Winston C.

Quilaton
Emmanuel Servants of the Holy Trinity (ESHT)
2nd Year Philosophy
Epistemology
Dr. Mark Edwin T. Aspra

Theory of Knowledge of Francis Bacon

1. What is the central criticism of Bacon?

His central criticism was that learning had become stagnant. Learning was associated with
science, and reading ancient texts was considered learning. For example, medicine was
primarily a literary pursuit pursued by poets, rhetoricians, and clergymen whose main
qualification was the ability to cite Hippocrates and Galen. Thus, they learn nothing but to
believe. It is to believe that others know what they don't know, and then to believe that they
know what they don't know.

2. What do you mean by Bacon’s “Knowledge is power”?

He was especially irritated by traditional education's "uselessness." Science had been
mixed up with "superstition," unguided speculation, and theology, making this learning
insufficient. He was challenging science by claiming that it lacked a sufficient mechanism
for discovering what nature and its workings are really like. Knowledge is more powerful
than physical force, and without knowledge, no great work can be accomplished. It is
powerful because humans will use it to accomplish their goals and achieve excellent
results. For example, if anyone wanted to be a successful doctor, they would need to know
scientific terminology and other things relevant to the profession in order to be effective.

3. What is Bacon advocating?

Bacon proposed starting anew with a new method of gathering and describing information,
essentially wiping the slate clean of human knowledge. He was certain he had found such
a method, one that would reveal all of nature's secrets.
 4. What is Bacon’s method and hope to acquire human knowledge?
Bacon's method, and his hope, was to clean and smooth the mind's surface and provide it
with new and suitable tools so that it could properly observe and understand the universe.
He will have to liberate science from ingrained and traditional learning in order to do this.
It means separating scientific truth from theologically revealed truths and developing a new
theory based on a new method of observation and a new understanding of nature.

DISTEMPERS OF LEARNING

5. What are the three types of “Distempers of Learning”?

He named three types of it: (1) fantastical learning, (2) contentious learning, and (3)
delicate learning. People in fantastical learning are more concerned with words than matter,
stressing texts, languages, and style, and they are more interested in the choiceness of
phrase... than the weight of matter. Perhaps worse, contentious learning starts with
predetermined positions or points of view held by previous thinkers, which are then used
as the starting point for contentious argumentation. Finally, delicate learning occurs when
readers embrace earlier writers who say more information than can be proven as
understanding as much as they claim. This explains why Aristotle, for example, is regarded
as the "dictator" of science. He concluded that these three diseases must be cured in order
to free the mind from the errors they cause.

IDOLS OF THE MIND

6. What are the four Idols that corrupt human thinking?

The Idols of the Tribe, the Cave, the Market Place, and the Theatre are all four metaphors of
Idols. These Idols, or "false phantoms," are mental distortions, similar to the distortions of light
reflected from an uneven mirror: For it is more like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and
deception, than a pure and equal glass, whereby the beams of objects should reflect according
to their true incidence." The only way to remedy this erroneous way of thinking is to use the
inductive approach, which involves observation and experimentation. Idols, also known as
"false opinions," "dogmas," "superstitions," and errors, corrupt intelligence in various ways.
THE INDUCTIVE METHOD

7. What is Bacon’s new method for acquiring knowledge?

Bacon introduced a new method for acquiring knowledge, that is, inductive method. Bacon's
experimentation and observation methods are based on the principle of induction. It derives
"laws" from the basic observation of particulars, as well as their sequence and order.

8. Why is Aristotle's deductive method perpetuate errors?

This is Aristotle's classic example of a deductive argument: (1) All humans are mortal; (2)
Socrates is a human; thus (3) Socrates is mortal. According to Bacon, the concern with this
method is that the implications we derive only reinforce the flaws that are already present in
the premises. Instead, we need an argumentative approach that provides us with new data on
which to draw new conclusions. This is precisely what induction accomplishes.

9. What are the four steps of inductive method?

The inductive method involves steps of discovering the nature of heat: (1) Table of Essence
and Presence, (2) Table of Deviation, (3) Table of Comparison, and (4) Process of Exclusion.
The first step is to make a list of all the times we come into contact with heat, such as "the sun's
rays." Following that, another list must be gathered to include objects that represent those on
the first list but do not have heat, such as "moon and star's rays." Third, examining the various
degrees of heat present in various things: "ignited iron, for example, is much hotter and more
consuming than flame of spirit of wine." Finally, after putting "induction to work," we need to
find a "nature" that is present when there is heat and missing when there is no heat.

10. What are the major weaknesses in Bacon's method?

Bacon's method has two main flaws: (1) he has no idea what modern scientists mean by a
"hypothesis," and (2) he underestimates the role of mathematics in science. First, he believed
that if we actually examined enough facts, a hypothesis would emerge. However, modern
scientists understand that it is important to provide a hypothesis before inspecting facts. This
theory then serves as the basis in selecting appropriate facts for the experiment. Second, he
forever loosened the grasp of scholastic thought and offered the foundation for scientificizing
philosophy.