon hidden from the eyes, endowed with a qualitative originality. In this concept, qualitative substances and typologically different structured processes (laws of generation and transformation) are, as it were, intertwined and merged. Thus, heat as nature has a form that is also the law of heat. “For the form of any nature is such that when it is established, then the given nature invariably follows it. So, the form constantly abides, when this nature also abides, it fully affirms it and is inherent in it in everything. But this same form is such that when it is removed, then this nature also invariably disappears. So, it is constantly absent, when this nature is absent, it constantly holds it and is inherent only in it. Baconian forms as basic structures of being combine ideas that are difficult to separate from each other, on the one hand, about qualitatively simple natures, and on the other, about something closer to the future explanatory models of mechanistic natural science. So, for example, the interpretation of the form of heat as a kind of internal motion in bodies is quite consistent with its future physical interpretation.

The world of Bacon is a vivid harbinger of the world of modern European science, its spirit and method, but the signs and methods of the medieval world outlook are still clearly distinguishable in it.

Who is he: a philosopher or a scientist? Francis Bacon is the great thinker of the Renaissance of England. who changed many posts, visited several countries and expressed more than one hundred which people are guided by to this day. The desire for knowledge and oratorical ability of Bacon from an early age played a major role in the reformation of philosophy of that time. In particular, scholasticism and the teachings of Aristotle, which were based on cultural and spiritual values, were refuted by the empiricist Francis in the name of science. Bacon argued that only scientific and technological progress can raise civilization and thereby enrich humanity spiritually.

Francis Bacon - biography of the politician

Bacon was born in London on January 22, 1561, into an organized English family. His father served as curator of the royal seal at the court of Elizabeth I. And his mother was the daughter of Anthony Cook, who raised the king An educated woman who knew ancient Greek and Latin, instilled in young Francis a love of knowledge. He grew up a smart and intelligent boy with a keen interest in science.

At the age of 12, Bacon entered the University of Cambridge. After graduation, the philosopher travels a lot. The political, cultural and social life of France, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Germany and Sweden left their mark in the notes "On the State of Europe" written by the thinker. After the death of his father, Bacon returned to his homeland.

Francis made his political career when I ascended the throne of England. The philosopher was the attorney general (1612), and the keeper of the seal (1617), and the Lord Chancellor (1618). However, the rapid take-off ended in a precipitous fall.

In the footsteps of life

In 1621, Bacon was accused by the king of bribery, imprisoned (albeit for two days) and pardoned. Following this, Francis's career as a politician ended. All subsequent years of his life he was engaged in science and experiments. The philosopher died in 1626 from a cold.

• Experiments and Instructions - 1597 - first edition. Further, the book was supplemented and republished many times. The work consists of short essays and essays, where the thinker discusses politics and morality.
• "On the Significance and Success of Knowledge, Divine and Human" - 1605
• "On the wisdom of the ancients" - 1609
• Descriptions of the world's intellectuals.
• "On a high position", in which the author spoke about the advantages and disadvantages of high officials. "It is difficult to resist in a high place, but there is no way back, except for a fall, or at least a sunset ...".
• "New Organon" - 1620 - a cult book of that time, dedicated to her methods and techniques.
• "On the Dignity and Augmentation of the Sciences" is the first part of The Great Restoration of the Sciences, Bacon's most voluminous work.

A ghostly utopia or a look into the future?

Francis Bacon. "New Atlantis". Two terms in philosophy that can be considered synonymous. Although the work remained unfinished, it absorbed the entire worldview of its author.

New Atlantis was published in 1627. Bacon takes the reader to a distant island where an ideal civilization flourishes. All thanks to scientific and technical achievements unseen at that time. Bacon seemed to have looked hundreds of years into the future, because in Atlantis you can learn about the microscope, the synthesis of living beings, and also about the cure of all diseases. In addition, it contains descriptions of various, not yet discovered, sound and auditory devices.

