The Riddle of Bacon
From 1661 to 1831 the majority of the European thinkers and practically all those who were interested in natural science considered Bacon the father of the experimental method. It was common knowledge that experimentation is as old as humanity. What then
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The Riddle of Bacon
I have taken all knowledge to be my province. Bacon (Works, 8, 109) There was a man born blind, who had several Apprentices in his own condition: Their Employment was to mix Colours for Painters which their master taught them to distinguish by feeling and smelling. It was indeed a misfortune to find them at that Time not very perfect in their lessons; and the Professor himself happened to be generally mistaken: This Artist is much encouraged and esteemed by the whole Fraternity. Jonathan Swift (1841, 41)
From 1661 to 1831 the majority of the European thinkers and practically all those who were interested in natural science considered Bacon the father of the experimental method. It was common knowledge that experimentation is as old as humanity. What then was his contribution to it? They considered him the profoundest thinker of all ages except for Newton (Rees 2002, 379). Why? Bacon’s high reputation declined: ever more critics considered him a mystic and an obscurantist (he believed in magic). Today most historians of thought hardly appreciate him and none view him as nearly as important as he was once reputed to be. Some of them seek a balanced view by ascribing to him some familiar ideas, usually ones that he expressed contempt for (as will be described later on). How did it happen that one and the same writer was once at the height of philosophical esteem and then for a short while a target of rather harsh ridicule and then entirely forgotten? Parenthetically, let me confess, this problem has engaged me because of my peculiar appreciation of Bacon. He was as sloppy a writer as one can find, yet as brilliant and engaging nonetheless. I therefore judge reasonable both extreme opinions of him. Yet this observation is parenthetic: it seems to me that the riddle of Bacon is engaging no matter how we view him: why are opinions about him so diverse? Hardly any commentator on him has noted this great diversity of opinions about him. Why? This problem is derivative, however, and so it is less intriguing: commentators signify little in comparison with the whole commonwealth of learning. J. Agassi, The Very Idea of Modern Science: Francis Bacon and Robert Boyle, Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science 298, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5351-8_1, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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1 The Riddle of Bacon
1.1 The Problem of Methodology It is no news that the blind read by feeling and that some chemists identify some substances by smelling. Science even helps us distinguish colors that we humans can never see and sounds that we can never hear. Swift, who mocked at the apprentices of the blind professor in the Academy of his fictitious Lagado, was poking fun at their metaphorical blindness to the fact that they were looking for the obvious in devious ways; that they preferred the blind professor’s dubious method to the simple ordinary one. He felt that though the truth may hide at times, we should not pretend that it is always beyond reach, or that the obvious is in need of
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