Bacon’s Inductive Method and Material Form

This paper contends that Bacon’s inductive method depends crucially on his general account of matter. I argue that Bacon develops a dynamic form of corpuscularianism, according to which aggregates of corpuscles undergo patterns of change that derive from active inclinations and appetites. The paper claims that Bacon’s corpuscularianism provides him with a theory of material form that enables him to theorize bodily change and possible material transformations. The point of natural histories and experiments is then to find the processes of corpuscular change that correlate with making present or making absent simple natures.

Bacon’s Metaphysical Method

In this paper, I would like to examine the method that Bacon proposes in Novum organum II.1-20 and illustrates with the example of the procedure for discovering the form of heat. One might think of a scientific method as a general schema for research into nature, one that can, in principle, be used independently of the particular conception of the natural world which one adopts, and independently of the particular scientific domain with which one is concerned. Indeed, Bacon himself suggested that as with logic, his method, or as he calls it there his “system of interpreting” is widely applicable to any domain, and not just to natural philosophy. [Novum organum I.127] Now, recent studies of Bacon have emphasized his own natural philosophical commitments, and the underlying conception of nature that runs through his writings. In my essay I argue that the method Bacon illustrates in Novum organum II is deeply connected to this underlying view of nature: far from being a neutral procedure for decoding nature, Bacon’s method is a tool for filling out the details of a natural philosophy built along the broad outlines of the Baconian world view.

Self-preservation and the Transformation of Nature

Garber demonstrates the shortcomings of a popular and idealised version of Baconian scientific method set against his close reading of Bacon’s Novum Organum II. The results of Garber’s analysis show that Bacon had not one but two philosophies, both of which were informed by his matter theory and speculative cosmology. This paper draws out the implications of Garber’s reading of Baconian induction in physics transferred to the natural sciences, and draws attention to the ultimate aim of Bacon’s philosophical programme as the prolongation of life.

Bacon’s Novum organum

Dan Garber’s paper provides materials permitting to reply to an objection frequently made to the idea that the Novum Organum is a book of logic, as the allusion to Aristotle’s Organon included in the very title of this book shows it is. How can Bacon actually build a logic, considering his repeated claims that he desires to base natural philosophy directly on observation and experiment? Garber shows that in the Novum Organum access to experience is always mediated by particular questions and settings. If there is no direct access to observation and experience, then there is no point in equating Bacon’s focus on experience in the Novum Organum with a rejection of discursive issues. On the contrary, these are two sides of the same coin. Bacon’s articulation of rules for the building of scientific reasoning in connection with the way the world is, illustrates his massive concern with the relation between reality, thinking and language. This concern is essential in the field of logic as it is constructed in the Early Modern period.

Intellectually Virtuous Inquirer and the Practical Value of Truth

Veritism is the thesis that the truth is the fundamental epistemic good. According to Duncan Pritchard, the most pressing objections to veritism are the trivial truths objection and the trivial inquiry problem. The former states that veritism entails that trivial truths are as important as deep and important truths. The latter is a problem that a veritist must prefer trivial inquiry that generates many trivial truths to the serious inquiry with the hope but no guarantee to discover some deep and important truth. Both objections arise from the inability of veritism prima facie to properly rate the different types of truths. Pritchard's solution is to approach the truth from the perspective of the intellectually virtuous inquirer who would prefer weighty truth over trivial truth. In my commentary, I criticise the proposed solution as circular reasoning. The necessary virtue for an intellectually virtuous inquirer is that they would prefer the weighty truth over the trivial one and at the same time, the weighty truth is superior because it is the goal for intellectually virtuous inquirer. I suggest another path to substantiate veritism in the face of the two sibling objections. I argue that truth is the fundamental epistemic good as it makes the epistemic realm practically valuable more than any other epistemic good. The weighty truths are preferable to the trivial ones because the practical value of the deep and important truths is usually higher. The suggested path goes away from the attempts to prove the epistemic value of truth only within the epistemic realm, yet I argue it does not compel the intellectually virtuous inquirer to seek the truth only for the sake of practical reasons.

