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”?

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. However, 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.

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.