Francis Bacon as a Socratic political philosopher: a reflection on the Janus figure of the scout of the modern scientific project

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistants Professor, Faculty Member of Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Extended Abstract
Introduction
Francis Bacon, the famous English philosopher of the 17th century, has been considered the forerunner of the modern science project, especially for his famous work entitled The New Organon. In this respect, Bacon's importance is not only limited to proposing a method that is different from the ancient method for researching nature, but his perception of the different foundation of the relationship between man and nature has been equally effective in this judgment. This foundational view is what the sixth and final part of the Great Instauration was to issue from. Bacon chose the name "active philosophy" or "new philosophy" for this new type of philosophy with a subtle sarcasm to the term "first philosophy". Active philosophy can be an example of the magical combination emphasized by Bacon, that is, the combination of human knowledge and human power in order to improve the quality of human life in this world. In a sense, it can be said that the original and revolutionary opening in the human condition, according to Bacon, is made possible through a kind of blockage towards the superhuman sphere and the impossibility of knowing it. However, the question must be raised that Bacon himself, as a philosopher, how could admit practical openness at the cost of theoretical blockage? In other words, if we consider Bacon's passionate defense of the effective and efficient scientific method to improve the objective condition of man under Baconism, as a trend that supports progress and opposes backwardness, could he himself, as a philosopher, has been a Baconist at the moment of founding? This point is important because philosophy in Bacon's time, that is, when Baconism had not yet won, was an activity that could have been rendered irrelevant by the aforementioned obstruction. In this way, can it be argued that we can speak of a double Bacon, of a Janus-faced thinker, based on the distance we see between Bacon's teaching and himself as a philosopher? Can we say that we are facing a Bacon as a founding philosopher and a Bacon as a partisan of the project of modern science?
Methodology
 In this article, we will use the method of the “close reading”. Our basis in using this method is to rely on the philosopher's own text in the first place. Our assumption here is that Bacon, as he himself points out in many of his works, believes in two levels of philosophical writing: the exoteric level and the esoteric level. Baconian Bacon resides on the first level and Socratic Bacon lives on the second level. 
Findings
Unlike many of his successors, Bacon never stopped admiring the wisdom contained in ancient philosophy. In spite of the vigorous attacks he organizes against Aristotle, by avoiding equating Aristotle's philosophy with ancient wisdom, he always emphasizes the valuable core of wisdom as a universal thing that the ancients also benefited from. He even confirms the importance of the philosophical writing method and the considerations regarding the way to approach philosophy, which was among the principles of ancient wisdom in the Socratic sense of the word. In our opinion, he tries to show that the valuable core of wisdom is not the Aristotelian teachings, but the Socratic way of thinking; The way that the philosopher, as a philosopher, cannot step on that path. The characteristic feature of Socrates' position, which leads to a radical distinction between philosophers and non-philosophers, is that the best and most blissful way to live is continuous reflection on “what good is” question, while avoiding falling into the trap of any final and dogmatic teaching about it. Therefore, the Socratic political philosopher, as a philosopher, cannot necessarily be the true defender of a specific doctrine, even if it is his own systematic teaching.
 Conclusion
Therefore, we must consider Bacon, as a founding philosopher, at the moment of issuing a new doctrine, which becomes a strong and at the same time dogmatic intellectual tradition. That moment characterizes the same distance that can be seen in Bacon and his writings: The Socratic distance between the philosopher as a philosopher, and the philosopher as a partisan of a particular intellectual tradition. This article is an attempt to explain this distance, focusing on the most important writings of Francis Bacon.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

