The Four Idols of Francis Bacon

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Francis Bacon was one of the leading intellectuals in the courts of Elizabeth 1 and James 1 in England. He would provide the world with the modern scientific method. He would believe in heavy observation and experiment which led to scientific knowledge. Francis Bacon was not interested in scholasticism which had dominated the European education in universities at the time. These students of scholasticism would spend their time just pondering about works of Aristotle and making syllogistic arguments. They would not put much effort into observing the world around. This is, hence, that Francis Bacon writes his book, New Organon.

In the book, New Organon, Francis Bacon writes of the new scientific method which differs from the old method of Aristotle containing logic and syllogism. He wants to change from the deductive reasoning ideas of Aristotle to his new, inductive reasoning. In the book, he names four idols which can distort the thinkings of scientists who will likely use Bacon's method. These idols are tendencies and defects of mind that can prevent mind from developing a true understanding of nature. The four idols include

1. The idols of the tribe are innate tendencies that everyone shares. These usually contain the tendency of our senses to deceive us about what is really there, our inclination to wishful thinking, and our hasty generalizing tendencies before a careful investigative work has been done.


2. The idols of the cave are conceptions or doctrines which vary from person to person and are usually result of preconditioned system of every individual, comprising education, custom, or accidental or contingent experiences.


3. The idols of the marketplace are false conceptions which arise from interactions between men, usually through language. The tendency to use language too casually and imprecisely can cause problems in inductive reasoning.


4. The idols of the theatre are prejudices from received or traditional philosophical systems. The theories and dogmas by which we are already familiar with can possibly lead us away from investigating for the truth.

These are the four idols of Francis Bacon which can easily defect the thinking of scientist and even philosophers. Should one have a job which involves thinking and investigating, they should lose of these four idols stated by Francis Bacon.

Maria Celeste's help

Friday, February 27, 2009

Maria Celeste was a daughter of Galileo Galilei and Marina Gamba. Originally, born with the name of Virginia Gamba. She was the eldest of three siblings of the couple. Galileo had considered his two daughters, Virginia and Livia unmarriageable. He entered them to San Matteo convent soon. It was there that Virginia decides to change her name to Maria Celeste in honor of Mary and her father's love of astronomy.

Maria Celeste becomes a very big figure in helping Galileo to discover the evidences for the heliocentric planetary system. Maria Celeste would help to provide food and all needs for the scientist Galileo who focuses majority of his time on astronomy and the stars. Maria Celeste also oversees that her father does not spend too much time drinking. Also, she provides for Galileo medicine when bubonic plague hits the European continent. Fortunately, with all the helps provided by Maria Celeste, Galileo is able to survive through the bubonic plague and live to keep on investigating the planets and how they work.

Galileo, after long time of investigating on the heliocentric planetary system and the Copernican idea, decides to write a book called The Dialogue. Pope Urban VIII allows Galileo to start on the book and Maria Celeste would prove to be helpful once again as she edits and helps Galileo to finish up his writing. Later, this book would bring a lot of trouble to the Catholic world and Galileo is to be tried for by the Church. When this happens, Maria Celeste writes to her father how to act and behave during the inquisition by the Church. Ultimately, the book gets banned and Galileo is put under house arrest. He is forced to recite psalms and prayers. It is once again that Maria Celeste comes in handy for Galileo. She does the psalms and prayers for Galileo so that Galileo can focus on his studies of the planets. Without Maria Celeste, it would have been impossible for Galileo Galilei to accomplish his works.

St. Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways

St. Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 in Italy. He was one of the greatest medieval thinkers, being both philosopher and theologian. Thomas Aquinas was initially a Benedictine priest, but later decides to become a Dominican priest. Thomas Aquinas produced lots of works, but did not write after December 6, 1273 when he had a religious experience. Thomas Aquinas died in 1274 in Italy, and was canonized in 1323.

St. Thomas Aquinas strongly believed that religion can be existant along with philosophy and science. Like the Muslim philosopher, Averroes, Aquinas argues that reason and religion should converge. It is here that we get his famous book Summa Theologica and its most important section containing "Five Ways" or "Quinquae viae".

First Way consists of the argument of the Unmoved Mover, where God who is the Unmoved Mover had put everything into motion.
Second Way consists of the argument of the First Cause, that God who is the uncaused first created everything to being and existence.
Third Way consists of the argument of the Contingency, in which God is the necessary being to cause the contingent beings to existance.
Fourth Way consists of the argument of Degree, where God is the most perfect being of all given qualities (e.g. goodness, beauty, knowledge)
Fifth Way consists of the argument of Intelligent Design; it states that all physical laws and the order of nature and life were designed and ordered by God, the intelligent designer.

From the Five Ways given by St. Thomas Aquinas, I would say that the First Way and the Fourth Way are the most unreasonable. In First Way (the argument of Unmoved Mover), St. Thomas Aquinas directly states that all motions are caused by a mover. I would disagree with this idea because not all motions have a mover. When a person walks, he is not moved by anything unless let's say God. If that is the case, then, the First Way would make whole lot of sense. However, the fact that we do not know that God really exists or not clearly defeats the idea, however. I also disagree with the Fourth Way where God is the most perfect being containing the best of all qualities. Who's to determine the best from any qualities? Every human being on Earth has different views and therefore, we cannot know how God is like because our views on perfection would all differ.

