Welcome back to the new thinkery. I'm David Barr and with me as always it is my friend Alex Preu, conos la Alex Preu. Wait, wait, I'll dev you to bar Econ Alex is our nuestro airmano Gregory Macdougall. How are you Greg?
Where are you calling in from? Remind us again over the folks at home and calling for National, Ohio the world headquarters of nice people and grandpa's cheese barn. Yes, and and the police water which I active there's no need to access that For crimes against Munster at a pop's cheese and porium. So Anyway, we are talking about bacon bacon bacon pigs what hogs?
You're a you're a salt of the earth kind of guy I know you went to Emory and have a PhD, but you style yourself as a salt of the earth fellow I'm a regular. Yeah, I'm a regular yomans farmer. Yeah, I'm not farming. No, no, no I think farms are being in North Carolina not Georgia I do have a cousin who has a who has a pig, but that's about the closest I got to a big farm Just a few little three-legged pig That's it?
Yeah, I mean, he's a pretty impressive little feller He like they take him on walks They taught him like roll over and sit and shake and he sort of walks the kids to school because they live pretty close to elementary school Once he actually this funny story my cousin goose is pig by the way He he got the neighbors their house was on fire and he went in and sort of went to everybody awake And they were so proud he like went to the small town Georgia They like went to some function in the mayor game a little ribbon and stuff like that my little Little three-legged pig. Yeah, what happened to the fourth light? Did they eat it? Yeah, you don't even take like that All the ones that's what goose says.
Oh, there's wisdom in that there's wisdom in that Greg There's a list don't eat the pig all the ones. Yeah, that's sickening I'd be horrifying. There'd be like a cheek missing and then This is like the goose's scientific method of eating the pig is right. Yeah.
Yeah, so today we're talking about that your transition goose's scientific method I don't know I was for instance, but good. I was grasping We're talking about Francis Bacon. So we'll do a little introduction and then we were talking about a specific work of his the You guys know this book wasn't originally written in English, right? It was written in the line.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a dummy. I've ever heard Oh gosh, you should be an issue Tom Tom close at home. You know, you can't see this but Greg's face is beat red.
He's so overjoyed. He had to mute himself He's laughing so hard. Yeah, and that's he was in the Sun. Yeah, he was saving this joke for a while Yeah, no back that joke used to kill back in vaudeville when Greg was a boy.
Yeah Francis Bacon full title first this count St. Albin sometimes he's referred to as Lord Barulam That's probably just when he's being naughty. He was born in 1561 and he died in 1626 So along with Machiavelli and Descartes, he's said to be on that cluster of philosophers who broke with ancient political philosophy So you'll hear him refer to shorthand as a modern or an early modern political philosopher. We talked a little bit about that He was a man of incredible industry and imagination in elect at various times.
He was a member of Parliament He was the legal advisor to Elizabeth the first of England after the accession of James the first he was made a night Along the way he found time to attend the University of Cambridge at the age of 12 And this is my favorite fact he wrote all of the plays we now attribute to Shakespeare Which people you know disagree with me on but they're wrong So just just kidding that first of some idiots out there seems to be like still this topic of fascination Friend of the show Chris Hoffman point out that to join the Francis Bacon society or something like that you have to believe this It's a precondition, you know to joining the Francis Bacon Royal society or whatever it is And we want them to push out this podcast So for the next 45 minutes an hour I'm gonna believe he offered all of those plays. It's really easy Yeah, you know, so there's a lot too large a pond when it comes to his biography We don't have time to do it, but just look up his life if you the guy wrote ciphers and he's just astounding genius There are a lot of twists in that tale about bacon This is the second big joke from Greg. This is the third Alex How many do you think you will make for the episodes run its course? I don't know you'll make before I stop recording for Yeah, he had a joke about pork and Islam and Judaism, but he doesn't want to make that on the podcast They went along with him.
He made a doodle of the Prophet Muhammad along with it. I think so No, no he gets quiet. I don't think that's something you guys should joke about so listen Let me Bacon it's hard to kind of put into words. I think the it is important in his project He saw the advent of modern science and what I would argue understood more deeply than anyone before since The effect he would have on human relations.
