Roger Bacon
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For the Nova Scotia premier, see Roger Stuart Bacon.
| Roger Bacon Order of Friars Minor | |
|---|---|
 Statue of Roger Bacon in the Oxford University Museum | |
| Born | c. 1214 Ilchester, Somerset |
| Died | 1294 (aged c. 80) |
| Nationality | English |
| Other names | Doctor Mirabilis |
| Occupation | friar, scholar |
| Organization | Order of Friars Minor |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
Roger Bacon, O.F.M. (c. 1214–1294), also known as Doctor Mirabilis (medieval accolade, meaning "wonderful teacher"), was an Englishphilosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods. He is sometimes credited as one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method[1] inspired by the works of Plato and Aristotle.]
Life
Roger Bacon was born in Ilchester in Somerset, possibly in 1213 or 1214 at the Ilchester Friary.[5] The only source for his date of birth is his statement in the Opus Tertium, written in 1267, that "forty years have passed since I first learned the alphabet". The 1214 birth date assumes he was not being literal, and may have meant 40 years had passed since he matriculated at Oxford at the age of 13. If he had been literal, his birth date was more likely to have been around 1220/1222. In the same passage he reports that for all but two of those forty years he had always been engaged in study.[6] His family appears to have been well-off, but, during the stormy reign of Henry III of England, their property was despoiled and several members of the family were driven into exile.
Bacon studied and later became a Master at Oxford, lecturing on Aristotle. There is no evidence he was ever awarded a doctorate — the title Doctor Mirabilis was posthumous and figurative. Sometime between 1237 and 1245, he began to lecture at the university of Paris, then the centre of intellectual life in Europe. His whereabouts between 1247 and 1256 are uncertain, but about 1256 he became a Friar in the Franciscan Order. As a Franciscan Friar, Bacon no longer held a teaching post, and after 1260 his activities were further restricted by a Franciscan statute forbidding Friars from publishing books or pamphlets without specific approval.[7]
Bacon circumvented this restriction through his acquaintance with Cardinal Guy le Gros de Foulques, who became Pope Clement IV in 1265. The new Pope issued a mandate ordering Bacon to write to him concerning the place of philosophy within theology. As a result Bacon sent the Pope his Opus Majus, which presented his views on how the philosophy of Aristotle and the new science could be incorporated into a new Theology. Besides the Opus maius Bacon also sent his Opus minus, De multiplicatione specierum, and, perhaps, other works on alchemy and astrology.[8]
Pope Clement died in 1268. Sometime between 1277 and 1279, Bacon was probably imprisoned or placed under house arrest. The circumstances for this are still mysterious. Sometime after 1278 Bacon returned to the Franciscan House at Oxford, where he continued his studies.[9]
His works
[edit]His view of the past
The scientific training Bacon had received showed him the rare defects in existing academic debate. Aristotle was known only through translations, as none of the professors would learn Greek; the same was true of Scripture and many of the other auctores ("authorities") referenced in traditional education. In contrast to Aristotle's argument that facts be collected before deducing scientific truths, physical science was not carried out by observations from the natural world, but by arguments based solely on tradition and prescribed authorities (seeScholasticism).
Bacon withdrew from the scholastic routine and devoted himself to languages and experimental research. The mathematicians whom he considered perfect were Peter of Maricourt[23] and John of London, and two were good: Campanus of Novara and a Master Nicholas. Peter was the author of a manuscript treatise, "De Magnete," and Campanus wrote several important works on astronomy, astrology, and the calendar.[24] Bacon often mentioned his debt to the work of Robert Grosseteste and Adam Marsh, as well as to other lesser figures. He was clearly not an isolated scholar in the thirteenth century.[25]
[edit]A new approach
In his writings, Bacon calls for a reform of theological study. Less emphasis should be placed on minor philosophical distinctions than had been the case in scholasticism. Instead, the Bible itself should return to the centre of attention and theologians should thoroughly study the languages in which their original sources were composed. He was fluent in several languages and lamented the corruption of the holy texts and the works of the Greek philosophers by numerous mistranslations and misinterpretations. Furthermore, he urged all theologians to study all sciences closely, and to add them to the normal university curriculum. With regard to the obtaining of knowledge, he strongly championed experimental study over reliance on authority, arguing that "thence cometh quiet to the mind". Bacon did not restrict this approach to theological studies. He rejected the blind following of prior authorities, both in theological and scientific study, which was the accepted method of undertaking study in his day.
In the Opus Minus he criticizes his contemporaries Alexander of Hales and Albertus Magnus who, he says, had not studied the philosophy of Aristotle but only acquired their learning during their life as preachers.[26] Albert was received at Paris as an authority equal to Aristotle,Avicenna, and Averroes,[27] leading Bacon to proclaim that "never in the world [had] such monstrosity occurred before."[28]
[edit]Legacy
Bacon made many discoveries while coming near to many others, despite many disadvantages and discouragements. His Opus Majuscontains treatments of mathematics and optics, alchemy and the manufacture of gunpowder, the positions and sizes of the celestial bodies, and anticipates later inventions such as microscopes, telescopes, spectacles, flying machines, hydraulics and steam ships. Bacon studiedastrology and believed that the celestial bodies had an influence on the fate and mind of humans.
The study of optics in part five of Opus Majus draws heavily on the works of both Claudius Ptolemy (his Optics in Arabic translation) and theIslamic scientists Alkindus (al-Kindi) and Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham).[29] He includes a discussion of the physiology of eyesight, the anatomy of the eye and the brain, and considers light, distance, position, and size, direct vision, reflected vision, and refraction, mirrors and lenses. His research in optics was primarily oriented by the legacy of Alhazen through a Latin translation of the latter's monumental Kitab al-manazir (De aspectibus; Perspectivae; The Optics), while the impact of the tradition of al-Kindi (Alkindus) was principally mediated through the influence that this Muslim scholar had on the optics of Robert Grosseteste. Moreover, Bacon's investigations of the properties of the magnifying glasspartly rested on the handed-down legacy of Islamic opticians, mainly Alhazen, who was in his turn influenced by Ibn Sahl's 10th century legacy in dioptrics.[30]
Drawing on the recently discovered Greco-Muslim astronomy and on the calendaric writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bacon criticized the Julian calendar, describing it as intolerable, horrible and laughable. He proposed to correct its errors by deleting a day from the calendar every 125 or 130 days.[31] Bacon was an enthusiastic proponent and practitioner of the experimental method of acquiring knowledge about the world. He advocated the study of mathematics to facilitate the grounding of the scientific method in quantitative techniques. Further, Bacon predicted the invention of the submarine, automobile, and airplane.[32] He planned to publish a comprehensive encyclopedia, but only fragments ever appeared. The American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce said of him that "To Roger Bacon, that remarkable mind who in the middle of the thirteenth century was almost a scientific man, the schoolmen's conception of reasoning appeared only an obstacle to truth. He saw that experience alone teaches anything.... Of all kinds of experience, the best, he thought, was interior illumination, which teaches many things about Nature which the external senses could never discover, such as the transubstantiation of bread."[33]
[edit]Other attributed works
Bacon is the ascribed author of the alchemical manual Speculum Alchemiae, which was translated into English as The Mirror of Alchimy in 1597.