Valerius Terminus · Francis Bacon
VALERIUS TERMINUS: OF THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE
Bacon's | definition of man as "the servant and | interpreter of Nature" is the same | definition we find in the magico- | alchemical tradition, for instance in | the texts of Cornelius Agrippa von | Nettesheim. | | But for all the exponents of magic | and alchemistic culture, the texts of | ancient wisdom take the form of | sacred texts which indude secrets | that only a few men can decipher The | truth is hidden in the past and in | the profound. Like when dealing with | sacred texts, it is necessary | continuously to go BEYOND THE LETTER, | in search of a message which is more | and more hidden.The secret message | expresses a Truth which is at the | Origins and which is always the same. | | In the Hermetic tradition, as in the | tradition of Platonism, the natural | world is conceived as the image or | living manifestation of God. | Understanding nature can reveal the | presence in the world of divine ideas | and archetypes. Bacon's rejection of | any natural philosophy founded on | allegorical interpretations of | Scriptures meant a withdrawal from | exemplarism and symbolism, both | common features of mediaeval | philosophy and still flourishing in | the seventeenth century.
As all works | --says Bacon--show the power and | ability of their maker, but not his | image, so God's works "do shew the | omnipotency and wisdom of the maker | but not his image" (III, 350). The | distinction between the will and | power of God, so fully and subtly | present in Baconian texts, is very | important. "The heavens declare the | glory of God, and the firmament | showeth his handworks": this verse | from the Psalms (18,2) is quoted by | Bacon several times. The image of the | world, immediately after the Word, is | a sign of the divine wisdom and | power, and yet the Scriptures do not | call the world ,"the image of God," | but regard it only as "the work of | his hands," neither do they speak of | any image of God other than man. | Theology is concerned with knowing | the book of the word of God, natural | philosophy studies the book of God's | works. The book of Scripture reveals | the will of God, the book of nature, | his power.
The study of nature has | nothing to say about God's essence or | his will (IV; 340-3). | | Bacon proposed to the European | culture an alternative view of | science. For him science had a | public, democratic, and collaborative | character, individual efforts | contributing to its general success. | In science, as Bacon conceives it, | truly effective results (not the | illusory achievements of magicians | and alchemists) can be attained only | through collaboration among | researchers, circulation of results, | and clarity of language. Scientific | understanding is not an individual | undertaking. The extension of man's | power over nature is never the work | of a single investigator who keeps | his results secret, but is the fruit | of an organized community financed by | the state or by public bodies. Every | reform of learning is always a reform | also of cultural institutions and | universities. | | Not only a new image of science, but | also a new portrait of the "natural | philosopher" took shape in Bacon's | writings.
This portrait differed both | from that of the ancient philosopher | or sage and from the image of the | saint, the monk, the university | professor, the courtier, the perfect | prince, the magus. The values and the | ends theorized for the composite | groups of intellectuals and artisans | who contributed in the early | seventeenth century to the | development of science were different | from the goals of individual sanctity | or literary immortality and from the | aims of an exceptional and "demonic" | personality. | | A chaste patience, a natural modesty, | grave and composed manners, a smiling | pity are the characteristics of the | man of science in Bacon's portrait of | him. In the REDARGUTIO PHILOSOPHIARUM | Bacon wrote: | | Then he told me that in Paris a | friend had taken him along and | introduced him to a gathering, 'the | sight of which', he said, 'would | rejoice your eyes. lt was the | happiest experience of my life'. | There were some fifty men there, all | of mature years, not a young man | among them, all bearing the stamp of | dignity and probity...
At his entry | they were chatting easily among | themselves but sitting in rows as if | expecting somebody. Not long after | there entered to them a man of | peaceful and serene air, save that | his face had become habituated to the | expression of pity... he took his | seat, not on a platform or pulpit, | but on level with the rest and | delivered the following address... | (III, 559; Farrington's translation). | | Bacon's portrait doubtless resembles | Galileo or Einstein more than it does | the turbulent Paracelsus or the | unquiet and skittish Cornelius | Agrippa. The titanic bearing of the | Renaissance magus is now supplanted | by a classical composure similar to | that of the "conversations" of the | earliest Humanists. Also in Galileo's | DIALOGO and in Descartes's RECHERCHE | DE LA VERITÉ we find the same | familiar tone and style of | conversation in which [Descartes | wrote] "several friends, frankly and | without ceremony, disclose the best | of their thoughts to each other."
