The Intellect Naturalized: Roger Bacon on the Existence of Corporeal Species within the Intellect (original) (raw)
Related papers
2021
The article is devoted to Roger Bacon’s understanding of perspectiva as “the first of all natural sciences.” After considering a few alternative medieval definitions and classifications of this discipline – such as al-Fārābī’s, Grosseteste’s and Kilwardby’s – I study Bacon’s arguments for according to perspectiva so exceptional a role. I show that Bacon’s arguments are grounded in his peculiar understanding of the visual process: according to Bacon, vision is indeed the only sense in which perception takes place “by reasoning” (per sillogismum). I argue that this theory of perception also lays the foundations for Bacon’s – prima facie amiss – claim that “concerning vision alone, and no other sense, have philosophers developed a separate science.” I explore this point by contrasting with one another Bacon’s conception of perspectiva and of music, and close with some more general remarks on the implications of Bacon’s account of the visual process for his theory of knowledge. Based on his theory of a “vision by reasoning,” I conclude that Bacon came to reinterpret perspectiva as the organon of visual knowledge.
Francis Bacon, Natural Philosophy, and the Cultivation of the Mind
Perspectives on Science, 2012
This paper suggests that Bacon offers an Augustinian (rather than a purely Stoic) model of the “culture of the mind.” He applies this conception to natural philosophy in an original way, and his novel application is informed by two related theological concerns. First, the Fall narrative provides a connection between the cultivation of the mind and the cultivation of the earth, both of which are seen as restorative of an original condition. Second, the fruit of the cultivation of the mind is the virtue of charity, which is understood not only as curing the mind of the individual, but as contributing to human welfare and ameliorating some of the material losses that resulted from the Fall.
The Theory of Mind. Roger Bacon (1214-1294)
The following study pretends to be no more than a contribution toward an eventual formulation of the Philosophy of Roger Bacon. It is neither a literary nor an historical study, but rather a critical presentation of certain aspects of his Philosophy. The time has hardly come when one can undertake seriously to write of the Philosophy of Roger Bacon. Such a work presupposes materials in a very different form from that in which we have them. Further, there is presupposed a study of our Author's sources, with the purpose of making clear the influence of his predecessors in the shaping of his thought. And, finally, a better account of the life of Bacon is esirable, to indicate the influence of his contemporaries upon his hilosophical and scientific activities.
Francis Bacon’s “Perceptive” Instruments
Early Science and Medicine, 2021
This paper claims that one way to bridge the gap between Francis Bacon’s speculative philosophy and his natural historical and experimental investigations is by looking at his peculiar top-down strategy of measuring Nature. Key to this strategy is the construction of perceptive instruments, i.e., devices “subtle enough” to detect and map natural limits, powers and virtues. In this paper, I discuss some of Bacon’s ideas for the development of perceptive instruments, and I show how his particular investigative strategy leads to the construction of an interesting and insufficiently investigated operational vocabulary. I focus on two particular terms of this vocabulary, “orbs of virtue” and “perception.” I show that, although originating in a natural-philosophical context, both terms acquire new, operational meanings in Bacon’s late natural histories. They vindicate the use of instruments and provide the necessary tools for a complex and interesting top-down approach to measuring Nature.
Draft of chapter for upcoming book on Knowledge in Modern Philosophy (Bloomsbury: ed. S. Gaukroger). Part 1 gives the Pars Destruens: Bacon's critique of existing forms of knowledge based in the famous epistemic psychology of the idols of the mind. Part 2 presents Bacon's prescriptions for new natural histories, then the famous account of induction in Novum Organum II. Throughout, we point out the passages which challenge popular accounts of Bacon as a naive empiricist, the proponent of a "mechanical" method or philosophy, and an instrumentalist, if not a Machiavellian, about truth who thought knowledge should be sought for power alone, rather than out of "charity for man", and "humility and veneration to unroll the volume of creation." [Comments welcome esp before c. end Nov 2016].
