Bacon’s Instauratio Magna (“The
Great Beginning”) of 1605-1620
1. What could have prompted Bacon to write
about this?
2. What is he worried about?
3. What does the existing way of thinking lack?
4. What does he want thinkers to do differently
than they have been doing?
5. What are some authorities that people just
took on faith to explain things?
Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627)
Voyaging from Peru on a long journey through the South
Seas, a group of travelers accidentally come upon an
uncharted island which has a mysterious culture.
Called Bensalem, this culture is wonderfully perfect. It
is rich, technically advanced, and peaceful. Its citizens
are happy. The travelers are at once given luxurious
accommodations by the island’s leaders and made to
feel welcome and comfortable. Then, they are left free
to tour the island, to marvel at its beauty and
organization. Later that evening, they meet with the
island’s leader, who reveals to the admiring travelers,
the secret of his culture
The purpose of our society is the
knowledge of causes and secret
motions of things, and the
enlarging of the boundaries of
human pursuits, so that we may
accomplish all things possible.
New Atlantis
Each document describes one important and
admirable aspect of Bensalem’s scientific utopia
• Caves and Towers
• Lakes, Wells, and Weather
• Orchards, Gardens, and Parks
• Food and Medicine
• Furnaces and Light
• Sounds and Smells
• Engines and Machines
• Each group needs to read the selected
document
• Appoint a scribe to take notes on your
document
• Be prepared to discuss at least two modern
discovery or invention prefigured by Bacon
• Inventions will be listed on the board
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English
• Favored inductive (experimental) method
– Reasoning from detailed facts to general
principlesEMPIRICISM
• Observe, accumulate data, experiment to
refine, draw conclusions, formulate principles
• One of the first European writers to champion
innovation and change as goals contributing
to human improvement
Bacon’s New Atlantis
• Importance to have official organization by the
gov’t in which scientific achievement is
rewarded
• Novum Organum (1620) and New Atlantis
(1627) attacked medieval scholasticism belief
that the body of knowledge was complete
• New Atlantis showed the potential of science
through a scientific utopia with many modern
technological developments
• Royal British Society founded in London in
1660
• French Academy of Sciences in Paris in 1666
• Inspired by Bacon’s book
Bacon’s Visionary Scientific
Organization on the Utopian Island of
Bensalem
• Read each point
• Is it important to have an official organization,
sanctioned by the government, in which
scientific achievement is publicized and
rewarded?
• What might be the drawbacks?
• How does this image
reflect Bacon’s belief
in the value of
science?
What is the scientific method?
• A systematized attempt to uncover the secrets
of the natural world by experimentation and
mathematical proof
• Galileo can be credited with advancing the
method through experimentation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Statement of problem
Collect information
Organize and Analyze
Create Hypotheses
Deductions are drawn from the hypotheses
Verify hypotheses
Rene’ Descartes (1596-1650) French
• Discourse on Method (1637) arguedeverything
not validated by observation should be doubted
• “I think, therefore I am” proved his own existence
• God was part of nature
• Cartesian Dualism divided all things into either
spiritual (mind) or material (matter)
– Material world operated in a mechanistic manner
• Goal was to reconcile religion and science
• Most important contribution: scientific
method relying more on deduction
• Deductive reasoning—go from general
principle to the specific
– Break everything down; go from simplest to
hardest idea
Diagram for Deductive Logic
All animals eventually die.
A cat is an animal
Therefore, a cat will eventually die
What is the inherent danger of this
type of reasoning?
• That the general law has exceptions and is not
always true.
• All cats have tails
• Fluffy is a cat
• Fluffy has a tail
• But what if Fluffy is a Manx?
• If your basic starting hypotheses is
incorrect, everything you deduce from it
will be incorrect
Nature as Mechanism
Who wrote, “I am much occupied with the
investigation of the physical causes. My aim in
this is to show that the machine of the
universe is not similar to a divine animated
being, but similar to a clock.”
What does this quote say about the changing
view of universe and nature?