1561 Birth of Francis Bacon
In the midst of a world steeped in “disinformation”, it may be useful to consider the thoughts of an English politician whose brilliant public career ended amid rigged accusations of bribe-taking. Francis Bacon, Viscount St Albans, was a contemporary of William Shakespeare, a favourite of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I, and an intellectual giant. This is the man who coined the phrase “knowledge is power”, who wrote the first essays in the English language, penned our first science fiction and, by proposing that observation and induction replace all previously-accepted knowledge, laid the foundation of the scientific method. He is believed by many to be the “real author” of the plays attributed to Shakespeare. He wasn’t but he was an important figure in the philosophical history of the Anglophone world.
Bacon was born into a family which was prominent in Elizabethan religion and politics. His father Nicholas was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and his uncle was William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth’s closest advisor. He entered politics at age 20, rose to be the Queen’s legal counsel and the Attorney General of her successor James I. His enemies brought him down in 1621 on grossly-inflated charges but he never lost the respect of the thinking classes.
In his ground-breaking Essays, Bacon claimed that humans were barred from seeing reality by four obstacles. The first of his three barriers to clear thinking dealt with individual eccentricities, common superstitions, and false knowledge; the fourth was what he called “Idols of the Market-place” on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate; and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies.
For Bacon, words wrongly used could keep people from discovering the truth and this was a tragedy. For North American politicians, truth-avoidance has become precisely the point. Spokesmen of each party in debates, press releases, and speeches use language as a means of obfuscation more than clarification; the power of words to cloud issues is valued over its ability to shed light.
Bacon died in 1626, possibly the victim of his own belief in scientific observation, having caught pneumonia while conducting an experiment in refrigeration.