“The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. In short, Bacon advocates reasoning and a method based on experimental reasoning: Opposing Aristotelian logic which establishes a link between general principles and particular facts, he abandons deductive thought, which proceeds from the principles admitted by the authority of the Ancients, in favor of the interpretation of nature, where experience really enriches knowledge. For Bacon, true science is the science of causes. Moreover, he writes in the Novum Organum (or “new logic” as opposed to that of Aristotle) that knowledge comes to us in the form of objects of nature, but that we impose our own interpretations on these objects.Īccording to Bacon, our scientific theories are built around the way we see objects the human being is therefore biased in his statement of hypotheses. In his study of false reasoning his best contribution has been in the doctrine of idols. He is the first to lay the foundations of modern science and its methods. (Francis Bacon, father of modern empiricism.)įrancis Bacon (1561-1626) is the father of empiricism in its modern form. We can also mention Roger Bacon, for whom “no speech can give certainty, everything is based on experience.” Renaissance: Francis Bacon Thus, all knowledge must ultimately be able to be reduced to an immediate and singular, “intuitive” experience. Middle AgesĪs regards medieval thought, we could see in William of Ockham a precursor of empiricism, because he admits only singular entities in the world, that is to say facts which are objects of experience. Plato, however, represents it by a written tablet and calls it the faculty of learning by remembering”. Jean Philopo recalls this about the soul according to Aristotle: “Aristotle represents it by an unwritten tablet and names it literally the faculty of learning. The soul therefore receives intelligible forms passively (although it contains them all potentially, in the state of possibilities): it is the natural object which is the direct cause of knowledge sensation actualizes in the soul (intellect) the intelligible form (quiddity) which signifies in the natural object its rational structure or substance. Indeed, Aristotle conceived of knowledge as the abstraction of intelligible forms from sensitive objects, the abstraction consisting in the erasure of particularities to obtain a universal definition. It is from Aristotle that John Locke takes up the conception of the mind as tabula rasa, the clean slate which receives impressions like wax. In epistemology, all knowledge arises from the sensation caused by the simulacra which are produced by external bodies. Epicureanism: prenotions and simulacraĮpicurus’ theory of prenotions is close to empiricism, and was placed under this label by Kant. It does not appear, however, that this form of empiricism played a role in shaping the English-born movement, except perhaps for Hume, through the influence of skepticism. L’στορία ( historia): observation made by others and reported in writing.
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