The Advancement of LearningFrancis Bacon's The Advancement of Learning (1605) is considered the first major philosophical book written in English. In it, Bacon is concerned with scientific learning: the current state of knowledge, obstacles to its progress, and his own plans for revitalization of schools and universities. Here Bacon sets forth the first account of science as intended for "the relief of man's estate." |
From inside the book
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... was “justly esteem'd the father of modern experimental philosophy.” According to this view, Bacon freed the human intellect from its enthrallment to ancient thought and the sterile legacy of that thought, medieval vii Introduction 1/ii.
Francis Bacon. ancient thought and the sterile legacy of that thought, medieval scholasticism. Bacon redirected men from idle and fruitless speculation to the active and empirical investigation of nature, and he showed how real natural ...
... thought, was that a degenerate form of learning—one that stifled genuine science and retarded human progress—bound political power to theological power. Bacon thus asks the King to support some pretty dangerous, indeed revolutionary ...
... thought as well, as evidenced by its tendency to think that nature points to and actually discloses divine providence. This confusion of philosophy and theology, says Bacon, leads the human mind to a false conception of nature. The ...
... thought had not only persisted despite the advent of Christianity, but had in fact been absorbed into Christian thought and learning. For Bacon, the teleological approach to nature was mere circular reasoning and led absolutely nowhere ...