Novum Organum
The Novum organum scientiarum (dt. 'New tool of the sciences'), in German translation New Organon , is the epistemological philosophical main work of Francis Bacon , which was written in Latin and published in England in 1620. It is considered a turning point in cultural history between medieval thinking and modern methodological research, which is geared towards progress and thus the common good .
As Idol doctrine developed in this work by Francis Bacon in 1620 epistemological concept is empiricism called. With this approach, fallacies and naive understanding of nature should be avoided. In a scientific sense, the events should be cognitively ordered with the aim of understanding the world and developing rules.
The work
The work is essentially determined by numbered aphorisms that emphasize the need for unbiased scientific research. Bacon pursued a great renewal ( instauratio magna ) of the sciences and was directed primarily against Aristotle and the scholastic way of thinking. With his title Bacon refers to the Organon of Aristotle .
In a broader sense, Bacon can be seen as a champion of the Enlightenment . It was his concern to fight the Dark Ages and to base progress on reason . Human thinking should be freed from errors and possible sources of error in order to be able to see the world objectively. In the first part of the book he therefore set up a proper theory of biased thinking.
The doctrine of idols
Bacon defines idols as the “false concepts that have already taken possession of the human mind and are deeply rooted in it”. They hold the "spirit of the people" in hog. He distinguishes four characteristic idols that prevent knowledge :
“Four kinds of such idols hold the human spirit captive (Quatuor sunt genera Idolorum ...). I have given them names for better presentation; the first kind is said to be called the idol of the tribe ( Idola Tribus ); the second as the Idol of the Cave ( Idola Specus ); the third as the Idol of the Market ( Idola Fori ); the fourth as an idol of the theater ( Idola Theatri ). "
Idola tribe
The idols of the genus or idols of the tribe have a biological explanation for him. According to Bacon, the sources of error are to be found in human nature itself, in the origin of man or the human species . Above all, Bacon sees that false, judgment-clouding prejudices result from people's sensory organs. Their perception always happens within the framework of the restricted, distorted work of the human sensory organs . However, these do not show nature as it is, but according to human forms of perception. These types of errors stem from the nature common to all humans. Because we do not perceive the world directly as it is, but how our human organs of perception perceive it. The human mind is like a curved mirror that only reflects objects in a distorted way.
In the first part of the work, i.e. the chapters with the aphorisms Aphorisms Concerning the Interpretation of Nature and Kingdom of Man , Bacon criticized the current state of natural philosophy. The aim of his criticism was the syllogism, a method which he believed was utterly inadequate compared to what Bacon called the true induction .
"(...) The syllogism is made up of propositions, propositions of words, and words are markers of notions. Thus if the notions themselves (and this is the heart of the matter) are confused, and recklessly abstracted from things, nothing built on them is sound. The only hope therefore lies in true Induction. Aphorism 14 "
(Translation; analogously: The syllogism consists of sentences, sentences of words and words are markings of concepts. If the concepts themselves (and this is crucial) are confused with the words, i.e. only simply abstracted from things: nothing that is only built on the words makes sense, so the only hope is in true induction .)
Idola Specus
The idols of the cave are based on individually explained flaws, such as the upbringing, the mood, the misleading interaction with other people as well as books and other immaterial values.
Every person has his own way of understanding that is more or less strongly influenced by false ideas. Everyone sits in their own "cave", shaped by their individual prejudices and errors, into which the outside light only penetrates dimly and darkly, as Bacon establishes in connection with Plato's allegory of the cave .
Idola Fori
The idols of traffic or idols of the market result from communication and language problems in human encounters and in the community. On the basis of words, people are seduced "into empty and countless quarrels and fictions" ( Bacon ).
These cognitive disorders arise from interpersonal communication . Things have to be named by the speakers, but this can easily lead to misunderstandings. Language itself quickly turns from a means of communication to a problem of communication.
Idola Theatrics
The idols of the scene or idols of the theater result from philosophical schools, which in Bacon's words are also called "sects". The idols of the theater , as dogmas of these schools, lead to wrong judgments . These prejudices are rooted in tradition, authority and the heresies of the past.
Bacon considered the overestimation of the purely conceptual, non-empirical approach in Aristotelian philosophy ( syllogism ) to be a type of such traditional misconceptions . According to Bacon, these prejudices make it impossible for the understanding to develop.
Under the influence of the Novum Organum, which Bacon viewed as a hand tool or instrument, science adopted the method of close observation and experiment . The foundation stone for later empiricism was laid here.
expenditure
- Francis Bacon: New Organ of Science . Trans. U. ed. by Anton Theobald Brück Unchanged. reprograph. Reprint d. Ed. Leipzig 1830 and Darmstadt 1990, ISBN 3-534-01465-0 .
- Francis Bacon: New Organon 1 row . Philosophical Library 400 / a German, Latin, Meiner Felix Verlag GmbH, January 1990, ISBN 3-7873-0757-5 .
- Francis Bacon: Novum organum. 1620.
literature
- Robert Rosenthal, Ralph L. Rosnow (Eds.): Artifact in behavioral research. Academic Press, New York 1969, ISBN 0-12-597750-6 .
- Cantor, Norman F .; Peter L. Klein: Seventeenth-Century Rationalism: Bacon and Descartes. Massachusetts: Blaisdell, (1969)
- Lilo K. Luxembourg: Francis Bacon and Denis Diderot : Philosophers of Science. Munksgaard, Copenhagen (1967)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Novum organum scientiarum (1762) Venetiis, Typis G. Girardi, online
- ↑ Bill Bryson: Shakespeare as I see him Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag, Munich (2008) ISBN 3-442-47275-X p. 119.
- ↑ Theodor Geiger : Ideology and Truth. A Sociological Critique of Thought. 2nd Edition. Luchterhand Verlag, Neuwied and Berlin 1968, p. 7f.