Bacon was a materialist empiricist. He opposed the medieval scholasticism and advocated the method of experiment and observation. Marx and Engels pointed out: "The real ancestor of British materialism and the whole modern experimental science is Bacon." In the field of ethics, Bacon used materialist empiricism to explain the source and standard of morality, in order to oppose religious ethics in the Middle Ages, and tried to make ethics based on experimental science, which opened the way for the development of modern ethics.
Bacon's philosophy is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
One, four false phase theory:
Bacon put forward the "Four Illusions Theory". The four illusions refer to "racial illusion", "cave illusion", "market illusion" and "theater illusion", and thus form such four illusions, namely: racial illusion, "cave illusion", "market illusion" and "theater illusion".
The so-called "racial illusion" exists in human nature and in human race. Bacon pointed out that people's feelings are the measure of things, which is a wrong judgment. On the contrary, all feelings, whether sensory or mental, are based on personal scale, not cosmic scale. This means that people's perception of external things is not the natural standard of things, nor the objective standard of senses, but only the subjective and self-standard of individuals. On the one hand, human reason likes the abstraction in nature, and likes to give something erratic a kind of entity and reality; On the other hand, "racial illusion" is produced because of the same physical temperament of human spirit, or because of its prejudice, or because of its narrowness, or because of its endless movement, or because of the perfusion of an emotion, or because of the weakness of the senses, or because of the way impressions are produced. " In this way, human reason becomes like a mirror. Because they receive light irregularly, they confuse the essence of things with their own, distort the essence of things and change the color of things.
Obviously, Bacon's "race" is only metaphorical. However, in fact, personal perception of external things, primitive and racial factors do play an important role. Because from genetic epistemology's point of view, as the basis of psychological construction and cognitive construction, it is collective unconsciousness; The collective unconscious comes directly from the collective representation. If the collective unconsciousness caused by racial reasons is regarded as the root of Bacon's essence of "the same substantive temperament of human spirit", "prejudice" and "narrowness", it really reveals the essence of "racial illusion", thus making Bacon's metaphor gain scientific connotation.
Regarding the "cave illusion", Bacon thinks that everyone has his own "cave". It is precisely because of the role and influence of this cave that "the light of nature twists and turns." The metaphor he made is to show that everyone has his own unique nature; Either because of his education and communication with people, or because of reading and the authority he worships; Or because the impression is different in the minds of biased people or indifferent people, etc., not only everyone's spirit is different, but also changeable. This forms a different illusion for everyone. It is based on this view that he believes that the illusion of caves is caused by everyone's special psychological or physiological structure; It is also because of education, habits and accidents. This illusion is varied.
As we all know, not only personal personality construction, but also personal knowledge construction is influenced by both innate and acquired factors. Therefore, Bacon can define the "cave illusion" as the "personal illusion" of his time, and it is instructive because of acquired reasons. Because everyone has his "own cave", this illusion is not only varied, but also highly related to his personality.
Bacon's "market illusion" refers to the illusion formed by people in the activities of mutual communication and exchange of information. Indeed, not only the exchange of information, but also mutual communication, are carried out through language; The reason why this illusion is formed is precisely words. Because the meaning of language is determined according to the understanding of ordinary people, if the language is not chosen properly, it will hinder people's understanding. Although people believe that their own reason can use words correctly, in fact, words will also react to reason, and it is precisely because of this situation that philosophy and science become sophistry and powerless. In his view, there are two kinds of illusions that words add to rationality. They are either the names of things that don't exist or the names of things that exist, but they are chaotic and undefined, and they are hastily and casually extended from reality. He asserted that writing is obviously forcing and ruling people's reason, which makes everything fall into chaos and makes people fall into countless empty arguments and boring fantasies. The inaccuracy and ambiguity of words and the resulting confusion in understanding and interpretation are the important reasons for the formation of "market illusion". Moreover, it is precisely for this reason that semantics, philosophy of language and other disciplines have been formed in modern times, trying to eliminate the confusion caused by language. But equally important, as a tool of information exchange, language may not only convey false information, but also lead to "market illusion" because the receiver misunderstood the meaning of information when interpreting it. Among people's illusions, the most important one is the "market illusion"; The formation of "market illusion" lies in people's misinformation with each other and reading information according to their own wishes.
