An upgraded version will be published in 2011 with notes and translations of the Latin texts.
ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 discusses Bacon’s adoption of Orpheus as his symbol of philosophy. Orpheus, who on the one hand represents the interpretation of nature and on the other the rhetorical presentation of that process, offers different faces to different audiences. Yet Orpheus himself represents only one aspect of Bacon’s method, and cannot deliver the Great Instauration without the virtues of fortitude and labour that belong to Hercules.
Chapter 2 examines Bacon’s theory of imagination-the-nuncius who runs between ‘sense’ and ‘Reason’, and imagination-the-free-citizen who serves both as an instrument of divine illumination and as a secreter of truths. The relation of imagination to rhetoric in discovering parallels in nature and society – which then act as heuristic guides to scientific investigation – is also explored and the relation of this ‘Sagacious Experience’ to the ‘Interpretation of Nature’ assessed.
Chapter 3 shows how Cassandra’s prophetic imagination was traduced by her plainness of speech and assesses the relevance of this to Bacon’s hopes for a ‘rational divination’ of nature.
Chapter 4 considers Bacon’s anatomizing of both society and nature. There are secret laws, the forms of nature, which God has planted as a code, which it is man’s privilege to discover and put to ameliorative use. The connection between the anatomizing or decoding process and Bacon’s biblical exegesis is also glanced at.
Chapter 5 contemplates the development of Bacon’s attitude to fable and the insinuative strategy which he employs in De Sapientia and argues that a distinction between his attitude to the wisdom of the ancients and his attitude to the prudential use of fable as a vehicle for his own views should be maintained.
The Preface to the thesis can be read here.
David Hurley
Recommended Reading:
Knowledge Is Power: Francis Bacon and the Method of Science
English Renaissance News