The Novum Organum, (or Novum Organum Scientiarum - "New Instrument of Science"), is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, originally published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.

The Novum Organum, (or Novum Organum Scientiarum - "New Instrument of Science"), is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, originally published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.

The Novum Organum, (or Novum Organum Scientiarum - "New Instrument of Science"), is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, originally published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.

2015 Reprint of 1960 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The "Novum Organum," full original title "Novum Organum Scientiarum" or 'new instrument of science', is a Bacon's landmark work scientific method. First published in 1620, the title is a reference to Aristotle's work "Organon," which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. Bacon outlines a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now (...) known as the Baconian method.For Bacon, finding the essence of a thing was a simple process of reduction, and the use of inductive reasoning. In finding the cause of a 'phenomenal nature' such as heat, one must list all of the situations where heat is found. Then another list should be drawn up, listing situations that are similar to those of the first list except for the lack of heat. A third table lists situations where heat can vary. The 'form nature', or cause, of heat must be that which is common to all instances in the first table, is lacking from all instances of the second table and varies by degree in instances of the third table. Bacon's work was instrumental in the historical development of the scientific method. Includes Bacon's Essay on "Great Instauration," and "Preparative Toward a Material and Experimental History.". (shrink)

In 1934 a most singular event occurred. Two papers were published on a topic that had (apparently) never before been written about, the authors had never been in contact with one another, and they had (apparently) no common intellectual background that would otherwise account for their mutual interest in this topic.1 These two papers formed the basis for a movement in logic which is by now the most common way of teaching elementary logic by far, and indeed is perhaps all (...) that is known in any detail about logic by a number of philosophers (especially in North America). This manner of proceeding in logic is called ‘natural deduction’. And in its own way the instigation of this style of logical proof is as important to the history of logic as the discovery of resolution by Robinson in 1965, or the discovery of the logistical method by Frege in 1879, or even the discovery of the syllogistic by Aristotle in the fourth century BC. (shrink)

This is a study of Aristotle's moral philosophy as it is contained in the Nicomachean Ethics. Hardie examines the difficulties of the text; presents a map of inescapable philosophical questions; and brings out the ambiguities and critical disagreements on some central topics, inclduing happiness, the soul, the ethical mean, and the initiation of action.

The paper demonstrates a fifteen-point structural correspondence between plato's "republic" and aristotle's "nicomachean ethics". The more interesting points of correspondence are discussed, as are the three passages in each work that have no analogue in the other, and that are not explained by aristotle's dealing with politics in a different work. Possible explanations of this detailed correspondence are considered.

Topics discussed include Aristotle's semantics, individuation, essentialism, causation, & being. Contents: The Aporematic Approach to Primary Being in Metaphysics Z. Aristotle's Semantics & a Puzzle Concerning Change. Aristotle & Individuation. Singular Statements & Essentialism in Aristotle. What is Aristotle's Theory of Essence?. Aristotle on the Proximate Efficient Cause of Action. Causes as Necessary Conditions: Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias & J.L. Mackie.

La " philosophie politique " est le singulier croisement, effectué par Aristote, de deux produits de l'histoire grecque. Depuis lors, toute la pensée politique (de Machiavel à Marx, de Montesquieu à H. Arendt) se nourrit de celle d'Aristote. Il convenait d'analyser les livres fondateurs de cette pensée fondatrice pour en livrer à tous l'intention singulière et le sens universel. Les problèmes des cités où vécut Aristote ne sont sans doute pas ceux de nos Etats. Et pourtant les réflexions philosophiques d'Aristote (...) sur ces problèmes peuvent toujours éclairer nos questions. Tous les pouvoirs sont-ils du même type? Est-il naturel d'obéir? Qui doit commander? Quel est le meilleur régime? Qu'est-ce que la justice en politique? Qu'est-ce que la démocratie? Ceux-là mêmes qui ne veulent pas en entendre parler pourraient entendre quelles inquiétudes cache ce mot de " politique " " pourquoi vivre ensemble? " et " comment vivre ensemble? ". (shrink)

