Bacon argued that natural philosophy had been held back by reliance on Aristotelian syllogistic deduction and proposed instead a systematic inductive method of controlled observation and experiment, set out in the "Novum Organum" (1620). He diagnosed four classes of cognitive bias, the "Idols of the Mind," that distort human understanding, and in "New Atlantis" imagined a research institution, Salomon's House, dedicated to the collaborative discovery of natural knowledge.
Intellectual setting
Bacon wrote as a statesman under Elizabeth I and James I while advocating a comprehensive reform of natural philosophy, the "Great Instauration," aimed at replacing scholastic Aristotelianism with a collaborative, cumulative science oriented toward practical improvement of human life.
Key ideas
The inductive method
Bacon argued that genuine natural knowledge requires systematically collecting particular observations and experiments and building up general conclusions gradually, rather than deducing conclusions from received general axioms in the manner of Aristotelian logic.
The Idols of the Mind
Bacon classified four sources of cognitive error that obstruct accurate knowledge of nature—Idols of the Tribe (human nature generally), the Cave (individual disposition), the Marketplace (language), and the Theatre (received philosophical systems)—that inquirers must guard against.
Legacy
Bacon is widely credited as a founder of the modern scientific method and empiricism; his vision of collaborative experimental research directly inspired the founding of the Royal Society in 1660, and his program shaped the entire subsequent tradition of British empiricism.