English philosopher whose Novum Organum (1620) laid out the inductive method that became the foundation of modern empirical science.
Closely associated with
Galileo Galilei (contemporary scientific revolutionary).
For an intellectual contrast, see
Aristotelian scholasticism, the syllogistic, deductive philosophical tradition that ruled medieval universities — Bacon's Novum Organum literally means 'new instrument' — the explicit replacement for Aristotle's Organon. The entire scientific revolution turned on which logic was correct: deduction from authority or induction from observation.
The standard scholarly entry points to Francis Bacon's work:
Lisa Jardine (Queen Mary University of London, Renaissance scholar) — Francis Bacon: Discovery and the Art of Discourse (1974);
Jonathan Marwil (Michigan, intellectual historian) — The Trials of Counsel: Francis Bacon in 1621 (1976);
Perez Zagorin (Rochester, historian of ideas) — Francis Bacon (1998).
These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Francis Bacon.