The island is governed by a society that unites the main sages of the country. And if Bacon's predecessors touched upon the problems of communism and socialism, then this work is completely technocratic in nature.

A look at life through the eyes of a philosopher

Francis Bacon is truly the founder of thinking. Philosophy of the thinker refutes scholastic teachings and puts science and knowledge in the first place. Having learned the laws of nature and turning them to his own good, a person is able not only to gain power, but also to grow spiritually.

Francis noted that all the discoveries were made by accident, because few people owned scientific methods and techniques. Bacon was the first to try to classify science based on the properties of the mind: memory is history, imagination is poetry, reason is philosophy.

Experience should also be the main thing on the path to knowledge. Any research should start with observations, not theory. Bacon believes that only an experiment for which conditions, time and space, and circumstances are constantly changing will be successful. Matter must be in motion all the time.

Francis Bacon. Empiricism

The scientist himself and his philosophy ultimately led to the emergence of such a concept as "empiricism": knowledge lies through experience. Only having enough knowledge and experience, you can count on results in your activities.

Bacon identifies several ways to gain knowledge:

• "The path of the spider" - knowledge is obtained from pure reason, in a rational way. In other words, the web is made of thoughts. Specific factors are not taken into account.
• "The way of the ant" - knowledge is gained through experience. Attention is focused only on gathering facts and evidence. However, the essence remains unclear.
• The Bee's Way is an ideal way that combines the good qualities of both the spider and the ant, but at the same time is devoid of their disadvantages. Following this path, all facts and evidence must be passed through the prism of your thinking, through your mind. And only then will the truth be revealed.

Obstacles to knowledge

It is not always easy to learn new things. Bacon talks about ghost obstacles in his teachings. It is they who interfere with tuning your mind and thoughts. There are innate and acquired obstacles.

Inborn: "ghosts of the family" and "ghosts of the cave" - \u200b\u200bthis is how the philosopher himself classifies them. "Ghosts of the genus" - human culture interferes with knowledge. "Ghosts of the cave" - \u200b\u200bthe influence of specific people interferes with cognition.

Acquired: Market Ghosts and Theater Ghosts. The former imply misuse of words and definitions. A person takes everything literally, and this interferes with correct thinking. The second obstacle is the influence of the existing philosophy on the cognition process. Only by renouncing the old can you comprehend the new. Relying on old experience, passing it through their thoughts, people are able to achieve success.

Great minds don't die

Some great people - centuries later - give birth to others. Bacon Francis is an expressionist painter of our time, as well as a distant descendant of the philosopher and thinker.

Francis the artist read the works of his ancestor, he followed his instructions in every possible way, left in the "smart" books. Francis Bacon, whose biography ended not so long ago, in 1992, had a great influence on the world. And when the philosopher did this with words, then his distant grandson - with paints.

Francis Jr. was expelled from home for his gay sex. Wandering around France and Germany, he successfully got to the exhibition in 1927. She had a huge impact on the guy. Bacon returns to his native London, where he acquires a small garage workshop and begins to create.

Francis Bacon is considered one of the gloomy artists of our time. His paintings are vivid proof of this. Blurred, despairing faces and silhouettes are depressing, but at the same time make you think about the meaning of life. After all, in every person such blurred faces and roles are hidden, which he uses for different occasions.

Despite their gloom, the paintings are very popular. The great connoisseur of Bacon's art is Roman Abramovich. At the auction, he bought the canvas "Landmark of the Canonical XX Century" worth 86.3 million dollars!

In the words of a thinker

Philosophy is the eternal science of eternal values. Anyone who can think a little is a "little" philosopher. Bacon wrote down his thoughts always and everywhere. And people use many of his quotes every day. Bacon surpassed even Shakespeare's greatness. So his contemporaries thought.

