Natural philosophy, jurisprudence and laws in Francis Bacon

SILVIA MANZO

Bucarest

Workshop; ?Baconian Themes in Natural and Moral Philosophy?; 2016

Institute for Research in the Humanities (IRH-ICUB), Universidad de Bucarest

Bacon was a trained jurist, convinced of the need of a law reform in his country and, at the same time, he was one of the main promoters of the reform of learning advocating for a new science, whose theoretical and operative aims assume the legality of nature. Bacon does not develop a general doctrine of law from which specific characterizations of juridical laws and scientific laws are derived, but deals separately with laws in jurisprudence and laws in natural philosophy. However, there is no doubt that in his views on laws Bacon the jurist interacted with Bacon the natural philosopher. The recourse to law terminology in his texts devoted to natural philosophy is a well-known instance of this. The nature and extent of this interaction, however, is a controversial and difficult matter. Has this resource to law terminology only a metaphorical import? Does Bacon think that juridical laws and scientific laws share a common conceptual matrix? If so, what are the implications of this common point of departure? In this paper, I?d like to offer some preliminary answers to some of these questions by focusing on his views on laws in jurisprudence and natural philosophy passing through first philosophy. I will argue that both Bacon views on laws in jurisprudence and in natural philosophy share a common conceptual matrix and that there are some important ontological and epistemic parallels between some kinds of juridical and scientific laws.