Stephen Gaukroger
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199296446
- eISBN:
- 9780191711985
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199296446.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
The development of the persona of the natural philosopher is the key to understanding how natural philosophy becomes inserted into European culture in the 16th and 17th centuries. This chapter shows ...
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The development of the persona of the natural philosopher is the key to understanding how natural philosophy becomes inserted into European culture in the 16th and 17th centuries. This chapter shows in detail that notions of truth and justification turn just as much on conceptions of intellectual honesty as they do on notions of method. It looks primarily at the standing of the natural philosopher in Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Royal Society apologists, focusing on claims that the natural philosopher requires a kind of intellectual honesty lacking in scholastic natural philosophy. This is closely tied in with one of the distinctive features of early-modern natural philosophy: that questions that had earlier been seen in terms of truth are now discussed instead in terms of impartiality and objectivity.Less
The development of the persona of the natural philosopher is the key to understanding how natural philosophy becomes inserted into European culture in the 16th and 17th centuries. This chapter shows in detail that notions of truth and justification turn just as much on conceptions of intellectual honesty as they do on notions of method. It looks primarily at the standing of the natural philosopher in Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Royal Society apologists, focusing on claims that the natural philosopher requires a kind of intellectual honesty lacking in scholastic natural philosophy. This is closely tied in with one of the distinctive features of early-modern natural philosophy: that questions that had earlier been seen in terms of truth are now discussed instead in terms of impartiality and objectivity.
Kent L. Brintnall
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226074696
- eISBN:
- 9780226074719
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226074719.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter examines the theme of crucifixion or the reduction of flesh to meat in Francis Bacon's work. It reflects on his depiction of the male body and the alluring beauty of its vulnerability ...
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This chapter examines the theme of crucifixion or the reduction of flesh to meat in Francis Bacon's work. It reflects on his depiction of the male body and the alluring beauty of its vulnerability and collapse. It traces the relation between the violence of crucifixion and the violation of representation in his paintings to explore the inherent vulnerability of the male body on display. Meat has something to teach humankind, but as Bataille's comments emphasize, society works very hard to sequester the slaughterhouse and suppress its lessons. Bacon's painterly corpus can be understood as an attempt to make meat speak again—even in the form of a choked, strained, guttural scream.Less
This chapter examines the theme of crucifixion or the reduction of flesh to meat in Francis Bacon's work. It reflects on his depiction of the male body and the alluring beauty of its vulnerability and collapse. It traces the relation between the violence of crucifixion and the violation of representation in his paintings to explore the inherent vulnerability of the male body on display. Meat has something to teach humankind, but as Bataille's comments emphasize, society works very hard to sequester the slaughterhouse and suppress its lessons. Bacon's painterly corpus can be understood as an attempt to make meat speak again—even in the form of a choked, strained, guttural scream.
Stephen Gaukroger
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199296446
- eISBN:
- 9780191711985
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199296446.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Many of the perceived failures of Aristotelian natural philosophy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries were put down to his conception of method. In fact, both defenders of Aristotle and his ...
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Many of the perceived failures of Aristotelian natural philosophy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries were put down to his conception of method. In fact, both defenders of Aristotle and his critics took his method of presentation for a method of discovery, the former trying to establish how it could act as a method of discovery, and the latter replacing it with something new. Bacon attempted to provide a radical alternative to Aristotelianism, though in some respects, it was locked into the same programme as Aristotle. Of more immediate significance were disputes over the hypothetical standing of Copernicanism, disputes in which Kepler and Galileo were major players.Less
Many of the perceived failures of Aristotelian natural philosophy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries were put down to his conception of method. In fact, both defenders of Aristotle and his critics took his method of presentation for a method of discovery, the former trying to establish how it could act as a method of discovery, and the latter replacing it with something new. Bacon attempted to provide a radical alternative to Aristotelianism, though in some respects, it was locked into the same programme as Aristotle. Of more immediate significance were disputes over the hypothetical standing of Copernicanism, disputes in which Kepler and Galileo were major players.
