On Fri, 8 Sep 1995 JPhMiller@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 00:14:40 -0400
> From: JPhMiller@xxxxxxx
> To: heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Heidegger, Bacon, Science
>
> A recent book by Robert K. Faulkner, FRANCIS BACON AND THE PROJECT
> OF PROGRESS, raises an interesting question: Given that Heidegger
> considered technology to be the "extreme danger" to humanity, why didn't
> he confront Bacon's famous case for a technological science?
> Faulkner criticizes Heidegger for portraying modernity as the
> outcome of impersonal historical forces originating in ancient Greek
> philosophy. He tries to show that Bacon quite self-consciously
> developed a Machiavelli-inspired plan for a reform of the sciences that
> would make steady econonomic progress possible, thereby giving power to
> scientists and bringing glory to Bacon himself. The modern view of
> nature as a resource to be exploited for human purposes, according to
> Faulkner, is a direct result of the widespread dissemination and
> acceptance of this Baconian plan.
> So far as I know, Faulkner is right about Heidegger's not having
> examined Bacon's writings closely. Does anyone have any information to
> the contrary? And does anyone have any comments on Faulkner's criticism
> of Heidegger's diagnosis of the origins of modernity?
> -- Phil Miller
As far as I know, this is accurate. Heidegger could not, and by and
large chose not to, read English. To use an old distinction, Bacon was
an empiricist and Descartes, Heidegger's central whipping boy, was a
mathematical idealist (of sorts), and Heidegger felt that science was
mathematical and not experimental in its roots; he even explicitly says
this somewhere. Given that, Bacon would have held little interest for him.
Someone influenced by Heidegger, though, Leo Strauss, did use Bacon as
his central figure of a founder of modern science. In the way Strauss
uses it, either Bacon or Descartes would function in this role.
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