Gift-giving as an Epistemic Virtue

The article presents a study of gift-giving practices in the context of the development of modern biomedicine and shows their relationship to the realization of epistemic virtues. In biomedicine, the gain and production of knowledge (the gift of knowledge) is often grounded in bodily gift (sacrifice) and donor practices. The latter are associated with a number of mishaps in the history of biomedicine, reflecting the violation of moral norms in the process of obtaining scientific data and demonstrating the need for a clear differentiation of intellectual and moral virtues. An important factor in the formation of the epistemic norms of modern biomedicine has been the transformation of the values of scientific knowledge from practices of coercion to giving. As a result, the involuntary sacrifice of biomaterials to science was replaced by voluntary practices of somatic giving and informational exchange that determine the process of mutual recognition in science. It is shown that gift-giving in science is closely associated with intellectual virtues, with intellectual generosity characterizing the idea of openness in science and scientists’ intention for production and constant growth of knowledge, and can also be related to the idea of altruistic service to science, involving the exchange of received scientific data and access to free information in the network space. A number of examples of the modern digital gift ethos and the implementation of the principles of openness of knowledge and knowledge exchange in the context of the creation of biomedical expert digital platforms, the formation of social scientific networks – platforms with open access to scientific information, the development of the phenomenon of “garage” science and other “zones of exchange” experience are considered.

Epistemic Virtue of Wisdom and Evidentialism

My primary concern in this article is the connection between virtue epistemology and evidentialism. This possible connection is analyzed upon, firstly, the example of the intellectual virtue of wisdom, and, secondly, the historical case – Thomas Aquinas’ approach to virtue of wisdom as an intellectual disposition (habitus). I argue that it is possible to offer such an interpretation of ‘intellectual virtue’ that aligns with the peripatetic tradition broadly understood (to which the epistemology of virtues ascends), and on the basis of which an evidentialist theory of justification is offered. In the first part of the paper, I briefly present the main interpretations of virtue epistemology and evidentialism in the light of externalism/internalism debate. In the second part I discuss Aquinas’ understanding of intellectual virtue as a disposition (habitus). The main concern here are virtues of theoretical habitus – wisdom and (scientific) knowledge. I show that habitus in this case is understood in two ways: as an ability, inherent to human beings, and as objective knowledge. Thus, there are two understandings of wisdom – as a virtue and knowledge (scientia). Finally, in the concluding parts of the paper, I outline possible ways of solving presented in the first part challenges to evidentialism and internalism.

Sociocultural Landmarks of Cognition and Problems of Scientific Creativity in the Media World

In the article the thoughts about science as a creative process are presented in the context of the historical-cultural epistemology, specificity of which is presented in the material by B.I. Pruzhinin and T.G. Shchedrina. Tendencies in the modern world’s development – social, economic, political, communication – do not give rise to doubts about the presence of a paradox: the more globalized the world becomes, the more science gravitates towards the status of applied – this determines its effectiveness. Nonetheless, what is lost when emphasizing efficiency? To answer this question is worth remembering that the intellectual revolution in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries was based not only on the works of Bacon, Descartes, and Newton but also on the radical position expressed in Machiavelli’s “Sovereign” who placed utility above virtue. As soon as science becomes a pragmatic business, prestige, fame, safety, and comfort begin to depend on its success. Knowledge is power, but in the new political and social realities, the main thing is practical, utilitarian, and effective. By becoming disciplinary, technical, science gains power – but is this power not limited to its own constructions? Paradoxically, science, performing a service function, begins to lose the status of an instance of meaning. Serving society, it, nevertheless, is not a connecting force in society – they resort to it for recipes and solutions, but they do not consider it as a common cause, and as a platform for social interaction, they expect a product from science, but not meanings and values, benefit, but not virtues. However, what is a product of science? How is its performance measured? And who determines the effectiveness? This article attempts to partially illuminate these issues, including in the field of their consideration existentially loaded aspects of the scientific community’s creativity – aesthetic, technical-digital, including computer games. Collective intuition as the acquisition of new experience, as the creation of previously nonexistent contexts in which new objects, events, and phenomena are placed – all these are key conditions for a world of uncertainty in which science is already required not only objective results but also involvement in the joint comprehension of existential projects. Truth there is not always the result, but rather a beginning, which requires, among other things, the derivation of all scientific consequences for which other forms of habitation of experience are open – aesthetic, playful, performative.

Metaphysics and Realism

The article deals with the problem of the return of metaphysics within the framework of the ontological turn of philosophy and the situation of post-metaphysical thinking. The conditions for the possibility of modern metaphysical discourse in the projects of empirical metaphysics and historical ontology are revealed. Historical ontology as a meta-reflexion of philosophy over its own historical foundations is able to bridge the gap between the epistemological static nature of transcendental subjectivity and the ontological dynamism of the growth of scientific knowledge about reality by comprehending the conditions of interaction between science and metaphysics in conditions of post-metaphysical thinking and realistic reversal of ontology. Philosophical knowledge in the context of the ontological turn and the associated return of metaphysics becomes focused not so much on the sharp demarcation of science and metaphysics and postulating the incommensurability of their ontologies, but on identifying mutually enriching areas of research that could give a new impetus to their development.