  1. References

    1. Ahde Atigh: Ketabhaye Shariat va Torat (2014). Trans. Pirooz Sayyar, Hermes Publication. [In Persian]
    2. Aristotle (2010). Metaphysics (Ma Ba'd Tabi'e), Trans. Sharafeddin Khorasani, Hekmat Publication. [In Persian]
    3. Bacon, F (1884). Bacon’s Essays and Wisdom of Ancients, Boston, Little. Brown, and Company.
    4. Bacon, F (1908). The Essays of Francis Bacon, Edited, with Introduction and Notes by Mary Augusta Scott, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons.
    5. Bacon, F (1989). New Atlantis and the Great Instauration, Edited by Jerry Weinberger, Croft Classics.
    6. Bacon, F (1996). A Critical Edition of Major Works, Edited by Brian Vickers, Oxford University Press.
    7. Bacon, F (1999). New Atlantis, Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Susan Bruce, Oxford University Press.
    8. Bacon, F (2000). The New Organon, Edited by Lisa Jardine and Michael Silverthorne, Cambridge University Press.
    9. Bacon, F (2005). An Advertisement Touching a Holy War, Introduction, Notes and Interpretive Essay by Laurence Lampert, Indiana University Press.
    10. D’Alembert, J.L.R (1963). Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, Translated by Richard N. Schwab, the Bobbs-Merrill Company, New York.
    11. Dannhauser, W (1974). Nietzsche’s View of Socrates, Cornell University Press.
    12. Cowley, A (1806). “To the Royal Society”, in the Works of Abraham Cowley, With a Preface, Biographical and Critical, By Samuel Johnson, Vol. 1, London.
    13. Farrington, B (1964). The Philosophy of Francis Bacon, Liverpool University Press.
    14. Faulkner, R (1993). Francis Bacon and Project of Progress, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
    15. Hegel, G. W. F (1990). Lectures on The History of Philosophy, edited by Robert Brown, Translated by Robert Brown and J. M Stewart, University of California Press.
    16. Hobbes, T (1962). Body, Man and Citizen, Edited with an Introduction by Richard S. Peters, Collier Books.
    17. Hunter, M (1989). Establishing the New Science: The Experience of the Early Royal Society, the Boydell Press.
    18. Huxley, Thomas, Henry (1908), Lectures and Essays, Cassell and Company, London.
    19. Lampert, L (1993). Nietzsche and Modern Time: A Study of Bacon, Descartes, and Nietzsche, Yale University press.
    20. Lynch, W (2016). “A Society of Baconian? The Collective Development of Bacon’s Method in the Royal Society of London”, in Francis Bacon and Refiguring of Early Modern Thought, Edited by Julie Robin Solomon and Catherin Gimelli Martin, Routledge.
    21. Machiavelli, N (1988). The Prince, Translated by Harvey Mansfield, Chicago University Press.
    22. Malssen, T.V (2015). The Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon: On the Unity of Knowledge, State University of New York.
    23. Nietzsche, F (1989), Ecce Homo, Translated by Walter Kaufmann, Vintage Books.
    24. Pérez-Ramos, A (1991). “Francis Bacon and the Disputations of the Learned”, the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 42, No. 4.
    25. Plato (1988). The Laws of Plato, Translated by Thomas Pangle, Chicago University Pres.
    26. Plato (1999). Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Translated by Harold North Fowler, Harvard University Press.
    27. Plato (2001). Plato’s Symposium, A translated by Seth Benardete, with commentary by Allan Bloom and Seth Benardete, The University of Chicago Press.
    28. Plato (2009), Timaeus and Critias, Translated by Robin Waterfield, Oxford University Press.
    29. Rawley, W (1861). “Life of the Right Honorable Francis Bacon”, in The Works of Francis Bacon, Collected and Edited by James Spedding, Vol. I, Boston.
    30. Rossi, P (1968). Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science, Translated by Sacha Rabinovich, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
    31. Rousseau, J.J (1990). The First and Second Discourses, Edited, translated and annotated by Victor Gourevitch, Harper Tourcbooks.
    32. Spinoza (2016). The Collected Works of Spinoza Vol. II, Edited and translated by Edwin Curley, Princeton University Press.
    33. Urbach, P (1987). Francis Bacon’s Philosophy of Science: An Account and a Reappraisal, Open Court.
    34. Weinberger, J (1985). Science, Faith and Politics: Francis Bacon and the Utopian Roots of the Modern Age, Cornell University Press.
    35. Weinberger, J (2016). “Francis Bacon and Unity of Knowledge: Reason and Revelation”, in Francis Bacon and Refiguring of Early Modern Thought, Edited by Julie Robin Solomon and Catherin Gimelli Martin, Routledge.
    36. White, H (1968). Peace among the Willows: The Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon, Martinus Nijhof, Netherland.
    37. Wilson, E (1998). Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Vantage Books.
    38. Zagorin, P (1998). Francis Bacon, Princeton University Press.  
POLITICAL QUARTERLY
Volume 54, Issue 1
June 2024
Pages 123-103

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 04 November 2023
  • Revise Date: 11 June 2024
  • Accept Date: 21 July 2024

Share

How to cite

Statistics