Chapter Lost in the Woods: Francis Bacon’s Errant Pathways in Knowledge
Recovering Bacon’s valorization of error can shed light on his epistemology as a whole, and even on that of research more generally. Bacon is often known popularly as having established a scientific method to direct inquiry efficiently towards reliable knowledge and useful ends. In the period, howev...
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| Format: | Online |
| Language: | Italian |
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Firenze University Press
2024
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| Online Access: | ONIX_20240402_9791221502664_159 |
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| author | Keller, Vera |
| author_browse | Keller, Vera |
| author_facet | Keller, Vera |
| author_sort | Keller, Vera |
| collection | Directory of Open Access Books |
| description | Recovering Bacon’s valorization of error can shed light on his epistemology as a whole, and even on that of research more generally. Bacon is often known popularly as having established a scientific method to direct inquiry efficiently towards reliable knowledge and useful ends. In the period, however, experimentation already entailed husbanding resources and serving the useful ends of household management. By contrast, Bacon extended the length and sophistication of investigation in ways that deferred immediate use and that advised investigators to pursue bizarre and often resource-intensive approaches. Bacon supported what we would now call curiosity-driven research by encouraging investigators to wander in the pathways of error. Notably, however, he discussed error not in his interpretation of the myth of Daedalus, whose labyrinth commonly symbolized error, but rather in his reading of the myth of Proteus in which the investigator provokes matter (Proteus) into a state of error so that matter and its investigator might struggle together. For Bacon, rather than something to be escaped by following the clue of Ariadne, error was a state in which the human had to be immersed. In this way, Bacons reading of the myth of Proteus did gender experimentation, as Carolyn Merchant has argued, but not in the ways that Merchant claimed. By rejecting the useful and efficient forms of experimentation practiced by women within the household, Bacon made experimentation into a gendered, ongoing struggle through the valorization of error. |
| format | Online |
| id | doab-20.500.12854ir-136857 |
| institution | Directory of Open Access Books |
| language | ita |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publishDateRange | 2024 |
| publishDateSort | 2024 |
| publisher | Firenze University Press |
| publisherStr | Firenze University Press |
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| spelling | doab-20.500.12854ir-1368572024-05-09T10:46:46Z Chapter Lost in the Woods: Francis Bacon’s Errant Pathways in Knowledge Keller, Vera research Francis Bacon gender labyrinth Proteus Recovering Bacon’s valorization of error can shed light on his epistemology as a whole, and even on that of research more generally. Bacon is often known popularly as having established a scientific method to direct inquiry efficiently towards reliable knowledge and useful ends. In the period, however, experimentation already entailed husbanding resources and serving the useful ends of household management. By contrast, Bacon extended the length and sophistication of investigation in ways that deferred immediate use and that advised investigators to pursue bizarre and often resource-intensive approaches. Bacon supported what we would now call curiosity-driven research by encouraging investigators to wander in the pathways of error. Notably, however, he discussed error not in his interpretation of the myth of Daedalus, whose labyrinth commonly symbolized error, but rather in his reading of the myth of Proteus in which the investigator provokes matter (Proteus) into a state of error so that matter and its investigator might struggle together. For Bacon, rather than something to be escaped by following the clue of Ariadne, error was a state in which the human had to be immersed. In this way, Bacons reading of the myth of Proteus did gender experimentation, as Carolyn Merchant has argued, but not in the ways that Merchant claimed. By rejecting the useful and efficient forms of experimentation practiced by women within the household, Bacon made experimentation into a gendered, ongoing struggle through the valorization of error. 2024-05-09T10:46:43Z 2024-05-09T10:46:43Z 2024-04-02T15:49:08Z 2023 chapter ONIX_20240402_9791221502664_159 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/89190 9791221502664 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/136857 ita Knowledge and its Histories open access image/jpeg n/a https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/89190/1/9791221502664_06.pdf Firenze University Press 10.36253/979-12-215-0266-4.06 10.36253/979-12-215-0266-4.06 2ec4474d-93b1-4cfa-b313-9c6019b51b1a 9791221502664 20 Florence open access |
| spellingShingle | research Francis Bacon gender labyrinth Proteus Keller, Vera Chapter Lost in the Woods: Francis Bacon’s Errant Pathways in Knowledge |
| title | Chapter Lost in the Woods: Francis Bacon’s Errant Pathways in Knowledge |
| title_full | Chapter Lost in the Woods: Francis Bacon’s Errant Pathways in Knowledge |
| title_fullStr | Chapter Lost in the Woods: Francis Bacon’s Errant Pathways in Knowledge |
| title_full_unstemmed | Chapter Lost in the Woods: Francis Bacon’s Errant Pathways in Knowledge |
| title_short | Chapter Lost in the Woods: Francis Bacon’s Errant Pathways in Knowledge |
| title_sort | chapter lost in the woods francis bacon s errant pathways in knowledge |
| topic | research Francis Bacon gender labyrinth Proteus |
| topic_facet | research Francis Bacon gender labyrinth Proteus |
| url | ONIX_20240402_9791221502664_159 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT kellervera chapterlostinthewoodsfrancisbaconserrantpathwaysinknowledge |