Notes on Bacon

* the following text is based on my readings of Essays, The Wisdom of Ancients, Advertisement for an Holy War, The New Atlantis, New Organon, and some paragraphs from The Reign of Henry VII.

Bacon accomplished, in his own view, an unprecedented combination of a pessimistic view of man with the ancient revival of atomism. The pessimistic view of man is based on two fundamental facts: that human beings are mortal, and that the sober ones, conscious of this very fact, pursue fame for prosperity, the best humanly possible substitution of immortality. The argument for atomism, and the following corollary of a new organon, is negatively based on the unreliability of sense experience, and positively based on both its utility for conquering nature through sciences and arts, and its correspondence to the Baconian view that nature is necessarily hidden to humans. (The negative determination is insufficient, and the positive ones are problematic. But leave that aside for now.)

Three questions: Since this is the only correct method, why was it not attempted before Bacon? Is it because the ancients thought that it will not work? And why does Bacon think it could work? Finally, what is the anticipated result of Baconian philosophy (or to state differently, what is the desired end in view which Bacon deduces his philosophy as the best means to attain?)

The answer to the first question could be found in "Orpheus, of Philosophy" in Bacon's The Wisdom of Ancients. According to Bacon's interpretation of this myth, the first philosophers tried to "tune" nature, or investigate natural philosophy, but due to the elusiveness of nature, they failed, and in dismay turned to the arrangement of human things, or practice moral philosophy (in Bacon's time, a term which includes political philosophy); they succeeded, but due to the "vicissitude of things" (Cf. the essay with the same title in Essays), it necessarily becomes a temporary success. Why could philosophers, failing to know nature, succeed in arranging things human, is not clear (esp. if we are reminded that the difference between the philosopher-legislator and the non-philosophical statesman is that the former is guided by nature, while the latter is without a transparent view of this standard to weigh his experiences); but Bacon's interpretation might be an explanation of why a "new" philosophy like his would (or should) appear at this very moment. The most we can say is that it seems that Democritus had no need to turn to moral philosophy, since he solved the problem of natural philosophy; and first failures appear to be indispensable for the completion of any philosophical journey. Philosophy looks like a synthesis of tragedy and comedy, since its pursuit of wisdom inevitably goes through a mathos pathei (which in the Western tradition is located in human things, and ultimately political things), and Bacon's solution for the inevitable second failure "comedizes" the savagely killed Orphesuses.

In order for Orphesuses to be really funny, the science of ruling should be compatible with the science based on atomism. Atomism rejects divine providence; but the science of ruling presupposes divine providence. The only way out of this dilemma is to assign to each science different orders of rank, and to subject science to authority. This civil religion is so constructed that divine providence sanctions certain sciences and arts that have no need of divine providence. Just as human evil could be a divine good, lack of belief in sciences could also be a part of god's plan. Sciences are still to be checked, but not by actual religions, rather religions remolded by moral philosophy -- sciences and arts not absolutely emancipated. They become beneficial to society at no cost -- or, at the cost of the beneficial rule of philosophy. Bacon retained the duality of natural things and "all too human things," and made the second philosophy first: totally coherent with his view of nature, where the more perfect comes later in time. Bacon is one of those young, like Lybians and Scythians under the pen of Herodotus, flirting with the "the older the better" equation to silently change the standard. Wisdom is still not, and could not be, completely institutionalized.

The anticipated outcome of this philosophy is depicted in the New Atlantis, but I would rather point out an often overlooked aspect of this utopia: the visualization of nature tamed, developed to the point of perfection, is the garden and the zoo (Cf. 'Advancement for Philosophy'). By inferring backwards, nature must be originally wild -- i.e., without meaning for human -- and then tempered to be knowable. The baconian equation of knowledge and power in fact makes the knowable, not the desirable or the conquerable, the meaning for human beings. Scientists raise longevity for humans in exchange for fame; common people get the best (proportional to individual human powers) substitute for immortality; and philosophers enjoy tranquility for contemplating the true (i.e. untamed) nature of things, natural and human, and from this perspective deliberate secret deeds for the inexplicable love for mankind.

(updated, revised 2008.08.08)