He understood modern science which transformed the world not just mechanically But morally and politically and he anticipated the kind of modern day Prometheus is we see running around through his philosophic writings But more than I think he tried to influence the proceedings the course modern science would take today We're going to talk about the beginning our introduction to his great six-part work called the great inspiration That means something like the great founding restoration The aim of the great Installation and this also will give you a glimpse into kind of the vistas that bacon's on his mind was to quote commence a total Reconstruction of sciences arts and all human knowledge raised upon the proper foundations, okay So he wants to refound everything. There's this like an astounding claim. It's not only like you're just your average hubris of a Philosopherial saying I'm just gonna bring philosophy down from the heavens It's just like an incredible what what bacon is saying is that a human reason is preceded erroneously and it's inherently We have these like we're hamstrung and he's done was that a big fun? Armstrong, you know, I must be in my mind.
No, can I was your point about the title though? Actually, you said our founding and then you in your comments just a second ago You said refounding. No, did I say that well? I thought so and I think the refounding is actually more accurate that the word I think means something like to refound something after a period of decay So the because the sciences need some kind of a refounding like there's something, you know Yeah, it's interesting because there's the same sort of duality.
I think shows up later as well We'll get to that later, but I think you know insofar as he seems to be trying to restore it But also he characterizes it as the true beginning in a way. So there's there's a kind of founding slash refund. Yeah, very good Yeah, no, I think we can I mean, that's really all I wanted to say About the beginning if you guys had anything to kind of add Or we can just launch right into it Let me say one or two other things actually another I prompt myself the addition We are using the wine burger Jerry Weinberger addition It includes the new elianist which I think Weinberger argues Is the sixth part of the great installation in an essay that's attached to this book But I may be remembering it correctly And it also includes part two of the great installation called the new organon Which is a series of aphorisms and of course reminds us of airsoft's work. So let's let's talk about the great installation How long is it Alex?
I think uh Greg if you actually looked at the uh we're gonna show David You know that the first thing I want to talk is why bacon on a political philosophy podcast didn't I just want the case with it? I guess I think Greg wanted to say something about bacon and mozzie. Just a couple of small points I suppose what so yeah listeners might be listening to this and you're talking about refounding science and logic and induction Why should we why should we listen to the internet on a political philosophy podcast? And As Alex just intimated I think bacon is self-consciously continuing Machiavelli's project And I'll just make the link if I could that in the 25th chapter of Machiavelli's prince If you remember back to the first episode we did on Machiavelli Machiavelli talks about how most humans sort of rely on the winds of fortune to guide their lives But that these new in the modern world new princes and those like them ought to dammit dig river so that they can sort of conquer the world and make it Then to their will and some followers of Machiavelli's followed his lead in the area of politics And some followed him in the area of science and bacon seems to be the premier man Who followed Machiavelli in trying to harness the power of science to improve man's lot on earth Um a couple other small points will probably at some point do an episode on his work the new Atlantis Which is a sort of utopian fictional novel and it seems clear that what bacon would like to do is we would like to unleash the power of science to Lead a man's estate and that also carries political implications He seems to be pushing the direction of a rule of scientists or at least the scientists are sort of second in command of nothing else And so especially right now We're still in this covid crisis to the extent that we think that we ought to defer to scientists who have to listen scientists That's a sort of small example of something that that comes out of bacon right that that the scientists now have this esteem and modernity Whereas ancient scientists were held in very ill-repute so it's this radical re It's finding a whole new political station political point for the scientists I mean before they sort of live in margins of society now They're gonna be serving societies needs and as a result they're gonna be rewarded for having done so Is that and you might want to say anything jump on it?
I think that's I think that's fair on the connection Between not just on chapter 25, but also chapter 15 where Machiavelli critiques imaginary republics Bacon uses very similar language and critiquing the ancient philosophers and the advanced of learning You know he and yet he writes a book about an imaginary republic which is a little puzzling from that But yeah, you're actually right. Yeah, well, it's it's prophetic in that way It's meant to be a kind of prophecy rather than something. I think it's meant to entice us Yeah, so go beyond that. He also speaks highly of Machiavelli's critique of morality And just a brief quote from the great institution that park called the plan he says at one point Um, moreover to be plain We pay no attention to men's disgust or what they find attractive as nature reveals herself More through the harassment of art than in her own proper freedom sounds a lot like the master fortune But also, you know science looks into anything high or low, right?
It's willing to investigate anything because that knowledge could potentially be quite useful So and there's a number of quotes from the events of learning where he's he's explicitly saying i'm going to take this and apply it to natural science so It's what i'm gonna go No, I think that was I mean i'm on with you too. I think just like Machiavelli's part of a sort of intergenerational long range project And maybe we'll talk that talk about that later as well But I think maybe an outline of the texts uh give folks a Say that I um, I don't see any of the other early moderns laying out a project this kind of scope Right is that I mean the odd is it fair to say that uh, nobody comes close to bacon's audacity I think Machiavelli does. Does it really? Yeah, you think Machiavelli but does he explicitly say it?
