Topics

    Major Works

    • Francis Bacon: The Essays

      - Francis Bacon: The Essays. Ed. Pitcher (New York: Penguin Press, 1986).
      Publisher’s Review: “One of the major political figures of his time, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) served in the court of Elizabeth I and ultimately became Lord Chancellor under James I in 1617. A scholar, wit, lawyer and statesman, he wrote… More

    • New Atlantis and the Great Instauration

      - New Atlantis and the Great Instauration. Edited by J. Weinberger. Revised edition. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1989.
      Publisher’s Review: “A thoroughly revised introduction, new editorial footnotes, and an updated bibliography complete this revised edition of New Atlantis and The Great Instauration. Presented here is the standard nineteenth-century text of… More

    • Francis Bacon: Novum Organon – With Other Parts of the Great Instauration

      - Francis Bacon: Novum Organon – With Other Parts of the Great Instauration (Vol 3 Paul Carus Student Editions) (Open Court Publishers, 1994).
      Publisher’s Review: “Sir Francis Bacon, hailed as the father of experimental science, conceived his Novum Organum or New Organon as a machine for aiding the reason in establishing truth. This is a new translation from Bacon’s Latin into… More

    • The History of the Regin of Henry, VII

      - The History of the Reign of Henry, VII. Edited by J. Weinberger. (Ithaca: Cornell U. Press, 1996).
      Publisher’s Review: “Jerry Weinberger reinterprets Francis Bacon’s History and defines its importance to the rise of modern republicanism, liberalism, and the politics of progress. His introduction describes the background of Bacon’s… More

    • Francis Bacon: The New Organon

      - Francis Bacon: The New Organon. Edited by Jardine and Silverthorne (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2000).
      Publisher’s Review: “Francis Bacon’s New Organon, published in 1620, was revolutionary in its attempt to give formal philosophical shape to a new and rapidly emerging experimental science. It challenged the entire edifice of the philosophy… More

    • Francis Bacon: The Wisdom of the Ancients

      - Francis Bacon: The Wisdom of the Ancients (Dodo Press, 2008).
      Publisher’s Review: “Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban (1561-1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, and essayist. He is also known as a proponent of the scientific revolution. He was knighted in 1603, created Baron Verulam in 1618, and… More

    Commentary

    • “Lord Bacon” In The Edinburgh Review

      - Macaulay, T. “Lord Bacon.” In The Edinburgh Review. 1837. Reprinted in Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays and Poems. Boston: Estes & Lauriat, 1880.
      Publisher’s Review: “This book explores the sources of modern British liberalism through a study of the Edinburgh Review, the most influential and controversial early nineteenth-century British periodical. Founded by a group of young Scottish… More

    • The Philosophy of Francis Bacon

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      Anderson, F. H. The Philosophy of Francis Bacon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948.

    • Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History

      - Löwith, K. Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949.
      Publisher’s Review: “Modern man sees with one eye of faith and one eye of reason. Consequently, his view of history is confused. For centuries, the history of the Western world has been viewed from the Christian or classical standpoint—from a… More

    • “Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis: A Reinterpretation”

      - Spitz, David. “Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis: A Reinterpretation.” Midwest Journal of Political Science 4, no. 1 (1960).
      First Paragraph: ” I shall venture in this paper to suggest three things:  (1) that, despite the near-universal acceptance of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis as an unfinished fragment, it is in face a finished work or, more strictly-as Professor… More

    • Francis Bacon on the Nature of Man

      - Wallace, K. Francis Bacon on the Nature of Man. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1967.

    • Peace Among the Willows

      - White, H. Peace Among the Willows. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968.
      First Paragraph:” In three and a half centuries since Bacon and the miller prayed for peace among the willows, countless men and women have joined them in that prayer.  Instead of peace, they have found storms, gales, and hurricanes.  Yet, in these… More

    • Francis Bacon: Discovery and the Art of Discourse

      - Jardine, L. Francis Bacon: Discovery and the Art of Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
      Publisher’s Review: “By modern standards Bacon’s writings are striking in their range and diversity, and they are too often considered a separate specialist concerns in isolation from each other. Dr Jardine finds a unifying principle in… More

    • “Science and Rule in Bacon’s Utopia”