There has long been a need for a work on the philosophy of beauty treating fundamental problems against the background of the history of aesthetics--ancient and medieval as well as modern and contemporary. This book answers that need with the comprehensive presentations of an objectivist philosophy of beauty to balance the currently popular aesthetic subjectivism. It includes a synopsis of views and theories expressed on the various questions about beauty by philosophers down through the ages. Kovach's acquaintance with relevant literature (...) from the ancient Greeks to twentieth-century authors is staggering. He draws on the observations of thinkers from ancient times--Plato, Aristotle. Philo of Alexandria, Cicero, Plotinus, Augustine, Dionysius the Areopagite, and others; from medieval times--Alexander of Hales, John of la Rochelle, Thomas of York, Bonaventure, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Dionysius the Carthusian, and others; from modern times--Descartes, J. Addison, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Tolstoi, Santayana, Croce, Maritain, Sartre, H. Read, Thomas Munro, and others. With delicate precision Kovach systematically discusses the philosophy of beauty and the problems it raises. Whether or not one agrees with Kovach's objectivist position, no one in the field can afford to be without this book. (shrink)

Drawing on Aristotle’s notion of “ultimate responsibility,” Robert Kane argues that to be exercising a free will an agent must have taken some character forming decisions for which there were no sufficient conditions or decisive reasons.¹ That is, an agent whose will is free not only had the ability to develop other dispositions, but could have exercised that ability without being irrational. To say it again, a person has a free will just in case her character is the product (...) of decisions that she could have rationally avoided making. That one’s character is the product of such decisions entails ultimate responsibility for its manifestations, engendering a free will. (shrink)

Drawing on Aristotle’s notion of “ultimate responsibility,” Robert Kane argues that to be exercising a free will an agent must have taken some character forming decisions for which there were no sufficient conditions or decisive reasons. That is, an agent whose will is free not only had the ability to develop values and beliefs besides those that presently make up her motives, but could have exercised that ability without being irrational. An agent wills freely, on this view, by beingultimately (...) responsible for how she is currently disposed to act. Kane needs, then, to show how an agent could be responsible for decisions that her deliberations did not guarantee. He must also explain how a decision for which there is no decisive reason could yet be rational, assuming that the responsibility engendering decisions forming the basis of a free will would be rational. I shall argue here that Kane has achieved neither of these goals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Francis Sparshott TEXT AND PROCESS IN POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY Ir. H. Bradley in an optimistic moment described philosophy as an • unusually intense and sustained attempt to think clearly.1 If that is what it is, it is clearly a process; and, if it is a process, one does not see what a philosophical text could be. A text is surely not a process, though it may be the (...) product of one. A text that purported to be philosophy would deceive, as many of us complain that textbooks deceive, by substituting for the living endeavors of thought a series of slogans and purported conclusions the parroting of which demonstrates that thought has been evaded, not clarified. But there are such things as philosophical texts, and we could not easily do without them. They are, indeed, central to our experience ofwhat philosophy is. They must be doing some work, and it is up to us to establish what that work could be. 2. If philosophy is indeed a process of clarifying thought, it must in each of us be a self-critical monologue, and it must in the world be a manyvoiced conversation among Thaïes and his contemporaries and successors through history. (Similar traditions in other parts of the world constitute different conversations, in other corners of the room, and sometimes we eavesdrop on each other's conversations; but we will not be concerning ourselves witii them here.) A philosophical text should be a record of parts ofthat conversation, a minute ofthe long meeting ofminds. Without such a record the conversation could be no better than a bull session; we would be forever returning to the beginning, not to recover our origins but because memory had stretched to snapping. After all, what use would the clarification of thought be unless die progress won could be preserved? Philosophy begets philosophy as humanity begets humanity; there must be an Aristotelian efficient cause, a form-bearer. 2 Philosophy and Literature 3.As minute of the clarifying conversation, the text might serve the purpose of an interim conclusion, a tentative result. But not necessarily, and not if the clarity sought is indeed clarity in thinking. Minutes of decision-making bodies may record only the motions passed; but deliberating bodies often prefer to include in the minutes the arguments on either side, so that when they come to reconsider a matter on which a motion has been passed they may do so with renewed insight. A progress report may report only where one has progressed to, but it may also retrace the progression whereby die progress was made. So perhaps die best sort of text in philosophy is die sort I shall call a philosophoumenon, a text that recreates in and for the reader the experience ofclarification itself. But if this is to be done the reader must be sucked in: before clarification can be done, unclarity must be re-enacted. Confusion must be induced and its recognition must be enforced: the reader must be enticed not only to recognize but to undergo in person the Socratic elenchus, which for two millennia has ensured that the best philosophers shall be the best hated philosophers. To do its elenctic work, a philosophoumenal text must be deeply ambiguous, internally divided, blatantly self-contradictory. The Platonic dialogues are exemplary in this as in most ways: dramatic denunciations of drama, written disparagements of writing, conclusive proofs of the impotence of reason. But the other masters did the same: Descartes guides the reader of his Meditations step by step through the argument that is to lead the reader to doubt Descartes's existence; Aristotle invents and deploys a highly technical vocabulary which he never uses in the same way twice, and establishes a classification of intellectual methods into which none ofhis own work can be fitted; Wittgenstein obsessively philosophizes to show the folly of philosophizing, and carefully ensures diat his students circulate die content of the texts that he ostentatiously refuses to publish; Kierkegaard stridently claims authorship of his pseudonymous works so that he can repudiate them audioritatively; G. E. Moore accurately defines goodness so as to make it clear exactly what he is saying when he says that goodness is... (shrink)