I think more so bacon The beginning of the discourses where he says i'm exploring the whole new content I'm like i'm like um, I'm like the equivalent of christian clambas for the political and moral world Yeah, i mean he does it unless he does it in more of a mealy mouth way, right? Machiavelli right isn't he a little bit more playful? I be like he's just coming out and he's saying look everything you guys have fought before is Well, I think one way to talk about this. I think you know, bacon does the same thing uses the same idea of a new person The problem the problem is that with Machiavelli you then have to read 300 pages of interpretation of Roman history Which tends to alienate most readers whereas here you have about a 20 30 page synopsis of how what he's gonna lay out is gonna Make your life so much better.
So I would say the audacity is about the same but the um Sussinthness and the clarity or or directness with what she says it is pretty impressive So, uh just coming a little bit off the Machiavelli stuff about getting to the structure of the work Uh, so the great instillation or great renewal was originally published with the new organon. I think in 1620 or 1621 Um, it was uh, it sets out a plan for a six part uh sort of scientific endeavor The first part of which he says is contained in a way in his book the advancement of learning It's a kind of survey of pre-existing uh continent The second part is contained in the new organon which followed immediately after the uh great uh, Instoration and uh really the when you follow it out to the six part the six part We're actually living it right now. It's the actual pursuit of the sciences. So, um, it's uh, The first thing I would say therefore is that this work is fragmentary and by design fragmentary, right?
It's not complete because it's sending out a task for mankind as such, right? And therefore he is only really giving you the second part which is in a way the light It's the new logic or the new way of thinking about the world the new method, right? And that method is meant to help you actually see nature as it is Um, all the works or the the um technology as we would say today that's to come of this That's all to come in in later generations. He gives you a few he says of himself, but to start off He begins with a kind of introductory, uh, discussion of his reason for publishing the work Which is written interestingly in the third person He's speaking about himself in the third person about what he thought and then why he decided to publish it It's then followed by a letter to king james, uh, not labron James, but king james the first of uh england um, this letter is obviously written in the uh first person and second person him addressing king james directly Specifically asking him to help compile a natural and experimental history I think, uh, if we ever do cover the new atlantis as greek suggested we might Um, this passage is very important because you see king james, uh getting an honor of basically being, uh, reduced to a sort of Functionary and funding, uh, this project Um, I think it's interesting to compare this with the denikatori letter to maki bellies prince, uh in that regard because there is a kind of relationship between them We then get a preface, uh to the great instillation, uh, and that preface specifically just kind of goes through Um, what he thinks, uh, what benefit this will finally, um, get us and why we've ignored this, uh, this ability to restore the sciences What the impediments are in human thinking, um, impediments which I think actually allow him to complete his work and then we get, uh, Uh, the six part plan for the work model on the six days of creation Um, it's meant to, uh, and he says it's explicitly in the preface and then again in the plan and closes the plan by repeating this that These are six stages through which we have to pass after which we'll get a day of rest You know, godlike repose, um meant to bring us two sciences proper starting point Again, this was, uh, the six part the first part was to be in the uh, advanced middle learning and then he gives us new organ on which has two books The first book is meant to be a critique of the old science primarily and the second book is mentally out the new science And there with by the end of this work published as a whole, uh, you will have the light to do science Uh, he does not, uh, go too much further than that.
He has some stuff on natural history. Um, that's basically, uh, where it is We'll only be talking about the great instillation, but I think it's important to understand how it's how it's uh, sitting in this larger work with which it was Published now. It's let me ask a Clarifying question for for listeners when you said at the end of the task we should be able to quote do science Is bacon's understanding of science more encompassing than the narrow way. I think we think about it today No, I think it's actually quite uh quite in line with it.
Um, I mean, I do think his basic understanding of experiments Which we'll get to later in inductive reasoning, uh, those basic concepts and he lays them out with uh, starting Startlingly clear abstraction. Um, this is not, you know, you're you're typical kind of, uh, what do you expect of a science theory testing? Hypothesis, etc. I mean, there's elements of that but at least it as it is in the great instillation The basic point is to understand why inductive reasoning in particular is so important Yeah, so it's very close.
Yeah, so what's the old science? I mean, he's he's comparing it to syllogisms Uh in particular deductive versus inductive reasoning. Um, but for that reason he's also narrowing the scope I think quite a bit as Greg suggested, right? David suggested right that Web by focusing on uh inductive reasoning you're focusing on Arriving at clear statements or premises that can serve the basis basis for deductive reasoning We should clarify a little bit what those are but inductive reasoning is going from a number of objects I see a few things are all very different there a bunch of books on my desk I see blue ones green ones large ones large ones hardcover softcover But I go from that I say oh, these are books books are things with pages, right?
