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THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA Francis Bacon on Action, Contemplation, and the Human Good A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Philosophy Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Philosophy By Aaron Maddeford Washington, D.C. 2018 Francis Bacon on Action, Contemplation, and the Human Good Aaron Maddeford, Ph.D. Director: John McCarthy, Ph.D. Francis Bacon is rarely, if ever, considered a moral philosopher. Commentators generally have focused on his contributions to natural philosophy. Nevertheless, he does write on moral philosophy. Further, throughout his natural philosophy, he employs a distinction central to ancient ethics, that of action and contemplation. Bacon seeks an action and contemplation more united than those of the ancients. What drives men’s actions, in his view, is the desire for immortality, of the individual and of the species. Such an aim is achieved most perfectly by Bacon’s natural philosophy, which has for its end the mastery of nature for the relief of man’s estate. Bacon uses Christian charity as an argument for his philosophy, but his understanding of charity is particularly un-Christian in its focus on this world. His moral philosophy and natural philosophy both reject the starting point of the ancients, namely, what is most known to us. Natural philosophy begins from simple natures, the first tendencies of matter, rather than from natural wholes. Moral philosophy begins not from opinions about the good, but from a consideration of the passions of men. Both natural and moral philosophy aim at immortality, one through dominion over the natural world, the other through dominion over men. Bacon’s action and contemplation are united by his new conception of form. Form refers not to the cause of a natural whole, but to the laws regulating simple natures. The one who knows the forms can generate natures on a given body. Hence his contemplation confers the ability to manipulate the world and leads to the Kingdom of Man, the empire of man over nature. His new conception of form entails the rejection of the ancients’ notion of virtue. As Bacon uses the term, it refers to the acquisition of power rather than the perfection of one’s nature. In his political essays, Bacon advocates economic and military power as the main common good. But in the New Atlantis, he portrays a society that attains power not over other nations but over nature. The scientist is the good man, who, motivated by benevolence, achieves such mastery. This dissertation by Aaron Maddeford fulfills the dissertation requirement for the doctoral degree in philosophy approved by John McCarthy, Ph.D., as Director, and by Richard Hassing, Ph.D., and Timothy Noone, Ph.D. as Readers. _________________________________ John McCarthy, Ph.D., Director _________________________________ Richard Hassing, Ph.D., Reader _________________________________ Timothy Noone, Ph.D., Reader ii FRANCIS BACON ON ACTION, CONTEMPLATION, AND THE HUMAN GOOD CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING........................................... 13 Introduction 1. Toward a New Learning.................................................................................. 22 Outline of Book One Prior Traditions Dismissed The New End of Knowledge: The Relief of Man’s Estate 2. Moral Philosophy in the Advancement............................................................ 40 Prior Moral Philosophers in the Advancement: Aristotle, Lucretius, Seneca Moral Philosophy within Bacon’s Division of Learning The Ancient’s Neglect of the Good The Public and Private Goods Division and Description of the Human Goods Achieving the Human Good Learning and the Human Goods Summary 3. Christian Charity and the Baconian Good...................................................... 82 Some Skeptics Regarding Bacon’s Christianity Bacon’s Appeal to Christianity and Charity in the Advancement The Compatibility of Christian Charity and Baconian Charity Summary CHAPTER TWO: STARTING POINTS AND ENDS IN DE SAPIENTIA VETERUM 99 iii Introduction 1. Preliminaries: Title, Literary Form, Order...................................................... 106 Title and Literary Form Order 2. Division of De Sapientia................................................................................. 115 Natural Philosophy and Human Philosophy Divine Philosophy The Division of the Fables 3. Principles of Natural and Human Philosophy in De Sapientia....................... 127 The Starting Point The End 4. Moral Philosophy as a Preparation for Natural Philosophy............................ 143 Conclusion CHAPTER THREE: ACTION AND CONTEMPLATION IN THE INSTAURATIO MAGNA................................................................................. 