Scientific Revolutions: Historical Perspective

1. Scientific Revolutions: Historical Perspective  New visions on the Nature of Science: Bacon’s Empiricism

2. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

3. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Novum Organum • A call for a radical new view of the philosophy of nature: its aims (practical), its methods (empirical and organized) • Never presented itself as opposing the ancients or scholasticism

4. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Instauratio Magna NovumOrganum(1620) "True Direction Concerning the Interpretation of Nature."

5. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) InstauratioMagna NovumOrganum(1620) Multi pertransibunt et augebiturscientia("Many will pass through and knowledge will be the greater").

6. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Novum Organum The honor of the ancient authors, and indeed of all, remains untouched, since the comparison I challenge is not of wits or faculties, but of ways and methods, and the part I take upon myself is not that of a judge, but of a guide.

7. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Novum Organum Nor do I think that it matters any more to the business in hand whether the discoveries that shall now be made were long ago known to the ancients, and have their settings and their risings according to the vicissitude of things and course of ages, than it matters to mankind whether the new world be that island of Atlantis with which the ancients were acquainted, or now discovered for the first time. For new discoveries must be sought from the light of nature, not fetched back out of the darkness of antiquity.

8. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Logic and Induction All Men are Mortal Socrates is a Man Socrates is Mortal

9. All Men are Mortal Socrates is a Man Socrates is Mortal There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one goes from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, 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.

10. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Idols: “false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, … they will again in the very instauration of the sciences meet and trouble us, unless men being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults."

11. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) "Idols of the Tribe“ "Idols of the Cave" "Idols of the Marketplace" "Idols of the Theatre“

12. Idols of the Tribe: have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. Tendency to perceive more order and regularity in systems than truly exists there. Due to people’s preconceived ideas about things. (“The fiction that all celestial bodies move in perfect circles”)

13. Idols of the Cave: the idols of the individual man. For everyone (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature, owing either to his own proper and peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation with others. A tendency to inappropriately extrapolate from norms or tenets that apply to one’s own culture and social group.

14. Idols of the Marketplace: idols due to words (i.e. related to the interaction between people – which occurs at the market place) “They are either names of things which do not exist … or they are names of things which exist, but yet confused and ill-defined, and hastily and irregularly derived from realities.”

15. Idols of the Marketplace: idols due to words (i.e. related to the interaction between people – which occurs at the market place) “Of [this] kind are Fortune, the Prime Mover, Planetary Orbits, Element of Fire, and like actions which owe their origin tofalse and idle theories.”

16. Idols of the Theater: following accepted academic dogmas and not asking questions about the world. “The Rational School of philosophers snatches from experience a variety of common instances, neither duly ascertained nor diligently examined and weighed, and leaves all the rest to meditation and agitation of wit.”

17. Idols of the Theater: following accepted academic dogmas and not asking questions about the world. “The Empirical School of philosophers … having bestowed much diligent and careful labor on a few experiments, have thence made bold to educe and construct systems, wresting all other facts in a strange fashion to conformity therewith.”

18. Idols of the Theater: following accepted academic dogmas and not asking questions about the world. Alchemists did some detailed experiments, unlike the rational school. But they devised a theory of matter that went far beyond what their experiments really supported.

19. Idols of the Theater: following accepted academic dogmas and not asking questions about the world. William Gilbert did detailed work on properties of magnets but then generalized wildly, suggesting that the orbit of planets around the sun is due to magnetism.

20. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) A critique of Aristotelian causes It is a correct position that true knowledge is knowledge by causes." And causes again are not improperly distributed into four kinds: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final. But of these the final cause rather corrupts than advances the sciences, except such as have to do with human action. The discovery of the formal is despaired of. The efficient and the material (as they are investigated and received, that is, as remote causes, without reference to the latent process leading to the form) are but slight and superfivial, and contribute little, if anything, to true and active science.

21. The Organization of Knowledge Human - Divine Memory – Imagination – Reason History – Poesy – Philosophy

22. The Organization of Knowledge Human - Divine

24. The practical dimension of Science

25. The social dimension of Science Paolo Rossi: “Bacon’s Idea of Science”

26. 1626 Solomon’s House

27. 1626 Solomon’s House “We have twelve that sail into foreign countries under the names of other nations (for our own we conceal), who bring us the books and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call merchants of light. “We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call depredators. “We have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not brought into arts. These we call mystery–men. “We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. These we call pioneers or miners. “We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call compilers.

28. 1626 Solomon’s House “We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call dowry–men or benefactors. “Then after divers meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labours and collections, we have three that take care out of them to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than the former. These we call lamps. “We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call inoculators. “Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we call interpreters of nature."

29. The Age of the New Astronomia Nova (Kepler 1609) Novum Organum (Bacon 1620) New Atlantis (Bacon 1626) Two New Sciences (Galileo 1638) Experimenta Nova (Guericke 1695)