And they have words on them and well, what about a picture book or an art book, right? You know, you might want to modify that what about a Um, a notebook which might be entirely empty altogether and so you raise these things and you realize oh, I've gone too quickly from General experience to the universal, right? That's what he wants to focus on how do we do that really precisely so that the statements we make about the world these Premises of our reasoning are actually true, right or or very very very close to true Whereas you a syllogism might be something like um, all men are mortal, right? Greg is a man by all accounts that easy easy.
And therefore Greg is is mortal in fact, I can see it in his decrepit old physique So that would be a syllogism the problem is what if the premises are incorrect like Greg is not a man, but Greg is a is a Pusillanimous coward, right? No, so you can have a logical argument a logically sound argument, right? All dogs are purple freddy my dog, right? He's a dog therefore Freddie is purple Well logically that sounds but it doesn't make sense because the premises aren't true not all dogs are purple So what you want to do is get those statements correct, right?
You want to be right? What I be right saying the old science is Aristotelian. Oh, yeah So there's something wrong with the way that aerosol approach science And this actually goes back to my kl2 But and so therefore the new science is going to be and the new argonon I mean I guess you mentioned this the intro David the new argonon implies that there's something wrong with the old one And that's aerosol the organ on is the tool that's his logical writings And so for nearly 2,000 years aerosols understanding of science and sort of dominated epistemology The study of science and bacon is saying we've got it all wrong air smells all wrong We need to need folks on deductions and experiments and actually the inductions and experiments and stop doing his deductive syllogistic reasoning Yeah, and on top of that also ignore his moral and political writings. He says that too We get we get that from the bible.
We don't need it from anywhere else, right? That's the bible tells us how we ought to live what we need to do is focus on and maybe this is a good transition to the sort of biblical Side of his writing but he compares us to Adam, right? Adam was fine. He was in the Garden of Eden and he named the animals He gave him their proper animals.
That's just what science is. It's describing the world as it actually is and just giving it names Don't worry about knowledge of good and evil. We know what that is, right? We just want to stick to this primary stage before the fall But maybe Greg wants to expand or David wants to expand on some of the biblical Alex you touched on it, but it's just the plan of the work Six days bacon is Eke hedges.
It's interesting. I can't recall now if it's in his It's in this it's in the beginning Not in the epistle dedicatory. I think it's in his note To the proemium. Is that he pronounce it?
We're saying like look I don't want you to judge my project until you've seen its effects. He's essentially doing a mea culpa, but he's he's trying to Allow himself breathing room from the sensors to investigate everything that needs to be investigated and he says like I'm only gonna investigate things, you know, like the divine would approve blah blah blah, but you have to let me look under every rock Where's something like that? Um, and so in this introduction We see a playful how I interpreted it as a kind of playfulness of bacon where at once the incredible in godlike The role he seems to design for himself with the structure of six like he is the divine Um, and then at the same time saying oh, no, but no, no. I'm just a you know kind of a humble gatherer She have these two sides.
Um, he refers to James as Solomon. I think he's in in the introduction Constantly is interspersing biblical illusions in quotes. Um, but again, I don't I don't want to be too cynical and say it's kind of a ruse but the radicalness of his project and I think the liberty he needs the project requires to come to good account will Will require some kind of like hands off from the church. Yeah, I think one thing to and this is going back to monkey valley You have to understand I think that he's running almost a century after monkey valley and a really important event has happened Which is a reformation, right?
And so there's and you're in the middle of all these religious sectarian wars. It's one thing if uh, you know, Christians are fighting other religions, right? Or we're not Christians. Uh, it's another thing when Christians are fighting amongst themselves I think both bacon and decards see this as an opportunity to take a lot of disenfranchised christian sentiment and direct it So a lot of this biblical trapping that you're talking about in that playfulness I think is meant to to take all this this sentiment and direct it down this new avenue This more humanitarian project that uh, you know, monkey valley I think you know could have conceived But the circumstances weren't as ripe as they are now in bacon and decards times Um, you see that there's a couple prayers in this work and I think it's a third to last paragraph of the preface Um, he says the following says uh, we offer the most humble and fervent prayers to god the father god the word and god the spirit That mindful of the afflictions of mankind so he accepts the fall and of the pilgrimage of life in which we passed few days and evil Right and therefore this world is a tale of tears They may dane to endow the human family through our hands with new mercies So I always focus here on first the human family This is not as nearly conceived the project is seen as in the prince the prince ends with this nationalistic Exertation to Lorenzo.
