more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
Nothing truly exists in nature beyond individual bodies.
Gist of Idea
Only individual bodies exist
Source
Francis Bacon (The New Organon [1620]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 182
Book Ref
Pasnau,Robert: 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' [OUP 2011], p.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.
Related Ideas
Idea 7717 All things that exist are particulars [Locke]
Idea 21400 Stoics avoided universals by paraphrasing 'Man is...' as 'If something is a man, then it is...' [Stoic school, by Long]
| 16639 | Only individual bodies exist [Bacon] |
| 21950 | Science must clear away the idols of the mind if they are ever going to find the truth [Bacon] |
| 16033 | There are only individual bodies containing law-based powers, and the Forms are these laws [Bacon] |