Thinkers

Francis Bacon

British Empiricism · Europe · 1561 to 1626

English statesman who urged a patient method: collect observations and test them, instead of trusting old authorities.

What it is

Francis Bacon (1561 to 1626) was an English lawyer, statesman and philosopher who argued for a new, experimental and inductive way of studying nature, and for using knowledge to help people. He is counted among the most important philosophers of the early modern period and a champion of modern science.

He trained as a lawyer, sat in parliament from the age of twenty, and rose to be Lord Chancellor in 1618. In 1621 he was charged with taking bribes and had to leave public office. His great plan, which he called the Great Instauration, was to renew the whole of human knowledge, above all the study of nature.

The main ideas

• A new method. Bacon thought the old learning, a mixture of scholastic argument, humanist scholarship and natural magic, had not produced useful knowledge. In its place he proposed a method based on observation, experiment and induction, the careful building-up of general claims from many cases.
• The Great Instauration. This was his name for the whole programme of renewing knowledge, especially the study of nature. Natural and experimental history, carefully collected, was to be its foundation.
• The idols. He described habits of mind that lead people astray, and called them idols.
• Knowledge for use. The aim was practical knowledge, for the use and benefit of people, and he held that knowledge and power are closely connected.
• Against both extremes. He opposed the empty arguments of the scholastics and also experiments done blindly, without a method to guide them.

What it looks like in practice

Picture a gardener who has heard many theories about why some plants fail. Bacon would suggest keeping a careful record of what was tried, in which soil, with what result, and looking at the cases where a plant failed as well as where it thrived. Only after enough cases are gathered should the gardener draw a general rule, and the rule should be tested again. This is an illustration of the approach, not an example Bacon gave.

Books and moments

• The Advancement of Learning (1605) surveyed human knowledge and what was lacking.
• Novum Organum (1620) sets out the new method.
• The Great Instauration was the name for the full plan, of which these books were parts.
• New Atlantis is his utopia, published after his death.

Questions and criticism

• Is induction enough? He held that careful, step-by-step induction would reveal nature's laws. It is fair to ask whether science also needs bold guesses that go beyond the cases collected.
• Public service or private fall? He was impeached on charges of bribery, which ended his public career. How much this should affect the judgement of his ideas is a separate question.
• Was he the father of modern science? The founding of the Royal Society later in the century marked the peak of his reputation. Historians still ask how much working scientists owed to his method.

Close neighbours

The pages on Descartes and on Locke cover two thinkers of the century that followed him.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 9 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Philosophies they belong to or are close to

• Humean empiricism and skepticism

Who they connect to

Influenced

• Denis Diderot · The plan of the Encyclopedia names Bacon as the model for organising all knowledge.
• John Locke · Locke followed Bacon in building knowledge from observation and experiment.
• Thomas Hobbes · Hobbes served as Bacon's secretary and shared his taste for a method based on causes.
• Voltaire · Voltaire held up Bacon, Newton and Locke as models of sound method.

Reacted against

• Aristotle · Bacon's Novum Organum was written to replace the Aristotelian way of reasoning from first principles.

Runs parallel to

• René Descartes · Both set out to rebuild knowledge on a new method, though one began with observation and the other with reason.
• Roger Bacon · Both urged knowledge of nature by experience, three centuries apart; there is no direct link. (scholars disagree about this link)

Other British Empiricism thinkers

• John Locke · 1632 to 1704
• Bernard Mandeville · 1670 to 1733
• Earl of Shaftesbury · 1671 to 1713
• George Berkeley · 1685 to 1753
• Joseph Butler · 1692 to 1752
• David Hume · 1711 to 1776

Sources we used

• Francis Bacon · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 9 October 2026
• Bacon, Francis · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 9 October 2026