      - Weinberger, Jerry. “Science and Rule in Bacon’s Utopia.” American Political Science Review (1976): 865–995.
      First Paragraph: “Modern utopian thought springs from the promise of modern science. It is the political expression of the claim of science to relieve man’s estate and to enlarge the bounds of human empire.’The modern utopianism of… More

    • “Francis Bacon and the Conquest of Nature” by Laurence Berns

      - Berns, L. “Francis Bacon and the Conquest of Nature.” Interpretation 7 (1978), 1–26.
      First Paragraph: “The so-called conquest of nature by modern science, the science associated with the names of Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton, has transformed human life almost beyond description. The new dependency of human life… More

    • “Echoes of Nature in Solomon’s House”

      - Zetterberg, P. “Echoes of Nature in Solomon’s House.” Journal of the History of Ideas 43, no. 2 (1982): 179–93.
      “Zetterberg emphasizes the ways Bacon’s New Atlantis picks up on a large literature – and a substantial body of practice – about ways of making art imitate nature.”

    • Leviathan and the Air Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life

      - Shapin, S. Leviathan and the Air Pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.
      Publisher’s Review: “Leviathan and the Air-Pump examines the conflicts over the value and propriety of experimental methods between two major seventeenth-century thinkers: Thomas Hobbes, author of the political treatise Leviathan and vehement… More

    • The Legitimacy of the Modern Age

      - Blumenberg, H. The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985.
      Publisher’s Review: “In this book, Hans Blumenberg disputes the view that the modern idea of progress represents a secularization of religious belief in some divine intervention (the coming of the Messiah, the end of the world) which consummates… More

    • Science, Faith, and Politics

      - Weinberger, Jerry. Science, Faith, and Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.
      Publisher’s Review: “Jerry Weinberger here seeks to establish Francis Bacon’s rightful place among the founders–with Machiavelli and Hobbes–of the modern political tradition, claiming that Bacon’s view of the sources of the… More

    • “Mathematics and Francis Bacon’s Natural Philosophy”

      - Rees, G. “Mathematics and Francis Bacon’s Natural Philosophy.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 159 (1986): 399–426.
      Rees offers keen insights into the use and non-use of mathematics in Bacon’s new natural philosophy.

    • Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century

      - Funkenstein, A. Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
      Publisher’s Review: “This pioneering work in the history of science, which originated in a series of three Gauss Seminars given at Princeton University in 1984, demonstrated how the roots of the scientific revolution lay in medieval scholasticism.… More

    • Francis Bacon and Modernity

      - Whitney, C. Francis Bacon and Modernity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986.
      First Paragraph:”Charles Whitney’s interesting book offers a new perspective on Bacon, informed by contemporary poststructuralist theory.  Whitney is concerned to historicize Bacon’s work (e.g., connecting it with English Renaissance… More

    • Francis Bacon’s Idea of Science and the Maker’s Knowledge Tradition

      - Pérez-Ramos, A. Francis Bacon’s Idea of Science and the Maker’s Knowledge Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon, 1988.
      Publisher’s Review: “This work provides an original account of Francis Bacon’s conception of natural inquiry. Pérez-Ramos sets Bacon in an epistemological tradition that postulates an intimate relation between objects of cognition and… More

    • “Technology: Platonic and Nietzschean Approaches”

      - Rubin, C. “Technology: Platonic and Nietzschean Approaches,” Review of Politics 50:3, 470–75.
      First Paragraph: “Arguments that modern technology has to altered the conditions of human like as to require a complete revision of all previous thought on ethical matters suggest a challenging paradox.  On the one hand, they provide the occasion for a… More

    • The Social Thought of Francis Bacon

      - Box, I. The Social Thought of Francis Bacon. Lewisten, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989.
      Publisher’s Review: “Offers a fresh analysis of Bacon’s ideas and a reassessment of their significance for understanding some fundamental features of modern life. Bacon is seen as an important source for grasping the practical and… More

    • “The Secular Control of Scientific Power in the Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon”

      - Paterson, T. “The Secular Control of Scientific Power in the Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon,” Polity 21, no. 3 (Spring 1989): 457–80.
      Abstract: “This article is a sequel to one published in the Spring 1987 issue of Polity by the same author. The first essay argued that Francis Bacon did not see Christianity as the ultimate  guide of applied science. This essay focuses on the… More

