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The Modern Period Of Philosophy

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The modern period of philosophy begins with Francis Bacon. Unlike philosophers before him, Bacon’s philosophies were far more disorganized. During his time, the subject of philosophy was taught exclusively in universities, primarily based on the work of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle’s philosophy is heavily structured, and is based largely on rationalism, or the belief that knowledge comes from deductive reasoning. This means that knowledge comes from narrowing down large, broad concepts to apply to any situation. Bacon believed in inductive reasoning to acquire knowledge. This means that knowledge stems from experience and experimentation, not blindly following broad ideas.
Bacon heavily advocated for a more scientific form of philosophy, and hoped that research universities would develop using his methodology. Bacon lays out three methods of induction. The first is agreement, which is when a correlation appears between two variables. The second is concomitant variation, which is when a change in one variable causes a change in another, and the third is difference, in which variables that are not affected in any way are removed from the experiment. This method is designed to apply to both thought and physical experimentation. Bacon also warned of what he called idols, which are forms of belief that philosophers should avoid. The first, the idol of the cave, is belief based on one’s own circumstances, while ignoring that of others. The next is

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