Abstract
A re-interpretation of Francis Bacon’s understanding of policy highlights the relationships he drew between the study of natural bodies and the formation, expansion and preservation of political bodies. Bacon’s term ‘policy’ has often been understood unproblematically as law, government or civil science. However, it should be understood in relation to the far more suspect – from both a moral and an epistemological point of view – notion of reason of state. Policy produced and managed political change. Policy offered contingent, probabilistic tools for advancing political power, but ones that were insufficiently supported by the certainty of knowledge required, in Bacon’s view, to serve as the basis for a successfully enduring polity. He hoped to design stable, perfectly mixed political bodies through grounding policy within an understanding of natural forms. However, he failed to arrive at a complete metaphysical understanding of forms, and thus did not succeed in constructing a certain, civil science. If he could not stabilize policy through natural knowledge, he could at least bring change to natural knowledge through policy. Bacon thus drew on tools for advancing actual empire in order to advance the bounds of epistemic empire. Deploying the political charlatan’s techniques for manipulating human hope, desire and our tendency to delusion, he proposed a wish-list of the most desired discoveries which might tempt humankind to extend the boundaries of epistemic empire.
This essay is an earlier version of part of a chapter, ‘Francis Bacon’s New World of Sciences’, which appears in Keller 2015. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.
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Notes
- 1.
The reason--> of state went beyond classical conceptions of cunning--> intelligence (metis) in its political and social implications. For the view that Baconian induction--> represents an attempt to transform classical metis --> (cunning intelligence), see Eamon 1994, 289. -->On cunning, Detienne and Vernant 1978. On reason -->of state more generally, Meinecke 1924; Senellart 1989; Bireley 1990; Burke 1991; Viroli 1992. Recurrent -->attempts to --> define -->the reason of -->state raised questions -->about the meaning of reason --> itself. See Melliet 1618, 358–359: ‘tous les iours nous disons, que telles, et telles choses, se font par raison d’Estat, sans bien entendre neantmoins ce qui est denoté et specifié par ce mot de Raison d’Estat: mais parce que parmi la pluspart des nations du monde, il ya Raison de nature, Raison ciuile, Raison de guerre, et Raison des gens, il sera bon d’aller examinant, quelles choses sont ces Raisons’. Scipione Chiaramonti --> listed ten meanings of ‘reason’ in --> Della ragione di stato (Chiaramonti 1635, 6–7). Erhard Weigel --> listed four types of reason other than the reason of state in De ratione status (Weigel 1667).
- 2.
Sorell et al. 2010.
- 3.
Caton 1988 and Martin 1993 do not discuss the reason--> of state. Wormald (1993, 186, 188) mentions --> ‘reason of -->state’ --> in passing while -->quoting --> Bacon; Faulkner (1993, 42–3, 92, 116, 155–57, 181) does discuss the reason of state in Bacon’s political -->thought. Weinberger (1985, 72, 80–82) mentions ‘ragioni di stato’. None of these authors discuss Bacon in relation to a major authority on the reason of state, Giovanni Botero -->. More generally, Poovey (1998, 86) has drawn -->attention to the problem of the reason of state or interest--> and its effects in producing institutions and a ‘new method’ to meet a new standard of ‘disinterested knowledge-->’, which formed against the background of reason of state theory. -->On interest, -->see also Stewart 1992 and Stillman 1995.
- 4.
- 5.
On the importance of -->transmission, see Colclough 2003.
- 6.
Bacon 1623, 285: ‘Homines, cum Methodi suae Legibus res torqueant; et quaecunque in Dichotomias illas non apte cadunt, aut omittant, aut praeter Naturam inflectant; hoc efficiunt, ut quasi Nuclei et grana Scientiarum exiliant, ipsi aridas tantum et desertas Siliquas stringant’; and Bacon 1857–1874, III (Temporis partus masculus), 530: ‘Nullum mihi commercium cum hoc ignorantiae latibulo, perniciosissima literarum tinea, compendiorum patre, qui cum methodi suae et compendii vinclis res torqueat et premat, res quidem, si qua fuit, elabitur protinus et exiliit; ipse vero aridas et desertissimas nugas stringit’.
- 7.
The dichotomous organization of Ramist method is readily apparent throughout Bacon’s Advancement of Learning and other philosophical works, as discussed by Richard Serjeantson --> in his paper ‘Francis Bacon and “The Inquirie Touching Humane Nature Entyer”’, delivered at the Warburg Institute, 18 June, 2011. On the Ramist roots of period --> encyclopedism, see Hotson 2011 .
- 8.
See, for -->instance, Cañizares-Esguerra 2004.
- 9.
Botero 1589, 1: ‘Ragione di Stato si è notitia de’ mezi, atti a fondare, -->conservare, et ampliare un Dominio’.
- 10.
Note that I use ‘empire’ in the sense of imperium and as a synonym for ‘dominion’. The ‘advancement of empire’ in -->writings of the period sometimes, but not always, refers to colonial empire.
- 11.
On English Tacitism, see inter --> alia Benjamin 1965, 102–110; Bradford 1983; Salmon 1989; and Smuts 1993. Tuck (1993, 116) writes, -->for -->instance, that ‘political --> debate in -->Jacobean England did not include modern arguments drawn from Botero --> or Ammirato; there was no sense of the potential world empire of the English comparable to the sense Richelieu fostered of a French universalism’. This view is beginning to be overturned. Tuck himself lists as exceptions Walter Raleigh --> and Edwin Sandys -->. See also Breen 1973, 461–462; Baldwin 2004; Fitzmaurice 2007; Malcolm 2007; Sweet 2008; and Daston 2011.
- 12.