This is for the human family Um second through through our hands. So this is human labor a third with new mercies as opposed to the old mercies Which means that the rest comes not in the afterlife, but with the completion of the scientific project Which so so you can see clearly the the the appropriation of of christian doctrine But also to a new end right subtly Yeah, where he is pointing to new mercies that are to come So so we're not to be safe through prayer rather our sole prayer is to be safe through our own hands Yes, yes, and he has this line he says uh That he one of his as these three admonitions admonishment. Sorry to mankind and third is I use this teaching of mine Um this light that i'm going to kind of like kindle for mankind to seek the true ends of knowledge for the benefit In use of life to be perfected and used in charity So there is a kind of like a christian rhetorical overlay to all of this one wonders of course How when the project gets going? And especially for living in the project now this might be useful to talk about toward the end of the episode How one ensures that it continues to be guided toward an appropriate human end Just to touch on that passage you read right the mind says cultivate the truth in all charity.
What does your say again? It was just my notes and you know what they're so they're so sloppy. So so if you ask to ask well, how do you how do you you know Perform acts of charity right does it really involve cultivating the truth? I mean if you're to be charitable, you might give you know soup to to uh, you know to a Homeless shelter or something or a bath to greg Or you might build a shed for greg that might be another thing you too out of charity But cultivating the truth in all charity.
I think that's almost a neat formula for the baconia project Right. This is a trying to get truth to be charitable trying to get truth to do things of benefits man so do you eat him as a as a An honest guy in this kind of introduction Alex I mean, this is hard to say. I don't know bacons life enough or is other works well enough to judge on that I mean one thing I would say is that there's there's only two possible ways to read this either It's deeply impious and he's trying to undermine Christianity or Christianity is so devolved that he needs to appropriate it Or direct it another way. I'll leave it to the Lister does it's both like terrible.
I mean, uh, I know I agree with you. I agree with you. I um, you have to think also that once Uh, this uncovering begins the inquest of nature. Uh, there's nothing That prevents it from looking under every rock including religious stuff and um, you just can't stop it.
He knew that Can I one small point? I think you guys both talked about how he was talking about truth and truth being charitable I I guess I saw maybe maybe it's because i'm coming at this through moctevelli I sort I sort of saw like in the sentence you just pointed to actually this on my page 16. It's Uh, it's near the end of um his letter to james He says lastly I would address one general admonition to all these are the three admonitions That they consider one of the true ends of knowledge and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind or for contention or for Superiority others or for profit or fame or power or any other of these inferior things But for the benefit and use of life and that they perfect and govern it in charity So as Alex Rayleigh stressed the benefit and use of life as uh, david you stressed it's supposed to be charitable But the yes the antecedent I think is not truth, but the true ends of knowledge Uh, and so I see a sort of moctevelli and disregard for truth with a capital t and maybe we'll get to this with the induction and deduction business I think he's sort of eschewing sort of epistemological certainty Um, and he's more interested than what moctevelli might call the effect of her effectual truth Like if we can any gala chitamond go said if we can get truth or something kind of close I'm paraphrasing what Alex said, but I think the emphasis for bacon is actually we don't need to get a hundred percent if we can get 95 Percent we can sure do a lot to benefit mankind and govern their lives terribly So we don't have to be able to explain why gravity works We just have to be able to explain how gravity works and then we don't have to understand anything about the world In the sort of earth's italian scientific language with respect to its final goal or or stuff stuff is material and we can manipulate it And that's good enough for a general business. I think Why don't you connect that to the inductive reason because that's interesting, but I think you're right But I'd like to see where you go with that sure So you already laid out very simply and I thought much better than I could the difference between what you laid out What I thought was the duct of reasoning very well and inductive reasoning and I think you rightly showed that for aerosol The syllogism the logical argument was deductive you have premises that you then draw conclusions from but the problem in aerosol Is as you rightly pointed to how do you know that the premises themselves are true?