Drawing on Aristotle’s notion of “ultimate responsibility,” Robert Kane argues that to be exercising a free will an agent must have taken some character forming decisions for which there were no sufficient conditions or decisive reasons. That is, an agent whose will is free not only had the ability to develop values and beliefs besides those that presently make up her motives, but could have exercised that ability without being irrational. An agent wills freely, on this view, by beingultimately (...) responsible for how she is currently disposed to act. Kane needs, then, to show how an agent could be responsible for decisions that her deliberations did not guarantee. He must also explain how a decision for which there is no decisive reason could yet be rational, assuming that the responsibility engendering decisions forming the basis of a free will would be rational. I shall argue here that Kane has achieved neither of these goals. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Prudence: Classical Virtue, Postmodern PracticeFrancis A. BeerPrudence: Classical Virtue, Postmodern Practice. Ed. Robert Hariman. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. Pp. xi + 337. $65.00, cloth."Would it be prudent?" The phrase echoes in memory, linking Dana Carvey from Saturday Night Live to the presidency of the first George Bush. Robert Hariman has been wrestling with prudence for over a decade, and he has now produced a powerful (...) volume that brings together not only his thoughts but also those of a number of other distinguished authors. The result is a book that will become a standard reference for those interested in prudence.The subtitle, Classical Virtue, Postmodern Practice, and the title of the first chapter, "Theory without Modernity," give some idea of the subtexts that drive the book. This is a book about prudence, and more. It is about virtue in classical, modern, and postmodern settings. It is about the dynamic complexity of practice—decision, judgment, and action in public and private life.Hariman gives us a definition: "Prudence is a mode of reasoning about contingent matters in order to select the best course of action" (5). That would be too easy. He also surrounds prudence with a penumbra of related words to broaden our understanding of the complex lattice of semantic meaning. Our legacy from the Greek and Roman lexicon includes words like phronesis and prudentia. Contemporary nouns involve cautiousness, circumspection, and care. Related adjectives are "careful, judicious, tactful, discerning, sensible, frugal, wise, sage, level-headed, balanced, moderate, politic, practical pragmatic, expedient" (vii). These synonyms, for Hariman, describe a narrow, modern form of prudence, part of the calculative tradition inherited from Aristotle, that ultimately leads to the saddle points of rational choice. They are, however, only a part of the story. Hariman aims to relieve their "stodginess" by recovering the performative tradition of prudence from Cicero. Prudence, from this perspective, is defined not just abstractly as a set of rules but more dynamically as a set of roles. Prudence includes character, and is performed by characters. Pericles in Athens is an iconic example of superb political leadership that blends the honor of the leader with the glory of the state. Prudence combines integrity of the self with respect for others. This is a broad, ambitious interpretation [End Page 176] of prudence. It recuperates not only a classical vision of prudence but also one of politics. It rearranges other virtues to revolve in a constellation around prudence. In this reconstituted form, prudence reemerges to shine as "a crucial element of political leadership," the central political virtue.The book is divided into three parts: "Conceptual Frameworks," "Rhetorical Structures," and "Provisional Networks." All three of the sections are identified in structural terms, which is interesting since Hariman's conception of prudence as a primary political virtue is very agent-centered. The structures, however, provide the settings in which the political observers and actors perform. The first section provides a sample of the rich literature that focuses on philosophical concepts of prudence in earlier times and places. It begins with a chapter by Robert W. Cape Jr. that discusses "Cicero and the Development of Political Practice in Rome." This chapter is critical to the book, since it lays a part of the foundation. It is the first substantive essay and it must also make the case for combining calculative and performative prudence. Cape gives us a fine exposition of prudentia in the Roman context. Interestingly, he suggests that "prudentia is a contraction of providentia, "'foresight.'" (37).The virtue of prudence was typically associated with age and experience. Imprudence, on the other hand, was associated with youth, recklessness, and impropriety (37). Prudence involved knowledge of practical matters, law, and custom as well as proper speech, including rhetoric, and behavior. Prepon mattered. Prudence for Cicero, however, was much more than simply knowing how things work: it was ultimately the extended performance of justice on the public stage. The next chapter, by Eugene Garver, entitled "After Virtù: Rhetoric, Prudence, and Moral Pluralism in Machiavelli," moves the story of prudence from the late classical to the early modern period. As the title indicates, Garver's concern is also with the relation of... (shrink)