    • “Bacon’s Myth of Orpheus”

      - Paterson, T. “Bacon’s Myth of Orpheus.” Interpretation (Spring 1989): 427–44.
      First Paragraph: “The so-called conquest of nature by modern science, the science associated with the names of Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton, has transformed human life almost beyond description. The new dependency of human life… More

    • The Ethics of Geometry: A Genealogy of Modernity

      - Lachterman, D. The Ethics of Geometry: A Genealogy of Modernity. New York: Routledge, 1989.
      Publisher’s Review: “The Ethics of Geometry is a study of the relationship between philosophy and mathematics. Essential differences in the ethos of mathematics, for example, the customary ways of undertaking and understanding mathematical… More

    • Francis Bacon and the Rhetoric of Nature

      - Briggs, J. C. Francis Bacon and the Rhetoric of Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.
      Publisher’s Review: “Francis Bacon and the Rhetoric of Nature offers a synthesis of Bacon’s views about language and nature. John Briggs clarifies the close relation between Bacon’s famous reform of scientific method and his less well-known… More

    • Francis Bacon’s Legacy of Texts: the Art of Discovery Grows with Discovery

      - Sessions, A., ed. Francis Bacon’s Legacy of Texts: the Art of Discovery Grows with Discovery. New York: AMS Press, 1990.
      A useful reception theory of Francis Bacon’s entire oeuvre.

    • “Bacon’s Critique of Ancient Philosophy in Novum Organum I”

      - Kennington, R. “Bacon’s Critique of Ancient Philosophy in Novum Organum I.” Pp. 235–51. In Nature and the Scientific Method, ed. D. Dahlstrom. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1991.
      Kennington offers a tour de force reconstruction of the aims and intentions guiding Bacon’s philosophical critique of classical Aristotlean philosophy and its teleology.

    • “Francis Bacon: Philanthropy and the Instauration of Learning”

      - Watanabe, M. “Francis Bacon: Philanthropy and the Instauration of Learning.” Annals of Science 49 (1992): 163–73.
      First Paragraph: “There exist numerous works on Francis Bacon, but relatively few are concerned with the religious motivation underlying his thought. This must be owing partly to the widely acknowledged but quite inappropriate opinion… More

    • “‘Grapes Ill-Trodden . . .’ Francis Bacon and the Wisdom of the Ancients”

      - Studer, H. “‘Grapes Ill-Trodden . . .’ Francis Bacon and the Wisdom of the Ancients.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1992.

    • “Francis Bacon and the Progress of Knowledge”

      - Vickers, B. “Francis Bacon and the Progress of Knowledge.” Journal of the History of Ideas 53, no. 3 (1992): 495–518.
      First Page: “One of the most famous images in English Renaissance literature is the engraved title page  to Bacon’s Instauratio Magna, showing the ship of learning sailing back through the” pillars of Hercules”-the straits of… More

    • Technology in the Western Political Tradition

      - Melzer, A., J. Weinberger, and R. Zinman. Technology in the Western Political Tradition. Ithaca: NY: Cornell University Press, 1993.
      Publisher’s Review: “This well-integrated group of thirteen papers addresses the intriguing and perplexing issue of whether modern government can handle the problem of technology.”

    • Francis Bacon and the Project of Progress

      - Faulkner, R. Francis Bacon and the Project of Progress. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1993.
      Publisher’s Review: “The book is clearly written and makes available a wide range of issues concerning the style of Bacon’s writings and his politics. Highly recommended to both general and academic libraries at all levels.”

    • “Bacon’s New Atlantis: the Christian Hope and the Modern Hope”

      - Innes, D. “Bacon’s New Atlantis: the Christian Hope and the Modern Hope,” Interpretation 22, no. 1 (1994): 3–37.
      First Paragraph: “The so-called conquest of nature by modern science, the science associated with the names of Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton, has transformed human life almost beyond description. The new dependency of human life… More

    • Francis Bacon and the Politics of Science

      - Leary, J. E., Jr. Francis Bacon and the Politics of Science. Ames, IA: Iowa State Univ. Press, 1994.
      A fine introduction to the myriad issues involved in the reciprocal relations between Bacon’s politics and his science and therewith of the politics of modern progress.