Alan Soble
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195117257
- eISBN:
- 9780199785995
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195117255.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Feminist critics, particularly, Sandra Harding, Carolyn Merchant, and Evelyn Fox Keller, claim that misogynous sexual metaphors played an important role in the rise of modern science. The writings of ...
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Feminist critics, particularly, Sandra Harding, Carolyn Merchant, and Evelyn Fox Keller, claim that misogynous sexual metaphors played an important role in the rise of modern science. The writings of Francis Bacon have been singled out as an especially egregious instance of the use of misogynous (“rape”) metaphors in scientific philosophy to promote the scientific method and to justify technological innovation. This chapter presents a defense of Bacon, arguing that the feminist reading of Bacon is based on misquotations, passages taken out of context, projection, and scholarly uncharitability.Less
Feminist critics, particularly, Sandra Harding, Carolyn Merchant, and Evelyn Fox Keller, claim that misogynous sexual metaphors played an important role in the rise of modern science. The writings of Francis Bacon have been singled out as an especially egregious instance of the use of misogynous (“rape”) metaphors in scientific philosophy to promote the scientific method and to justify technological innovation. This chapter presents a defense of Bacon, arguing that the feminist reading of Bacon is based on misquotations, passages taken out of context, projection, and scholarly uncharitability.
Christopher Hill
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206682
- eISBN:
- 9780191677274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206682.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, History of Ideas
Francis Bacon lived from 1561 to 1627. He was always near the centre of power, and under James I he rose to be Lord Chancellor. He was a leading figure in the government until in 1621 he was ...
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Francis Bacon lived from 1561 to 1627. He was always near the centre of power, and under James I he rose to be Lord Chancellor. He was a leading figure in the government until in 1621 he was disgraced on a charge of taking bribes. He had hoped to use his influence at court to get his scientific schemes adopted: it may only have had the effect of delaying their recognition by the Parliamentarians. This chapter is concerned with Bacon the thinker and traces his influence on other influential thinkers. A few points may be drawn together in order to justify associating his influence with the English Revolution. Bacon's emphasis on secondary causes and his relegation of direct divine intervention to a long-past historical epoch fortified and gave deeper significance to the Parliamentarian preference for the rule of law as against arbitrariness. Bacon himself attempted to evolve a universal science of jurisprudence.Less
Francis Bacon lived from 1561 to 1627. He was always near the centre of power, and under James I he rose to be Lord Chancellor. He was a leading figure in the government until in 1621 he was disgraced on a charge of taking bribes. He had hoped to use his influence at court to get his scientific schemes adopted: it may only have had the effect of delaying their recognition by the Parliamentarians. This chapter is concerned with Bacon the thinker and traces his influence on other influential thinkers. A few points may be drawn together in order to justify associating his influence with the English Revolution. Bacon's emphasis on secondary causes and his relegation of direct divine intervention to a long-past historical epoch fortified and gave deeper significance to the Parliamentarian preference for the rule of law as against arbitrariness. Bacon himself attempted to evolve a universal science of jurisprudence.
Ted McCormick
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199547890
- eISBN:
- 9780191720529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199547890.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Economic History
This chapter explores Petty's work with Samuel Hartlib and others in London and his medical and academic career at Oxford and Gresham College. Drawing on extensive material from the Hartlib Papers, ...
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This chapter explores Petty's work with Samuel Hartlib and others in London and his medical and academic career at Oxford and Gresham College. Drawing on extensive material from the Hartlib Papers, it shows Petty as a full participant in the Hartlib Circle's neo‐Baconian program of experimental philosophy, technological and economic improvement, and social reform. Through this activity he developed an empirical, practical and collaborative conception of natural philosophy, modeled on the work of Francis Bacon and marked by a distinct vision of the relationship between art and nature that would crucially inform Petty's later development of political arithmetic. At Oxford, he completed his medical studies and gained fame from his resuscitation of a hanged woman. His academic career, however, was short‐lived, and he left England in 1652 as Physician‐General to the Cromwellian Army in Ireland.Less
This chapter explores Petty's work with Samuel Hartlib and others in London and his medical and academic career at Oxford and Gresham College. Drawing on extensive material from the Hartlib Papers, it shows Petty as a full participant in the Hartlib Circle's neo‐Baconian program of experimental philosophy, technological and economic improvement, and social reform. Through this activity he developed an empirical, practical and collaborative conception of natural philosophy, modeled on the work of Francis Bacon and marked by a distinct vision of the relationship between art and nature that would crucially inform Petty's later development of political arithmetic. At Oxford, he completed his medical studies and gained fame from his resuscitation of a hanged woman. His academic career, however, was short‐lived, and he left England in 1652 as Physician‐General to the Cromwellian Army in Ireland.
