philosophy

1. Francis Bacon
( 1561 – 1626 )

2. Who Was Francis Bacon?
• Francis Bacon was an English Renaissance statesman and
philosopher, best known for his promotion of the scientific
method. He is the founder of Empiricism. He was born in January
22, 1561 in London, England. Bacon served as attorney general
and Lord Chancellor of England, resigning amid charges of
corruption. His more valuable work was philosophical. Bacon took
up Aristotelian ideas, arguing for an empirical, inductive
approach, known as the scientific method, which is the foundation
of modern scientific inquiry.

3. Biography
Nationality: English
Birth: 22nd January 1561
Death: 9th April 1626
Parents: Sir Nicholas Bacon & Lady Anne Cooke
Education: Trinity collage, Cambridge Gray’s Inn
Religion: Protestant ( Reject Roman Catholic Church )
Character: Intelligent, Ambitious, Arrogant, Cold and Calculating
Spouse: Alice Burnham

4. Achievements
• HE SERVED AS LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND FROM 1618 TO 1621
• SIR FRANCIS BACON WAS KNIGHTED IN 1603 AND CREATED 1ST VISCOUNT ST. ALBAN IN 1621
• HE WAS A PROLIFIC WRITER WHO WROTE ON A VARIETY OF SUBJECTS
• FRANCIS BACON IS CONSIDERED THE FATHER OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
• HIS WORK LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
• AMONG HIS MOST INFLUENTIAL WORKS IS THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
• HIS PROPOSED LEGAL REFORMS PARTLY INFLUENCED THE NAPOLEONIC CODE
• HIS WORK NEW ATLANTIS INFLUENCED THE FORMATION OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
• HE PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN THE CREATION OF ENGLISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA
• FRANCIS BACON IS CREDITED WITH STARTING A NEW INTELLECTUAL ERA

5. HE SERVED AS LORD CHANCELLOR OF
ENGLAND FROM 1618 TO 1621
• In 1582, Francis Bacon became an outer barrister; and in 1586, he
became a bencher, a senior member of an Inn of Court in England. In
1587, he was elected as the Reader, a senior barrister of the Inn who
was elected to deliver a series of lectures on a particular legal topic;
and the following year, he delivered his first set of lectures in Lent.
In 1596, Bacon became Queen’s Counsel, a lawyer appointed by the
Queen to be one of “Her Majesty’s Counsel learned in the law.” His
career took off after James I became King of England in 1603. In 1613,
he was appointed to the prestigious post of Attorney General. In 1618,
at the age of 56, Francis Bacon was made Lord Chancellor, the highest
position in England’s legal profession and one of the most powerful posts
in the country.

6. SIR FRANCIS BACON WAS KNIGHTED IN 1603 AND
CREATED 1ST VISCOUNT ST. ALBAN IN 1621
• The political career of Francis Bacon began in 1581 at the age of
20 when he was elected Member of Parliament for Bossiney, Cornwall, in
a by-election. In 1584 he took his seat in parliament for Melcombe in
Dorset, and in 1586 for Taunton. He then became MP for Liverpool in
1588; for Middlesex in 1593; for Ipswich in 1597, 1601 and 1604; and for
Cambridge University in 1614. James I succeeded Elizabeth I to the
throne of England in 1603. Bacon, who had been generally neglected at
the court of Queen Elizabeth, became a close aid to the new king. In the
very year of his succession, 1603, James I knighted him. On 12th July
1618, Sir Francis Bacon was created 1st Baron Verulam and on 27th
January 1621, 1st Viscount St. Alban. He also served as regent of
England for a month in 1617.

7. HE WAS A PROLIFIC WRITER WHO WROTE ON A
VARIETY OF SUBJECTS
• Francis Bacon was a prolific writer. He proposed reformation of all
process of knowledge for the advancement of learning divine and human
in his work Instauratio Magna (The Great Instauration). He divided this
work into six parts, imitating the Work of the Six Days of Creation. The
six books in The Great Instauration include his renowned works Novum
Organum and The Advancement of Learning. His literary and religious
works include New Atlantis, Essays, The Wisdom of the Ancients,
Masculine Birth of Time, a collection of religious meditations and a
collection of prayers. Being a jurist by profession, he also wrote several
works to reform the law including The Elements of the Common Laws of
England, Maxims of the Law, Cases of Treason and The Learned Reading
of Sir Francis Bacon upon the Statute of Uses.

8. FRANCIS BACON IS CONSIDERED THE FATHER
OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
• At the time of Francis Bacon and for many centuries before him, science
or natural philosophy in Europe was dominated by the works
of Aristotle. Most scholars revered Aristotle and their attitude that his
theories were unquestionable had led to stagnation in the development
of science. The most influential work of Francis Bacon, Novum Organum
Scientiarum (‘new instrument of science’) was published in 1620. In it,
Bacon rejected Aristotelian philosophy and came up with his
famous Baconian method, which used inductive reasoning to arrive at
facts after careful observation of events. This method was influential
upon the development of the scientific method in modern science.
Bacon is thus referred to as the father of the scientific method, by
which laws of science are discovered by gathering and analysing data
from experiments and observations.

9. HIS WORK LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR THE
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
• The Baconian method which was put forward by Francis Bacon in Novum
Organum, requires careful, systematic observations to produce quality
facts; use of induction to generalize these facts to one or more axioms,
taking care not to generalize more than what the facts truly
demonstrate; and repeating the process to arrive at a base of knowledge
by empirical data. Bacon’s process allowed researchers to set aside old
superstitions, over-generalizations and unproven facts leading to
a scientific revolution. Many scientists, most notably the famous
chemist Robert Boyle, soon used the principles of Bacon to make path
breaking discoveries. Bacon’s emphasis on the use of experiments to
provide observances of a phenomenon is one of the reason he is
considered “the Father of the Experimental Philosophy”.

