I have two Eyes
Francis Bacon: The Advancement of Learning
Physically, why do people have two eyes? It is not to see more colors, or to see an image clearer. People have two sets of eyes so that they can gain depth perception. The Gutenberg printing press made it possible for Francis Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning to be reviewed, but Bacon understood the importance of having his work reviewed just as scientists today push to have their discoveries examined by a scientific board of review.
Historical Contextualization
Oral tradition did not leave much room for questioning a source, because there was a lack of comparison. In antiquity, whole societies depended on a single person to remember the oral history of their tribe. Generations upon generations of lineage, events, and records were memorized from one orator to the next. One of the problems with oral tradition is that there is very little room for review, because it is based on the memory of one person. Aristotle, Plato, Isaiah, and even Jesus Christ himself taught orally. It is not that oral tradition is bad, but simply that oral tradition is difficult to critique because it depended on the knowledge of the single informer.
After the Gutenberg printing press was invented, people were better able to question traditional ideas because they were able review ideas. Just over a hundred years before Bacon was born, Johannes Gutenberg invented the Gutenberg Printing Press. As books became more popular literacy increased. Instead of each village assuming that one man’s memory was accurate, people could write a letter to their cousin two towns away and ask what that town believed. Ideas no longer remained stagnant in one village but they moved across towns, regions, and kingdoms. Books were being printed by the hundreds, purchased, read, and more importantly talked about and reviewed by thousands. This is the generation Bacon was born into. In his book The Advancement of Learning Bacon challenges his audience to question traditional beliefs through the written word.
Critical Analysis
Bacon keeps his audience in mind while he is writing. The book opens with Bacon writing to the King. He complements the King’s intellect, judgment, and superiority first, and then Bacon asks the King to read and judge The Advancement of Learning with his own powerful intellect. Bacon does not plead with the King to think about the text, but rather, like any good entertainer, he invites the King to read the book. Think of two comedians on one stage. The first says, “You are the funniest person I know. I have this really good joke that I think you will like. Let me tell it to you,” and the other comedian says, “This is the funniest joke in the world, and I am going to tell it to you,” It could be the same joke, but naturally I know that I would rather hear the first comedian tell the joke. The idea that Bacon is writing to please his audience makes me believe that Bacon intended his book to be reviewed. From Bacon’s word choice it appears he understood that his audience was real and did not just care about facts and figures but wanted to be entertained as well.
In Bacon’s closing statements he encourages the reader to review and reread his text. In the last passage Bacon first tells the read that he would not be true to his argument if he was not willing to let the reader review and refine his text and ideas. He then goes on to state that if the reader has any questions they should reread his book. Push aside the idea that multiple people can review Bacon’s book for a moment and concentrate on the idea that a single reader can review his text over and over again word for word. It appears from his request that the reader should reread his text that Bacon did not want his book to be mobbed but reviewed by an individual willing to ask themselves if there are any falsities in The Advancement of Learning . Bacon closes his text by encouraging the reader to look inside his own thoughts and find out what his perception is on Bacon’s work.
The author continues to encourage the reader to review philosophies for truth by searching for pieces of truth in each philosophy and that the reader should not feel obligated to accept the philosophy as a whole. Bacon uses Aristotle’s idea that like children in their innocence call everyone mother, people in their ignorance calls every theory mother. However, as a child grows older he learns to recognize only one mother, and the same can be said for matured people who recognize only one truth. Although in this example Bacon assumes people can learn to recognize truth as easily as they recognize their own mother he does not deter from the importance of reviewing a theory. In this example he caution the reader not only to review but to break down a philosophy into pieces. From there Bacon encourages the reader to judge the individual ideas of the packaged philosophy. Bacon seems to believe the proper review of a philosophy will discover truth in the individual ideas and not the philosophy as a whole. In that sense he not only encourages the reader to review philosophies, but to strain the philosophies enough that the reader has to piece together his own.
Personal Reflection
I believe scientific review boards embody the message from Francis Bacon to review a study before considering it scientifically sound. Something that I learned in college was to not trust scientific studies published first in the local newspaper for the simple reason that they have not yet been reviewed by a scientific review board. I don’t type my question into Google without setting the search engine to “scholar” anymore. Today, I know I take the thousands and millions of people actively review each other’s publications. It should be incredible to me that I am instantly able to have thousands reviewed studies at my fingertips ready for me to read, review, and analyze as long as I have my laptop and a wireless connection. Truthfully, I rarely think about life without the internet; that would be like life without food in a refrigerator and pumping water. Only in my imagination can I depict a life without literature, international communication, and published books. It is remarkable for me to imagine someone publishing a book to tell people that they should question traditional beliefs when the world I live in only a little too mouse-click-happy about publishing the next big discovery on their blog for all to read. The amount of people who publish freely on the internet is why I think Francis Bacon’s message is important for me to read and understand. That it is important for me to realize that I should trust reviewed articles, because a reviewed article has be broken into pieces by multiple educated people each with their own perspective.
The message I was able to take from reading Francis Bacon was that it takes a group of people (able to communicate) to review a text, an idea, or a philosophy. At the same point that group cannot be a mob running into the study with their pitchforks or ready to smother the text with golden stars. A good review board seems to be composed of individuals who can effectively communicate their perception to the group. How does an individual gain depth perception? Well, we have two eyes for one reason; that reason is not so that we can see colors better or an image clearer but so that we can have depth perception. I think that I learned the importance of rereading and reviewing texts so that I can gain a better depth perception of what I believe and what I agree or disagree with in the text.