2.

Natural Philosophy: Struggle with Tradition

Bacon's struggle to overcome intellectual blockades and the dogmatic slumber of his age and of
earlier periods had to be fought on many fronts. Very early on he criticized not only Plato,
Aristotle and the Aristotelians, but also humanists and Renaissance scholars such as Paracelsus
and Bernardino Telesio.

Although Aristotle provided specific axioms for every scientific discipline, what Bacon
found lacking in the Greek philosopher's work was a master principle or general theory of
science, which could be applied to all branches of natural history and philosophy (Klein
2003a). For Bacon, Aristotle's cosmology, as well as his theory of science, had become obsolete
and consequently so too had many of the medieval thinkers who followed his lead. He does not
repudiate Aristotle completely, but he opposes the humanistic interpretation of him, with its
emphasis on syllogism and dialectics (scientia operativa versus textual hermeneutics) and the
metaphysical treatment of natural philosophy in favor of natural forms (or nature's effects as
structured modes of action, not artifacts), the stages of which correspond—in the shape of a
pyramid of knowledge—to the structural order of nature itself.

If any ‘modern’ Aristotelians came near to Bacon, it was the Venetian or Paduan branch,
represented by Jacopo Zabarella. On the other hand, Bacon criticized Telesio, who—in his view
—had only halfway succeeded in overcoming Aristotle's deficiencies. Although we find the
debate with Telesio in an unpublished text of his middle period (De Principiis atque Originibus,
secundum fabulas Cupidinis et Coelum or On Principles and Origins According to the Fables of
Cupid and Coelum, written in 1612; Bacon V [1889], 461–500), Bacon began to struggle with
tradition as early as 1603. In Valerius Terminus (1603?) he already repudiates any mixture of
natural philosophy and divinity; he provides an outline of his new method and determines that
the end of knowledge was “a discovery of all operations and possibilities of operations from
immortality (if it were possible) to the meanest mechanical practice” (Bacon III [1887], 222). He
opposes Aristotelian anticipatio naturae, which favored the inquiry of causes to satisfy the mind
instead of those “as will direct him and give him light to new experiences and inventions”
(Bacon III [1887], 232).

When Bacon introduces his new systematic structure of the disciplines in The Advancement
of Learning (1605), he continues his struggle with tradition, primarily with classical antiquity,
rejecting the book learning of the humanists, on the grounds that they “hunt more after words
than matter” (Bacon III [1887], 283). Accordingly, he criticizes the Cambridge University
curriculum for placing too much emphasis on dialectical and sophistical training asked of “minds
empty and unfraught with matter” (Bacon III [1887], 326). He reformulates and functionally
transforms Aristotle's conception of science as knowledge of necessary causes. He rejects
Aristotle's logic, which is based on his metaphysical theory, whereby the false doctrine is
implied that the experience which comes to us by means of our senses (things as they appear)
automatically presents to our understanding things as they are. Simultaneously Aristotle favors
the application of general and abstract conceptual distinctions, which do not conform to things as
they exist. Bacon, however, introduces his new conception of philosophia prima as a meta-level
for all scientific disciplines.

From 1606 to 1612 Bacon pursued his work on natural philosophy, still under the auspices of a
struggle with tradition. This tendency is exemplified in the unpublished tracts Temporis partus
masculus, 1603/1608 (Bacon III [1887], 521–31), Cogitata et Visa, 1607 (Bacon III, 591–
620),Redargutio Philosophiarum, 1608 (III, 557–85), and De Principiis atque Originibus…,
1612 (Bacon V [1889], 461–500). Bacon rediscovers the Pre-Socratic philosophers for himself,
especially the atomists and among them Democritus as the leading figure. He gives preference to
Democritus' natural philosophy in contrast to the scholastic—and thus Aristotelian—focus on
deductive logic and belief in authorities. Bacon does not expect any approach based on tradition
to start with a direct investigation of nature and then to ascend to empirical and general
knowledge. This criticism is extended to Renaissance alchemy, magic, and astrology (Temporis
partus masculus), because the ‘methods’ of these ‘disciplines’ are based on occasional insights,
but do not command strategies to reproduce the natural effects under investigation. His criticism
also concerns contemporary technical literature, in so far as it lacks a new view of nature and an
innovative methodological program. Bacon takes to task the ancients, the scholastics and also the
moderns. He not only criticizes Plato, Aristotle, and Galen for these failings, but also Jean
Fernel, Paracelsus, and Telesio, while praising the Greek atomists and Roger Bacon.

