ベーコンの「新機関」に於る「発見」

Abstract

Sir Francis Bacon is often thought of as one of the founders of modernism in Western science. It is also possible, however, to see him as a continuer and developer of various traditions of non-Socratic science that existed alongside the dominant scholastic learning of the Mediaeval and Renaissance periods. Bacon claims to differ from many other non-Socratics in that he refuses to work in the framework of a pre-imagined cosmic system. In fact his scientific theory is less original, and his practice considerably more tradition-bound than he would have us believe. His true originality is in his picture of "progress", which sees an open-ended advance in knowledge producing a similarly open-ended increase in the wealth and power of scientifically developed nations.