Re “The popular belief that Francis Bacon was the founder of modern science is so flagrantly in contradiction with all the facts of the history of science " and "it is most instructive to inquire how such an absurd belief ever gained currency among educated people”
Perhaps the belief has spread so widely and deeply because of what Bacon himself wrote about it rather than what Bacon actually discovered with it. (This seems to me a typical trait of AI, btw.) In that sense, Bacon was perhaps more a forerunner of Bernays rather than another Aristotle.
Some - particularly those who credit Bacon with writing the plays attributed to Shakespeare - would argue that Bacon was perhaps the greatest and most successful propagandist in history.
'Bacon, the founder of modern science' is a joke, and a bad one at that, that one can still find in the textbooks. In fact Bacon understood nothing about science. He was credulous and completely uncritical. His manner of thinking was closer to alchemy and magic (he believed in 'sympathies'), in short to that of a primitive or to a thinker of the Renaissance than to that of a Galileo or even a Scholastic.
Re “The popular belief that Francis Bacon was the founder of modern science is so flagrantly in contradiction with all the facts of the history of science " and "it is most instructive to inquire how such an absurd belief ever gained currency among educated people”
Perhaps the belief has spread so widely and deeply because of what Bacon himself wrote about it rather than what Bacon actually discovered with it. (This seems to me a typical trait of AI, btw.) In that sense, Bacon was perhaps more a forerunner of Bernays rather than another Aristotle.
Some - particularly those who credit Bacon with writing the plays attributed to Shakespeare - would argue that Bacon was perhaps the greatest and most successful propagandist in history.
'Bacon, the founder of modern science' is a joke, and a bad one at that, that one can still find in the textbooks. In fact Bacon understood nothing about science. He was credulous and completely uncritical. His manner of thinking was closer to alchemy and magic (he believed in 'sympathies'), in short to that of a primitive or to a thinker of the Renaissance than to that of a Galileo or even a Scholastic.
Alexandre Koyré, Galileo Studies, Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1978, p.39, n.6.
Some interesting alternate views on Francis Bacon that I'm putting here for future reference:
https://www.thesavvystreet.com/before-ayn-rand-there-was-the-contribution-of-sir-francis-bacon/
Thank you very much for this summary of Francis Bacon.
Thanks for reaching out. I need to check out Fiat Lux. There's a great deal of overlap with the historical background in Fields & Energy.
https://johnplaice.substack.com