L32-205-02-19-15St. Augustine 354-430St. Thomas Aquinas 1225-1274Duns Scotus 1266-1308William of Occam 1287-1347Geoffrey Chaucer 1343-1400 1381 Wat TylerNicholas Copernicus 1473-1543Christopher Columbus 1450-1506 1492 Voyage

Amer*Giordano Bruno 1548-1600 1519-22 Magellan*Francis Bacon 1561-1626*William Shakespeare 1564-1616Galileo Galilei 1564-1642Thomas Hobbes 1588-1679 1577-80 Drake*René Descartes 1596-1650John Milton 1608-1674Baruch Spinoza 1632-1677John Locke 1632-1704 1642-51 Civ WarEmanuel Swedenborg 1688-1772*David Hume 1711-1776*Immanuel Kant 1724-1804Johann W v. Goethe 1749-1832Johann Fichte 1762-1814Georg Hegel 1770-1831*Samuel T Coleridge 1772-1834Friedrich Schelling 1775-1854 1775-83 Am Revol*Michael Faraday 1791-1867 1781-99 Fr Revol*Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882*James Clerk Maxwell 1831-1879*Charles S Peirce 1839-1914

• Universities• Univ of al-Qarawiyyin Morocco 859• University of Al Azhar Egypt 970• University of Mizamiyya Baghdad 1065• Univ of Bolgna 1088• Oxford University 1096• Univ of Paris 1160• Cambridge University 1209• Univ of Padua 1222• 北京国子监 Guozijian Acad Beijing, 1306• Charles University, Prague 1348• Jagellonian University Krakow, 1364• U of Vienna 1365• Heidelberg University 1386• Munich University 1472• Marburg Universtiy 1527• University of Jena 1558• Harvard university 1636• St. Petersburg University 1724

Sequences

I’m not expecting you to memorize dates, but rather to get fixed in your mind who follows whom. Note on the on screen version the century boundaries (approximate), and the relation between the founding of universities and the emergence of major figures.

This is background for a major point: ideas are not optional, but have real power and profound consequences. They are not the same as fashionable doctrines.

Bacon• The steps to certainty are all made on the basis of critical assessment. The

first four aphorisms are fundamental.• Here’s the 3rd quartet:• IX• The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this — that while we

falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

• X• The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the

senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it.

• XI• As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works,

so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.

• XII• The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which

have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.

The idols: note the expository sequence

• First: distinction particular to general

• XIX• There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth.

The one flies from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.

• Second: distinction between “Idols of the Mind” and “Ideas of the Divine”• XXIII• There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the

Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature.

The principle and the list• XXXVIII• The idols and false notions which are now in possession of the

human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, not only so beset men's minds that truth can hardly find entrance, but even after entrance is obtained, they will again in the very instauration of the sciences meet and trouble us, unless men being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults.

• XXXIX• There are four classes of Idols which beset men's minds. To these

for distinction's sake I have assigned names, calling the first class Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market Place; the fourth, Idols of the Theater.

“no dry light”

• XLIX• The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an

infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called "sciences as one would." For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects

• difficult things from impatience of research; • sober things, because they narrow hope; • the deeper things of nature, from superstition; • the light of experience, from arrogance and pride, lest his

mind should seem to be occupied with things mean and transitory;

• things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless, in short, are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding.

The central point: experiment• L• But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding

proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important. Hence it is that speculation commonly ceases where sight ceases; insomuch that of things invisible there is little or no observation. Hence all the working of the spirits enclosed in tangible bodies lies hid and unobserved of men. So also all the more subtle changes of form in the parts of coarser substances (which they commonly call alteration, though it is in truth local motion through exceedingly small spaces) is in like manner unobserved. And yet unless these two things just mentioned be searched out and brought to light, nothing great can be achieved in nature, as far as the production of works is concerned. So again the essential nature of our common air, and of all bodies less dense than air (which are very many), is almost unknown. For the sense by itself is a thing infirm and erring; neither can instruments for enlarging or sharpening the senses do much; but all the truer kind of interpretation of nature is effected by instances and experiments fit and apposite; wherein the sense decides touching the experiment only, and the experiment touching the point in nature and the thing itself.

“obnoxious to imagination”• LXV• But the corruption of philosophy by superstition and an admixture of

theology is far more widely spread, and does the greatest harm, whether to entire systems or to their parts. For the human understanding is obnoxious * to the influence of the imagination no less than to the influence of common notions. [note the difference from contemporary usage: see below] For the contentious and sophistical kind of philosophy ensnares the understanding; but this kind, being fanciful and tumid [swollen, protruberant, bulging] and half poetical, misleads it more by flattery. For there is in man an ambition of the understanding, no less than of the will, especially in high and lofty spirits.

• * a. Liable, subject, exposed, or open to a thing (esp. something actually or possibly harmful). (The usual sense before the 19th cent.) Now rare.

• Ob: open to, facing noxa: harmful•  5. Offensive, objectionable, odious, highly disagreeable. Now esp. (of a person): giving offence, acting objectionably; extremely unpleasant, highly dislikable. (Now the usual sense.)