St. Augustine's Just War

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Today in Philosophy Class, we have discussed about the prominent Middle Ages philosopher St. Augustine. We had lots to see in common between St. Augustine and the reason why the crusades probably have started. In his book, Just War, he states rules to be followed in order to make a war righteous and be preformed in the name of peace. Here are the seven rules of the Just War:

1. Last Resort
2. Initiated by the government or a higher power
3. Chance of success
4. "Right Intentions"
5. Re-establish peace
6. Proportionality
7. Do not attack the civilians

Although Augustine sought war as a sin, he also knew that it was inevitable and that only rationalization for war was to achieve peace.

We see in Crusades that the crusaders try to follow this rule although they seem to fail most of the time.

Mein Kampf

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Mein Kampf is a book dictated by Adolf Hitler. In German, the title literally translates to My Fight. It combines the element of his autobiography with his National Socialist political ideology.
In our Philosophy Class, we have read Chapter 11 of Mein Kampf. The title of this chapter is Nation and Race. This chapter deals with Hitler trying to prove that the Aryans are the most superior race of all in the universe and because of it, they need to attack on other minorities. As the superior race, they must not intermingle with others and try to stay pure as much as possible in order to preserve this superior race in Germany.

In this chapter of Mein Kampf, we see a lot of fallacies throughout the writing of Hitler. I believe that one of the biggest example of fallacies in Hitler's reasoning is in this sentence: "THERE are some truths which are so obvious that for this very reason they are not seen or at least not recognized by ordinary people." This is the first sentence of the Chapter and he is already using fallacy. This type of fallacy is called "Ad Hominem" where the arguer attacks the characteristics or beliefs of other arguments or claims without producing any argument against the claim. In this sentence, Hitler already attacks the mankind by saying that he knows of this very obvious truth that no one else can see. (The truth being that Aryans are the superior race and that in Germany, they must get rid of all the other races that defile this pure Aryan blood).

I believe that Hitler was a very intelligent man being able to create his National Socialist political ideology with such ease. However, his fallacies in his claims being made cause a lot of problems when one reads the book, Mein Kampf. Had Hitler provided examples and evidences to support his case and claims, the book would have been more effective.

Intelligent Design vs. Evolutionism

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Intelligent Design is a claim that the universe and living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than undirected process of natural selection and evolution.
Evolution is the change in the inherited traits which pass down from generation to the next; evolution is often used to explain the beginning of all beings.

Both theories contain big loopholes. Intelligent design is a theory which cannot be proven because we cannot know who or what had created the universe. Also, from looking at some of the useless organs in our body like the appendix, we can say that if we were created through intelligent design, we would not have these useless organs in our body. Evolution also has a lot of loopholes. For example, the second law of thermodynamics state that every energy transfer or transformation increases the entropy of the universe. If that is the case, we should only have evolutions or changes that cause more disorder in the physiology of organisms.

There are many controversies against this issue of Intelligent Design and Evolutionism. The side I would take in this issue, though, is intelligent design. Although we may never know who the Creator or what the Creating force may be, it only makes sense that something or someone had created us rather than we just burst out of the thin air. Our complex systems could have not just risen out of nowhere, but there must have been a Creator or a Creating force behind the existence of the universe and the mankind.

Besides from these two factors, I strongly believe in a theory called Theistic Evolution. I believe that we were created in the beginning by a Creator of a Creating force. From this, we were able to evolve somewhat as what we are today. This explains how we were able to have the complex systems in our bodies and also explain how through natural selection, we lose and yet have some unnecessary organs in our bodies.

The Scientific method is like Inductive Reasoning and the Creationist method is like Deductive Reasoning. AHAHA

Affirmative Action

Friday, February 13, 2009

Affirmative action means positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded.

Recently, we have had elected a black, African-American man (Barack Obama) as the new president of America. By looking at this historical event, we can say that the idea of affirmative action is no longer necessary. When we see Obama's childhood, he lived a life of problems. His parents (Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham) separated and divorced when Obama was only two. Ann Dunham remarried Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian transfer student. Obama enrolled to Punahou Academy and was the only three black students in the school. He became conscious of racism and what it meant to be an African-American. Obama had many problems such as being multi-racial, not knowing of his identity, and family which had been divided many times. Obama admitted of using alcohol, marijuana and cocaine during his teenage years. One can say Obama lived a life of stereotyped African-American. Obama ultimately ended up in Occidental College in Los Angeles. However, he worked his way up to go to Columbia University and eventually entering Harvard Law School. Obama was able to become the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review.

I do not believe that Obama really had much advantage of affirmative action. However, Obama was able to achieve the status he has today through his hard work and great values. Obama should be an example to all the minorities that everyone can have success in their lives through hard working and great ethics.

Affirmative action, I strongly believe, puts down the efforts and the accomplishments of the minority. For example, a Latino and white man may fight for a job and the Latino may win because he had more experience or education. However, the white man may use affirmative action as an excuse of not getting the job over the Latino.

Also, affirmative action brings down the idea of the free market (capitalism). By giving a job to person just because of the fact that she is a minority, capitalism is no longer into work. The idea of survival of the fittest is no longer evident in such society. Those who worked hard and prepared well enough should get the benefit over those who did not. America, being built on the theories of capitalism, should not use affirmative action.

Affirmative action, furthermore, can create more hatred between the races. It can encourage certain ethnic and sexual groups to consider themselves as disadvantaged. Finally, it can benefit the more priviledged within the minorities at the expense of the less fortunate within the majorities.

Affirmative action has a lot of loopholes. Although the theory of affirmative action tries to give equality to all the races, ultimately, it takes the equality from and discriminate against some people. Therefore, I strongly disagree with affirmative action.