This volume makes a valuable contribution to the growing body of Gadamer's work translated into English. Specifically, it follows in the direction of the collections of his interpretive essays on Heidegger, Hegel, Aristotle, and Plato, as well as the intriguing autobiographical window on the German intellectual world of the first half of this century which is opened for us in Philosophical Apprenticeships. Education, Poetry, and History, continues to fill in the historical and philosophical horizon against which Gadamer's magnum opus, (...) Truth and Method, must be understood if its full significance is to be appreciated and the proper limits of its achievement comprehended. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on four areas Aristotle considered when determining what something really was, namely, essence, predicates, judgments, and potentials. Understanding and employing these concepts in our own concept of monster will help us avoid our currently tainted love of Supernatural. According to Aristotle, there are essential and accidental aspects of being. In the simplest terms, the essential aspects are the things that could not change about something, while the accidental aspects are things that could change. Aristotle's (...) third taxonomy of being is found in judgments of truth and falsity about a thing. These judgments can apply to questions of essence, accident, or any of the categories. Any question about the essential nature of monsters requires an answer that applies to all monsters. (shrink)

The two studies comprising this dissertation focus upon the contribution of Dietrich von Freiberg, O.P. to late mediaeval problems concerning identity and change in nature. The first study presents Dietrich's theories of the elements and prime matter, and features an extended historical and philosophical critique of Thomas Aquinas' notion of virtual being. It is with this notion that Aquinas attempts to resolve the apparent tension between Aristotle's theory of the chemical mixture and Aquinas' own doctrine of the unity of (...) substantial form. It is argued that virtual being is not a genuine Aristotelian mode of being and in any case does not resolve this apparent tension. Dietrich's own solution follows that of Averroes, maintaining that the elements in the mixed body are diminished from pure act to some degree of potency. It is argued that Dietrich mis-applies aspects of his theory of substantial generation in arriving at this solution. Such diminishment is possible, argues Dietrich, because of the elements' proximity to prime matter. The doctrine of proper form in its proper matter entails that prime matter must be complex, and those "natures" comprising prime matter be punctually indistinct. Thus are the elements themselves punctually indistinct in the homeomerous mixed body. Dietrich's solution is thus problematic precisely because it requires that the elements be capable of interpenetration. ;The second study evaluates, and attempts to situate in its historical context, Dietrich's theory that numerical identity is not preserved in intensive qualitative change. Rather, each new degree of intensity introduces a numerically distinct quality. This is because qualities lack the interiority of essence that substances possess. A survey of contemporaneous sources shows that while there was much opposition to this position, it was not uncommon. The discussion continues with an analysis of Dietrich's arguments that such change also neither is continuous nor entails an infinity of degrees. Degrees of intensity do not correspond with each "now" in the continuum of time. Rather, there must be an indivisible minimum, and intensive qualitative change must therefore be understood as stepwise and discontinuous. (shrink)