Jennifer Summit
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226781716
- eISBN:
- 9780226781723
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226781723.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter locates Francis Bacon in the tradition of Reformation era and post-Reformation library makers that begins with Matthew Parker, John Bale, and Stephen Batman and extends to Bodley's first ...
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This chapter locates Francis Bacon in the tradition of Reformation era and post-Reformation library makers that begins with Matthew Parker, John Bale, and Stephen Batman and extends to Bodley's first librarian, Thomas James. Reading Bacon as a practitioner of early modern library science as well as a writer engaging with the libraries of literary history, it also situates Bacon at the end of a line of writers beginning with John Lydgate and progressing to Thomas More, Thomas Elyot, Edmund Spenser, and William Camden, for whom writing about libraries was a way of theorizing and imagining the objects, shapes, and limitations of human knowledge. The chapter first considers the recurring and shifting but also unexpectedly central role that libraries play in Bacon's oeuvre, an examination that is extended to Bacon's correspondence with Thomas Bodley and, finally, to Bodley's own correspondence with his brilliant librarian, Thomas James, as they produce a three-way debate over the roles of books, knowledge, and libraries in the seventeenth century.Less
This chapter locates Francis Bacon in the tradition of Reformation era and post-Reformation library makers that begins with Matthew Parker, John Bale, and Stephen Batman and extends to Bodley's first librarian, Thomas James. Reading Bacon as a practitioner of early modern library science as well as a writer engaging with the libraries of literary history, it also situates Bacon at the end of a line of writers beginning with John Lydgate and progressing to Thomas More, Thomas Elyot, Edmund Spenser, and William Camden, for whom writing about libraries was a way of theorizing and imagining the objects, shapes, and limitations of human knowledge. The chapter first considers the recurring and shifting but also unexpectedly central role that libraries play in Bacon's oeuvre, an examination that is extended to Bacon's correspondence with Thomas Bodley and, finally, to Bodley's own correspondence with his brilliant librarian, Thomas James, as they produce a three-way debate over the roles of books, knowledge, and libraries in the seventeenth century.
Alexandra Gajda
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199699681
- eISBN:
- 9780191739057
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199699681.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
Essex’s religious politics are examined. It is argued that the ecumenical views of Francis and Anthony Bacon influenced Essex’s attempts to style himself in the mid-1590s as the champion and patron ...
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Essex’s religious politics are examined. It is argued that the ecumenical views of Francis and Anthony Bacon influenced Essex’s attempts to style himself in the mid-1590s as the champion and patron of a broad base of confessional opinion. This policy was designed to enhance Essex’s likely influence over the succession. The patron of radical Puritans and conformist Protestants, Essex was especially encouraged to cultivate the support of ‘loyalist’ Catholics, who sought religious toleration. Of particular importance was Essex’s relationship with Thomas Wright, an ex-Jesuit priest for whom the earl gained an unprecedented guarantee of personal toleration in 1595. But Essex’s engagement with Catholic politics was damaged by the famous dedication to Essex of the notorious treatise about the succession, A conference about the next succession to the crowne of Ingland (1594/5). Almost certainly written by the Jesuit Robert Parsons, the Conference cast a long shadow over Essex’s subsequent history.Less
Essex’s religious politics are examined. It is argued that the ecumenical views of Francis and Anthony Bacon influenced Essex’s attempts to style himself in the mid-1590s as the champion and patron of a broad base of confessional opinion. This policy was designed to enhance Essex’s likely influence over the succession. The patron of radical Puritans and conformist Protestants, Essex was especially encouraged to cultivate the support of ‘loyalist’ Catholics, who sought religious toleration. Of particular importance was Essex’s relationship with Thomas Wright, an ex-Jesuit priest for whom the earl gained an unprecedented guarantee of personal toleration in 1595. But Essex’s engagement with Catholic politics was damaged by the famous dedication to Essex of the notorious treatise about the succession, A conference about the next succession to the crowne of Ingland (1594/5). Almost certainly written by the Jesuit Robert Parsons, the Conference cast a long shadow over Essex’s subsequent history.
