28 ideas
| 6602 | Philosophy is like a statue which is worshipped but never advances [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy and the intellectual sciences stand like statues, worshipped and celebrated, but not moved or advanced. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (Preface to Great Instauration (Renewal) [1620], Vol.4.14), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Still the view of most scientists, I suspect. Personally I disagree, because I think philosophy has made enormous advances, in accurate analysis of arguments. The trouble is there is so much of it that it is hard to discern, and we don't live long enough. |
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: That knowledge is worthiest which is charged with least multiplicity, which appeareth to be metaphysic | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.6) | |
| A reaction: A surprising view, coming from the father of modern science, but essentially correct. Obviously metaphysics aspires to avoid multiplicity, but it is riddled not only with complexity in its researches, but massive uncertainties. |
| 12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Knowledges are as pyramides, whereof history is the basis. So of natural philosophy, the basis is natural history, the stage next the basis is physic; the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.6) | |
| A reaction: The father of modern science keeps a place for metaphysics, as the most abstract level above the physical sciences. I would say he is right. It leads to my own slogan: science is the servant of philosophy. |
| 12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Physic should contemplate that which is inherent in matter, and therefore transitory; and metaphysic that which is abstracted and fixed | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: He cites the ancients for this view, with which he agrees. One could do worse than hang onto metaphysics as the study of necessities, but must then face the attacks of the Quineans - that knowledge of necessities is beyond us. |
| 12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Physic inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and metaphysic handleth the formal and final causes. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 12119. This divides up Aristotle's famous Four Causes (or Explanations), outlined in 'Physics' II.3. The concept of 'matter', and the nature of 'cause' seem to me to fall with the purview of metaphysics. Interesting, though. |
| 16639 | Only individual bodies exist [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Nothing truly exists in nature beyond individual bodies. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The New Organon [1620]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 182 | |
| A reaction: [Unusually, Pasnau gives no reference in the text; possibly II:1-2] What this leaves out, from even an auster nominalist ontology, is undifferentiated stuff like water. Even electrons don't seem quite distinct from one another. |
| 16625 | In hylomorphism all the explanation of actions is in the form, and the matter doesn't do anything [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Prime, common matter seems to be a kind of accessory and to stand as a substratum, whereas any kind of action seems to be a mere emanation of form. So it is that forms are given all the leading parts. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (Philosophical Studies 1611-19 [1617], p.206), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.2 | |
| A reaction: This is a very striking criticism of hylomorphism. The revolution was simple - that actually matter seems to do all the real work, and the form can take a back seat. |
| 16033 | There are only individual bodies containing law-based powers, and the Forms are these laws [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Though nothing exists in nature except individual bodies which exhibit pure individual acts [powers] in accordance with law…It is this law and its clauses which we understand by the term Forms. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The New Organon [1620], p.103), quoted by Jan-Erik Jones - Real Essence §3 | |
| A reaction: This isn't far off what Aristotle had in mind, when he talks of forms as being 'principles', though there is more emphasis on mechanisms in the original idea. Note that Bacon takes laws so literally that he refers to their 'clauses'. |
| 16724 | The senses deceive, but also show their own errors [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: It is certain that the senses deceive, but they also testify to their own errors. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (Preface to Great Instauration (Renewal) [1620], p.32), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 22.1 | |
| A reaction: Nice. This is the empiricist view, rather than the rationalist line that reason sorts out the mess created by the senses. Most people know things if you just show them. |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.5) | |
| A reaction: Just the sort of pithy remark for which Bacon is famous. It is an obvious point, but a nice corrective to anyone who wants to apply empirical principles in a rather gormless way. |
| 3648 | Empiricists are collecting ants; rationalists are spinning spiders; and bees do both [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Empiricists are like ants; they collect and put to use; but rationalists, like spiders, spin threads out of themselves. (…and bees follow the middle way, of collecting material and transforming it). | |
| From: Francis Bacon (Cogitata et Visa [1607]) | |
| A reaction: Nice (and so concisely expressed). Bees seem to be just more intelligent and energetic empiricists. |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: All true and fruitful natural philosophy hath a double scale or ladder, ascendent and descendent, ascending from experiments to the invention of causes, and descending from causes to the invention of new experiments. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.1) | |
| A reaction: After several hundred years, I doubt whether anyone can come up with a better account of scientific method than Bacon's. |
| 6603 | Nature is revealed when we put it under pressure rather than observe it [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: The secrets of nature reveal themselves more readily under the vexations of art than when they go their own way. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (Preface to Great Instauration (Renewal) [1620], Vol.4.95), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This is a splendid slogan for the dawn of the age of science, and pinpoints the reason why we have advanced so much further than the Greeks. You can, of course, overdo the 'vexations of art'. It also justifies the critical approach to philosophy. |
| 21950 | Science must clear away the idols of the mind if they are ever going to find the truth [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: We must clear away the idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, and so beset men's minds that truth can hardly find an entrance. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The New Organon [1620], 38), quoted by Mark Wrathall - Heidegger: how to read 2 | |
| A reaction: [He goes on to list the types of idol] |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: The ordinary face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several theories and philosophies. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VIII.5) | |
