Mark Jayson B.

Mojica
BSME – II

Francis Bacon
• An English philosopher, lawyer essayist, historian, and champion of modern science.
• Born in London, and was educated privately. After his graduation he started training as a lawyer,
but abandoned his studies to take up a diplomatic post in France.
• His father’s death make him impoverished, forcing him to return to the legal profession.
• He spent the rest of his life writing and carrying out his scientific work
• Died from Bronchitis, contracted while stuffing a chicken with snow, as part of his experiment in
food preservation.
• His chief works are the Essays, The Advancement of Learning, Cogitata et Visa, and Novum
Organum.

According to him:

1. Scientific knowledge builds upon itself.

2. It advances steadily and cumulatively, discovering new laws and making new inventions possible.
3. It enables people to do things that otherwise could not be done.
4. Knowledge is power.

Bacon’s Basic Concept of Self

1. Knowledge of self is the power of establishing the dominion of man over Earth for knowledge is
power.
2. To arrive at knowledge, the self must study natures with the intention of grasping their forces.
Natures are the natural phenomena of heat, sound, etc., forms are imminent forces of the natural
phenomena.
3. Human mind must be free of all prejudices (idols) and preconceived attitudes because they
prevent successful study natural phenomena. There are four prejudices (idols) of the human mind.
(1) The prejudices arising from human nature (idols of the tribe); (2) prejudices coming from the
psychic condition of the human soul (idols of the cave); (3) prejudices resulting from social
relationship (idols of the marketplace); and (4) prejudices deriving from false philosophical
systems (idols of the theatre).

Thomas Hobbes
• He was born in Wiltshire, England on April 5, 1988.
• Orphaned in Infancy. He was fortunately taken in by a wealthy uncle.
• Some of his works include Leviathan, Human Nature, De Corpore Politics, The Elements of Law,
etc.

According to him:

1. Nothing without substance can exist.

2. So everything in the universe is physical.
3. A human being is therefore entirely physical.
4. Man is a machine.
Mark Jayson B. Mojica
BSME – II

Basic Concept of Self by Hobbes:

1. In the natural condition of mankind, some men may be stronger or more intelligent than others.
None is as strong and smart as to go beyond a fear of violent death. When threatened with death,
man in his natural state cannot help but defend himself in any possible way. Self-defense against
violent death is the highest human necessity and rights are borne of necessity.
2. In a state of nature, we have the right or license to everything in the world. Due to scarcity of things
in the world, there is no constant, and right-based war of all against all – the survival of the fittest.
3. Man’s life in the state of nature is solitary, poor nasty, brutish and short.
4. Man as self has a self-interested and materialistic desire to end war. The passion that incline men
to peace are fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living, and a hope
of their industry to obtain them.
5. Men form peaceful societies by entering into a social contract. Society is a population beneath an
authority; to whom all men in that society covenant just enough of their natural right for the
authority, to be able to ensure internal peace and common defense.
6. As long as the self does not harm to any other, the sovereign should keep its hands off him.

Rene Descartes
• “Father of Modern Philosophy” and the first modern rationalist.
• He was known for his principle “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am)
• He was also a believer in the philosophy of skepticism. He felt that philosophy should move away
from the beliefs of the medieval scholastics. He was looking for certainty, and used his method of
doubt (skepticism) to try and find what was indubitable.
• He believed that an individual’s mind is separate from the body and the outside self. This is known
as mind-body dualism.
• He said that the mind (a thinking, non-extending thing) is completely different from that of the
body (an extended, non-thinking thing) and therefore, it is possible for one to exist without the
other.

Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am)

• Descartes believed that when a man doubt, he is thinking, for doubting is the starting point
of thinking. So, without any reference to the external world he was already sure that he had
found a basic truth that not be questioned. Once a person is already thinking he could no
longer doubt that he existed.
• Descartes believed that innate ideas or “pure” ideas are the very attributes of the human
mind. These “pure” ideas are known as “a priori” that are present in all human existence.
These innate ideas are the prerequisite for learning additional facts. Without ideas, no other
data could be known to men.

The only question that Descartes is definitely able to answer using his method of doubt is whether
he is thinking. He cannot prove the existence of his body or of the external world.
Mark Jayson B. Mojica
BSME – II