‘The
Systematic Dialectic of Francis Bacon’s three Species of Science, circa
1620
C.E./B.U.E.
--
‘Dialectogram’:
‘Triadic Seldon Function Baconian Systematic
Dialectic of Science’.
Dear
Readers,
The case
of the Philosophical
Domain of the early modern, Baconian, Triadic classification of The Species of Science,
propounded in
1620
C.E./B.U.E.,
may also count as yet another case of possibly inadvertent
dialectical ‘content-structure’
in the work
of a philosopher -- in this case, in the work of an early modern philosopher about then-nascent Science, one who is still considered
a founder and/or a harbinger of modern Science.
This hypothesis of inadvertence must, however, confront the fact of the still widespread, albeit pre-Hegelian
exposure of philosophers
of Bacon’s time
and clime to the ancients’ philosophical views regarding dialectic -- most
prominently, to the views
thereupon of
Plato and, especially,
of Aristotle -- a
fact which may cast some doubt upon this hypothesis.
The early modern philosopher Francis Bacon, circa 1620
C.E./B.U.E., developed a trinary taxonomy of types of science, using a natural-historical,
entomological metaphor.
The purpose of the ‘dialectogram’ pasted-in below is to note how well
the formulation of Bacon’s taxonomy
of Science as a ‘dialectical equation’, using the NQ dialectical ideography, generating a
synchronic, systematic-dialectical, triadic
‘ideo-ontological’
categorial progression, fits Bacon’s meaning, in terms of its
‘«arché»-category + contra-category +
uni-category’ paradigm.
The Systematic Dialectic of Bacon’s human scientists-types metaphor,
is, herein, and in the ‘dialectogram’ below, mapped by a
triadic
Seldon function
NQ dialectical model equation with but one triadic step.
Francis Bacon himself presented this metaphor as
follows:
“Those who have handled sciences have been either men
of experiment or men of dogmas.”
“The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect
and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own
substance.”
“But the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of
the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its
own.”
“Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy; for it
neither relies solely or chiefly on
“Therefore from a closer and purer league between these two
faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never yet been made),
much may be hoped.”
[Francis Bacon, «Novum
Organum», 1620 C.E., Aphorism 95, emphasis
added.].
Bacon notes, in the quote above, that his category of Bees-like Science
constitutes a middle way between the [extreme] category of Spiders-like Science
and its opposite extreme category of Ants-like Science. One might
even conjecture that Bacon, in formulating this
“aphorism”, had
Aristotle’s “Doctrine of the Mean” in mind.
For more
about this, see
--
We think that Bacon's '''prediction''', in the last line of the quote from him, above, has since come quite abundantly true.
The
‘algorithmic-heuristic’
computation for
this example, using our ‘assert [‘|-’]
definition [‘=’] solution-sign’ [‘|-=’] --
‘‘‘Negation-of-Negation’’’ (Critique-of-Critique); ‘“S”’ as ‘Negator’-category:
‘“S”’-critique of ‘“S”’-critique
of ‘“S”’ -- S3 = S( S( S ) ) = ( S of ( S of S ) ) =
S x
( S x
S ) |-=
S( ( S + A ) ) = S x
( S + A ) = ( ( S x S ) + ( S x A ) ) =
( (S +
A ) + (A +
qSA ) ) = S +
A + A +
qSA = S + A + qAS |-=
S +
A
+ B (---) Spiders-like Science
+ Ants-like
Science + Bees-like Science.
First Species
Category, denoted by S. This species
of Science should almost be classed as non-science. It represents speculation, however logically
rigorous, but ungrounded even in “in vivo” experience/empirical observation,
let alone in “in vitro” designed experience, or experiment. It means rigorous deductions, but from
empirically false, fanciful, or phantasy postulates. Ancient examples include Aristotelian
“science”, e.g., the “physics” of Aristotle.
Contemporary examples include Cantorian “Platonic” set theories,
that assume “actual infinities”, which cannot be constructed, or
identified with any externally evident or introspective aggregate or magnitude
that can actually be exhibited or experienced.
Second
Species Category, denoted by A. This species of Scientist
abdicates the explanatory, theorizing function, and duty, of Science. It founders on the accumulation of “facts”
and “data” without any effort, or without sufficient effort, to
understand how the “facts”, so collected, interlock, or as to what
unifying mechanism, or ‘‘‘organism’’’, generates all of this, apparently disparate,
“data”. Ancient examples include
Diophantus of Alexandria’s large, proto-algebraic, proto-ideographical
scroll(s), entitled «Arithmetiké» -- translating as ‘‘‘art/craft/technique/technology
for «Arithmoi»’’’, i.e., for “numbers”, in the ancient, ‘qualo-quantitative’
sense, as opposed to in the modern, “purely”-quantitative sense. This text survives into today as a vast, pioneering
but poorly-organized “cook-book” of multiplicitous, disparate algebraic-equation
solution techniques, with little conceptual or theoretical
unification. Contemporary examples
of A-type
Science include standardized statistical multiple regression modeling, e.g.,
in business applications, perhaps utilizing vast stores of data,
but without any “structural” inquiry into the causation of the correlations /associations
so detected.
Third Species
Category, denoted by B. This
species of Science unites the rigorously deductive, theorizing,
and explanatory traits of species 1, with
the “data”/“fact” gathering, evidentiary and empirical
bent of species 2. The
classical example of this powerful unity is Newton’s scientific method
in his three-volume treatise «Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica» [Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy]; the widespread gathering of records
of the known phenomena of motion, so as to induce axioms
as to the laws of motion, & then, from those axioms,
to deduce again, & to calculate in
detail, those phenomena, plus other, new
phenomena, including predicted phenomena that are later observed
to manifest as predicted,
to an excellent degree of approximation [with some exceptions, e.g., for
the observed perihelion shift of planet Mercury].
This example is not, to our lights,
a clear case of ‘‘‘horizontal’’’-«aufheben», synchronic,
systematic or presentational ‘meta-unit-ization’
dialectic.
It is, however, a clear
and standard case of ‘‘‘vertical’’’-«aufheben» ‘meta-unit-ization’
dialectic,
for the three «species» categories as units in their own right, fused, by ‘«gene»-ralization’
-- the
abstracting-away of their «differentia specifica» -- into
the single
category-unit
of their «genos».
FYI: Much of the work
of Karl Seldon, and of his collaborators, including work by “yours truly”, is
available for your
free-of-charge download via --
Regards,
Miguel Detonacciones,
Member, Foundation Encyclopedia Dialectica
[F.E.D.],
Officer, F.E.D.
Office of Public Liaison