| A reaction: He gives as his example that the Copernican system and the Ptolemaic system both seem to satisfy all the facts. He wrote in 1605, just before Galileo's telescope. His point is regularly made in modern discussions. In this case, he was wrong! |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: It is the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme prejudice of knowledge) to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities, as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures of particularity. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VIII.1) | |
| A reaction: I have to plead guilty to this myself. He may have pinpointed the key motivation behind philosophy. We all want to know things, as Aristotle said, but some of us want the broad brush, and others want the fine detail. |
| 8122 | True works of art transmit completely new feelings [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Only that is a true work of art which transmits fresh feelings not previously experienced by man. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: I think a great composer will probably not have any new feelings at all, but will discover new expressions which contain feelings by which even they are surprised (e.g. the Tristan chord). |
| 8121 | Art is when one man uses external signs to hand on his feelings to another man [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Art is a human activity in which one man consciously by means of external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and other are infected by those feelings, and also experience them. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Such definitions always work better for some art forms than for others. This may fit 'Anna Karenin' quite well, but probably not Bach's 'Art of Fugue'. Writing obscenities on someone's front door would fit this definition. |
| 8124 | The highest feelings of mankind can only be transmitted by art [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The highest feelings to which mankind has attained can only be transmitted from man to man by art. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: We are much more nervous these days of talking about 'highest' feelings. Tolstoy obviously considers religion to be an ingredient of the highest feelings, but that prevents us from judging them purely as feelings. Music is the place to rank feelings. |
| 8123 | The purpose of art is to help mankind to evolve better, more socially beneficial feelings [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The evolution of feeling proceeds by means of art - feelings less kind and less necessary for the well-being of mankind being replaced by others kinder and more needful for that end. That is the purpose of art. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.16) | |
| A reaction: Underneath his superficially expressivist view of art, Tolstoy is really an old-fashioned moralist about it, like Dr Johnson. This is the moralism of the great age of the nineteenth century novel (which was, er, the greatest age of the novel!). |
| 22710 | People estimate art according to their moral values [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The estimation of the value of art …depends on men's perception of the meaning of life; depends on what they hold to be the good and evil of life. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898]), quoted by Iris Murdoch - The Sublime and the Good p.206 | |
| A reaction: [No ref given] This is put to the test by the insightful depiction of wickedness. We condemn the wickedness and admire the insight. Every reading of a novel is a moral journey, though I'm not sure how the true psychopath reads a novel. |
| 8125 | The upper classes put beauty first, and thus freed themselves from morality [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The people of the upper class, more and more frequently encountering the contradictions between beauty and goodness, put the ideal of beauty first, thus freeing themselves from the demands of morality. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: The rich are a great deal freer to pursue the demands of beauty than are the poor. They also have a tradition of 'immorality' (such as duels and adultery) which was in place long before they discovered art. |
| 8064 | We separate the concept of beauty from goodness, unlike the ancients [Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: The ancients had not that conception of beauty separated from goodness which forms the basis and aim of aesthetics in our time. | |
| From: Leo Tolstoy (What is Art? [1898], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This is written at around the time of the Aesthetic Movement, but Tolstoy's own novels are intensely moral. This separation makes abstract painting possible. |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: To say 'leaves are for protecting of fruit', or that 'clouds are for watering the earth', is well inquired and collected in metaphysic, but in physic they are impertinent. They are hindrances, and the search of the physical causes hath been neglected. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.7) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard rebellion against Aristotle which gave rise to the birth of modern science. The story has been complicated by natural selection, which bestows a sort of purpose on living things. Nowadays we pursue both paths. |
| 16624 | Stripped and passive matter is just a human invention [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Stripped and passive matter seems nothing more than an invention of the human mind. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (Philosophical Studies 1611-19 [1617], p.206), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.2 | |
| A reaction: Bacon seems to me to get too little credit in the history of philosophy, because he is just seen as a progenitor of science. His modern views predate most radical 17th C thought by 20 years. |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: I assign to summary philosophy the operation of essences (as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility), with this distinction - that they be handled as they have efficacy in nature, and not logically. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (The Advancement of Learning [1605], II.VII.3) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a splendid motto for scientific essentialism, in a climate where modal logicians appear to have taken over the driving seat in our understanding of essences. |
| 6011 | There is a remote first god (the Good), and a second god who organises the material world [Numenius, by O'Meara] |
| Full Idea: Numenius argues that material reality depends on intelligible being, which depends on a first god - the Good - which is difficult to grasp, but which inspires a second god to imitate it, turning to matter and organizing it as the world. | |
| From: report of Numenius (fragments/reports [c.160]) by Dominic J. O'Meara - Numenius | |
| A reaction: The interaction problem comes either between the two gods, or between the second god and the world. The argument may have failed to catch on for long when people scented an infinite regress lurking in the middle of it. |
| 7399 | Even without religion, there are many guides to morality [Bacon] |
| Full Idea: Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not. | |
| From: Francis Bacon (17: Of Superstition [1625], p.52) | |
| A reaction: One might add to Bacon's list 'contracts', or 'rational consistency', or 'self-evident human excellence', or 'natural sympathy'. This is a striking idea, which clearly made churchmen uneasy when atheism began to spread. |