Virtus' and 'species' in the Philosophy of Nature of Roger Bacon (c. 1220-1293)
Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval
The paper examines Roger Bacon’s use of the concept virtus in the Communia naturalium and De multiplication specierum. It focuses on the roles which virtus and species play as vehicles of causality in the inanimate realm. It analyses the distinct functions played by virtus in the motion of celestial spheres, the power of natural place, the attraction of iron to magnet, and the universal nature. The analysis concludes that virtus is an efficient power, a feature of form, capable of causing local motion and instigating natural processes. Species is matter’s response to the stimulation made by virtus through which every natural action, to the exclusion of local motion, is made. Species is a non-efficient power, an ‘appetite’ internal to matter. It is an expression of matter’s inherent inclination to promote and perfect itself, the result of matter’s ‘active potentiality’.
Induction and the Principles of Love in Francis Bacon's Philosophy of Nature
Journal for the General Philosophy of Science, 2024
This paper presents a reading of Bacon's Novum Organum and the inductive method he offers therein. According to this reading, Bacon's induction is the search for forms that are necessary and sufficient for making simple natures present. Simple natures are observable qualities. However, in the paper we argue that forms can best be understood via Bacon's appetitive physics, according to which particles and bodies are endowed with appetites or inclinations that lead to bodily transformations. We argue that this conceptual elaboration of the notion of form changes our understanding of Bacon's inductive method. In fact, his inductive method is a reductive program designed to find, for each observable quality (or simple nature), the transformation or combination of transformations associated with its coming to being. The paper considers the textual evidence for this reading and argues for the benefits of this reading in relation to other, traditional interpretations.
Same Spirit, Different Structure: Francis Bacon on Inanimate and Animate Matter
Early Science and Medicine, 2018
This article argues that for Francis Bacon there is only one type of spiritual matter, which acquires different qualities and performs different functions within bodies depending on the structure it has. In order to prove this hypothesis, the paper takes as a case study the process of spontaneous generation, where there is no pre-existent spirit, as contrary to the case of the generation out of seed. For Bacon, tangible matter is prepared to produce certain species, leaving to the spirits the function of shaping what lies in matter in potency.
The "Esse similitudinale" of "Species" in Roger Bacon's "Liber de sensu et sensato"
Mediaevalia. Textos e Estudos, Vol 41, 2022
Roger Bacon’s theory of perception, grounded in his original conception of "species" and of their multiplication and reception, has always been the object of considerable scholarly attention. Yet, modern studies have traditionally focused on Bacon’s mature works. In these works, especially in the "De multiplicatione specierum", Bacon endorses a strong “materialist” position with respect to the kind of being that "species" have in the medium and in the senses. In this paper I show that an alternative conception of the ontology of "species" is presented by Bacon in his commentary on Aristotle’s "De sensu et sensato". This work is situated at a critical juncture in Bacon’s intellectual journey, since it is the last of his extant Aristotelian commentaries, while it precedes all his mature works. As I will argue in this paper, in these works Bacon assigns to "species" an "esse similitudinale", which he explicitly defines as the composition of "esse materiale" and "esse formale". As a result, Bacon did not always deem "species" to be merely composed of "esse materiale". I end by suggesting that this finding might have some implications on the interpretation of Bacon’s mature ontology of "species" as detailed in the "De multiplicatione specierum". Keywords: Roger Bacon; "Liber de sensu et sensato"; species; perception; "esse similitudinale".
Francis Bacon and the art-nature distinction
Commentators generally expound Bacon’s position on the art–nature relationship in terms of how much it retained or departed from traditional conceptions. This paper argues that an appreciation of the Baconian meaning of the terms “art” and “nature” requires a close examination of his wider cosmogonical speculations. Bacon’s cosmogonical account moves from a state of unbridled chaos to the relatively stable system for which the term “nature” is normally used. The fundamental principle lying at the heart of Baconian cosmogony is an enriched and appetitive matter: eternal, unchanging, and the plenipotentiary source of all things. Successive limitations of matter’s absolute power produced a lazy and habitual nature, which Bacon labelled “nature free.” To shift nature from this otiose condition, the Baconian operator recapitulates the original binding of matter. Bacon designated the systematic procedures of binding nature the science of magic. Magic is Bacon’s human counterpart to the original cosmogonical process that gave rise to the current system of nature. In Bacon’s cosmogony, all possible worlds unfold out of matter: the function of art is to shake out nature’s hidden folds. Hence, the distinction between naturalia and artificialia maps on to the distinction between actual and potential. Nature free is without purpose, but art — nature bound — knowingly brings into being an alternative nature designed for human utility.