But | there is besides, in Bacon, the quiet | confidence that comes from knowing | the new powers made available to man | by technology and collaboration.The | new kind of learning, for which Bacon | is searching, must get away from | touches of genius, arbitrary | conclusions, chance, hasty summaries. | The emphasis Iaid by Bacon on the | social factor in scientific research | and in determining its ends, places | his philosophy on a radically | different plane from that of the | followers of Hermetic tradition." | | In DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM Bacon | describes Orpheus as the mythical | prototype of the philosopher ("Orpheus | sive Philosophia", VI, 646-649). | | 1B. | Bacon gives the following | definition of "interpretation: "that | reason which is elicited from facts | by a just and methodological process, | I call INTERPRETATION OF NATURE" (IV, | 51). Now, this definition means a | harsh critique of Aristotelianism, | Scholasticism and Ramism. Michel | Malherbe comments on this: | | "The main and most characteristic | feature of Bacon's epistemology is | that it rests upon a single method, | which is INDUCTION... It must help | the understanding on its way toward | truth... Thus, true knowledge will go | from a lower certainty to a higher | liberty and from a lower liberty to a | higher certainty, and so on. This | rule is the basic principle of | Bacon's theory of science; prepared | in the natural and experimental | history, determining the relationship | between the tables of presence, it | governs the induction of axioms and | the abstraction of notions and | ordains the divisions of sciences | within the general system of | knowledge. lt is well known that this | rule of invention originates in | Ramus's methodology and, more | formerly, in Aristotle's POSTERIOR | ANALYTICS.
To characterize the nature | of the premises required for the | foundation of true demonstrations, | Aristotle had set down three | criteria: the predicate must be true | in every instance of its subject; it | must be part of the essential nature | of the subject; and it must be | universal, that is, related to the | subject by itself and QUA itself. | Aristotle was defining first | propositions as being essential | propositions; and he referred | universality to necessity and | extension to comprehension These | three criteria were much commented | upon during the whole scholastic | period, and were transformed, or | rather extended, by Ramus and others | in the sixteenth century. Whereas in | Aristotle they had expressed the | initial conditions of any conclusive | syllogism, in Ramus they became the | conditions of every systematic art: | within a system, methodically | organized for the exhibiting of | knowledge, any statement must be | taken in its full extension, it must | join things which are necessarily | related and it must be equivalent to | a definition.
But these rules for | syllogistic or dialectic art in | Aristotle or Ramus become rules for | inductive invention in Bacon: and | their meaning is quite different. | With the rule of certainty and | liberty, Bacon aims at directiy | opposing the old logic, infected by | syllogistic or rhetoric formalism. | | By its title, the NOVUM ORGANUM makes | Bacon's ambition clear: to replace | the Aristotelian organon, which has | governed all knowledge until the end | of the sixteenth century with an | entirely new logical instrument, a | new method for the progress and | profit of human science. And the | Chancellor proclaims that he has | achieved his aim, if posterity | acknowledges that, even if he has | failed to discover new truths or | produce new works, he will have built | the means to discover such truths or | to produce such works (III, 520). He | insists that his method has nothing | to do with the old one nor does it | try to improve it. And he puts out | the choice in these terms: | | There are and can be only two ways of | searching into and discovering truth. | The one flies from the senses and | particulars to the most general | axioms, and from these principles, | the truth of which it takes tor | settled and immoveable, proceeds to | judgment and to the discovery of | middle axioms. And this way is now in | fashion. The other derives axioms | from the senses and particulars, | rising by a gradual and unbroken | ascent, so that it arrives at the | most general axioms last of all.
This | is the true way, but as yet untried. | (IV, 50) | | When it is left to itself, the | understanding follows the first way, | hastily applies itself to reality and | generates ANTICIPATIONS OF NATURE. | But "that reason which is elicited | from facts by a just and | methodological process, I call | INTERPRETATION OF NATURE" (IV, 51). | | Taken as a whole, Bacon's critique | comes to this: from a formal point of | view, Aristotle's syllogism is | essentially a logic for deductive | reasoning, which goes from the | principles to the consequences, from | the premises to the conclusions. And, | of course, in this kind of reasoning, | the truth of the conclusions is | necessarily derived from the truth of | the premises, so that knowledge will | start with primary truths that are | supposed to be necessary and | universal, that is, essential. Now, | Bacon asks, how does the mind acquire | the knowledge of these primary | truths, since, as it is allowed by | Aristotle himself, all knowledge | starts with experience, which | experience is always contingent and | particular?
