2. Explain what is meant by the following statements:

1. Bacon’s life is crowded with political and legal activity.

2. His philosophy is an attempt to give a new direction to human thinking.

3. He was the possessor of brilliant gifts.

4. Bacon stands as a prophet.

5. Bacon occupied a permanent niche in the ranks of the English thinkers.

6. Bacon is the English Genius.

3. Agree or disagree with the following:

1. Francis Bacon, first of all, is a statesman and Lord Chancellor of England.

2. He was devoted to a contemplation and study.

3. His philosophy swept away medieval dogmatism.

4. His whole attitude to science is only theoretical.

5. Bacon was passionately devoted to investigation of facts.

6. But he failed to expound the cause of true learning and fertile science.

7. Bacon was striving to a common good.

4. Divide the text into logical parts and make up an outline of the text.

5. Speak on the following points:

1. Francis Bacon’s political career.

2. Francis baker as a philosopher.

3. Francis bacon as a promoter of experimental science.

Task 7

Read and translate the text

PHILOSOPHY IN THE 18^th CENTURY

Philosophy in the eighteenth century was dominated by the British empiricists of whom, Berkeley, and Hume may be taken as the representatives. In these men there was a conflict, of which they themselves appear to have been unaware, between their temper of mind and the tendency of their theoretical doctrines. In their temper of mind they were socially minded citizens, by no means self assertive, not unduly anxious for power, and in favor of a tolerant world where, within the limits of the criminal law, every man could do as he pleased. They were good-natured men of the world, urban and kindly.

But while their temper was social, their philosophical theory led to subjectivism.

In Locke, the inconsistency is still in the theory. Locke says, on the one hand: “Since the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings, has no immediate object but its own ideas, which it alone does and can contemplate, it is evident that our knowledge is only conversant about them”. And: “Knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas”. Nevertheless he maintains that we have three kinds of knowledge of real existence: intuitive, of our own; demonstrative, of God’s; and sensitive, of things present to sense. Simple ideas he maintains, are “the product of things operating on the mind in a natural way”. How he knows this, he doesn’t explain; it certainly goes beyond “the agreement and disagreement of two ideas”.

Berkeley took an important step toward ending this inconsistency. For him, there are only two minds and their ideas; the physical external world is abolished. But he still failed to grasp all the consequences of the epistemological principles that took over from . If he had been completely consistent, he would have denied the knowledge of God and all minds except his own. From such denial he was held back by his feelings as a clergyman and as a social being.

Hume shrank from nothing in the pursuit of theoretical consistency, but felt no impulse to make his practice conform to his theory. Hume denied the Self, and threw doubt on induction and causation. He accepted Berkeley’s abolition of matter, but not the substitute that Berkeley offered in the form of God’s ideas. It is true that, like Lock, he admitted no simple idea without an antecedent impression, and no doubt he imagined an “impression” as a state of mind directly caused by something external to the mind. Obviously, in his view, an “impression” would have to be defined by some intrinsic character distinguishing it from an “idea”, since it could not be defined causally. He could not therefore argue that impressions give knowledge of things external to ourselves, as had been done by Locke, and a modified form by Berkeley. He should, therefore, have believed himself shut up in a solipsistic world, and ignorant of everything except his own mental states and their relations.

Hume by his consistency, showed that empiricism, carried to its logical conclusion, led to results which few human beings could bring themselves to accept, and abolished, over the whole field of science, the distinction between rational belief and credulity. Locke had foreseen this danger. He puts into the mouth of supposed critic and argument:”If knowledge consists in agreement of ideas the enthusiasts and the sober man are on the level”. Locke living at a time when men had grown tired of “enthusiasm”, found no difficulty in persuading men of the validity of his reply to this criticism.