Francis Bacon. Note quotes:

• The one who waddles along a straight road will outstrip the one who has gone astray.
• There is little friendship in the world - least of all among equals.
• There is nothing worse than fear itself.
• The worst loneliness is not having true friends.
• Stealth is a refuge for the weak.
• In the dark, all colors are the same.
• Hope - good breakfast but bad dinner.
• Good is what is useful to man, to humanity.

Knowledge is power

Power is knowledge. Only by abstracting from everyone and everything, by passing your experience and the experience of your predecessors through your own mind, you can comprehend the truth. It is not enough to be a theorist, you have to become a practitioner! There is no need to be afraid of criticism and condemnation. And who knows, maybe the biggest discovery is yours!

Introduction

4 Bacon's social utopia

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is rightfully considered the founder of modern philosophy. Descended from a noble family that had a prominent place in English political life (his father was Lord Keeper of the Seal). Graduated from the University of Cambridge. The learning process, marked by a scholastic approach, which boiled down to reading and analyzing primarily the authorities of the past, did not satisfy Bacon.

This training did not give anything new, and in particular, in the knowledge of nature. Already at that time he came to the conviction that new knowledge about nature must be obtained by investigating, first of all, its very itself.

He was a diplomat in the British mission in Paris. After the death of his father he returned to London, became a lawyer, was a member of the House of Commons. Makes a brilliant career at the court of King James I.

Since 1619, F. Bacon became Lord Chancellor of England. After Jacob I was forced to return Parliament due to non-payment of taxes by the inhabitants of the country, the members of parliament took "revenge", in particular, Bacon was accused of bribery and in 1621 was removed from political activity. Lord Bacon's political career was over, he was retiring from his former affairs and until his death devoted himself to scientific work.

One group of Bacon's works consists of works related to the formation of science and scientific knowledge.

These are, first of all, treatises, one way or another concerning his project "The Great Restoration of Sciences" (due to lack of time or for other reasons, this project was not completed).

This project was created by 1620, but only the second part, devoted to the new inductive method, which was written and published under the title "New Organon", also in 1620, was fully implemented. In 1623, his work "On dignity and enhancement of the sciences. "

1. F. Bacon - founder of experimental science and philosophy of modern times

F. Bacon takes an inventory of all areas of consciousness and activity.

The general tendency of Bacon's philosophical thinking is unambiguously materialistic. However, Bacon's materialism is limited historically and epistemologically.

The development of modern science (and the natural and exact sciences) was only in its infancy and was completely under the influence of the Renaissance concept of man and the human mind. Therefore, Bacon's materialism is devoid of deep structure and is in many ways rather a declaration.

Bacon's philosophy proceeds from the objective needs of society and expresses the interests of progressive social forces of that time. His emphasis on empirical research, on the knowledge of nature logically follows from the practice of the then progressive social classes, in particular the emerging bourgeoisie.

Bacon rejects philosophy as contemplation and presents it as a science of the real world based on experiential knowledge. This is confirmed by the title of one of his studies - "Natural and Experimental Description to the Foundation of Philosophy."

By his position, he, in fact, expresses a new starting point and a new basis for all knowledge.

Bacon focused on the problems of science, knowledge and cognition. In the world of science, he saw the main means of solving social problems and contradictions of the then society.

Bacon is a prophet and enthusiast of technical progress. He raises the question of organizing science and putting it in the service of man. This orientation towards the practical meaning of knowledge brings him closer to the philosophers of the Renaissance (in contrast to the scholastics). And science is measured by results. "Fruits are the guarantor and witness of the truth of philosophy."

Bacon characterizes the meaning, vocation and tasks of science very clearly in the introduction to "The Great Restoration of Sciences": "And, finally, I would like to urge all people to remember the true goals of science, so that they do not engage in it for the sake of their spirit, neither for the sake of some scholarly disputes, nor for the sake of neglecting the rest, nor for the sake of self-interest and fame, nor in order to achieve power, nor for some other low intentions, but in order to have life itself useful and successful. " This vocation of science obeys both its direction and working methods.