Brinda Charry
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199755042
- eISBN:
- 9780199950508
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199755042.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter analyzes the rhetorical and discursive strategies deployed by early modern English writers in their texts on holy war and what paying attention to these strategies will tell us about how ...
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This chapter analyzes the rhetorical and discursive strategies deployed by early modern English writers in their texts on holy war and what paying attention to these strategies will tell us about how the general reader’s attitudes to holy war were shaped. This chapter juxtaposes texts that belong to very different genres—John Foxe’s martyrology, Acts and Monuments, first published in 1563; and Francis Bacon’s An Advertisement Touching a Holy War, a fictional dialogue on holy war written in 1622-23 in the scholarly humanist tradition. Both of these works address the question of holy war against the Ottoman Turks..Less
This chapter analyzes the rhetorical and discursive strategies deployed by early modern English writers in their texts on holy war and what paying attention to these strategies will tell us about how the general reader’s attitudes to holy war were shaped. This chapter juxtaposes texts that belong to very different genres—John Foxe’s martyrology, Acts and Monuments, first published in 1563; and Francis Bacon’s An Advertisement Touching a Holy War, a fictional dialogue on holy war written in 1622-23 in the scholarly humanist tradition. Both of these works address the question of holy war against the Ottoman Turks..
Christopher Hill
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206682
- eISBN:
- 9780191677274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206682.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, History of Ideas
Three seventeenth-century characters appear in retrospect to attach undue importance to individuals. For their contemporaries, they were vastly influential in many areas of thought. All three in ...
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Three seventeenth-century characters appear in retrospect to attach undue importance to individuals. For their contemporaries, they were vastly influential in many areas of thought. All three in their published works demonstrated that they had wide-ranging interests and aims. The changes in English economic life did not occur in a vacuum. Francis Bacon, Walter Ralegh, and Edward Coke all took favourable account of the freedom of trade in the Netherlands, the most advanced capitalist state in Europe. They all made much of the commercial republic of Venice as a model to follow. Bacon corresponded with Paolo Sarpi. All three spoke favourably of the Dutch republic as a model, not least in its awareness of the economic advantages of religious toleration. Ralegh was interested in science and trade as well as in history. Coke's advocacy of free trade and commercial liberty generally owed more to his position in an increasingly competitive society than to his legal expertise.Less
Three seventeenth-century characters appear in retrospect to attach undue importance to individuals. For their contemporaries, they were vastly influential in many areas of thought. All three in their published works demonstrated that they had wide-ranging interests and aims. The changes in English economic life did not occur in a vacuum. Francis Bacon, Walter Ralegh, and Edward Coke all took favourable account of the freedom of trade in the Netherlands, the most advanced capitalist state in Europe. They all made much of the commercial republic of Venice as a model to follow. Bacon corresponded with Paolo Sarpi. All three spoke favourably of the Dutch republic as a model, not least in its awareness of the economic advantages of religious toleration. Ralegh was interested in science and trade as well as in history. Coke's advocacy of free trade and commercial liberty generally owed more to his position in an increasingly competitive society than to his legal expertise.
Virginia Lee Strain
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781474416290
- eISBN:
- 9781474444903
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474416290.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
Chapter 2 examines the Gesta Grayorum, an account of the 1594-5 Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn, one of the English common-law societies and educational institutions. The Christmas revelers mounted a ...