The thesis concerns the sense of self in Epictetus, with special reference to two key terms in his philosophy: prohairesis and prosopon. ;The first chapter explores the range of meaning behind the word prohairesis as Epictetus employs it. I begin by reviewing the background of the word, particularly in Aristotle. A discussion of the problem of free will and determinism in Stoic ethics follows, with reference to prohairesis in Epictetus. The implications of equating prohairesis with "the will" are then (...) explored, followed by a discussion of its significance as the complex of reason and desire, and as "intention." The first chapter concludes with a brief section on aidos in Epictetus, as an intimation of the notion of "conscience." ;Chapter Two extends the enquiry with particular attention to the word prosopon and Epictetus' view of roles as determinants of the self. The chapter opens with a review of the tradition of self-knowledge as a topos in Greek philosophy, and its importance for Epictetus. I then propose a taxonomy of the self as he understands it, organized under the categories of the "I" , the "me" and the "mine" . Two models of man, borrowed from Martin Hollis, are put forward as possible prototypes for Epictetus' perspective on "the person." Then the larger question of the Stoics' attitude toward society and social roles is addressed. The consequences of distinguishing between the first- and the third-person perspectives on "the person" are discussed. The chapter concludes with a section on the place of the body in Epictetus' thought, in connection with the dualism some scholars have ascribed to him. (shrink)

The Law of Non-Contradiction - that no contradiction can be true - has been a seemingly unassailable dogma since the work of Aristotle. It is an assumption challenged from a variety of angles in this collection of original papers. Twenty-three of the world's leading experts investigate the 'law', considering arguments for and against it and discuss methodological issues that arise. The result is a balanced inquiry into a venerable principle of logic, one that raises questions at the very centre (...) of logic itself. (shrink)

In opposition to Aristotle, for whom practical reason differs from theoretical reason solely in the end toward which it directs its theoretical knowledge, Kant means by practical reason the capacity to determine an act unconditionally, that is, freely. Since the Kantian doctrine of determinants is based on a conception of mutual relation between practical reason and volition, this study traces the development, progressive clarification, and precise result of his thought from the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten to the Metaphysik (...) der Sitten.... Identification of practical reason with the will in the notion of autonomy guides research on the objective determining ground.... The article investigates the source from which Kant derived his notion of a determining ground and the role which analogy to natural activity played in its development [abr, tr fr j by PCS]. (shrink)

What is the will? And what is its relation to human action? Throughout history, philosophers have been fascinated by the idea of "the will": the source of the drive that motivates human beings to act. However, there has never been a clear consensus as to what the will is and how it relates to human action. Some philosophers have taken the will to be based firmly in reason and rational choice, and some have seen it as purely self-determined. Others have (...) replaced the idea of the human will with a more general drive uniting humans and the rest of nature, living and non-living. This collection of nine specially commissioned papers traces the formulation and treatment of the problem of the will from ancient philosophy through the scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages, to modern philosophy and right up to contemporary theories. Philosophers discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Hobbes, Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. (shrink)