Bacon believes that "theater illusion" is an illusion transplanted from various philosophical dogmas and from evidence law to people's hearts. Because in his view, "all popular systems are just many plays on the stage, showing the world they created according to an unreal set." Therefore, he also called this illusion "the illusion of the system". In his view, this illusion is not a gift, nor does it sneak into reason, but is "printed in people's hearts and accepted from the script of philosophical system and absurd proof rules." This shows that the formation of "theater illusion" is just like watching a play. Although its purpose is entertainment, it is unconsciously infected by the plot in the play, so that the feelings, thoughts and values revealed in the play are accepted and absorbed by us.
The so-called "theater illusion" is not limited to the illusion caused by the philosophical system, and all ideologies may cause this illusion. We know that the ideology of the ruling class is the dominant ideology because most of the producers of spiritual culture are members of the ruling class, and at the same time they also control various media, so that members of the ruled class can only obtain spiritual culture from the ruling class. In this way, they unconsciously formed a "theater illusion." The reason why traditional society can not be separated from the spiritual support of ideology is that only with the help of "theater illusion" can the ruled class accept the existing social hierarchy and recognize the existing social legal order with peace of mind.
Second, the humanistic thought:
In medieval Europe, theology and scholasticism dominated. They try their best to raise God, belittle the value of human beings, and preach that nature and human beings were created and arranged by God purposefully. Therefore, don't study nature, don't care about reality, and face heaven and the afterlife. In view of this belief and obscurantism, Bacon put forward the goal of studying and explaining nature and man, and discussed the position and role of man in the kingdom of man and nature. On the relationship between man and nature, Bacon first affirmed that "man is the minister and interpreter of nature" (2), and man must respect and obey nature. But Bacon also stressed that people should not be passively at the mercy of nature, but should rely on their own strength to understand and use nature and create a happy life. He pointed out, "Let people think about how different people's lives are between the most civilized areas in Europe and the most barbaric areas in New India, and they will feel that the sentence' Man is man's God' makes sense, not only in terms of the help and welfare people get, but also in terms of the comparison of their living conditions." (3) In this way, people are elevated to the height of God, and people's value is highly valued. So where is the source of human strength? Bacon compared the past and present living conditions of human beings, analyzed the differences of people's living conditions in different regions in the same period, and pointed out the roots of these differences. "There is no distinction between soil, climate and race. This difference is only in magic." In other words, knowledge lies in people's understanding of natural laws. Knowledge is the key to unlock natural secrets, and people's knowledge quality determines their level of civilization. He highly respected the authority of knowledge and regarded it as a lamp to illuminate all the secrets hidden in the depths of the world. Without knowledge, human beings will never know. Therefore, he shouted out the slogan "knowledge is power", and strongly felt that human beings can only rely on themselves and the power of their own knowledge to understand and control nature and benefit mankind. There is no foreign savior, "man is man's God".
Bacon divided knowledge into three categories, one is knowledge of nature, corresponding to natural science, the other is God's knowledge, corresponding to theology, and the other is human knowledge, corresponding to human science. He put human science last, and also showed that human science is the highest science, and the purpose of scientific research and knowledge acquisition is to make people live a good and happy life. In his view, people can be saved by their own strength. On the one hand, people can save their souls by believing in God and religion. On the other hand, we can also improve our position in nature through scientific activities, scientific experiments and inductive analysis, and use nature for our own benefit. Russell once commented: "The whole foundation of Bacon's philosophy is practicality, that is, through scientific discovery and invention, human beings can master the power of nature." (5) Bacon also showed this idea in his unfinished book New Island. In this book, he designed an ideal society established under the command of science and technology, where there are many scientific research institutions and talents. With the help of knowledge, people have achieved a happy life through their own labor. It can be seen that, in his view, people can achieve that ideal society by relying on their own strength and combining themselves with knowledge.
Bacon affirmed man's position, praised man's strength and greatness, and emphatically discussed the relationship between man and nature, the great role of man's reason and knowledge, thus restoring man's due authority. This thought embodies the requirements of the times that the British bourgeoisie tries to get rid of the shackles of feudal autocracy and religious theology, strive for individual liberation, advocate scientific experiments, develop production and develop capitalist economy.
Third, the theory of total welfare.
In Humanism, Bacon emphasized that ethics, as an important part of it, should really tell people how to live a happy life. So ethics should seek advice from nature and pay attention to practice. It should not only study what is good, explain its origin, describe its mode and provide code of conduct, but also explore its cultivation and point out the ways to realize it. He called the former "the fruit of life" and the latter "the cultivation of fruit". So what is good? Bacon started from analyzing the goodness of things and put forward his theory of total welfare.