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Chapter 2 examines the Gesta Grayorum, an account of the 1594-5 Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn, one of the English common-law societies and educational institutions. The Christmas revelers mounted a large mock court, and the elaborate entertainments for their fictional Prince of Purpoole were performed by and before a community of Inn members and associates that included common-law students, legal professionals, courtiers, parliamentarians, and statesmen. In their abridged parliament, they mock the general pardon that historically compensated for the numerous ‘snaring’ statutes that had accrued over the course of the sixteenth century. These statutes, which turned subjects into unintentional lawbreakers, found their way into Shakespeare’s comedies, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Comedy of Errors, and John Donne’s satires. In parodying the terms and structure of the Elizabethan general pardon, the revelers target a legal-political device that publicly forgave select statutory infractions and broadcasted the sovereign’s merciful character. If the revels open with a mock parliament, Francis Bacon’s subsequent orations on government redirect the entertainments away from the comical errors of lawmakers and legal representatives toward the systematic reform of the fictional state.Less
Chapter 2 examines the Gesta Grayorum, an account of the 1594-5 Christmas revels at Gray’s Inn, one of the English common-law societies and educational institutions. The Christmas revelers mounted a large mock court, and the elaborate entertainments for their fictional Prince of Purpoole were performed by and before a community of Inn members and associates that included common-law students, legal professionals, courtiers, parliamentarians, and statesmen. In their abridged parliament, they mock the general pardon that historically compensated for the numerous ‘snaring’ statutes that had accrued over the course of the sixteenth century. These statutes, which turned subjects into unintentional lawbreakers, found their way into Shakespeare’s comedies, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Comedy of Errors, and John Donne’s satires. In parodying the terms and structure of the Elizabethan general pardon, the revelers target a legal-political device that publicly forgave select statutory infractions and broadcasted the sovereign’s merciful character. If the revels open with a mock parliament, Francis Bacon’s subsequent orations on government redirect the entertainments away from the comical errors of lawmakers and legal representatives toward the systematic reform of the fictional state.
Howard Marchitello
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199608058
- eISBN:
- 9780191729492
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199608058.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, Shakespeare Studies
This chapter examines the textual record of the Christmas-season festivities staged by Gray's Inn, 1594–5: the Gesta Grayorum. These Revels, together with critical readings of them, allow for an ...
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This chapter examines the textual record of the Christmas-season festivities staged by Gray's Inn, 1594–5: the Gesta Grayorum. These Revels, together with critical readings of them, allow for an interrogation of the nature of disciplinary knowledges and the ways in which the meanings of objects are determined by the disciplinary practices brought to bear upon them. Thus the Gesta Grayorum has meaning for Shakespeareans for the information it contains concerning the first performance of The Comedy of Errors. For others—including historians of science—the Gesta Grayorum is important for light it sheds on an obscure text by a major figure in the history of science: Francis Bacon's Device. Taking the Gesta Grayorum as a case study and by submitting the literary text to the methods of natural philosophy and the natural philosophical to the methods of literary analysis, this chapter demonstrate how thoroughly imbricated are these two discourses.Less
This chapter examines the textual record of the Christmas-season festivities staged by Gray's Inn, 1594–5: the Gesta Grayorum. These Revels, together with critical readings of them, allow for an interrogation of the nature of disciplinary knowledges and the ways in which the meanings of objects are determined by the disciplinary practices brought to bear upon them. Thus the Gesta Grayorum has meaning for Shakespeareans for the information it contains concerning the first performance of The Comedy of Errors. For others—including historians of science—the Gesta Grayorum is important for light it sheds on an obscure text by a major figure in the history of science: Francis Bacon's Device. Taking the Gesta Grayorum as a case study and by submitting the literary text to the methods of natural philosophy and the natural philosophical to the methods of literary analysis, this chapter demonstrate how thoroughly imbricated are these two discourses.
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226116396
- eISBN:
- 9780226116419
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226116419.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas
This chapter examines the work of Francis Bacon related to the human mind. It discusses the contents of Bacon's early text Letter and Discourse to Sir Henry Savill, Touching Helps for the ...
