From authority to reason: Francis Bacon

Learning about the the "Birth of the modern mind" was very interesting since in many ways this journey paralleled my own journey from theism to atheism, or more accurately from faith to reason. There were a few things that particularly struck me. The most astounding of which is how many modern people who discuss philosophy and science seem to have missed most or all of what Francis Bacon said with regard to authoritative knowledge (scripture) and what we now call science. This quote, even alone does the idea some justice:

"Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of the laws which govern the material world."

He made the clear distinction between real knowledge and authoritatively dictated opinions. Today it is more obvious that authority is not a guarantee of wisdom (quote the Catholic church's view that the sexual abuse of children isn't really harmful to them!!!). But in the context of his world this was a great leap forward and some of the "great" philosophers still missed his point.

That brings me to the other notable item: the arguments these guys are making must be taken in context. Many times I hear people bring up various arguments made by some of the post-Renaissance philosophers as if it is a complete argument. Many well versed scientific naturalists see them as almost trivially silly. The problem is the arguments are out of context. It is hard, in a modern discussion with intelligent people, to bring up these arguments if the context is not clear to all. For instance when people talk about the fact that we are resigned to understand things in context of our cultural upbringing and thus cannot know "real" truth because it is tainted, they clearly do not understand how theories are built in modern science. they are referring to unnatural (natural being science) philosophical models. This is because the distinction between the physical universe and the perceived human world (the world filtered through the lens of your brain) are often still confused, even all these years after Plato.

Another common example is Pascal's wager. This often misunderstood piece of nonsense cannot be rehashed now a days in modestly educated settings. The wager, simply put says one is better of believing in a god since if then you either get infinite rewards if one exists or nothing if one doesn't, but if one doesn't believe one gets damnation or nothing so it is better to believe. While there are many logical fallacies here (if there are more gods others may get angry, god may not reward fake practitioners etc, just think of the same decision but where the god will punish the faithful... it's fun) he wrote it because he said he could not trust reason! So he was trying to give an argument, but not appealing to the readers reason. I know, I don't know what that means but it is emblematic, as I see it, of the modern philosophers who still think science can't know things or post-Renaissance philosophers who had mental brakes. He should just have said, atheism is hard, I believe in Christian god (he rejected the Muslim and Jewish god's as less likely than the Christian god). Then at least your faith rests on nothing so it can't be challenged by reality or reason.