10. AMONG HIS MOST INFLUENTIAL WORKS IS
THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING
• Bacon’s 1605 book The Advancement of Learning divided human understanding
in three parts: history, related to man’s faculty of memory; poetry, related to
man’s faculty of imagination; and philosophy, pertaining to man’s faculty of
reason. He then further divided these three parts based on three
aspects: divine, human and natural. This work was later expanded and
published as De Augmentis Scientiarum (Partitions of the Sciences). The
classifications used in The Advancement of Learning inspired the taxonomic
structure of the highly influential Encyclopédie, published in France
between 1751 and 1772. In 1623, Bacon’s History of Life and Death was
published. This work is a treatise on medicine which looks into the causes of
the degeneration of the body and old age, taking into consideration different
analysis, theories and experiments, to find remedies to prolong life. This book
was one of Bacon’s most well regarded works at the time of its publication.

11. HIS PROPOSED LEGAL REFORMS PARTLY
INFLUENCED THE NAPOLEONIC CODE
• Francis Bacon’s propositions of legal reform, though not established in
his lifetime, are considered to have been one of the influences behind
the Napoleonic Code, which is regarded as one of the most influential
legal documents in world history. Bacon is credited for the
establishment of several features in the modern common law system
including using cases as repositories of evidence about the “unwritten
law”; and determining the relevance of precedents by exclusionary
principles of evidence and logic. He is thus acknowledged as the
inventor of the process of discovering unwritten laws from the
evidences of their applications. Some jurists consider Bacon as
the father of modern Jurisprudence, the science, study and theory of
law.

12. HIS WORK NEW ATLANTIS INFLUENCED THE
FORMATION OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY
• New Atlantis is an incomplete utopian novel by Francis Bacon. It was
published in 1627, a year after his death. In New Atlantis, Bacon
expressed his vision of the future of human discovery and knowledge
through a utopian land which values “generosity and enlightenment,
dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit”. The plan and organisation
of his ideal college, Salomon’s House, envisioned the modern research
university in both applied and pure sciences. Bacon’s scientific method
as well as New Atlantis, particularly its idea of Salomon’s House, inspired
his followers, like Samuel Hartlib and Robert Boyle, to found the Royal
Society of London. The Royal Society, was hugely influential in the
development of science in Europe and continues to play a part by,
among other things, promoting science and recognising excellence in
scientific fields.

13. HE PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN THE CREATION OF
ENGLISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA
• Francis Bacon played a leading role in creating the English colonies in
North America, especially in Virginia, the Carolinas and Newfoundland.
Until he became a prominent member of the Virginian Council, all
attempts to make a permanent settlement there had ended in
disaster. William Strachey, the first secretary of the Colony, addressed
Bacon as “a most noble father of the Virginian Plantation.” Some
scholars believe that he was also largely responsible for the drafting of
two charters of government for Virginia, which were the beginning of
constitutionalism in America. In 1910, Newfoundland, commemorating
the three hundredth anniversary of its foundation, issued a postage
stamp to commemorate Bacon’s role in establishing the province. It
addressed Bacon as “the guiding spirit in colonization scheme” of 1610.

14. FRANCIS BACON IS CREDITED WITH
STARTING A NEW INTELLECTUAL ERA
• Francis Bacon is considered a “universal genius“ who made important
contributions in a number of fields. He was a philosopher, statesman,
scientist, jurist, orator and author. Bacon was the leading figure in the
field of scientific methodology whose work played a key role in
the transition in Europe from the Renaissance to the early modern era.
He is thus credited for no less than being a key figure in initiating a new
intellectual era. The Royal Society and other scientific institutions
applied his scientific approach and followed the steps of his reformed
scientific method; and numerous scientists and thinkers were influenced
by his works. Francis Bacon was included in the list of the 100 most
influential people of the last millennium by A&E Networks.

15. Death and Legacy
• In March 1626, Bacon was performing a series of experiments with ice. While testing
the effects of cold on the preservation and decay of meat, he stuffed a hen with
snow near Highgate, England, and caught a chill. Ailing, Bacon stayed at Lord
Arundel's home in London. The guest room where Bacon resided was cold and musty.
He soon developed bronchitis. On April 9, 1626, a week after he had arrived at Lord
Arundel's estate, Francis Bacon died.
• In the years after Bacon's death, his theories began to have a major influence on
the evolving field of 17th-century European science. British scientists belonging to
Robert Boyle's circle, also known as the "Invisible College," followed through on
Bacon's concept of a cooperative research institution, applying it toward their
establishment of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge in
1662. The Royal Society utilized Bacon's applied science approach and followed the
steps of his reformed scientific method. Scientific institutions followed this model
in kind. Political philosopher Thomas Hobbes played the role of Bacon's last
amanuensis. The "father of classic liberalism," John Locke, as well as 18th-century
encyclopedists and inductive logicians David Hume and John Mill, also showed
Bacon's influence in their work.
• Today, Bacon is still widely regarded as a major figure in scientific methodology and
natural philosophy during the English Renaissance. Having advocated an organized
system of obtaining knowledge with a humanitarian goal in mind, he is largely
credited with ushering in the new early modern era of human understanding.

16. Some famous quotes by Francis Bacon
• Knowledge is power.
• Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is
not; a sense of humor to console for what he is.
• In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be
present.

17. Thank you!