And I think that erus for Aristotle science was a way they're agreeing here that science is actually somewhat problematic But from aerosol is one of you He was never satisfied with the fact that um you just had to accept the premises I think that aerosol was really interested in figuring out the first principles from which any scientific argument would have to be um drawn And so I and I think that from aerosol's point of view The only thing that deserves the name scientific knowledge is something that we have derived from an argument known with certainty Now I think that bacon and think about if you if you haven't read bacon listeners think about any contemporary scientists Right the idea that science what science says on on today can be false tomorrow I think shows you that there's a kind of lowering the standard of what qualifies for scientific knowledge For me good for me bad for me good for me back and forth at least twice each so four times And I think that's inductive reasoning right and so science can change based on what we're um drawing based on the emphasis we're drawing Whereas I think for aerosol aerosol say if what you had changed if that thing you're calling knowledge changed over time It was never really knowledge And so I think that what bacon is saying is we can make science a lot more powerful We can make it a lot more beneficial. We can make it a lot more charitable If we stop worrying about this there's a telling fascination with finding truth with the capital T And by the way, I'll just to um, I'm interested much more on aerosol side yourself trying buttress bacon side up We can actually make a lot more progress toward capital T truth Uh, just by accident not by accident, but just sort of as a side effect because we'll get to 95 96 97 99 percent so around about way by forgetting about truth with capital T We might actually get there so I don't know if that Yeah, I think that's I think one thing I would add to the aerosol comparison is the critique of the senses Uh that he introduces he says uh We're using different translations because I switched it up. I was just teaching this he says logicians borrow This is in the second part of the uh plan Says logicians borrow if I put it this way the principles of the sciences from the particular sciences themselves Then the pair respect to the first notions of the mind finally they are happy with the immediate perceptions of healthy senses So if you have 2020 vision and you see a dog and it looks like a one thing that is the form It's got that form that is what it is. It is a dog so the healthy senses and the first notions That's good For the logician for the irisitilian, uh, logician for bacon.
No the senses are defective Uh, they deceive us and therefore they need to be augmented and they need to be augmented by certain tools Right? So if you want to judge what's happening in the heavens, you need a telescope Not your own need to die if you want to know what's happening in your body You need a a uh, stethoscope to hear inside the chest or you need a microscope to look at the cellular level If you want to know what's happening in nature, you need a particle accelerator Right that calls billions of dollars to really understand that so he's trying to give us these implements that allow us to see deeper I think this is actually connected to a point of Machiavelli in chapter three He says look if you want to understand scientifically what's happening It's like a doctor you can cure things if you can see them when they're almost invisible, right? So you need to have a way to augment your site from Machiavelli Analogically this means seeing through morality in Machiavelli here It's quite literally augmenting your site with these these instruments And so what ends up happening he lays this out. I think pretty so he lays it out pretty clearly just after this.
He says Um, it's almost like an just a beautifully stated aphorism. Um, he says, sorry, I'm trying to find it exactly Um You guys know where he said? Yeah, here it is. Uh, the senses judge only the experiment the experiment judges of the thing Right.
So an experiment is what connects your eye or your your site to things themselves because they don't have access to them directly So I don't judge, uh, what's going on in in my body just by looking at it and say, oh, I have a rash or something Uh, no, I use all sorts of, uh, um, technology to measure my levels of sodium in my blood and then I can know whether I'm gonna have a heart attack or something like that So the experiment is a kind of, uh, supplement to our defective senses And so in a way our senses are fallen. We don't have a natural perfection as aerosol says, but a kind of defects by nature And therefore we need to supplement in some way So it's a very deep critique of aerosol where he's critiquing ordinary language ordinary experience Um, the claim that our nature admits of some kind of perfection rather we're defective We need to fix ourselves and that requires the will and don't worry about, uh, you know, capital T truth is correct Just get what you can that allow you to make your life better to give you the mercies that you need. Yeah Two questions, uh, one I suspect that it's not just Aristotle that he doesn't like it's what heres to tell you and science or philosophy has become So making syllogisms about how he prays is the forefathers Right, I thought he he thought that the forefathers were the greeks But it's really between that one moment in time and the present that nothing has happened of much value Sorry, Gregor No, that was what I was gonna say that might get to my question about the quivicle character of the title is he founding a refounding? In other words, was Aristotelian science good originally and has become corrupt and therefore I need a refounding Or was Aristotelian science in its own right somehow corrupts?
I mean given its limitations one could see a modern scientist being very sympathetic aerosol Yeah, this this problem shows up in the very structure of the work He says we need to model ourselves on the divine creation which on the first day created light And the new organ is to be that light but the new organ on is made on the second day The first day is the survey of the pre-existing sciences So it's a founding and the proper sense that this is the beginning right? It's the first day but the first day is actually on the second so it's a kind of Refounding you need to survey the the terrain and see what's missing What's what's not there on your map before you sail to this new continent? So yeah, second question. I don't think it's too far field but And a lot of listeners probably will not have read the great installation or any bacon I've only read I think I'd only read the new Atlantis before this sure have eaten it So the question I have is he's writing in the early 1600s.