One of Leonardo da Vinci’s autographed aphorisms states that Aristotle and Alexander were each other’s teachers. Interpreting it in light of those of Leonardo’s readings which instigated him to write it down along with providing him the material he needed to do so, I argue that the aphorism turns against Aristotle as an emblematically boastful, know-it-all man involved in undue occupation of all knowledge throughout history. Leonardo presents Aristotle as if he had been taught by the pernicious (...) conqueror Alexander to act in scholarship in the way the Macedonian king had acted in politics and external affairs. The core of this critique goes back to a traditional anti-Aristotelian point in Antiquity, complies with the 15th- and 16th-century anti-Aristotelianism and goes hand-in-hand with Leonardo’s own view that intelligent men (including himself) are capable of going much further than Aristotle in the direction of discovering the truth. I identify Leonardo’s sources and I argue that Francis Bacon’s repeated bitter remark that the soul of Aristotle was infected by Alexander’s tyrannic character was quite probably based on Leonardo’s aphorism. (shrink)

This article assesses the role of the laws of the French logician and educational reformer Petrus Ramus in the writings of Francis Bacon. The laws of Ramus derive from Aristotle’s grounds for necessary propositions. Necessary propositions, according to Aristotle, Ramus, and Bacon, are required for the premises of scientific syllogisms. It is argued that in Bacon’s Advancement of Learning and De augmentis scientiarum the only role for these laws is in the transmission of knowledge that has already (...) been acquired. However, in the early Valerius Terminus Bacon also considered them to be relevant to the interpretation of nature. Interestingly, this, in turn, sheds light on the two precepts for the discovery of forms in Aphorism 4 of Book Two of the Novum organum that appear to derive from Valerius Terminus. All of this bears importantly on Bacon’s views on the problem of gaining epistemic access to the inner natures or forms of things. (shrink)

This article offers the first critical edition of the most important version of Francis of Marchia's famous question 1 of his commentary on Book IV of the Sentences, in which the Franciscan theologian puts forth his virtus derelicta theory of projectile motion. The introduction attempts to place Marchia's theory in its proper context. The theory might seem to us an obvious improvement on Aristotle, but rather than an immediate and complete break with tradition that all scholastics quickly adopted, (...) Marchia's virtus derelicta was more a stage in a gradual process that had begun many decades before and did not find universal acceptance among his first successors. Moreover, Marchia himself did not take the theory to what might seem the obvious conclusion that Jean Buridan would draw, because Marchia employed the virtus derelicta to explain more phenomena than just projectile motion. (shrink)

The present dissertation consists of a developmental account of the problem of the ontological status of individuality as manifested initially in the metaphysical thought of Aristotle and subsequently developed by Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Francis Suarez. ;The philosophical context for the problem of individuality's ontological status is set by the theme, prominent in Greek philosophy, of unity as a mark of what is most real and most perfect. The historical precedent for viewing individuality as fitting under this (...) theme, and thus as having ontological importance, is provided by Aristotle's doctrine of primary substance, which characterizes individuality as a type of unity that pertains to the most fundamental aspects of reality such as this man or this horse. Though this doctrine highlights the ontological primacy of individual entities, the specific issues of where individuality fits on the ontological map, and what role it plays in constituting substances, are discussed only indirectly by Aristotle. These matters remain mostly unaddressed until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in which individuality becomes a focal point of philosophical discussion due to the integration of Aristotelian metaphysical thought into Christian doctrine and the accompanying recognition of individuality as a topic of critical importance. ;The problem of individuality's ontological status can be summarized in terms of two questions. First, what kind of thing is individuality, i.e., where does it fit on the ontological map? Second, how is individuality related to the other metaphysical aspects of a thing, such as their form, common nature, etc.? Aquinas's treatment of this problem reveals strong roots in the Aristotelian doctrines of substance and of unity as a transcendental attribute of being. Scotus's account likewise is developed in the context of the aforementioned Aristotelian notions, but is more extensive than Aquinas's and more suggestive of individuality's importance given Scotus's identification of metaphysics as the science of the transcendentals and of individuality as a transcendental. Suarez's treatment of the ontological status of individuality builds upon these notions, synthesizing the insights of his predecessors to formulate an account that is more explicit, more precise, and in many ways more rigorous than his predecessors' accounts. (shrink)