How does the mind go from | the empirical knowledge of facts or | sensible effects (phenomena) to the | knowledge of the very nature of | things? The formal necessity of the | syllogism (or deductive reasoning) | makes the old logic forget the pre- | judicial question of how we set up | first principles. Therefore, any | attempt to define the valid form of | theories must go through the inquiry | upon how we establish truth. | | From this general critique, it is | easy to understand Bacon's various | comments on the old organon. First, | since such a logic induces a kind of | double start, the empirical one and | the rational one, and since it | confuses the origin of knowledge with | its foundation, the mind is condemned | to jump immediately from empirical | particulars to first principles (or | axioms, in Bacon's terms) and to | render superfluous the required | induction which would gradually lead | from one point to the other. This | instantaneous slip from empirical | data to rational and essential dogmas | is made possible by the very nature | of the human mind.
Left to itself, | the mind hurries toward certainty; it | is prone to gain assent and consent; | it fills the imagination with idols, | untested generalities. And it is this | natural haste and prejudice which | gives mental activity its | anticipative form. By themselves, | anticipations draw the most general | principles from immediate experience, | in order to proceed, as quickly as | possible, to the formal deduction of | consequences. Therefore, however | paradoxical it may appear, the old | logic is unduly empirical and unduly | logical. And the critique of | formalism [formalism draws the | conclusions from the premises without | inquiring upon the truth of the | premises] must be attended by the | critique of the nature of the human | mind. | | The human mind is so disposed that it | relies on the senses, which provide | it with the rudiments of all | knowledge. Of course, Bacon argues, | we cannot get any information about | things except with the senses, and | skeptics are wrong when, questioning | them, they plunge the mind into | despair. "But by far the greatest | hindrance and aberration of the human | understanding proceeds from the | dulness, incompetency, and deceptions | of the senses" (IV, 58).
On the one | hand, they are too dull and too | gross, and let the more subtle parts | of nature escape our observation: | their range is limited to the most | conspicuous information. On the other | hand, they are misleading, by a | fundamental illusion: they offer | things to the mind according to the | measure of human nature. "For it is a | false assertion that the sense of man | is the measure of things. On the | contrary, all perceptions as well of | the sense as of the mind are | according to the measure of the | individual and not according to the | measure of the universe" (IV, 54).
In | order to have access to reality, we | have to rectify their information and | reduce a double delusion: the | illusion that the sensible qualities | offered by them are the real | determinations of things and the | illusion that things are divided | according to our human sensibility | (IV, 194 et sq.). | | Thus we can understand a third | critique against the old method: the | Aristotelian logic rests upon a | metaphysics which believes that | sensible experience gives the human | mind the things as they are, with | their essential qualities, and that | philosophy can be satisfied with | taking empirical phenomena for the | true reality of nature, thanks to a | mere generalization that erases the | particular circumstances of | existence. Nevertheless, empirically | qualified existences are not to be | mistaken for the things themselves. | So far, Bacon is undoubtedly a | modern, since he claims that the | object of knowledge is reality and | that reality, if it can be | inductively known from empirical | data, cannot be reduced to the matter | of experience. | | Bacon's fourth censure of the old | logic follows from this.
He agrees | with the sixteenth-century | dialecticians that Aristotle was | wrong when he thought that | understanding could skip, without the | hard work of induction, from what is | immediately given to the senses to | what is posed in the first principles | of science. Aristotle wanted to know | the truth, but did not explain the | method of invention. On the other | hand, the dialecticians, giving up | the attempt to set up the first | principles (and thereby the | traditional Aristotelian | demonstrative science), gave up any | attempt to reach the truth. They only | retained the deductive and systematic | form of discourse to introduce order | into men's opinions, and maintained | that invention could be reduced to | the mere search for arguments, that | is, for probable reasons invented to | persuade or convince. | | Bacon, however, wants to promote the | idea of an inductive science and | argues that Aristotle's mistake | affects the syllogistic form.
In the | fourth chapter of the fifth book of | the DE AUGMENTIS, Bacon develops a | remarkable critique of the syllogism | and is partly responsible for the | widespread disregard of formal logic | in the seventeenth and eighteenth | centuries. | | According to Bacon, "in all | inductions, whether in good or | vicious form the same action of the | mind which inventeth, judgeth" (III, | 392). One cannot find without | proving, nor prove without finding. | But this is not the case in the | syllogism: "for the proof being not | immediate but by mean, the invention | of the mean is one thing, and the | judgement of the consequence is | another, the one exciting only, the | other examining" (III, 392). The | syllogism needs the means (the middle | term) so that the derived conclusion | amounts to a proof. But since the | syllogism is incapable of inventing | the middle term, it must have been | known before. In other words, | syllogistic form leaves the invention | of the middle term to the natural | shrewdness of the mind or to good | fortune.