    • Nietzsche and Modern Times: A Study of Bacon, Descartes, and Nietzsche

      - Lampert, L. Nietzsche and Modern Times: A Study of Bacon, Descartes, and Nietzsche. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
      Publisher’s Review “This book explores the character of modernity through a consideration of Bacon, Descartes, and Nietzsche. It argues that Bacon and Descartes, in their positive claims for science, played the fundamental role in the development… More

    • The Scientific Revolution

      - Shapin, S. The Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
      Publisher’s Review: “In the last ten years, a new school of sociology has grown up that sees science as not only relativistic but as a purely human construct; that ties scientists’ findings about “nature” to their standing in the… More

    • Cambridge Companion to Francis Bacon

      - Peltonen, M. Cambridge Companion to Francis Bacon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
      Publisher’s Review: “Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is one of the most important figures of the early modern era. His plan for scientific reform played a central role in the birth of the new science. The essays in this volume offer a comprehensive… More

    • The History of the Reign of Henry the Seventh

      - Bacon, Francis. The History of the Reign of Henry the Seventh. Edited, with a new introduction, annotation, and interpretative essay, by Jerry Weinberger. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.
      First Paragraph: “According to no less a judge than David Hume, Franis Bacon was a man of many impressive talents: public speaker and master of practical affairs, wit and courtier, author and philosopher, and the glory of English literature in the time… More

    • “Francis Bacon: Philosopher or Ideologue”

      - Studer, H. “Francis Bacon: Philosopher or Ideologue.” Review of Politics 59, no. 4 (1997): 915–26.
      First Paragraph: ” In recent years, Franis Bacon has been receiving long overdue attention.  As we directly confront the problems of modernity, scholars have begun to reexamine the thoughts of the man held by so many philosophers to be the very founder… More

    • “The Authenticity of Bacon’s Earliest Writings”

      - Vickers, B. “The Authenticity of Bacon’s Earliest Writings.” Studies in Philosophy 94, no. 2 (Spring 1997).
      First Paragraph: “One interesting development in recent studies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been the recognition that, despite the irreversible spread of printing, manuscripts continued to play an important role in the creation and… More

    • “Bacon’s Reform of Nature”

      - Kennington, R. “Bacon’s Reform of Nature.” Pp. 40–54. In Modern Enlightenment and the Rule of Reason, ed. John McCarthy. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997.
      Abstract: “The essays in this volume pose the question common usage has obscured: was “the Enlightenment” truly enlightened or enlightening? Scholarly investigation has sometimes avoided the question by confining itself to historical… More

    • Objectivity in the Making: Francis Bacon and the Politics of Inquiry

      - Solomon, J. R. Objectivity in the Making: Francis Bacon and the Politics of Inquiry. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
      Publisher’s Review: “How Francis Bacon’s scientific self-distancing led to the notion of “disinterestedness” as a dominant principal of intellectual modernity.”

    • “Francis Bacon on the Political Dangers of Scientific Progress”

      - Studer, H. “Francis Bacon on the Political Dangers of Scientific Progress.” Canadian Journal of Political Science (June 1998): 219–34.
      Abstract: “Technological progress has brought some political difficulties: we have both too much power and too little control. Francis Bacon, a principal promoter of science and technology, was not naive about the uses to which the conquest of nature… More

    • “Desire, Science, and Polity: Francis Bacon’s Account of Eros”

      - Pesic, P. “Desire, Science, and Polity: Francis Bacon’s Account of Eros,” Interpretation (Spring 1999): 333–52.
      First Paragraph: “The so-called conquest of nature by modern science, the science associated with the names of Bacon, Descartes, Galileo and Newton, has transformed human life almost beyond description. The new dependency of human life… More

    • Francis Bacon

      - Zagorin, P. Francis Bacon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
      Publisher’s Review: “Francis Bacon (1561-1626), commonly regarded as one of the founders of the Scientific Revolution, exerted a powerful influence on the intellectual development of the modern world. He also led a remarkably varied and dramatic… More

    • “On Speaking in the Language of the Sons of Man”

      - Lerner, R. “On Speaking in the Language of the Sons of Man.” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, VIII.1 (2000): 5–18.
      A subtle literary reading of the complex rhetorical strategies employed in Bacon’s philosophical writings.

    • Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science

      - Pesic, P. Labyrinth: A Search for the Hidden Meaning of Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.
      Publisher’s Review “Nature has secrets, and it is the desire to uncover them that motivates the scientific quest. But what makes these “secrets” secret? Is it that they are beyond human ken? that they concern divine matters? And if… More

    • Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-Modern Philosophy

      - Gaukroger, S. Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-Modern Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
      Publisher’s Review: “This ambitious and important book provides the first truly general account of Francis Bacon as a philosopher. It explores in detail how and why Bacon attempted to transform the largely esoteric discipline of natural philosophy… More

    • “Francis Bacon’s Concept of Objectivity and the Idols of the Mind”

      - Zagorin, P. “Francis Bacon’s Concept of Objectivity and the Idols of the Mind.” British Journal for the History of Science 34 (2001): 379–93.
      Abstract: “This paper examines the concept of objectivity traceable in Francis Bacon’s natural philosophy. After some historical background on this concept, it considers the question of whether it is not an anachronism to attribute such a concept… More

    • “The Jiha–d of St. Alban”

      - Lerner, R. “The Jiha–d of St. Alban.” Review of Politics 64, no. 2 (2002): 5–26.
      Publisher’s Review ” The imperative for a people to become bearers of light and proselytizers of truth is present in differing degrees and modes in the great monotheistic religions. This set of mind has struck some philosophers in the past as… More

    • Knowledge is Power: Francis Bacon and the Method of Science

      - Henry, John. Knowledge is Power: Francis Bacon and the Method of Science. Cambridge: Icon Books, 2002.
      Publisher’s Review: “At the dawn of modern science in the 16th/17th century intelectuals were used to reading, commenting and – if they were really adventurous – writing books. So it has always been a matter of some mystery how the… More

    • Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis: New Interdisciplinary Essays

      - Price, B. Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis: New Interdisciplinary Essays. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003.
      Publisher’s Review: “This volume of eight new essays by leading scholars provides a stimulating dialogue between a range of critical perspectives. Encompassing the fields of cultural history, history of science, literature, and politics, the… More

    • On Modern Origins: Essays in Early Modern Philosophy

      - Kennington, R. On Modern Origins: Essays in Early Modern Philosophy. Edited by F. Hunt and P. Kraus. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004.
      Publisher’s Review: “Richard Kennington, a professor for many years at Pennsylvania State University and the Catholic University of America, was renowned for his insight in reading and teaching early modern philosophy. Although he published… More

    • “Sir Francis Bacon and the Holy Office”

      - Fattori, Marta. 2005. “Sir Francis Bacon and the Holy Office.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 13, no. 1, 21–49.
      First Paragraph: “This article is accompanied by an appendix and selected documents chosen from a list of thirty important documents found in and taken from the Archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Office,… More

    • The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon’s Thought

      - McKnight, S. The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon’s Thought. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri, 2005.
      Publisher’s Review: “In this important study, Stephen A. McKnight investigates the relation of Francis Bacon’s religious views to his “instauration,” or program for reforming and advancing learning in order to bring “relief to man’s… More

    • Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Early Modern Thought: Essays to Commemorate the Advancement of Learning (1605–2005)

      - Solomon, J. R., with C. G. Martin. Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Early Modern Thought: Essays to Commemorate the Advancement of Learning (1605–2005). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishers, 2005.
      Publisher’s Review: “Commemorating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Francis Bacon’s Advancement of Learning (1605), this collection examines Bacon’s recasting of proto-scientific philosophies and practices into early modern… More

    • The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210–1685

      - Gaukroger, S. The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1210–1685. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
      Publisher’s Review: “Why did science emerge in the West and how did scientific values come to be regarded as the yardstick for all other forms of knowledge? Stephen Gaukroger shows just how bitterly the cognitive and cultural standing of science… More

    • Francis Bacon and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge

      - Desroches, Dennis. Francis Bacon and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge. London: Continuum, 2006.
      Publisher’s Review: “While Francis Bacon continues to be considered the ‘father’ of modern experimental science, his writings are no longer given close attention by most historians and philosophers of science, let alone by scientists… More

    • “From Correctness to Values and Meaning in Bacon’s Advancement of Learning”