It says 400 years ago. Oh gosh, it's 1620 So 400 years ago Do you guys I mean I I see you guys are trying about his great ambition Did he foresee the kinds of scientific progress that we actually see around the world in 2020? Did he see the stuff? Did he have what hopes did he have for what science would accomplish?
Did he see any limits to what science could do you talk about going inside me and fixing me? I mean, what did he think we could actually do in 1620? Greg you read the new at land. I've never said if I've read it.
I don't remember Doesn't that get fairly wild as far as what's depicted? Yeah, I guess that's what I was I don't answer my question, but I mean I think you do I was trying to give you a layup Alex Well, listen, we'll look at our president. Actually. Yeah, so our president recently said that if we put light into our bodies We can fix ourselves and I thought I thought that he that indicated that he's done Francis bacon Which is why it's right when I got hit with coronavirus my wife was like David you're crazy Like you can't just get a bunch of flashlights and shine I was like don't talk to me like that and I just signed the flashlight into my body.
I was fixed Actually in the fourth party talks about bleach, you know really briefly, but yeah, yeah, but we let's let Greg answer so I really I actually have a criticism bacon on this point. So why don't you share it jump into it? Well, no great now. I look like it.
But anyway, it seems to me based on the new Atlantis that Bacon seems to indicate that he thinks the power of scientists I'll just say almost unlimited that it can we can harness the power of the winds we can harness the power of the sun is the more daddy we can We can we can We can actually go back and edit out the most insane things that members of the podcast say We can look I think I want you guys Alex may always for me I think he thinks that we can conquer death with science. We can alleviate all of man's problems We can solve starvation. We can have plenty of we can solve the problem scarcity. We can solve death We can solve the human condition.
I think with science. Yeah, I mean in the new Atlantis the list of discoveries that they have in this imaginary regime are Remarkably, I mean, they're not hard to imagine one level right so he has like hearing aids, right? Of course you want if you lose your hearing you'd like to get it back But there's all sorts of he understood that people would like to have lots of different drinks and tasty foods Right, so there's a lot of the effort is just like look There's I went to the safe way the other day and there's like a whole section of drinks like 80 different like ginger ales and 50 different like slightly flavoured waters It's a baconian, you know utopia over it's safe way Not getting better real sponsors on the show now great One thing I think that he underestimates a little is how big the scientific enterprise will have to be in the new Atlantis It's very small. It's like 30 something people I think Descartes was a bit more realistic than that and so he reaches out to every day ordinary people and tries to get them You know anybody who's intelligent and can understand this project come work on this and that's a far more I think Popular not say populist but democratic or human endeavor, right?
When you look at science now universities and corporations and all the people who ministered to it right and are involved in some element of the whole economy of it It's massive, right? I think that's one more difficult to you know Alex. I'm curious and Greg you too If if uh the the scope of bakins desire for the future was really this large Is he is he open to a criticism that? Yeah, there's nothing in this plan that serves as a check of the tyrannizing impulse of modern men of science or just uh Just the worry that science itself might tyrannize our souls.
Do you hear how you respond to that? Or maybe we could talk about that a little further Happen the show. Yeah, that's tough. Um because it just seems like okay, bacon like well great You're setting us up for a Pandora's box of insanity And and look we see listen buddy when you're my age It doesn't sound insane to start thinking we need to put these scientists in the service of figuring out how to make sure we don't die Okay, well, that sounds silly.
No, no, I understand I understand On the tyranny issue one thing. Uh, there's a great scholar of early modern philosophy Richard kennington has an essay on bacon and moquivally We point out something really really important partially discussing the new Atlantis, but that this is a human project and it's unleashing great power the political um Unity or the political uh regime if you will that fits the bikonian project is something like a world regime and he finds hints of this in the new Atlantis um but writing in the cold war, uh, he's basic intention kennington's basic intention is that okay? You have a humanitarian project based on moquivally premises meant to make us very very powerful What happens when it's not humanitarian what happens if it's narrowly national the way that moquivally seems to be and it seems like what you end up with is You know fear of you know mutual destruction through uh nuclear warfare or or you know, David was Tommy's theories about biological warfare During this pandemic. I don't go into them.