155 Introduction 1. Preliminaries: Bacon’s Instauratio Magna and Novum Organum................. 160 Instauratio Magna Plan of the Novum Organum 2. Bacon’s Action................................................................................................ 167 Prior Accounts of Action: Aristotle and Seneca The Goal of the Instauratio Magna The Kingdom of Man The New Alexander iv 3. Bacon’s Contemplation................................................................................... 188 Prior Accounts of Contemplation: Aristotle, Seneca, Lucretius The Idols The Old and New Organons Baconian Forms The Ultimate Causes 4. The Relationship between Baconian Action and Contemplation.................. 217 Natural Philosophy: Contemplative and Active The Great Mother of the Sciences Conclusion CHAPTER FOUR: THE GOOD MAN IN THE ESSAYS AND NEW ATLANTIS........ 228 Introduction 1. Essays and Counsels, Moral............................................................................ 230 Literary Form The Essays and the Instauratio Magna Human Nature in Aristotle Human Nature and Virtue in the Essays 2. Essays and Counsels, Civil.............................................................................. 245 Aquinas on the Common Good The Common Good in the Essays The Good Man in the Essays 3. The New Atlantis.............................................................................................. 266 Introduction and Literary Form Nature in the New Atlantis The Good of the Citizens The Common Good in the New Atlantis The Good Man in the New Atlantis v Conclusion CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................. 295 vi INTRODUCTION Francis Bacon is widely regarded as one of the fathers of modern philosophy. He was one of several figures, such as Machiavelli, Descartes, and Locke, who broke with the prior traditions and set philosophy on a new course. His engagement with pre-modern traditions of philosophy, however, was much more thorough than that of any other early-modern philosopher.1 Commentators have, for the most part, focused on the changes he initiated or championed in his natural philosophy, which differs from prior philosophies with regard to such central concepts as nature, form, induction, and the role of experiments. Such a focus is reasonable, since Francis Bacon’s main project, the Instauratio Magna – which includes his magnum opus, the Novum organum – is a work of natural philosophy. He has received little attention as a moral philosopher. For instance, he is not even mentioned in Alasdair MacIntyre’s A Short History of Ethics. But he did engage in moral philosophy, as is shown by the title of his most popular work, Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral. And he helps justify his revolutionary approach by an appeal to the human good: all knowledge, he insists, must be referred to “to the good of men and mankind.” His mastery of nature is for the “reliefe of Mans estate.”2 Further, the Advancement and Proficiency of Learning, Human and Divine contains a short treatment of ethics which differs from and criticizes prior accounts of the good. In all his writings on the human good he relies on a distinction central to ancient ethics, that of action and contemplation. 1 Richard Kennington, “Bacon’s Critique of Ancient Philosophy in New Organon 1,” in On Modern Origins: Essays in Early Modern Philosophy, eds. Pamela Kraus and Frank Hunt (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004), 17. 2 Advancement of Learning, OFB 4.7, 32. 1 2 Bacon departs significantly from the ancients in his conceptions of action and contemplation. This is indicated by his desire that “contemplation and action may be more neerely and straightly conioyned and vnited together, than they haue beene,” and by his natural philosophy’s stated goal of mastering nature “for the relief of man’s estate.” Such a goal is foreign to prior philosophies and, at least on the surface, at odds with Aristotle’s teaching in the Nicomachean Ethics that philosophy aims at contemplation for its own sake and that man’s highest perfection consists in this contemplation. Status quaestionis Earlier writers have suggested the importance of Bacon’s contributions to ethical theory. Sir Arthur Gorges, who translated De sapientia veterum during Bacon’s life, compared it to St. Thomas More’s Utopia and said that “it is hard to judge to whether of these two worthies policy and morality is more beholding.”3 In the late nineteenth century, Sidgwick states in his Outlines of the History of Ethics that Bacon’s outline of moral philosophy in the Advancement “contains much just
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