On the reason--> of state -->as ‘policy’ -->in early --> modern English, see Orsini 1946.
- 13.
Martin (1993, 142) equates ‘policy’ -->with ‘laws’: ‘The crowning importance of knowledge--> of the natural world was, for Bacon, its ability to teach us these laws, “the true rules of policy”’. Wormald defines policy as ‘civil science -->’, ’a course or courses of action which this -->science dictates’, ‘the royal government’, and ‘constitutional arrangements of a state as a whole’ (p. 6), as well as ‘government’ -->and ‘law’ (Wormald 1993, 13).
- 14.
According to Aristotle--> and his Renaissance revivers such as Leonardo Bruni -->, the five intellectual virtues were sapientia, scientia, prudentia, intelligentia and ars. Wisdom applied to deliberation about immutable and true things, and -->prudence --> to -->deliberation --> about mutable things, with the goal of -->taking action. See Rice 1958, 44–5; Viroli 1992, 275; Mohnhaupt 2003; and Descendre 2009, 114.
- 15.
See, for -->instance, Herdesianus 1615 (De prudentia regnandi particulari seu de ratione status).
- 16.
As --> recognized by Faulkner (1993, 42).
- 17.
- 18.
Bacon 2004, 194: ‘Primum eorum, qui propriam potentiam in Patria sua amplificatione cupiunt; quod genus vulgare est et degener. Secundum eorum, qui Patriae potentiam et Imperium inter humanum genus amplificare nituntur: Illud plus certe habet dignitatis, cupiditatis haud minus. Quod si quis humani generis ipsius potentiam et imperium in rerum Universitatem instaurare et amplificare conetur; ea proculdubio Ambitio (si modo ita vocanda sit) reliquis et sanior, est et augustior. Hominis autem imperium in Res, in solis Artibus et Scientiis ponitur’.
- 19.
Botero 1589, 1: ‘Ragione -->di Stato si è notitia de’ mezi, atti a fondare, conservare, et ampliare un Dominio’.
- 20.
Botero 1589, 1–2: ‘egli è vero, -->che, se bene, assolutamente parlando, ella si estende alle tre parti sudette, nondimeno pare, che più strettamente abbracci la conservatione, che l’altre; e dell’altre due più l’ampliatione, che la fondatione: e la causa si è; perché la ragione di Stato suppone il Prencipe, e lo Stato, che non suppone, anzi precede affato la fondatione, come è manifesto’.
- 21.
Botero 1589, 2: ‘e l’ampliatione -->in parte: ma l’arte del fondare, e dell’ampliare è l’istessa; perché chi amplia giuditiosamente ha da fondare quel, che amplia, e da fermarvi bene il piede’.
- 22.
Botero 1589, 8: ‘e sì come l’alchimia pare --> oro all’occhio, ma perde il credito al paragone, così cotali dominii hanno gran fama, e poco nervo’.
- 23.
Bacon 1623, 439: ‘Cum Artes Imperii, tria Officia Politica, complectantur; Primo, ut Imperium conservetur; Secundo, ut Beatum efficiatur, et Florens; Tertio, ut amplificetur, Finesque eius longius proferantur’.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
Bacon 1605, 24, and Bacon 1623, 173–174: ‘Etenim Magia apud Persas, pro Sapientia sublimi et Scientia consensuum rerum Universalium, accipiebatur… Nos vero eam, illo in sensu intelligimus, ut sit Scientia, quae cognitionem Formarum Abditarum ad Opera admiranda deducat, atque, quod dici solet, Activa cum Passivis coniungendo, Magnalia Naturae manifestet’.
- 27.
Agrippa von Nettesheim 1550, 506: ‘Naturalem Magiam non aliud putant, quam naturalium scientiarum summam potestatem, quam idcirco summam Philosophiae naturalis apicem, ejusque absolutissimam consummationem vocant. et quae sit activa portio Philosophiae naturalis, quae naturalium virtutum adminiculo ex mutua earum et opportuna applicatione opera edit, supra omnem admirationis captum… Nam Indi et Aethiopes et Persae hac maxime praecelluere magia: qua idcirco (ut narrat Plato in Alcibiade) imbuuntur Persarum regum filii, ut ad mundanae Reipublicae imaginem, suam et ipsi Rempublicam administrare distribuereque condiscant: et Cicero in divinationum libris ait, neminem apud Persas regno potiri, qui prius Magiam non didicerit’.
- 28.
Plato 1955, 122a: ‘ὧν ὁ μὲν μαγείαν τε διδάσκει τὴν Ζωροάστρου τοῦ Ὡρομάζου—ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο θεῶν θεραπεία—διδάσκει δὲ καὶ τὰ βασιλικά’.
- 29.
- 30.
On optatives, see Keller 2012a.
- 31.
Bacon 2000: ‘Etiam optatiua eorum quae adhuc non habentur, vna cum proximis suis, ad erigendam humanam industriam proponimus’.
- 32.
- 33.
Botero 1589 (‘Due maniere d’accrescer la gente, e le forze’), -->197: ‘La gente, e le forze s’augmentano in due modi, col propagare il suo, e col tirare a se l’altrui: si propaga il suo con l’agricoltura, con le arti, col favorire l’educatione della prole, con le Colonie: si tira a se l’altrui, con l’agregare i nemici, col rovinare le Città vicine, con la communicatione della Cittadinanza, con l’amicitia, con le Leghe, con le condotte della gente, co’ parentadi, e con gli altri simili modi’.
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Keller, V. (2016). A More Perfect Union: Bacon’s Correspondence of Form and Policy. In: Giglioni, G., Lancaster, J., Corneanu, S., Jalobeanu, D. (eds) Francis Bacon on Motion and Power. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 218. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27641-0_11
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