He highly appreciates the merits of ancient culture, at the same time he is aware of how much superior their achievements of modern science are. As much as he appreciates antiquity, he rates scholasticism just as low. He rejects speculative scholastic disputes and focuses on the knowledge of the real, really existing world.

The main instrument of this knowledge is, according to Bacon, feelings, experience, experiment and what follows from them.

Natural science according to Bacon is the great mother of all sciences. She was undeservedly humiliated to the position of a servant. The task is to restore independence and dignity to the sciences. "Philosophy must enter into a legal marriage with science, and only then will it be able to bear children."

A new cognitive situation has developed. It is characterized by the following: "A pile of experiments has grown to infinity." Bacon sets tasks:

a) deep transformation of the body of accumulated knowledge, its rational organization and ordering;

b) development of methods for obtaining new knowledge.

The first he implements in the work "On the dignity and enhancement of sciences" - the classification of knowledge. The second is in the New Organon.

The task of organizing knowledge. The classification of knowledge is based on Bacon's three discriminating abilities in humans: memory, imagination, reason. These abilities correspond to the fields of activity - history, poetry, philosophy and science. Objects correspond to the results of abilities (except for poetry, imagination cannot have an object, but it is its product). Single events are the object of history. Natural history has events in nature, civil history has events in society.

Philosophy, according to Bacon, deals not with individuals and not with sensory impressions of objects, but with abstract concepts derived from them, the combination and separation of which on the basis of the laws of nature and the facts of reality itself, it is engaged in. Philosophy belongs to the field of reason and essentially includes the content of all theoretical science.

The objects of philosophy are God, nature and man. Accordingly, it is divided into natural theology, natural philosophy and the doctrine of man.

Philosophy is knowledge of the general. He considers the problem of God as an object of knowledge within the framework of the concept of two truths. Scripture contains moral standards. Theology, which studies God, is of heavenly origin, in contrast to philosophy, in which the object is nature and man. Natural religion can have nature as an object. Within the framework of natural theology (God is the object of attention), philosophy can play a certain role.

In addition to divine philosophy, there is a natural philosophy (natural). It splits into theoretical (investigating the cause of things and based on "luminous" experiences) and practical philosophy (which carries out "fruitful" experiences and creates artificial things).

Theoretical philosophy splits into physics and metaphysics. The basis of this division is the doctrine of 4 reasons of Aristotle. Bacon believes that physics explores material and motive causes. Metaphysics explores the formal cause. And there is no target cause in nature, only in human activity. The deep essence is formed by forms, their study is a matter of metaphysics.

Practical philosophy is divided into mechanics (research in the field of physics) and natural - magic (it relies on the knowledge of forms). The product of natural magic is, for example, what is depicted in the "New Atlantis" - "spare" organs for humans and so on. In modern terms, we are talking about high technologies - High Tech.

He considered mathematics to be a great application to natural philosophy, both theoretical and practical.

Strictly speaking, mathematics is even a part of metaphysics, for the quantity that is its subject, applied to matter, is a kind of measure of nature and a condition for a variety of natural phenomena, and therefore one of its essential forms.

Truly, knowledge about nature is the main all-consuming subject of Bacon's attention, and no matter what philosophical questions he touches, the study of nature, natural philosophy remained the true science for him.

Bacon also includes the doctrine of man in philosophy. There is also a division of areas: a person as an individual and an object of anthropology, as a citizen - an object of civil philosophy.

Bacon's concept of the soul and its abilities is the central content of his philosophy of man.

Francis Bacon distinguished two souls in a person - rational and sensual. The first is divinely inspired (the object of divinely revealed knowledge), the second is similar to the soul of animals (it is the object of natural scientific research): the first comes from the “spirit of God”, the second is from a set of material elements and is an organ of the rational soul.

The whole teaching about the divinely inspired soul - about its substance and nature, about whether it is innate or brought in from the outside, he leaves the competence of religion.