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This chapter examines the work of Francis Bacon related to the human mind. It discusses the contents of Bacon's early text Letter and Discourse to Sir Henry Savill, Touching Helps for the Intellectual Powers in which he formulated his concern with the education of the mind. This chapter offers a different interpretation of Bacon's conception of reformation and argues that his natural philosophy drew on a more fundamental doctrine which is concerned with the impediments and the regimens of the whole mind, with all its faculties.Less
This chapter examines the work of Francis Bacon related to the human mind. It discusses the contents of Bacon's early text Letter and Discourse to Sir Henry Savill, Touching Helps for the Intellectual Powers in which he formulated his concern with the education of the mind. This chapter offers a different interpretation of Bacon's conception of reformation and argues that his natural philosophy drew on a more fundamental doctrine which is concerned with the impediments and the regimens of the whole mind, with all its faculties.
Rose‐Mary Sargent
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195172256
- eISBN:
- 9780199835546
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195172256.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
Experimental philosophers of 17th-century England recognized a complex relationship between scientific values and civic virtues. Francis Bacon, motivated by his desire to promote the common good by ...
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Experimental philosophers of 17th-century England recognized a complex relationship between scientific values and civic virtues. Francis Bacon, motivated by his desire to promote the common good by producing useful knowledge, noted that the advancement of learning required a cooperative research effort guided by civility, charity, toleration, and intellectual modesty. This essay examines how the founders of the Royal Society of London, including Robert Boyle, put his advice into action by their efforts to establish an expanded and inclusive society of investigators that would strengthen the habits of discourse in a civil society, while furthering the economic, political, and social benefits of scientific inquiry.Less
Experimental philosophers of 17th-century England recognized a complex relationship between scientific values and civic virtues. Francis Bacon, motivated by his desire to promote the common good by producing useful knowledge, noted that the advancement of learning required a cooperative research effort guided by civility, charity, toleration, and intellectual modesty. This essay examines how the founders of the Royal Society of London, including Robert Boyle, put his advice into action by their efforts to establish an expanded and inclusive society of investigators that would strengthen the habits of discourse in a civil society, while furthering the economic, political, and social benefits of scientific inquiry.
Alexandra Gajda
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199699681
- eISBN:
- 9780191739057
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199699681.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
Chapter 5 examines contemporary responses to the decline of Essex’s career, both positive and negative. It reconsiders the substance of his fabled popularity, and the growing divisions between those ...
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Chapter 5 examines contemporary responses to the decline of Essex’s career, both positive and negative. It reconsiders the substance of his fabled popularity, and the growing divisions between those who were warily critical towards the earl’s behaviour and mentality, and those who adopted Essex’s own concept of his sufferings. Detractors, including his client and advisor Francis Bacon, were increasingly troubled by the earl’s public expression of unseemly attitudes towards political obedience, and the codes of virtue and honour to which he adhered. Meanwhile, surviving evidence of the attitudes of Essex’s more ardent partisans is surprisingly provocative in its defence of his rightful role in the polity, and even its description of the queen’s involvement in Essex’s plight. The vehement denunciation by queen and regime of Essex’s popular reputation prefigured the development of deeper suspicions of the earl’s instability and of his future ambitions.Less
Chapter 5 examines contemporary responses to the decline of Essex’s career, both positive and negative. It reconsiders the substance of his fabled popularity, and the growing divisions between those who were warily critical towards the earl’s behaviour and mentality, and those who adopted Essex’s own concept of his sufferings. Detractors, including his client and advisor Francis Bacon, were increasingly troubled by the earl’s public expression of unseemly attitudes towards political obedience, and the codes of virtue and honour to which he adhered. Meanwhile, surviving evidence of the attitudes of Essex’s more ardent partisans is surprisingly provocative in its defence of his rightful role in the polity, and even its description of the queen’s involvement in Essex’s plight. The vehement denunciation by queen and regime of Essex’s popular reputation prefigured the development of deeper suspicions of the earl’s instability and of his future ambitions.
Christopher Hill
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206682
- eISBN:
- 9780191677274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206682.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, History of Ideas
Sir Edward Coke was born in 1552. Throughout Queen Elizabeth's reign, he throve as a lawyer, steadily out-distancing his great rival Francis Bacon, and rising to be Speaker of the House of Commons ...
