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Essay on Philosophy of Francis Bacon
The great man whose memory we are honoring today was so universal a genius, his speculative and practical activities were so various, that we must be content either with a superficial glance at his achievements as a whole or with the contemplation, at the risk of one-sidedness, of a single aspect of his work (Church, 1884).
Bacon's real claim to fame is: not that he, as the lord chancellor, in 1621, was removed from office for accepting a litigant's bribe; nor, that he was the real writer of the Shakespearean plays (one of the controversies in English literature, the "Baconian controversy"); but rather Francis Bacon is known as a philosopher, one of the first order. Bacon delineated the principles of the inductive method, which constituted a breakthrough in the approach to science, even though philosophers and scientists of the day, - and seemingly today, yet - repudiated both his theories and methodology, alike (Bridgewater, 1943).
Bacon argued that the only knowledge of importance to man was empirically rooted in the natural world; and that a clear system of scientific inquiry would assure man's mastery over the world. He was the originator of the expression, "Knowledge is power." He was quite taken up by the "materialist" theories and the resultant discoveries of both Copernicus and Galileo. Bacon, along with Galileo is known in the literature as "the great anti-Aristotelians who created the 'modern scientific' view of Nature." (Church, 1884)
Francis Bacon's major contribution to philosophy was his application of induction, the approach used by modern science, rather than the a priori method of medieval scholasticism. Up to and during Bacon's time there existed philosophies rooted not so much in reason but in pure faith; philosophies promoted by the church. Bacon was violently opposed to speculative philosophies and the syllogistic quibbling of the Schoolman....