“And although all such questions could receive a deeper and more thorough study in philosophy in comparison with the state in which they are at present, nevertheless, we consider it more correct to transfer these questions to the consideration and definition of religion, because otherwise, in most cases they would have received an erroneous decision under the influence of those delusions that can give rise to data of sensory perceptions among philosophers.

2. Bacon on the nature of human delusion

The task of equipping a person with methods of obtaining new knowledge is considered by Bacon to be much more important. He gives its solution in the work "New Organon". A significant obstacle in the development of real knowledge is prejudice, ingrained, ingrained, or even inborn ideas and fictions, which contribute to the fact that the world in our minds is not fully adequately reflected.

Bacon calls these performances idols. The doctrine of idols, according to Bacon, is an important means of overcoming these ideas. About the relation of the science of idols to new logic and a new method of knowledge, he says: "The science of idols relates to the explanation of nature as the science of sophistic proofs to ordinary logic."

Bacon prefaces the problem of cleansing a person's mind from the following "idols" (false ideas, ghosts):

Idol of the kind

These are prejudices rooted in the nature of man as a generic being, in the imperfection of the senses, in the limitations of the mind. Sensations deceive us, they have boundaries, beyond which objects cease to be perceived by us. It is naive to be guided only by feelings. The mind helps, but the mind often gives a distorted picture of nature (it is like a crooked mirror). The mind ascribes to nature its properties (anthropomorphism) and goals (teleology). Hasty generalizations (eg circular orbits).

Idols of the genus are not only natural, but also innate. They proceed from the natural imperfection of the human mind, which manifests itself in the fact that "suggests greater order and balance in things than those that are in them."

The idol of the clan is the most fatal according to Bacon. It is hardly possible to free oneself from one's nature and not add one's nature to ideas. The way to overcome the idols of the clan lies in realizing this natural property of the human mind and consistently applying the rules of new induction in the process of cognition (this is a necessary, certainly, the main and most reliable means for overcoming other idols).

Cave idol

If the idols of the race originate from natural defects of the human mind, which are more or less common, then the idols of the cave are also caused by innate defects of the human mind, but of an individual character.

"The idols of the cave are the idols of man as an individual. For each individual, in addition to the errors generated by the nature of man as a species), has his own individual cave or lair. This cave refracts and distorts the light of nature, on the one hand, because each has a definite, own nature , on the other hand, because everyone received a different upbringing and met other people.

Likewise, because everyone read only certain books, read and adored different authorities, finally, because his impressions were different from others, according to what kind of souls they had - prejudiced and full of prejudices or souls calm and balanced, as well as for other reasons of the same kind. Likewise, the human spirit itself (since it is contained in individuals) is very changeable, confusing, as if accidental. "The human mind is the mind of a creature belonging to the human race; Each person looks at the world as if from his own cave. “Passions imperceptibly stain and spoil the mind.” It is easier to get rid of this “idol” than from the first - collective experience levels out individual deviations.

Idol of the Market

Its danger lies in reliance on collective experience. Idol is a product of human communication, mainly speech. "There are, however, such idols that arise through mutual communication. We call them idols of the market because they arose through mutual agreement in society. People agree through speech; words are determined by common understanding. Bad and wrong choice of words significantly interferes with reason. These hindrances can neither correct definitions nor explanations.

Words simply violate the mind and confuse everyone, and people are led to countless unnecessary arguments and ideas. People believe that their mind rules over words. But they spontaneously enter consciousness. "

Wrong word usage is harmful. Taking words for things, people are wrong. Here his criticism is directed against the scholastics. You can overcome an idol by realizing that words are signs of things. Realizing that there are single things - that is, you need to take the position of nominalism. Words do not represent reality, but only the generalizing activity of the mind.

Bacon pays more attention, but does not find (apart from consistently following the rules of the new induction) an effective way to overcome them. Therefore, he defines the idols of the market as the most harmful.