Bacon's manuscripts already mention the doctrine of the idols as a necessary condition for
constituting scientia operativa. In Cogitata et Visa he compares deductive logic as used by the
scholastics to a spider's web, which is drawn out of its own entrails, whereas the bee is
introduced as an image of scientia operativa. Like a bee, the empiricist, by means of his
inductive method, collects the natural matter or products and then works them up into
knowledge in order to produce honey, which is useful for healthy nutrition.

In Bacon's follow-up paper, Redargutio Philosophiarum, he carries on his empiricist project by

referring to the doctrine of twofold truth, while in De Principiis atque Originibus he rejects
alchemical theories concerning the transformation of substances in favor of Greek atomism. But
in the same text he sharply criticizes his contemporary Telesio for propagating a non-
experimental halfway house empiricism. Though Telesio proves to be a moderate ‘modern’, he
clings to the Aristotelian framework by continuing to believe in the quinta essentia and in the
doctrine of the two worlds, which presupposes two modes of natural law (one mode for the
sublunary and another for the superlunary sphere).

3. Natural Philosophy: Theory of the Idols and the System of Sciences

3.1 The Idols

Bacon's doctrine of the idols not only represents a stage in the history of theories of error
(Brandt 1979) but also functions as an important theoretical element within the rise of
modern empiricism. According to Bacon, the human mind is not a tabula rasa. Instead of an
ideal plane for receiving an image of the world in toto, it is a crooked mirror, on account of
implicit distortions (Bacon IV [1901], 428–34). He does not sketch a basic epistemology but
underlines that the images in our mind right from the beginning do not render an objective
picture of the true objects. Consequently, we have to improve our mind, i.e., free it from
the idols, before we start any knowledge acquisition.

As early as Temporis partus masculus, Bacon warns the student of empirical science not to
tackle the complexities of his subject without purging the mind of its idols:

On waxen tablets you cannot write anything new until you rub out the old. With the mind
it is not so; there you cannot rub out the old till you have written in the new. (Farrington
1964, 72)

In Redargutio Philosophiarum Bacon reflects on his method, but he also criticizes prejudices

and false opinions, especially the system of speculation established by theologians, as an
obstacle to the progress of science (Farrington 1964, 107), together with any authoritarian stance
in scholarly matters.

Bacon deals with the idols in the Second Book of The Advancement of Learning, where he
discusses Arts intellectual (Invention, Judgment, Memory, Tradition). In his paragraph on
judgment he refers to proofs and demonstrations, especially to induction and invention.
When he comes to Aristotle's treatment of the syllogism, he reflects on the relation between
sophistical fallacies (Aristotle, De Sophisticis Elenchis) and the idols (Bacon III [1887], 392–
6). Whereas induction, invention, and judgment presuppose “the same action of the mind”, this is
not true for proof in the syllogism. Bacon, therefore, prefers his own interpretatio naturae,
repudiating elenches as modes of sophistical ‘juggling’ in order to persuade others
in redargutions (“degenerate and corrupt use … for caption and contradiction”). There is no
finding without proof and no proof without finding. But this is not true for the syllogism, in
which proof (syllogism: judgment of the consequent) and invention (of the ‘mean’ or
middle term) are distinct. The caution he suggests in relation to the ambiguities
in elenches is also recommended in face of the idols:

there is yet a much more important and profound kind of fallacies in the mind of man,
which I find not observed or enquired at all, and think good to place here, as that which of
all others appertaineth most to rectify judgment: the force whereof is such, as it doth not
dazzle or snare the understanding in some particulars, but doth more generally and inwardly
infect and corrupt the state thereof. For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear
and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence,
nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered
and reduced. For this purpose, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed upon us
by the general nature of the mind …. (Bacon III [1887], 394–5)

