little background on Bacon and Kuhn

1. • Born on January 22, 1561
• Second child of Sir Nicholas Bacon
and Lady Anne Cooke Bacon
• Studied at Trinity College,
Cambridge and Gray's Inn, London
Sir Francis Bacon
(1561-1626)
• Became Lord Chancellor under the
reign of James I (1918)
• Used as a scapegoat for the Duke of
Buckingham and was impeached
(1621)
• Died of pneumonia while studying
the effects of snow in meat
preservation
Career and Death
• The Great Instauration (1620)
1. The Divisions of the Science
2. The New Organon
3. The Phenomena of the
Universe
4. The Ladder of Intellect
5. The Forerunners
6. The New Philosophy
Main Work
Ipsa Scientia Potestas est
(Knowledge itself is power)
- Bacon's Meditationes Sacrae (1597)
• The Theory of Induction
• Induction is a slow and faithful toil which gathers information
from things and brings it into understanding
• The Theory of Idols (Tribe, Cave, Market Place & Theater)
• Idols are mad habits of mind that cause people to fall into error.
• The Book of Nature is God’s work and The Book of God is God’s will.
Franciscus de Verulamio
Summi Angliae
Cancellaris Instauratio
magna (1620)
Bacon’s Philosophy
Klein, Jürgen, "Francis Bacon", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/francis-bacon/>

2. • Summa cum laude at Harvard
(1943)
• PhD in Physics concerning on
application of quantum
mechanics to solid state
physics (1949)
• Professor of History of Science
at the University of California
at Berkeley (1961)
Thomas Kuhn
(1992-1996)
• One of the most cited
academic book
• Sold about 1.4 million
copies (like Harry Potter)
• Great impact on how we
view Science
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
• Set of alternating "normal"
and "revolutionary" phases
• Normal science: common
intellectual framework
solving anomalies
• Revolutionary science:
replacement of an old
paradigm with a new one
Development of
Science
Bird, Alexander, "Thomas Kuhn", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/thomas-
kuhn/>.
The Paradigm Shift