The appetite of (self) preservation and its contexts in Francis Bacon’

MANZO, SILVIA

Londres

Workshop; Francis Bacon and the Materiality of the Appetites: Stoicism, Medicine and Politics ERC Starting Grant ‘Medicine of the Mind’; 2011

Warburg Institute- University of London, Institute for Advanced Studies

Francis Bacon’s conceptions of nature and man are firmly grounded on the idea that their behaviours are motivated by a multiplicity of appetites. On his account any physical or moral state or event can be explained in terms of the appetites that have given rise to them. The aim of this paper is to focus on the appetite of preservation in Bacon’s natural philosophy. At the same time, it tries to trace some influences which might have played as backdrop for Bacon’s contentions. After an introduction about the epistemological and ontological implications of Bacon’s idea of “circle of learning”, the paper gives a survey of Bacon’s classification of appetites, showing the correlations between natural and moral philosophy. The following section deals with the notion of matter’s resistance (antitypia) as being a fundamental expression of preservation in nature. Further, this section analyses the criticism of Telesian philosophy in this regard. The final section delineates the different meanings of preservation and their backgrounds. As conclusion it is contended that Bacon assumes two meanings of preservation: a) passive conservation or self-preservation, defined as a private passive appetite; b) active conservation, identified with the appetite of preservation of the common good, entailed in the idea that the conservation of the whole is the supreme metaphysical goal both in natural philosophy and in moral philosophy. The passivity of self-preservation makes sense particularly in moral philosophy, where the distinction between passive and active appetites is introduced as pervading all beings (not only moral agents). In this context, Bacon is committed to establish a clear hierarchy of moral goods, from which it would become evident the superiority of active life over contemplative life, of public life over private life, both correlated with the distinction between active and passive goods respectively. The conclusion also suggests that Bacon’s conception of the preservation of the whole gains emphasis and overshadows passive self-preservation because is it more profoundly involved with action and utility and, thus, suits to the pre-eminence given to active science in the Instauratio Magna program. As for the possible inspirations and backgrounds of Bacon’s views on conservation,  two major lines might be traced. One line surrounds the idea of self-preservation and is related to Stoic and Telesian notions of conservatio sui. A second line has to do with the teleological setting of Bacon’s staunch defense of the supremacy of common good, correlated with the superiority of public life over private life. It is attached to Late-Scholastic views, as expressed in the Coimbran Commentary to Aristotle’s Physics, to Christian doctrine, to Aristotelian ethics and to Cicero’s defense of vita activa.