Idol of the Theater

A product of collective experience. If a person has blind faith in authorities, especially in the ancients. The older, the greater the illusion of authority. Like actors on stage in the light of the footlights, the ancient thinkers are in a halo of their glory. This is the result of "vision aberration". And they are the same people as readers. One must understand that the older, the more naive the thinker, because he knew less.

"These are idols that have migrated into human thoughts from various philosophical teachings. I call them theater idols, because all the traditional and still invented philosophical systems are, in my opinion, as if theatrical plays that created worlds, as if in the theater. I am not talking here either about the current philosophies and schools, or about those old ones, because there are many more such games can be added and played together. Therefore, the true causes of errors, completely different from each other, are more or less almost the same. "

3. The doctrine of the method of empiricism and the basic rules of the inductive method

Bacon's work is characterized by a certain approach to the method of human cognition and thinking. The starting point of any cognitive activity is for him, first of all, feelings.

Therefore, he is often called the founder " empiricism"- a direction that builds its epistemological premises mainly on sensory cognition and experience. Bacon himself says in this regard:" I do not overestimate too direct and proper sensory perception, but I act in such a way that feelings evaluate only the experiment, and the experiment itself speaks of things , because the subtlety of experience far surpasses the subtlety of the senses themselves, perhaps even armed with exceptional instruments. "

Therefore, it would be more accurate to define Bacon's philosophy (and not just the theory of knowledge) as empirical. Empiricism - experience based on experiment (and not isolated sensory perception) - is for him the starting point of a new scientific method, which he characterizes as "the science of the better and more perfect use of reason in the study of things and the true tools of the mind that cognizes them. in order for the cognizing mind to rise (as far as the existing conditions and his mortality allow for a person) and so that he has enough ability to overcome that which in nature is difficult to access and dark. "

The main merit of Francis Bacon is the development of the methodology, that is, the teaching about the method. He developed a new method, opposing it to scholasticism, which he rejects because of its sterility: the syllogistic statement does not add anything new to what has already been expressed in the premises. You can't get new knowledge that way. And the premises themselves are the result of hasty generalizations, although not all.

Bacon's method is an empirical-inductive method of obtaining true generalizations from experience.

According to Bacon, the object of knowledge is nature; the task of cognition is to obtain true knowledge; the goal of knowledge is dominance over nature; method - a means of solving cognitive tasks. The starting point of the method is experience. But he doesn't have to be blind. You don't need a pile of experience and knowledge. The other extreme is the "scholastic's web," which he weaves out of himself. Experience must be complemented by rational organization. The researcher should be like a bee collecting nectar and converting it into honey. That is, to rationally comprehend and process experienced knowledge.

Bacon considers induction to be the main working method of his logic. In this he sees a guarantee against shortcomings not only in logic, but in all knowledge in general.

He characterizes it as follows: "By induction, I mean a form of proof that looks closely at feelings, seeks to comprehend the natural nature of things, strives for deeds and almost merges with them." Induction is a true method of rational comprehension - from particular to general, continuous, careful generalization without leaps.

He rejects the induction, which he says is accomplished by simple enumeration. Such induction "leads to an indefinite conclusion, it is subject to the dangers that threaten it from opposite cases, if it pays attention only to what is familiar to it, and does not come to any conclusion."

Therefore, he emphasizes the need for a revision, or, more precisely, the development of the inductive method: "However, the sciences need such forms of induction that will analyze experience and distinguish individual elements from each other and only then, when responsibly excluded and rejected, will they come to a convincing conclusion." ...

Under Bacon, the concept of induction was reduced to complete and incomplete (that is, incomplete coverage of experimental data). Bacon does not accept the extension of induction through enumeration, since only that which confirms the fact is taken into account. The new thing that Bacon introduced is that it is necessary to take into account "negative instances" (according to Bacon), that is, facts that refute our generalizations, falsify our inductive generalizations. Only then does true induction take place.