      - Durel, H. “From Correctness to Values and Meaning in Bacon’s Advancement of Learning (1605).” History of European Ideas 33, no. 3 (2007): 261–74.
      Publisher’s Review: “When he surveyed the whole of knowledge in the first book of The Advancement of Learning, Francis Bacon identified three main diseases: firstly, an exaggerated care for form or style, which was dead learning; secondly a… More

    • Theology and Science in the Thought of Francis Bacon

      - Matthews, S. Theology and Science in the Thought of Francis Bacon. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishers, 2007.
      Abstract: “Although many books have been published on Francis Bacon there is still no scholarly consensus on his religious beliefs and how they may have affected his work. This monograph contributes possible answers to the questions of what Bacon… More

    • “Roots of Modernity”

      - Minkov, S. “Roots of Modernity.” Review of Politics 69 (2007): 296–98.
      First Paragraph: ” In a broad overview of many of Francis Bacon’s works, Stephen A. McKnight seeks to show that Bacon is not an unbelieving philosopher and that his project- commonly referred to as the conquest of nature of the relief of… More

    • “Proteus Rebound: Reconsidering the ‘Torture of Nature’”

      - Pesic, P. “Proteus Rebound: Reconsidering the ‘Torture of Nature.’” Isis 99 (2008): 304–17.
      Abstract: “Though Carolyn Merchant has agreed that Francis Bacon did not advocate the “torture of nature,” she still maintains that “the very essence of the experimental method arose out of human torture transferred onto nature.”… More

    • “The Human Good and the Problem of Bacon’s Intention” by Tzvetozar Minkov

      - Minkov, S.“The Human Good and the Problem of Bacon’s Intention.” Interpretation 35 (2008): 265–82.
      First Paragraph: “Francis Bacon rarely discusses the human good explicitly—the only obvious exception being a difficult and terse treatment in The Advancement of Learning (II.xx-xxii; or De Augmentis Scientiarum VII.1-3). As far as I understand it,… More

    • Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity

      - Wilson, Catherine. Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
      Publisher’s Review: “This landmark study examines the role played by the rediscovery of the writings of the ancient atomists, Epicurus and Lucretius, in the articulation of the major philosophical systems of the seventeenth century, and, more… More

    • Philosophies of Technology: Francis Bacon and His Contemporaries

      - Zittel, Claus, Gisela Engel, Romano Nanni, and Nicole C. Karafyllis, eds. Philosophies of Technology: Francis Bacon and His Contemporaries. Boston: Brill, 2008.
      Publisher’s Review: “The essays in the present volume attempt to historically reconstruct the various dependencies of philosophical and scientific knowledge of the material and technical culture of the Early Modern era and to draw systematic… More

    • “To Mirror and to Transform”

      - Minkov, S. “To Mirror and to Transform.” Review of Politics 71 (2009a): 144–46.
      First Paragraph: “In a book of wide-ranging historical and archival erudition, Rhodri Lewis ably tells the story of efforts in seventeenth-century England to produce an “artificial language.”  This movement was inspired by Francis Bacon,… More

    • “Baconian Science and the Intelligibility of Human Experience: the Case of Love”

      - Minkov, S. “Baconian Science and the Intelligibility of Human Experience: the Case ofLove.” Review of Politics 71 (2009b): 389–410.
      Abstract: “Perhaps surprisingly, one of the founders of the modern technological world, Francis Bacon, has a penetrating and sustained lifelong engagement with the phenomenon of love or eros. Bacon’s reflections on eros come in two stages. He… More

    • Empiricism and Geographical Thought: From Francis Bacon to Alexander von Humboldt

      - Bowen, M. Empiricism and Geographical Thought: From Francis Bacon to Alexander von Humboldt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
      Publisher’s Review: “The age of Francis Bacon marked the beginning of a long period when empirical science was seen as the key to progress in extending man’s control over nature. Recently, however, a breakdown of confidence in the outcome of… More

    • Francis Bacon’s Inquiry Touching Human Nature

      - Minkov, S. Francis Bacon’s Inquiry Touching Human Nature. (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010).
      Publisher’s Review: “Francis Bacon’s “Inquiry Touching Human Nature” is a study of Francis Bacon’s moral philosophy in its relation to the enlightenment project he helped launch. Since Bacon is one of the founders of… More