Talk:Francis Bacon

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Francis Bacon article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: 365 days

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on April 9, 2017.

England High‑importance

	England portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject England, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of England on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnglandWikipedia:WikiProject EnglandTemplate:WikiProject EnglandEngland-related articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Philosophy: Philosophers / Logic / Social and political / Science / Modern High‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles

High

This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Associated task forces:
/
	Philosophers
	Logic
	Social and political philosophy
	Philosophy of science
	Modern philosophy

Biography: Arts and Entertainment / Peerage and Baronetage / Politics and Government / Science and Academia / Core

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the arts and entertainment work group (assessed as Top-importance).
	This article is supported by WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage (assessed as Top-importance).
	This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as Top-importance).
	This article is supported by the science and academia work group (assessed as Top-importance).
	This article is listed on the project's core biographies page.

History of Science Top‑importance

	History of science portal This article is part of the History of Science WikiProject, an attempt to improve and organize the history of science content on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. You can also help with the History of Science Collaboration of the Month.History of ScienceWikipedia:WikiProject History of ScienceTemplate:WikiProject History of Sciencehistory of science articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

London High‑importance

	London portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject London, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of London on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LondonWikipedia:WikiProject LondonTemplate:WikiProject LondonLondon-related articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Politics Low‑importance

	Politics portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Hertfordshire (inactive)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Hertfordshire, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.HertfordshireWikipedia:WikiProject HertfordshireTemplate:WikiProject HertfordshireHertfordshire articles

Religion Top‑importance

	Religion portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion articles
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Text has been copied to or from this article; see the list below. The source pages now serve to provide attribution for the content in the destination pages and must not be deleted as long as the copies exist. For attribution and to access older versions of the copied text, please see the history links below.

Copied Francis Bacon (oldid, history) → Works by Francis Bacon (diff) on 2 March 2012
Copied Francis Bacon (oldid, history) → Works by Francis Bacon (diff) on 2 March 2012

But the chicken.

That thing with the chicken and the snow might need to go under accomplishments since he almost stumbled on a huge breakthrough, but I don't know if anyone ever observed the outcome of that experiment, so it might have nothing to do with the invention of refrigeration. What do you all think?

heir to the british throne..

bacon being the rightful heir to the throne of elizabeth comes up just as and perhaps more often than the shakespeare discussion. it should definitely be added to the historical debates section since there is quite possibly evem more evidence showing it to be true than there is regarding him penning the works of shakespeare. if the shakespeare debate is included, then the heir to the throne debate definitely should be as well. Snarevox (talk) 06:33, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I’Ve added the link to the Prince Tudor theories. It might be worth a section chat O'Brien 22:00, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

More Citations

The section, "James I comes to the throne", only has five citations. Should more citations be added? For example, one part of this section reads, "Despite a generous income, old debts still could not be paid. He sought further promotion and wealth by supporting King James and his arbitrary policies", but there is not citation following the end of these sentences. This information is not common knowledge, so could the article be improved if sentences such as these were followed by citations? CmisterHistorian (talk) 17:44, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Father of empiricism" attribution claim

The statement that Bacon "has been called the father of empiricism." is pretty enormous, even qualified the way it is, and it requires some serious sourcing to adequately present. In previous revisions of the article, the sentence had four sources tacked onto it, two of which were tertiary encyclopedia entries that did not say anything to this effect,^[1]^[2] one quoted secondary source that also did not call Bacon this,^[3] and a fourth^[4]—the only with clearly similar verbiage—that, while comparing Francis to the Roger Bacon of a previous period, said

[...] Francis, of the sixteenth century, has long been acknowledged as the father of the experimental method [...]

which is not the same statement. Even if it were, I do not think such a huge claim in the article lede is supported by this bundle of sources, and moreover i think that is clear enough that consensus was not required to make this change. However, I'm putting it here for the record, and also because I would like this statement in the lede if it can be properly sourced.

(P.S. I've fulfilled my quota of reverts. If someone else is compelled by this, keep in mind I won't keep removing it.)

References

^ "Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
^ "Francis Bacon". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
^ Evans, Griffith (1926). "The Place of Francis Bacon in the History of the Scientific Method". Rice Institute Pamphlet - Rice University Studies. 13 (1). His theory of knowledge also is insufficient; but, on the other hand, whose is not? We must not throw him aside on that ground. The philosophers Gassendi, Leibnitz,Locke, Hume, and Kant held him in high repute; and substantial portions of most books on logic are devoted to his treatment of induction. He was not merely a popularizer or a bally-hoo; Leibnitz and Kant had no need of such. If then these eminent philosophers found him estimable, was he not therefore great in philosophy? In that part of philosophy which: deals with scientific method his comprehensive and systematic expositions and his daring un-Baconian generalizations have earned him a high place.
^ Hochberg, Herbert (Oct 1953). "The Empirical Philosophy of Roger and Francis Bacon". Philosophy of Science. 20 (4). University of Chicago Press. doi:10.1086/287284.

Remsense聊 16:49, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Remsense: trying to form a tag team to get the edit you want is edit warring. Can you stop please? It is best to come to talk after 2 edits in most cases. I don't really understand what the problem is here. While we do need sources for Bacon's importance as founder, or father or whatever, we don't need citations for an exact wording, because wording is an editing decision. Bacon's position at the top of the family tree of what later came to be called empiricism is not really controversial and so at the very least I think a slow editing and more talk page use would have been called for here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:06, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That was not the intent of what I said, but I do see how it could be interpreted that way, my apologies. My issue with the wording is it potentially implies the existence of an oft-used, incontrovertible epithet, even with no quotes. I would much prefer a wording such as "Bacon is widely considered to be one of the paramount figures in the development of empiricism." Really, I should've just changed it to that, but I did not like the sentences I attempted to write to that effect. Again, my apologies. Remsense聊 18:07, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The last thing you want to do on WP is exaggerate the distance between you and another editor. If this is just about wording tweaks there have to be easier ways?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:55, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, 'twas a poor performance on my part, I try to avoid anything that looks like that. Remsense聊 18:56, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong arms

For some reason, the arms attributed to him have a crescent, while the source does not blazon one. Instead, the blazon next to the arms (and from the source) both lack the crescent, and instead say those are the arms of his brother Nicholas. Could this be fixed? I don't believe I have the permissions to do so. SaavayuAdrin (talk) 02:51, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My bad, I made a mistake, I had it flipped. Could the *blazon* be modified to have the crescent? SaavayuAdrin (talk) 03:17, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nvm, I think I can fix it myself. Also, I accidentally called his father his brother SaavayuAdrin (talk) 03:19, 1 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[1] "Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 18 November 2023.

[2] "Francis Bacon". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 18 November 2023.

[3] Evans, Griffith (1926). "The Place of Francis Bacon in the History of the Scientific Method". Rice Institute Pamphlet - Rice University Studies. 13 (1). His theory of knowledge also is insufficient; but, on the other hand, whose is not? We must not throw him aside on that ground. The philosophers Gassendi, Leibnitz,Locke, Hume, and Kant held him in high repute; and substantial portions of most books on logic are devoted to his treatment of induction. He was not merely a popularizer or a bally-hoo; Leibnitz and Kant had no need of such. If then these eminent philosophers found him estimable, was he not therefore great in philosophy? In that part of philosophy which: deals with scientific method his comprehensive and systematic expositions and his daring un-Baconian generalizations have earned him a high place.

[4] Hochberg, Herbert (Oct 1953). "The Empirical Philosophy of Roger and Francis Bacon". Philosophy of Science. 20 (4). University of Chicago Press. doi:10.1086/287284.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]