The Death of Nature

Impressions:

• I had the impression that bacon was just stating the importance of science, so I’m surprised that there are criticisms of his ideas.

Key points from the summary generated by ChatGPT:

• I haven’t verified it, so I’ll check the original text later if I want to quote or refer to it.

Chapter 8: Introduction:

• Francis Bacon advocated for the control of nature for human benefit, based on a new philosophy of natural magic, mining and metallurgy, progress, and patriarchal social structures.
• Bacon is credited with establishing the inductive method and inspiring the Royal Society, but his program ultimately benefited middle-class male entrepreneurs.
• Bacon reduced the concept of female nature to a resource for economic production by adapting scientific knowledge and methods to exert human power over nature, using female imagery as a tool.
• Bacon argued that only by “digging further and further into the mine of natural knowledge” could mankind regain dominion over nature that was lost due to the Fall from the Garden of Eden.
• Bacon believed that nature must be seized and made subservient to mankind. Nature existed in three states: at liberty, in error, or in bondage.
  • It seems to depict an image of extracting physical laws by controlling nature.
  • Nature is referred to as “she” (blu3mo).
• The organic view of nature as a living, growing, self-actualizing being was the first instance of viewing nature.
  • It may be a contrast between organic and mechanical.
• Mechanics, which gave humans power over nature, consisted of motion.
• Mechanic utopia.
• Bacon’s utopia, the New Atlantis, was hierarchical and patriarchal, modeled after the early modern patriarchal family.
• Clothing served as an indicator of an individual’s status group in a society with hierarchical stratification.
• Hierarchy and patriarchy formed the basis of Bacon’s ideal state, reflecting his non-egalitarian philosophy.
  • I see (blu3mo). Capitalist ~
• Bacon’s New Atlantis advocated for scientific progress to benefit “the whole of mankind,” but his interests aligned with clothier capitalists, merchants, mine owners, and the state.
• The crafts were becoming more dependent on small-scale industrial capitalists, and the concept of scientific progress justified the gap between journeyman and master craftsman.
• Bacon’s New Atlantis placed progress in the hands of a group of scientists and technicians who studied nature altered by the mechanical arts for the benefit of society. Mechanism and the New Atlantis
• The scientific research institute in Bensalem, called Salomon’s House, was led by the “Fathers of Salomon’s House,” reinforcing the patriarchal nature of the utopian society.
• Politics was replaced by scientific administration, and decisions were made by the scientists who possessed the secrets of nature.
• Scientists decided which secrets to reveal to the public and which to keep private.
• The scientist father who visited Bensalem was portrayed as a high priest of the occult arts.
  • Science as religion
• The mechanical method of scientific investigation was used, where problems were broken down into component parts and solved independently.
  • Reductionism perhaps.
  • The tasks of research were hierarchically divided among the various scientists, novices, and apprentices.
  • It seems to be a case where the structure of the organization aligns with the structure of what they create.
  • Conway’s Law Baconian program
• The Baconian program was significant in the latter half of the seventeenth century.
• Bacon’s followers recognized the connections between mechanics, trades, commercial interests, and the domination of nature.
• The Baconian utopia aimed for the overall improvement of society in agriculture, commerce, and medicine.
• Human dominion over nature was to be achieved through the experimental “disclosure of nature’s secrets.”
  • It seems like a combination of science and engineering.
• Seventeenth-century scientists advocated for “mastering” and “managing” the earth.
• The image of nature as a female entity to be controlled and dissected through experimentation justified the exploitation of natural resources.
  • I don’t see the connection yet, but I might understand it in class.
• The new mechanical order and its associated values of power and control would lead to the demise of nature.