Bacon believes that the happiness of the whole person is good. He put forward that "everything contains double goodness: one kind of goodness is in terms of everything itself as a whole or entity, and the other kind of goodness is in terms of being a part or a limb of a larger object." 6. Obviously, the former is individual good and the latter is public good. In his view, Gong's goodness is "more valuable because it tends to preserve the essence of a larger object". He listed some natural phenomena, and used the gravity, centripetal force and centrifugal force of objects to illustrate that it is inevitable and natural for individual goodness to tend to public goodness. Specifically, from the perspective of human beings, the contrast between the two kinds of goodness is more obvious. He said that as long as people don't degenerate, they will think that "defending their duties to the public is much more precious than maintaining their lives and existence." He cited the example of Pompeii, saying that when Pompeii was ordered to go to Rome to save the famine, many people discouraged him from venturing into the sea in bad weather, but Pompeii just replied, "What I need is to go, not to survive." He also praised the good virtues in the Bible that are beneficial to the public and criticized the evil deeds that only seek self-interest. It can be seen that Bacon believes that individual goodness is an integral part of public goodness, public goodness is higher than individual goodness, and public welfare is higher than individual welfare. This is his "all welfare theory".
Bacon criticized the ethical thoughts of Aristotle, Epicurus and Socrates according to the theory of total welfare, accusing their ethics of talking about goodness from the perspective of individuals, caring only about their own happiness and dignity, seeking only the perfection of personal morality and peace of mind, ignoring society and others, ignoring public interests and overall happiness. Bacon thinks that this kind of thinking that doesn't shine outside is a kind of passive inaction and is not worth taking. He advocates that people should take an active part in social life.
Regarding the goodness of the public, Bacon also called it "duty" and "keeping duty to the public". This obligation can be divided into two parts, "one part is the same obligation that everyone should do as a person or a national, and the other part is the relative or special obligation that everyone should do in his industry, occupation and position". The first kind of obligation has been expounded, and the second kind, such as husband and wife obligation, parent-child obligation, master-servant obligation, friendship between people in society, groups, political clubs, neighborhood relations, the law of feedback and unity, etc. , all belong to this special responsibility. These responsibilities boil down to one point, that is, to benefit mankind, strive to safeguard the interests of the public and others, and be kind to others.
Bacon made a more in-depth and concrete analysis of individual goodness. He believes that individual goodness can be divided into positive goodness and negative goodness. The former is manifested as "expanding or copying one's own desires", that is, exerting one's intelligence and seeking talents and career development and progress, while the latter is manifested as "preserving or continuing one's own desires", that is, preserving oneself and pursuing sensory enjoyment suitable for human nature. He believes that positive goodness is superior and more valuable than negative goodness. Because no one will be so depressed that they don't think that achieving ambition is above debauchery. Besides, life is impermanent. Negative goodness mainly comes from the pleasure of the senses, and there is not much room for improvement. "Positive goodness" can be renewed in life, career and work. Here, people can be happy because of the founding of the country, happy because of progress, eager because of a temporary rest, excited because of a new beginning, and full of ambition because of achieving goals. " At the same time, Bacon emphasized that this kind of positive goodness is, after all, individual goodness, which is "inconsistent" with public goodness. Although it often "produces benevolent behavior" and "coincides with public goodness", "its purpose is only to seek private power and glory, just to increase and maintain its own honor; This is most obvious when the goodwill of the parties conflicts with the goodwill of society. "
Looking at negative goodness, Bacon divided it into conservative goodness and completed goodness. He pointed out that all things are self-loving, which leads to three kinds of desires: "one is the desire to preserve and maintain its essence, the other is the desire to improve and perfect its essence, and the third is the desire to reproduce its own essence and expand on other things." The third kind of desire is the good we discussed earlier, while the surplus of preservation and perfection is two kinds of negative good, the latter is the highest negative good, because preserving the status quo is the second best, while preserving the status quo and improving it is the greater good.
