Francis Bacon, the State and the Reform of Natural Philosophy

Bibliographic Data

ID6581112
AuthorsJulian Martins, Julian Martin
Year2007
Pages250
Publication date2007-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueFrancis Bacon, the State and the Reform of Natural Philosophy (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9780511553158
ISBN9780511553158
Open LibraryOL1866159M
LanguageEN
Citations received20

Why was it that Francis Bacon, trained for high political office, devoted himself to proposing a celebrated and sweeping reform of the natural sciences? Julian Martin's investigative study looks at Bacon's family context, his employment in Queen Elizabeth's security service and his radical critique of the relationship between the Common Law and the monarchy, to find the key to this important question. Deeply conservative and elitist in his political views, Bacon adapted Tudor strategies of State management and bureaucracy, the social anxieties and prejudices of the late Elizabethan governing elite, and a principal intellectual resource of the English governing classes - the Common Law - into a novel vision and method for the sciences. Bacon's axiom that 'Knowledge is Power' takes on far-reaching implications in Martin's challenging argument that the reform of natural philosophy was a central part of an audacious plan to strengthen the powers of the Crown in the State.

18th century · British Isles · English · Irish · Literary criticism · Literary Criticism & Collections · Welsh · Western philosophy · 17th century · English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh · francis Bacon (1561-1626) · History · History & Surveys - 17th/18th Century · Literary Criticism · Philosophy · Political science · Science · Western philosophy, c 1600 to c 1800