We must look for cases that expose the generalization as hasty. What should be done for this? Experiential knowledge must be treated differently from the result of passive knowledge, but it is necessary to actively intervene in the process under study, to create artificial conditions that will determine which circumstances are responsible for the result. In other words, you need an experiment, not just observation. "If nature locks up and does not reveal its secrets, it must be tortured."

Second, the condition for true induction is analysis. That is, "anatomy" of nature in order to reveal its laws. We have already encountered an analytical orientation in Galileo. But Bacon doesn't go as far as Galileo. Galileo reduced his analysis to a reduction to only 4 mechanical properties. And Bacon reduces not to quantitative, but to qualitative knowledge. According to Bacon, the combination of simple forms is the deep essence of natural things. The one who comprehends it has natural magic. He correlates knowledge of simple forms with knowledge of the alphabet. His qualitative reductionism has Aristotelian roots, but falls short of Galileo's mechanistic reductionism. The position of qualitative reduction brings him closer to natural philosophers. But in the field of method, Bacon is the founder of modern philosophy.

Bacon analysis is only the initial stage of induction. On the basis of the analysis it is necessary to make generalizations leading to the knowledge of the causes. The results should be organized into tables:

1. Table of positive instances. Bacon called it the table of essence and presence (presence). It "should provide the mind with an overview of all known cases that agree in this natural property, although their substances are not similar. Such a survey should be made historically, without excessive speculation or detail." The table gives a relatively complete overview of the main manifestations of the investigated properties.

2. Table of negative instances, which Bacon defines as a table of deviations and absence of presence. The table is designed so that for each positive case there is (at least one) negative case.

It contains "an overview of cases in which a given natural property is not present because a form cannot be where there is no natural property."

3. Comparison table of the degrees of manifestation. Its task is “to give the mind an overview of cases in which the natural property being studied is contained to a greater or lesser extent, depending on whether it decreases or increases, and to make this comparison on various“ subjects. ”The methodological value of this table is to the greatest extent depends on the level of sensory knowledge and experimental methods, therefore, it contains the greatest number of inaccuracies.

Comparison of data in these three tables, according to Bacon, can lead to certain knowledge, in particular, descriptive cases can confirm or disprove hypotheses concerning the investigated property.

These cases are included in the table of prerogative instances, which are the basis for the actual induction.

4. Table of prerogative instances - table of privileged cases. Here lies the possibility of testing the hypothesis for truth.

Bacon illustrated his method by studying the properties of heat. This illustration also shows the disadvantages of his method.

The shortcomings of Bacon's methodological approaches were due to his general philosophical orientation. The construction of his "tables" presupposes an understanding of the world as material, but essentially consisting of a finite number of basic parts, qualitatively and quantitatively limited. And although, for example, in understanding the relationship between matter and motion, Bacon approaches the solution to their actual internal connection, his materialism represents only a certain stage that precedes the formation of mechanical-materialistic philosophy and natural science of the modern era.

Thus, we can confidently call Francis Bacon one of the pioneers of modern experimental science.

But perhaps even more important is the fact that the pioneer of natural scientific methodology did not regard his teaching as the ultimate truth. He directly and frankly put him face to face with the future. "We do not argue, however, that nothing can be added to this," Bacon wrote. On the contrary, considering the mind not only in its own ability, but also in its connection with things, we must establish that the art of discovery can grow with discoveries. "

4. Bacon's social utopia

In 1627, New Atlantis was published - this work reveals the most important feature of his philosophical position. "New Atlantis" is a social utopia in which Bacon expresses his ideas about the optimal structure of society.

The genre of the book is reminiscent of T. Mora's Utopia. But if More and Campanella pay attention to the question of what will happen if there is no private property, then Bacon is not interested in this question at all. His ideal society on the legendary island of Bensalem is, in fact, the idealization of the then English society.

