Roger Bacon 1219 – 1292
Roger Bacon (1219 – 1292) was an English philosopher of the Medieval era, associated with Scholasticism, Medieval Philosophy, and Christian Philosophy.
Roger Bacon was an English Franciscan friar, philosopher, and early advocate of experimental method, sometimes called Doctor Mirabilis. Trained at Oxford and Paris, he produced the Opus Majus at the request of Pope Clement IV, an encyclopedic argument that the study of languages, mathematics, optics, and experimental science was essential to Christian learning. He made significant contributions to the science of optics and anticipated several later inventions in his speculative writings. His emphasis on experience and mathematics foreshadowed the methods of early modern science.
Roger Bacon was born around 1219 in Somerset, the son of a well-to-do English family. He studied the arts at Oxford and from around 1241 lectured on Aristotle in the faculty of arts at Paris. Returning to Oxford in the late 1240s he immersed himself in mathematics, optics, languages, and the new Aristotelian science, supported by the patronage of Bishop Robert Grosseteste. Around 1257 he entered the Franciscan order.
When the future Pope Clement IV asked for an account of his ideas, Bacon composed in some eighteen months his three great works of 1267-1268: the Opus Majus, the Opus Minus, and the Opus Tertium. They cover the causes of error, the relation of philosophy and theology, the importance of languages, mathematics, and 'experimental science', optics, moral philosophy, and the unity of human knowledge. He also produced the Compendium of the Study of Theology, the Compendium of the Study of Philosophy, and a series of commentaries and treatises on natural science.
Bacon's combination of an Aristotelian-Augustinian philosophical vision with a strikingly modern emphasis on language study, mathematical demonstration, and experimental confirmation, his proposals for calendrical and educational reform, and his speculative anticipations of optical instruments, mechanical transport, and gunpowder gave his nineteenth-century rediscoverers reason to call him the 'wonderful doctor' of the medieval West. Late in life he was placed under house arrest by his order; he died at Oxford around 1292.
Key facts
- Nationality
- English
- Era
- Medieval
- Movements
- Scholasticism, Medieval Philosophy, Christian Philosophy
Selected quotes
-
Attributed to Roger Bacon:
“Argument can prove nothing; experience alone can give certainty.”
-
“Mathematics is the gate and key to the sciences.”
cited in: Morris Kline (1969) Mathematics and the physical world . p. 1 -
Attributed to Roger Bacon:
“There are four chief obstacles in grasping truth, which hinder every man, however learned: the influence of frail and unworthy authority, long-established custom, the sense of the ignorant crowd, and the hiding of one's ignorance behind a show of wisdom.”
-
Attributed to Roger Bacon:
“Without experiment nothing can be known sufficiently.”
-
Attributed to Roger Bacon:
“All knowledge proceeds from God, and all wisdom is from him.”
Roger Bacon by topic
Frequently asked about Roger Bacon
- When did Roger Bacon live?
- Roger Bacon was born in 1219 and died in 1292.
- Where was Roger Bacon from?
- Roger Bacon was an English philosopher of the Medieval era.
- What philosophical movements is Roger Bacon associated with?
- Roger Bacon was associated with Scholasticism, Medieval Philosophy, and Christian Philosophy.
- What was Roger Bacon known for?
- Roger Bacon was an English Franciscan friar, philosopher, and early advocate of experimental method, sometimes called Doctor Mirabilis.
- How many quotes are attributed to Roger Bacon?
- There are 16 attributed quotations from Roger Bacon in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.