francis bacon depicts utilitarianism in his essays

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Bacon: A Practical Moralist Full of Worldly Wisdom

Bacon is one of the interesting figures of the period of the reformation and the revival of learning in the history of English Literature. Francis Bacon has always been widely read and admired for his essays as they embrace issues of the intellectual and moral development of the mankind. He deals with a wide range of subjects and they are called "dispersed meditation". They are examples of that wisdom which arises out of a universal insight into the affairs of the world. "They come home" Bacon says, "to men's business and bosums". In his essays, Bacon reveals him as a practical moralist full of worldly wisdom like a downright utilitarian he insists that knowledge is to be judged by its results. As an expedient thinker, he judges man in terms of tangible success and failure. The essays like "Of Great Place" "Of

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This essay shall assess whether Francis Bacon held a coherent ideology on epistemology and the nature of humanity. This shall be achieved by exploring Bacon's writings on science, philosophy, literature and politics.

Francis Bacon was the most distinctive essayist of the Elizabethan era. There is much utilitarianism depicted in his essays in our day to day life. He was a social reformer of the then time. We find strategies, optimism, truth, practicality, explanation, allusions, straightforward morality and idacticism in his essays. Consequently his influence upon the readers is still prevailing in the modern era. At the modern spiritual sterility, his essays can show us the right path to live a simple and successful life. His writings show the way to improve and develop in all aspects of life. Especially, he deals with the lifestyle of the youth which keeps a deep impact on the modern youth at present. Some of the essays are concerned with the external behavior of human being. Some are discussed internally. Some essays are concerned with eternal human passions like love, ambition, revenge, envy, anger. Friendship, studies, marriage, seditions, death, boldness and faction are in focus in the essays which have universal appeal to the multitude. The study was conducted in the period from December 2012 to March 2013.

The general aim of Francis Bacon's philosophy was the reformation of human knowledge, with the intent to put it into practice and use it for the benefit of humankind. He criticized Aristotelian-Scholastic philosophy on the grounds that its method was unable to bring about progress. Bacon's method of induction was the antidote to the idleness of previous philosophies, and it had a twofold function. First, it was supposed to eradicate the errors and idols from human mind, so that this could become like a polished mirror in which the nature could reflect itself, leading to the cultivation of virtues and elimination of vices. Second , it was supposed to discover the inner structure of matter and its activity. This was done by gradual abstraction and, most important , with the help of experiments. Bacon's emphasis on experience and the use of experiments as the right tools to be employed in the study of nature was an idea that influenced future generations of philosophers, and it is considered a building stone in the establishment of the societies of knowledge founded in the second half of the seventeenth century. Bacon contended that his method of induction should be employed beyond the study of nature into other disciplines, such as ethics. This enterprise, he believed, would bring about not only knowledge, but also welfare and happiness.

This essay complements recent work by Soreana Corneanu situating Bacon's epistemology in a larger lineage of literature concerning 'cultura animi' in early modern Europe, by focusing on Bacon's conception of a therapeutic philosophical 'Georgics of the mind' in The Advancement of Learning, the Essays, and other texts. We aim to show firstly (in Part 2) how Bacon's conception of human nature, and the importance of habit and custom, reflects the ancient pagan thinkers' justifications of philosophical therapeutics. Attention will also be paid in this connection to Bacon's sensitivity to another marker of ancient therapeutic philosophy as Pierre Hadot in particular has recently presented it: the proliferation of different rhetorical and literary forms aiming at different pedagogic, therapeutic, and psychogogic aims. Part 3 then will examine Bacon's changes in practical or 'magistral' philosophy, carried out on the therapeutic ethical grounds which Part 2 has examined, but proposing a much more active 'architecture of fortune' to philosophical and political aspirants.

This article* claims that today’s reading of Francis Bacon’s Essayes as a solely literary text turns upon philosophers’ having largely lost access to the renaissance culture which Bacon inherited, and the renaissance debates about the role of rhetoric in philosophy in which Bacon participated. The article has two parts. Building upon Ronald Cranes’ seminal contribution on the place of the Essayes in Bacon’s ‘great instauration’, Part 1 examines how the subjects of Bacon’s Essayes need to be understood as Baconian contributions to ‘morrall philosophye’ and ‘civile knowledge’, rather than rhetorical or poetic exercises. In Part 2, contesting the interpretations of Crane, Fish, Ferrari and others, I will argue that the Essayes’ striking rhetorical form needs to be conceptualized in light of Bacon’s renaissance account of the ‘duty and office’ of rhetoric in any moral and civil philosophy that would look to actively cure mental afflictions and cultivate the virtuous or canny conduct it extols. Bacon’s Essayes, in this light, are best understood as a legatee and transformation of the popular early modern genre of books of apothegms and maxims designed to guide conduct. * this is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in British Journal for the History of Philosophy, available online at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09608788.2018.1506315

The Review of Politics, 2003

Francis Bacon's pronouncement that "Man is the Center of the World," the final cause of all nature, seems to unleash us from all guidance and restraint, providing no grounds for judging any human action to be better or worse than any other. The political implications of such a position-combined with Bacon's efforts to advance technological power-are enormous. There would be little support for natural rights or any other kind of "right" except what is based on force. This famous promoter of scientific power, however, was neither oblivious to the danger, nor politically irresponsible, in his assessment of man's position in the cosmos, and his counsel seems closer to classical political philosophy than is normally acknowledged. This essay provides an examination of and detailed commentary on Bacon's argument, as presented in "Prometheus, or the State of Man." It reveals that Bacon expects us to deal with the problem in terms of properly ranking humans themselves, discarding the notion that all humans are equal. In light of such a ranking we may come to recognize natural standards for evaluating humans and their actions.

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.

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