Bacon's theory of total welfare emphasizes that the public's good is higher than the individual's good, and the individual's positive good is higher than the individual's negative good, thus advocating that personal interests should be subordinated to social interests and individuals should actively seek the public's welfare. This shows that Bacon's ethical thought is positive and enterprising, which is a theoretical reflection of the vigorous enterprising spirit and personal struggle mentality of the emerging bourgeoisie, and plays a positive role in safeguarding the overall interests of the bourgeoisie, uniting the revolutionary forces of the bourgeoisie and promoting the arrival of the bourgeois revolution. He tried to make use of experience. But his theory also emphasizes self-love, which is essentially an egoistic theory. In his view, public interest is abstract, incidental and portrait, while personal interest is concrete, fundamental and model. Without the realization of personal interests, public interests are out of the question. It can be seen that this theory of all welfare is based on bourgeois interests, and it is essentially a bourgeois egoism, which laid the foundation for later bourgeois utilitarianism.
Fourth, the theory of virtue:
Another important content of Bacon's philosophical thought is how to cultivate people's virtue and explore ways to achieve good virtue. He called this knowledge "ploughing". In his view, it is necessary to clarify goodness, but this is not an end. The purpose is to create and cultivate goodness in real life. It is precisely at this point that ancient western ethicists have not discussed or discussed clearly, and modern people often ignore it. So how to cultivate kindness?
Bacon believes that first of all, we should study hard and practice hard, and everything can naturally be overcome through hard practice. What he said is hard training, not hard training without learning or skill, but hard training with wisdom and diligence based on knowledge. In his view, knowledge is the road to goodness, and the difference between truth and goodness is like the difference between seal and printed matter, and truth is the seal of moral goodness. He said: "Reading history makes people wise, reading poetry makes people wise, calculus makes people precise, philosophy makes people profound, ethics makes people cultivated, and logical modification makes people eloquent. In short,' knowledge can shape people's character'. " Attending, knowledge is the basis of morality, but also a means of self-improvement. Can wash the hearts of good people, so that they can distinguish right from wrong and do evil and good.
Secondly, we should study people's various emotions. He believes that people's "mental illness and weakness" are caused by "emotional disturbance and disorder". Emotion is an important factor that affects people's spirit and behavior, and it is easy for people to lose control of their emotions and get carried away. He compared human thought to the sea and emotion to style. "If lust does not disturb the mind like the wind, then the mind should be gentle and stable by its nature." He also pointed out that poets and historians are the best teachers on emotional issues. They vividly describe how various emotions burn, excite, calm, suppress, move and develop, and how they interact and struggle with each other. Moral science should also attach importance to research, especially the relationship between various emotions, and learn how to resist another emotion with one emotion and control another with one emotion. Only in this way can people be rational and sober and choose the right behavior.
Thirdly, habits, customs, education, imitation, competition, making friends, making friends, praise, condemnation, encouragement, reputation, law, books and so on. Can affect people's minds and play a certain role in the cultivation of goodness. He emphasized the role of custom. He believes that good guidance and habit cultivation is a way to cultivate good deeds. "People's thinking depends on motivation, language depends on knowledge and insight, and behavior mostly depends on habit." People's behavior comes from habits, and good habits produce benign behaviors. Bacon also pointed out that individual habits are great, while collective habits are even greater, so the cultivation of virtue also depends on an orderly and disciplined social environment. Here, he noticed that the social environment plays a profound role in cultivating people's kindness. Since forming good habits is the way to cultivate good behavior, how can we form good habits? Bacon believes that a person must rely on education. "People should establish a good habit through perfect education from an early age." At the same time, we should rely on personal virtue cultivation and cultivate good habits according to many aphorisms of philosophers to train our minds. For example, don't be high-profile and ambitious when doing things for others; We should consciously practice everything in two opposite moods, which goes against our nature and so on.
Finally, we must set a good goal in life. He pointed out that this is the simplest, most direct and noblest way to enter morality, which can make people abide by virtue and be in a good state, that is, choose and clarify those good and moral life goals within their power. Because if you can do these two things, that is to say, since a person has set honest and kind goals and can be firm and faithful to those goals, the inevitable result is that he will cultivate himself and fit all the virtues at the same time. In his view, setting a life goal of being good and being good is the real work of cultivating goodness, and the above ways are only manual work with certain limitations. It is difficult to cultivate perfect virtue with the help of habits, because habits are often limited to one aspect. For example, the habit of abstinence will not develop firm virtue. But once you have a good and virtuous life goal and work hard for it, no matter what kind of virtue it is, you will gladly accept it and follow it. It can be seen that cultivating people's virtue in an all-round way is the fundamental way.