The New Organon

           Book I of The New Organon begins with Francis Bacon’s idea of human’s view of nature. He argues that humans cannot fully understand nature. While man has science, science alone does not allow us to comprehend every aspect of nature. As he says in page 33, all we humans can do is “bring natural bodies together and take them apart”, but that humans do not actually know what nature is doing. In the first aphorism, Bacon says that man “does and understands only as much as he has observed of the order of nature in fact or by inference; he does not know and cannot do more”. With this in mind, what is nature of interpretation? What can humans say about nature if we cannot be certain about anything?

           

            Bacon writes of two ways to investigate and discover truth; a way used currently, and a way that has never been used.  The current way of investigation, which Bacon does not agree with, involves jumping to a general axiom (something that applies to one particular thing) from a particular axiom (something that applies to a group). Bacon views this as humans using their knowledge to make assumptions about nature, and later filling in the “missing steps” (called “intermediate axioms” (36)) to make their assumption truth. What is the problem with this means of investigation?

Bacon proposes a new way of discovering truth, using the idea of moving gradually towards a claim instead of quickly making a general axiom. His argument is that one cannot assume something based solely on past events. Bacon suggests the proper way of investigation starts with making a particular axiom with general knowledge, and then slowly building on that information to make an “interpretation of nature”, gathered “piece by piece” (38).

Bacon’s work countered Aristole’s view of nature. Aristotle made many generalizations with what he observed: he assumed that a tree and a bed both have causes because they are made of the same material (the “out of which”). These types of connections led him to believe that everything in nature has an end, a specific form, and a first mover. Bacon did not agree with this, calling this type of reasoning an “anticipation of nature” (38), and claiming that such anticipations “are gathered from just a few instances, especially those common and familiar” (38), pointing out exactly how Aristotle drew his conclusions, from only a few similar characteristics. This raises the question: Whose view of nature is correct? Is either Bacon or Aristotle correct? Or can parts of their viewpoints be combined to formulate a different standpoint on human’s view of nature?