Probability, certainty and facts in Francis Bacon’s Natural Histories. A double attitude towards Skepticism

MANZO, SILVIA

Skepticism in the Modern Age: building on the Work of Richard Popkin

Brill

Lugar: Leiden; Año: 2009; p. 123 - 137

I would suggest that the relationship between Bacon and skepticism was in some way contradictory and allows us to find in his different works both anti-skeptical and pro-skeptical tendencies. My suggestion is  that despite the fact that Bacon’s methodological program deliberately and expressly tried to surpass the skeptical critique in order to reach certainty in the knowledge of nature, the difficulties that he faced during his scientific inquiry forced him at least tacitly to take a skeptical stance. Particularly, those difficulties became perceptible to Bacon in his making of natural histories as Historia Ventorum, Historia Vitae et Mortis, Historia Densi et Rari, Sylva Sylvarum, among others. The relevant consequences of Bacon’s practice of science to his conception of the limits of knowledge have never been studied.  My aim in this paper is to shed new light on the evaluation of Bacon’s position on skepticism by dwelling on his methodological theory and his practice of natural history. The analysis of this aspect of the Baconian program will lead to a more comprehensible account of its relationship to skepticism.