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Sir Edward Coke was born in 1552. Throughout Queen Elizabeth's reign, he throve as a lawyer, steadily out-distancing his great rival Francis Bacon, and rising to be Speaker of the House of Commons and Attorney-General. His famous Law Reports began to appear in 1600. Eleven volumes were published during his lifetime, two posthumously. Under James I, Coke became Lord Chief Justice, a position in which he distinguished himself by defending the rights and privileges of the common law even against the wishes of the King, until finally he was dismissed in 1616. In the twenties, he was a leading critic in the House of Commons, and has a large place in English history for the constitutional theories and myths which he uttered there and in the four volumes of his Institutes. Coke the constitutional lawyer is a familiar figure. This chapter looks at the contribution of his legal ideas to the origins of the English Revolution.Less
Sir Edward Coke was born in 1552. Throughout Queen Elizabeth's reign, he throve as a lawyer, steadily out-distancing his great rival Francis Bacon, and rising to be Speaker of the House of Commons and Attorney-General. His famous Law Reports began to appear in 1600. Eleven volumes were published during his lifetime, two posthumously. Under James I, Coke became Lord Chief Justice, a position in which he distinguished himself by defending the rights and privileges of the common law even against the wishes of the King, until finally he was dismissed in 1616. In the twenties, he was a leading critic in the House of Commons, and has a large place in English history for the constitutional theories and myths which he uttered there and in the four volumes of his Institutes. Coke the constitutional lawyer is a familiar figure. This chapter looks at the contribution of his legal ideas to the origins of the English Revolution.
Alan Stewart
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748638734
- eISBN:
- 9780748651573
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748638734.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter presents a different view of how writing was created, where a group of friends, scribes, secretaries, and friends not only advised, researched, and copied out the written works, but also ...
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This chapter presents a different view of how writing was created, where a group of friends, scribes, secretaries, and friends not only advised, researched, and copied out the written works, but also wrote them. The discussion centres on Francis Bacon's household and his own drafting of the Earl of Essex's writing during his early years. The chapter proposes that Bacon used the same process with his own work, which was created from a collaborative process.Less
This chapter presents a different view of how writing was created, where a group of friends, scribes, secretaries, and friends not only advised, researched, and copied out the written works, but also wrote them. The discussion centres on Francis Bacon's household and his own drafting of the Earl of Essex's writing during his early years. The chapter proposes that Bacon used the same process with his own work, which was created from a collaborative process.
Christopher Hill
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198206682
- eISBN:
- 9780191677274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198206682.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, History of Ideas
If one looks at the lives of Walter Ralegh, Francis Bacon, and Edward Coke, they have curiously much in common. All tried to make careers in the royal service, all three obtained knighthoods, Bacon a ...
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If one looks at the lives of Walter Ralegh, Francis Bacon, and Edward Coke, they have curiously much in common. All tried to make careers in the royal service, all three obtained knighthoods, Bacon a peerage. Bacon and Coke were Privy Councillors. However under James all failed. Ralegh was condemned as a traitor and executed. Coke was dismissed from office. Bacon was perhaps the one whose ideas made least impact on the government he served; he was thrown to the wolves in the 1621 Parliament. Their disgrace, and the censorship exercised against Ralegh and Coke, no doubt added to their prestige: it certainly gave them leisure to write some of their most significant books. The book's search for intellectual origins has revealed no Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Karl Marx; but it has perhaps suggested ways in which minds were being prepared for new courses, by men whose proffered services the old regime was unable to use.Less
If one looks at the lives of Walter Ralegh, Francis Bacon, and Edward Coke, they have curiously much in common. All tried to make careers in the royal service, all three obtained knighthoods, Bacon a peerage. Bacon and Coke were Privy Councillors. However under James all failed. Ralegh was condemned as a traitor and executed. Coke was dismissed from office. Bacon was perhaps the one whose ideas made least impact on the government he served; he was thrown to the wolves in the 1621 Parliament. Their disgrace, and the censorship exercised against Ralegh and Coke, no doubt added to their prestige: it certainly gave them leisure to write some of their most significant books. The book's search for intellectual origins has revealed no Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Karl Marx; but it has perhaps suggested ways in which minds were being prepared for new courses, by men whose proffered services the old regime was unable to use.