Thus, it is because of its | own demonstrative form that the | syllogism is unable to provide a | method of truth and is useless for | science. | | By now it is clear why the old logic | and the knowledge which is built on it | are unable to produce works or why the | extant works "are due to chance and | experience rather than to sciences" | (IV, 48). To deduce practical effects, | the mind must know real causes or laws | of nature. Since the old method does | not supply the mind with the means of | inventing causes and does not set up | the scale of the intermediate | propositions that are needed to reduce | sensible experience and reach the real | science, or to derive rightly and by | degrees the consequences from the | principles, it is not surprising that | invented works are too few and not | very useful for men's lives. Thus, | from the start in sensible experience | to the end in practical deduction, | this old method is of no use.
And an | entirely new one must be proposed, | which will be able to carry the human | mind from empirical data to the real | causes, to supply it with the means of | invention, to justify the position of | first truths and to manage a secure | deduction of practical consequences. | And, as the critique of the old logic | has to be understood as a whole, so | the interpretation of nature has to be | conceived as a continuous attempt, | proceeding by degrees, by successive | stages, to invent truth and to derive | works. ("Bacon's method of science", | in: THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO BACON. | ed. by Markku Peltonen [1996], 76-82). | | 1C. | Harvey Wheeler comments: | | Most historians of the philosophy of science | are unfamiliar with Bacon's transformation | of his innovative theory of juridical | lawfinding into scientific empiricist | lawfinding. Baconian law-finding is not to | be confused with cause-finding in modern | "classical" physics. | | Bacon's quest changed as he matured.
In | VALERIUS TERMINUS he is writing in | English, trying to lay the groundwork for | the validity of the co-existence of Religion | and Science. | | Bacon’s early experimental treatises--like | Dense and Rare--are experimental and of | limited value. Historians of the philosophy | of science have little trouble in disposing | these early experimentalist efforts of Bacon. | | His work on sound was somewhat better-- | experimental-theoretical. It is a | post-pythagorean theory of harmonics and | still not appropriately analyzed. | Contemproary musicologists like to quote | the passages on sound in NEW ATLANTIS | for being compatible with today’s approach | to music. | | By the time of the Novum Organum Bacon | was seeking a more "general theory of | science." Its 'logic machine' (Hooke) was | designed to be relevant to all | non-theological domains. | | However, most Bacon interpreters evaluate | his science in contrast to the prior | Aristotelian approaches and in comparison | to the Ramist approaches of Bacon’s day. | He rejected them both. | | Scholars then look beyond Bacon and | evaluate his logic machine in contrast to the | "classical mechanics" of Newtonian Optics | (physics): linear time-sequence prediction. | | Bacon was not seeking that type of | "cause/prediction"science.
He was seeking | hidden, "unwritten" "laws" of nature, | more on the model of Pasteur than of | Newton. | | Any treatment that tries to interpret | Bacon's Logic Machine in the light of what | classical physics called "science" will | distort Bacon's meaning and achievement. | | Note: if a scholar's interpretation of | Bacon's Science does not square with the | detailed description of the application of | Bacon's science in "Salomon's House" in | NEW ATLANTIS, it should be viewed with | scepticism. | | Bacon's science is more applicable to what | we call post-modern neo-hermeutics than to | Newtonian mechanics. (Patrick Heelan is | good on post-modern neo-hermeneutics.) | | Consider: why did Bacon conclude that his | New Logic Machine would produce | scientific knowledge in the form of | aphorisms and apothegms--not linear | time-sequence predictions? | | To summarize the above:: Most | contemporary interpreters of Bacon | evaluate his science by comparison with | Newtonian mechanics. If one interprets | Bacon on the basis of classical mechanics, | the result will not truly reflect Bacon's | science. | | A more fruitful modern model is the | Watson-Crick type of "science" illustrated | by their discovery of the double helix.
Their | process, as described carefully in Watson's | book, could have been lifted from Bacon. It | was not. But the point is that it tells of a | highly successful, highly empiricist (in | Bacon's and Kant's meaning of | phenomenological empiricism) approach to | the "understanding" of the "unwritten | laws" of cell theory and genetics. | | NOTE: It is very instructive to study why | Linus Pauling failed to dsiscover the genetic | code. He was an expert in the physics of | biochemistry and applied quantum theory | to molecular biology. His theory of the | molecular bond won a Nobel Laureate. | | Read Watson's explanation of why Pauling | failed to crack the genetic code. | | Guenther Stent, the molecular biologist of | U.C. Berkeley is an avowed Kantian | who narrowly missed cracking the genetic | code, His philosophy of science is | highly relevant to the application of | neo-hermeneutics to contemporary biology. | | Today's philosophy of physics, as developed | by John Wheeler and David Bohm | describes a "Baconian" idea of the | "participant-observer universe" to account | "scientifically" and empirically for the | evidence produced in post-modern physics. | | I hold to two points that may not persuade | others.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.