Don't want alienate any of our listeners But there are all these these concerns that arise when you have a very powerful science Uh, that's tailored not towards alleviating our condition or if you want to be a little bit more critical of bacon mollifying us Um, if it could be really destructive and really scary as I think you know, it has been I think that's a fair criticism based on the history since But does bacon just bacon, uh, you know, I haven't read that much of his work. Does he have Don't you just Does he does he have a response to what we're asking? I don't know if I just can't believe he would fail to see So there has to be well I mentioned there and we should probably do an episode on the new Atlantis now But um, the scientists are second in charge. It seems actually It was a philosopher's leading.
Yeah, I think so somebody's on top as well. It's very opaque though Yeah, that's right. What exactly is happening one thing that's clear. Um, is that uh, the king is now Basically like a functionary or something like that, right?
It's not even clear what what king's going to do King james is praised for his wisdom, but he has any wisdom he realized he's about to be out of a job Right, uh turned into a and we see this I think in political discourse today, right? Uh, we talk a lot about listening to scientists listening to experts, right? Um, political judgment ends up being really subordinated what the expert says what goes what what happens when the economists and the Scientists agree about what's best then you have to you need something like political wisdom But still this this attempt to subordinate any kind of executive power or political power two expertise I think is a somewhat unfortunate fruit of bacon's project Is that anything else? I got a few odds and ends if you guys want to take stab at him I got just a few points small points.
Maybe this on the Machiavelli point There's some language that he uses that sort of really evokes Machiavelli to me Uh, he's departing from the orders of others in science. Just that sounds just like what Machiavelli says in politics Uh, and then the next paragraph he uses execution execution over and over again That's just one small thing He uses the phrase the nature of things many times So I'm wondering I came across a book recently about the rediscovery of la chesius's book And I'm wondering if that has an impact on his understanding And then I guess the last thing I mentioned was this He he says, uh, very clearly do not suppose that the work can be all together completed within a few generations So he he's very clearly, you know, I think sort of in days or weeks or months If i'm really elusive, maybe a year or two It's clear that bacon like Machiavelli is thinking in multiple generations down the road He's starting something that's going to be going on long after he's dead I would go even further than the new atlantis. It seems like it's been at least uh, 1600 years Maybe 2000 right so it seems like it's been going on Four times as long as it has in terms of how we were able to do a lot of what bacon anticipates there in shorter time But yeah, he's really talking about long term. Yeah, he's built into his texts I mean Usually when you have this kind of grand world vision, it's it's helpful to appoint a number two Uh, after you pass on to carry on your life's work a kind of apprentice Bacon doesn't seem to do that.
It's up to other people to kind of carry it on. I don't know does they cart site bacon Alex No, he's born. He's born right as bacon's dying or something like I mean he comes after I mean he uh, I mean the one question I have with big and I just haven't ever looked into is Um, how was works circulated? I think uh, we know Descartes had some of his works now Descartes was way more of like his own hype man He went on the road with his you know discoveries and he and you know He published with his discourse on the method which is kind of his version of this He published a work of geometry work of optics and a work of called the meteors And in there he's showing you real fruits, right?
And a real scientific or mathematical Discoveries and so when he went on the road and he showed people what he was able to do. I think he really uh sold the project Um, I don't know. Do you know anything about this uh Greg? No, no idea.
No Do you have any other odds and ends? We could go to the mailbag? Let's go to the mailbag All right, so we got one of the one of the twitter followers who the fans have asked us about bacon The end is nothing to say Greg. They had nothing at all our ignoramus fool You know when I when I tweeted quoted bacon, I get nice comments thoughts connections, you know Most of you have out invariably has some ridiculous statement that I can't understand Always a link to allen bloom.
You know allen bloom is is he's frets is bacon But there's you know, there's but for some reason or followers nothing I'm not but maybe maybe they've posted something. Yeah, he a bacon and then he was also invented cypher's Uh his own cipher and I tweeted earlier one of us did we just found out who did that? Thank you for that Like a really interesting uh missive. He sent to elizabeth the first nobody calm, you know commented we did get one comment from thomas cleveland when I chatted everything he said i'm more of a new organan guy But this this fool thomas cleveland doesn't understand that the new organan is part of the great Instoration so tom cleveland friend of the show probably the best questions.
We'll call you around Our we found our friendship with him. Yeah, i'm very disused loads and orders. I'm very disgruntled with our listeners tonight. Yeah, so I don't have another picture.
That's like four or five. That's pretty good, Greg. Alex said the next time I made a big joke He would close the episode so Yeah, I guess that's it. Yeah.
Well, thanks for listening. Uh subscribe. Yeah. Thanks to jake the wild cannon and gannon and uh You know if this if you've stuck with us this far and you would like to hear something on the new elian Let's let us know.
Yeah, but I guess now these little piggies need to go we we all the way home