Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Novum Organum
Für wen es gedacht ist
For readers curious about how modern science began, students of philosophy, and anyone who wants to think more clearly about evidence and bias.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Novum Organum is a Latin treatise published in 1620 by Francis Bacon, an English lawyer, courtier and statesman. Its title means New Instrument. It answers the Organon, the set of logical works of Aristotle that had shaped European learning for centuries. Bacon wrote it as the second part of a larger plan he called the Great Instauration, a total renewal of human knowledge. He dedicated the book to King James the First.
Bacon argues that learning in his day had gone nowhere. Scholars repeated old authorities, argued over words and built grand systems on a few careless observations. Meanwhile printing, gunpowder and the compass, three inventions that no scholar had planned, had changed the world more than all the schools. Bacon asks what might be done if the search for knowledge were made careful, shared and aimed at useful results.
The book is written as numbered aphorisms, short and sharp, in two books. The first clears the ground by naming the habits of mind that lead people astray. The second sets out a patient method for finding the causes of things. In the next quarter hour you will hear the main ideas in order, and what later thinkers made of them. Let us begin with Bacon's complaint about the state of learning.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1Learning has stood still for centuriesFree
- 2Knowledge should be tested by what it can do
- 3The mind itself bends what it sees
- 4Cave, marketplace and theatre bring more errors
- 5Be a bee, not an ant or spider
- 6Climb to general laws by gradual steps
- 7Seek the form of a thing with tables
- 8Special cases and aids help the search
- 9How Bacon's method has lasted and been tested
Punkt 1 von 9
Learning has stood still for centuries
Bacon opens with a harsh judgment. The sciences of his day, he says, have made almost no progress, and they remain stuck where the ancient Greeks left them. Students learn to argue and defend, but they do not learn to find anything new. Universities, in his view, trained people to dispute, not to discover.
He blames the main tool of the schools, the syllogism. A syllogism moves from general statements to a conclusion, and it is only as sound as the statements it starts from. Bacon says those starting points were gathered hastily from a few common experiences. A clever chain of reasoning built on weak foundations is still weak, however tidy it looks.
He has little patience for the scholars who followed Aristotle. He compares them to spiders who spin webs out of their own substance. The webs are fine and delicate, but they catch nothing real. He also faults those who treat the ancients as unquestionable, since the ancients lived in the youth of the world, and the present age has more experience to draw on.
Bacon points to evidence of his own. Printing, gunpowder and the magnetic compass were not produced by the schools, and they had altered letters, war and navigation beyond anything the old philosophy achieved. Such discoveries came by chance, he says. What if they could come by method?
This is the hope that drives the book. Bacon does not claim that the ancient thinkers were fools. He claims that the road they took leads in a circle, and that a different road is needed. The rest of his argument is an attempt to lay that road.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 92,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 6 h 10 min
- Listening time10 h 15 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Novum Organum
What is Novum Organum about?
It is Francis Bacon's argument for a new way of seeking knowledge. He criticizes the old reliance on authority and logic, names the habits of mind that mislead us, and proposes patient, shared, experiment-based induction.
What does Novum Organum mean?
It is Latin for New Instrument or New Tool. Bacon chose it to answer the Organon, the logical works of Aristotle, and to offer a fresh method for studying nature.
What are the four idols in Bacon's Novum Organum?
They are the idols of the tribe, flaws shared by all people, the cave, personal habits, the marketplace, errors from language, and the theatre, false systems of philosophy handed down by tradition.
When was Novum Organum written and in what language?
Bacon published it in 1620, in Latin, then the common language of European scholars. It was the second part of his unfinished plan for renewing knowledge, called the Great Instauration.
Is Novum Organum hard to read?
No. The book is written as numbered aphorisms, short and sharp, so you can take one idea at a time. Its plan is simple: the first book names the habits of mind that lead people astray, and the second sets out a method.