Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was a philosopher of science, a lawyer, and a politician. Bacon’s most significant contribution to philosophy was his pioneering of empiricism. He gave his name to the Baconian method, the method of using induction to formulate and test scientific laws.
Bacon held some controversial views on religion, which he judged to be unimportant in comparison with science, and was broadly in favour of religious tolerance. Several of his collected essays deal with religious questions, including Of Unity in Religion, Of Superstition, and Of Atheism.
In his essay Of Atheism, he is sceptical and dismissive of attempts to deny the existence of God, but in Of Superstition he contrasts the negative tendencies of superstition with the positive tendencies of atheism: “Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not.”
Bacon held some controversial views on religion, which he judged to be unimportant in comparison with science, and was broadly in favour of religious tolerance. Several of his collected essays deal with religious questions, including Of Unity in Religion, Of Superstition, and Of Atheism.
In his essay Of Atheism, he is sceptical and dismissive of attempts to deny the existence of God, but in Of Superstition he contrasts the negative tendencies of superstition with the positive tendencies of atheism: “Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not.”
