1001Philosophers

Aristotle vs Francis Bacon on Knowledge

Aristotle treats knowledge as demonstration from grasped first principles, with the natural inquiry framed by the analysis of essences and final causes. Bacon's Novum Organum presents itself as a deliberate replacement: knowledge is to be constructed by tables of presence and absence, the elimination of idols of the mind, and the systematic interrogation of nature through experiment. Where Aristotle aims at understanding what things are, Bacon aims at the practical command of nature for human relief.

About this topic

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge. Philosophers have asked what distinguishes knowledge from mere opinion, whether it requires certainty or can be probabilistic, and how perception, reason, memory, and testimony each contribute. Ancient skeptics challenged the possibility of knowledge altogether, while rationalists located its source in reason and empiricists in experience. Contemporary epistemology investigates justification, reliability, and the social conditions under which beliefs count as knowing.

For a side-by-side overview of the two philosophers more broadly, see the full Aristotle vs Francis Bacon comparison. To browse philosophy more widely on this theme, see the Knowledge quotes hub.

Representative quotes on knowledge

Aristotle on knowledge

  • “All men by nature desire to know.”

    Metaphysics Book I, 980a.21 : Opening paragraph of Metaphysics | Variant: All men by nature desire knowledge. | The first sentence is in the Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2005), 21:10

  • “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

    Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

  • “Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history, for poetry expresses the universal and history only the particular.”

    διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν: ἡ μὲν γὰρ ποίησις μᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ᾽ ἱστορία τὰ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον λέγει.

  • “My lectures are published and not published; they will be intelligible to those who heard them, and to none beside.”

    Letter to Alexander the Great as quoted by William Whewell , History of the Inductive Sciences (1837), Ch. 2, Sect. 2

  • “Of things said without any combination, each signifies either substance or quantity or qualification or a relative or where or when or being-in-a-position or having or doing or being affected . To give a rough idea, examples of substance are man, horse; of quantity: four-foot, five-foot; of qualification: white, grammatical; of a relative: double, half, larger; of where: in the Lyceum, in the market-place; of when: yesterday, last-year; of being-in-a-position: is-lying, is sitting; of having: has-shoes-on, has-armour-on; of doing: cutting, burning; of being-affected: being-cut, being-burned.”

    1b25-2a10; J. L. Ackrill (tr.), 1984-1995

All 10 Aristotle quotes on knowledge →

Francis Bacon on knowledge

  • “Knowledge is power.”

    Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.

  • “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

    Of Studies

  • “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

    Book I, v, 8

  • “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.”

    Aphorism 3

  • “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

    Of Studies

All 11 Francis Bacon quotes on knowledge →

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