Bacon still presents a similar line of argument to his reader in 1623, namely in De
Augmentis (Book V, Chap. 4; see Bacon IV [1901], 428–34). Judgment by syllogism
presupposes—in a mode agreeable to the human mind—mediated proof, which, unlike in
induction, does not start from sense in primary objects. In order to control the workings of the
mind, syllogistic judgment refers to a fixed frame of reference or principle of knowledge as the
basis for “all the variety of disputations” (Bacon IV [1901], 491). The reduction of propositions
to principles leads to the middle term. Bacon deals here with the art of judgment in order to
assign a systematic position to the idols. Within this art he distinguishes the ‘Analytic’ from
the detection of fallacies (sophistical syllogisms). Analytic works with “true forms of
consequences in argument” (Bacon IV [1901], 429), which become faulty by variation and
deflection. The complete doctrine of detection of fallacies, according to Bacon, contains three
segments:

1. Sophistical fallacies,

2. Fallacies of interpretation, and

3. False appearances or Idols.

Concerning (1) Bacon praises Aristotle for his excellent handling of the matter, but he also
mentions Plato honorably. Fallacies of interpretation (2) refer to “Adventitious Conditions or
Adjuncts of Essences”, similar to the predicaments, open to physical or logical inquiry. He
focuses his attention on the logical handling when he relates the detection of fallacies of
interpretation to the wrong use of common and general notions, which leads to sophisms. In
the last section (3) Bacon finds a place for his idols, when he refers to the detection of false
appearances as

the deepest fallacies of the human mind: For they do not deceive in particulars, as the
others do, by clouding and snaring the judgment; but by a corrupt and ill-ordered
predisposition of mind, which as it were perverts and infects all the anticipations of the
intellect. (IV, 431)

Idols are productions of the human imagination (caused by the crooked mirror of the
human mind) and thus are nothing more than “untested generalities” (Malherbe 1996, 80).

In his Preface to the Novum Organum Bacon promises the introduction of a new method,

which will restore the senses to their former rank (Bacon IV [1901], 17f.), begin the whole
labor of the mind again, and open two sources and two distributions of learning, consisting of a
method of cultivating the sciences and another of discovering them. This new beginning
presupposes the discovery of the natural obstacles to efficient scientific analysis, namely
seeing through the idols, so that the mind's function as the subject of knowledge acquisition
comes into focus (Brandt 1979, 19).

According to Aphorism XXIII of the First Book, Bacon makes a distinction between the
Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine mind: whereas the former are for him
nothing more than “certain empty dogmas”, the latter show “the true signatures and marks set
upon the works of creation as they are found in nature” (Bacon IV [1901], 51).

3.1.1 Idols of the Tribe

The Idols of the Tribe have their origin in the production of false concepts due to human
nature, because the structure of human understanding is like a crooked mirror, which
causes distorted reflections (of things in the external world).

3.1.2 Idols of the Cave

The Idols of the Cave consist of conceptions or doctrines which are dear to the individual
who cherishes them, without possessing any evidence of their truth. These idols are due to
the preconditioned system of every individual, comprising education, custom, or accidental
or contingent experiences.

3.1.3 Idols of the Market Place

These idols are based on false conceptions which are derived from public human
communication. They enter our minds quietly by a combination of words and names, so that it
comes to pass that not only does reason govern words, but words react on our understanding.

3.1.4 Idols of the Theatre

According to the insight that the world is a stage, the Idols of the Theatre are prejudices
stemming from received or traditional philosophical systems. These systems resemble plays
in so far as they render fictional worlds, which were never exposed to an experimental check
or to a test by experience. The idols of the theatre thus have their origin in dogmatic
philosophy or in wrong laws of demonstration.

Bacon ends his presentation of the idols in Novum Organum, Book I, Aphorism LXVIII,
with the remark that men should abjure and renounce the qualities of idols, “and the
understanding [must be] thoroughly freed and cleansed” (Bacon IV [1901], 69). He
discusses the idols together with the problem of information gained through the senses,
which must be corrected by the use of experiments (Bacon IV [1901], 27).