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Middle school Chinese teaching resource network 2004-08-25

□ Xing Bens

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a British philosopher and the founder of empiricism at the turn of16 and 17 centuries. In his time, Europe had got rid of the shadow of the Middle Ages. Although the most glorious period of the Renaissance has passed, its afterglow has not been exhausted, and social productive forces and science and technology have made great progress. This historical background left a deep mark on Bacon's philosophy. Bacon was born in a new noble family developed during the Reformation, and his father was the king's minister in charge of the seal. He entered Oxford University at the age of 12. After graduating from college, he began to go into politics. Has served as deputy attorney general, attorney general and other important positions. 16 17 was appointed minister in charge of the seal, and 1665438 was appointed chief justice. In the same year, he was made Baron Verulam (666). Just when he was in the heyday of officialdom, he was suddenly accused of taking bribes and was taken to the Tower of London, but he was released by the king four days later.59986.99999998996 His main works are: Academic Progress, New Tools, New Island, etc.

Bacon's greatest contribution to philosophy is that he put forward a series of principles of materialist empiricism; Formulated a systematic inductive logic, emphasizing the role of experiments in understanding. Marx and Engels called Bacon "the first founder of British materialism"; It is "the true ancestor of the whole experimental science" and a scientific summary of Bacon's philosophical characteristics. Bacon believes that the world is an objective existence independent of human will, and human knowledge (knowledge) can only be obtained from the objective outside world through perceptual experience. He said: "Man is a servant and interpreter of nature, so all he can do and understand is what he sees about the facts and thoughts of natural processes." In his view, the authenticity of knowledge is consistent with the authenticity of existence. "The difference between them is only direct light and reflected light", which is a quite thorough materialist reflection theory. Why do people's understanding have to start with experience? Because in bacon's view, objective external things can only be perceived by people through the senses. In his words, "the individual (objective external things) first stimulates the senses, and the senses seem to be the entrance and portal of reason." It is worth noting that although Bacon emphasized the importance of perceptual experience to people's understanding, he did not absolutize it. He only emphasized that the senses are a necessary channel for people to know the outside world, but he did not say that all the knowledge gained through the senses is correct, let alone that this knowledge is all knowledge. On the contrary, he believes that the senses themselves are limited. For example, the senses may not be able to clearly understand objects that are not too exposed, too small or too far away in space, so he said: "It is a big mistake to draw the conclusion that the senses are the measure of everything." This passage is aimed at the proposition that "man is the measure of all things" put forward by the ancient Greek philosopher protagoras. Thus, Bacon is indeed a profound philosopher. In the past, we often had a misunderstanding that Bacon only emphasized perceptual knowledge and completely ignored rational knowledge. That was not the case. We can see this clearly through the metaphor he used. He said that bees collect honey from flower beds and flowers in the field. After bees collect pollen, they must go through their own processing to make sweet and delicious honey. People's understanding is the same, raw materials can only be obtained from the outside world through the senses, but this does not mean that real knowledge has been obtained. People must also "change and digest these materials obtained from the outside world and keep them reasonable" through their own brains, thus forming real knowledge. What is particularly commendable is that Bacon attaches great importance to the role of scientific experiments in cognition. This is related to Bacon being not only a philosopher, but also a scientist. He thinks that experiment is different from experience, which is naturally formed and controlled by people. Through scientific experiments, people can often gain knowledge that they can't get from experience. "The mystery of nature is easier to reveal under technical intervention than in natural activities." It can be seen from this that although Bacon is an empiricist, he is not satisfied with the knowledge gained through perceptual experience, but emphasizes that only through scientific experiments that can give full play to people's subjective initiative and creativity can he gain more profound knowledge. Although Bacon did not put forward the concept of social practice, and his philosophy did not exceed the level of mechanical materialism as a whole, from his emphasis on the important role of scientific experiments, he was better than many philosophers of old materialism.

Another feature of Bacon's epistemology is that he believes that to understand nature, we must break all kinds of obstacles in human mind and realize rational liberation. In his view, people's cognitive errors come from two aspects, that is, from feelings and minds, and mental errors have a greater impact on people's understanding. He said: "The mind is far from being compared with the nature of a clear and bright mirror, and the light of things can be reflected on it according to its true incident angle;" No, this is an enchanted mirror. If its evil influence is not removed and restored to its original state, it will be full of superstition and fraud. "The evil influence comes from the spiritual aspect. Bacon pointed out that there are four kinds of illusions: racial illusion, cave illusion, market illusion and theater illusion. Racial illusion refers to the common mistakes made by human beings; Cave illusion means that some people confuse their imaginary theories everywhere and force objective things to conform to their own thoughts; Market illusion refers to mistakes caused by improper use of concepts and terms, especially when objective things have changed and the original concepts and terms have no time to make corresponding changes, it is easier to make such mistakes; Theater illusion refers to the mistakes made by blindly believing in traditional philosophy. Here, Bacon criticized Plato and Aristotle's philosophy, which had great influence in the history of European philosophy. Bacon's theory of four illusions is the inheritance of roger bacon, a famous nominalist philosopher in the Middle Ages. Rogier believes that there are four obstacles to cognition: 1, and there is no strength and authority of strength; 2. The power of inheritance and habit; 3. Prejudice of the unlearned; 4. Ignorance hidden under the mask of intelligence. Of course, Francis Bacon's viewpoint goes further than Rogier's analysis of the four cognitive obstacles, and it is more specific and detailed.

Above, we made a brief introduction to Bacon's empiricism. It can be seen that Bacon attached importance to perceptual experience and scientific experiments, which is just the opposite of medieval theology and scholasticism, which emphasized revelation and belief. His philosophy is essentially against theology and scholasticism. This can also be seen from his proposition that knowledge is power. For a long time, many books and papers about Bacon have mentioned the proposition that "knowledge is power", but in which book did Bacon put forward this proposition, without paying any price. Over time, people even wondered whether Bacon had put forward this proposition. Not long ago, I read the History of World Civilization by American scholar will durant, only to know that this proposition does not exist in Bacon's existing works such as Academic Progress, New Tools, New Island, etc., but it left this sentence in his Meditation, Sacrae, and its Latin. This meditation has not been published, so some people only know that Bacon said "knowledge is power", but it is not clear where he said it.

Source: study times.