Henry S. Turner
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226363356
- eISBN:
- 9780226363493
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226363493.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter continues the book’s account of the strains placed on a corporatist political imaginary, this time not through theater but through the newly empirical and inductive methods of the New ...
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This chapter continues the book’s account of the strains placed on a corporatist political imaginary, this time not through theater but through the newly empirical and inductive methods of the New Science. Through a detailed account of the natural philosophy of Francis Bacon as explicated in the Novum Organum (1620), especially its treatment of notions, forms, and spirit, the chapter shows how an immanent and mystical idea of the corporate body, sourced in an Aristotelian metaphysics (the political imaginary of Smith and Hooker, in different ways), is gradually replaced by arguments that view the corporate body in externalist and mechanical terms and thus anticipates the arguments of Hobbes. Investigating the world of Nature, Bacon discovers a world of bodies as micro-polities, each characterized by distinctive constitutions, affects, and laws of action. The chapter shows how Bacon attempts to resolve the pluralism of this political ecology by turning to a principle of sovereignty; it then turns to his late work of utopian fiction, the New Atlantis (ca. 1624; pub. 1627), where we find a political imaginary in which the topological relationship that had once characterized Hooker’s civil and ecclesiastical polities has been reproduced by the relationship of State to Science.Less
This chapter continues the book’s account of the strains placed on a corporatist political imaginary, this time not through theater but through the newly empirical and inductive methods of the New Science. Through a detailed account of the natural philosophy of Francis Bacon as explicated in the Novum Organum (1620), especially its treatment of notions, forms, and spirit, the chapter shows how an immanent and mystical idea of the corporate body, sourced in an Aristotelian metaphysics (the political imaginary of Smith and Hooker, in different ways), is gradually replaced by arguments that view the corporate body in externalist and mechanical terms and thus anticipates the arguments of Hobbes. Investigating the world of Nature, Bacon discovers a world of bodies as micro-polities, each characterized by distinctive constitutions, affects, and laws of action. The chapter shows how Bacon attempts to resolve the pluralism of this political ecology by turning to a principle of sovereignty; it then turns to his late work of utopian fiction, the New Atlantis (ca. 1624; pub. 1627), where we find a political imaginary in which the topological relationship that had once characterized Hooker’s civil and ecclesiastical polities has been reproduced by the relationship of State to Science.
Catherine Gimelli Martin
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804763806
- eISBN:
- 9780804773508
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804763806.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines conventional views of Renaissance allegory, focusing on the materiality of allegorical figures in John Milton and Francis Bacon. Modern theorists such as Walter Benjamin and ...
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This chapter examines conventional views of Renaissance allegory, focusing on the materiality of allegorical figures in John Milton and Francis Bacon. Modern theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault have shown how the status of knowledge changed radically in the seventeenth century. The chapter explores the changes in the allegorical mode as expressions of this epistemological shift and looks at the implications for particular allegorical figures in Milton's Paradise Lost as well as their ideological originals in Bacon's Advancement of Learning. It argues that allegorical significance is contingent not only on an absent meaning, but also on a material presence. The chapter also offers a reading of Bacon's two fables in The Wisdom of the Ancients, namely, “Cupid, or the Atom” and “Coelum, or the Origin of Things,” both of which appear to have influenced Milton's rejection of Augustine's ex nihilo creation theory.Less
This chapter examines conventional views of Renaissance allegory, focusing on the materiality of allegorical figures in John Milton and Francis Bacon. Modern theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault have shown how the status of knowledge changed radically in the seventeenth century. The chapter explores the changes in the allegorical mode as expressions of this epistemological shift and looks at the implications for particular allegorical figures in Milton's Paradise Lost as well as their ideological originals in Bacon's Advancement of Learning. It argues that allegorical significance is contingent not only on an absent meaning, but also on a material presence. The chapter also offers a reading of Bacon's two fables in The Wisdom of the Ancients, namely, “Cupid, or the Atom” and “Coelum, or the Origin of Things,” both of which appear to have influenced Milton's rejection of Augustine's ex nihilo creation theory.