There is a division into rich and poor, and the Christian religion plays a significant role in the life of people on the island. And although Bacon in his utopia condemns certain negative phenomena typical of England at that time, he does not touch upon the essence of social relations, and in most cases condemns the violation of moral norms recognized by society. So, in Bensalem, for example, frivolous life is condemned, theft is strictly persecuted and any offenses leading to a violation of the law, there is no bribery of officials, etc.

The central point of the book is the description of the House of Solomon. This is a kind of museum of science and technology. There, the islanders study nature in order to put it at the service of man. Bacon's technical fantasy turned out to be quite non-trivial - artificial snow, artificial rain, lightning. It demonstrates the synthesis of living beings, the cultivation of human organs. Future microscope and other technical devices.

Bacon had enough political and legal experience to come to the conviction of the need for agreement between science and government. That is why in "New Atlantis" the "house of Solomon" as the center of the development of science has such an exceptional position.

The advice and instructions that he issues are obligatory for the citizens of this utopian state (from the point of view of social coercion) and are taken seriously and with respect.

In connection with the high appraisal of science in the utopian Bensalem, Bacon shows how the science developed by the "House of Solomon" differs (both in content and in terms of methods) from the European science of his time. Thus, this utopia affirms Bacon's view of science as the most important form of human activity.

The criticality of his social utopia is not directed against the prevailing social relations, but is aimed at their "improvement", cleansing of negative phenomena that accompanied (naturally and with necessity) the development of capitalist production relations.

The significance of Bacon's philosophy is not determined by his social views, which, despite their relative progressiveness, do not overstep the boundaries of the era; it consists primarily in the criticism of the speculative contemplative approach to the world, characteristic of late medieval philosophy.

In this way, Bacon significantly contributed to the formation of philosophical thinking in modern times.

Conclusion

At least three ideological factors determined the formation and character of the new European philosophy - the revival of ancient values, religious reformation and the development of natural science.

And the impact of all of them is clearly traced in the views of Bacon, the last major philosopher of the Renaissance and the pioneer of modern philosophy. His philosophy was a continuation of the naturalism of the Renaissance, which he at the same time freed from pantheism, mysticism and various superstitions. Continuation and at the same time its completion.

Having proclaimed the great importance of natural science and technical inventions for human power in practice, Bacon believed that this idea of \u200b\u200bhis philosophy was destined not only to a long life of an academically recognized and canonized literary heritage, another opinion among the many already invented by mankind.

He believed that over time this idea will become one of the constructive principles of all human life, which "will be completed by the fate of the human race, moreover, such that, perhaps, people, with the current state of affairs and minds, are not easy to comprehend and measure." In a sense, he was right.

Bacon's activity as a thinker and writer was aimed at promoting science, at indicating its paramount importance in the life of mankind, at developing a new holistic view of its structure, classification, goals and methods of research. He was engaged in science as its Lord Chancellor, developing its general strategy, determining the general routes of its advancement and principles of organization in a poor society.

Reflecting today on the legacy of Francis Bacon, we find in it the most diverse elements and layers - innovative and traditionalist, scientific and poetic, wise and naive, those whose roots go back centuries, and those that stretch out in time their evergreen shoots in other worlds social structures, problems and attitudes.

Literature

Blinnikov L.V. Great philosophers. Reference dictionary. - M .: Logos, 1999.

Bacon F. New Organon // Works. In 2 volumes - M .: Mysl ', 1972. V.2.

History of philosophy: West-Russia-East. Book 2. - M .: Greco-Latin office of Yu.A. Shichalina, 1996.

The world of philosophy. - M .: Politizdat, 1991.

Sokolov V.V. European philosophy of the XV-XVII centuries. - M .: Higher school, 1996.

Reale J., Antiseri D. Western philosophy from its origins to the present day. T.3. New time. - SPb .: LLP TK "Petropolis", 1996.