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The Renaissance of Francis Bacon

On Bacon’s Account of Recent Nano-Technoscience

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Abstract

The program of intervening, manipulating, constructing and creating is central to natural and engineering sciences. A renewed wave of interest in this program has emerged within the recent practices and discourse of nano-technoscience. However, it is striking that, framed from the perspective of well-established epistemologies, the constructed technoscientific objects and engineered things remain invisible. Their ontological and epistemological status is unclear. The purpose of the present paper is to support present-day approaches to techno-objects (“ontology”) insofar as they make these hidden objects epistemologically perceivable. To accomplish this goal, it is inspiring to look back to the origin of the project of modernity and to its founding father: Francis Bacon. The thesis is that everything we need today for an adequate (dialectic-materialist), ontologically well-informed epistemology of technoscience can be found in the works of Bacon—this position will be called epistemological real-constructivism. Rather than describing it as realist or constructivist, empiricist or rationalist, Bacon’s position can best be understood as real-constructivist since it challenges modern dichotomies, including the dichotomy between epistemology and ontology. Such real-constructive turn might serve to promote the acknowledgement that natural and engineering sciences, in particular recent technosciences, are creating and producing the world we live in. Reflection upon the contemporary relevance of Bacon is intended as a contribution to the expanding and critical discussion on nano-technoscience.

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Notes

  1. The well-established epistemologies are mainly concerned with theory, not with technology, as criticized early on by the pragmatists (cf. Dewey [19]) and methodological culturalists, and later by new experimentalists (cf. Hacking [31]), STS scholars and social constructivists (cf. Jasanoff et al. [38]; Hackett et al. [30]); for this kind of criticism see: Latour [44], Rouse [66], Cozzens and Gieryn [17], Haraway [32], Bono [15], Feenberg [24], Grunwald [28], Radder [62], Ihde and Selinger [37], Baird [6], Nordmann [60], Smith [73], Smith and Schmidt [74], Daston and Galison [18], and Zittel et al. [79]. Grunwald [29] argues that there is a need for an epistemology of nanotechnology, or at least an epistemological fundament, in order to enable a (nano-)technological assessment: “from speculative nanoethics to explorative philosophy of nanotechnology.”

  2. In addition, Bacon provides a tremendously influential, very early “theory of science in society” that still prevails (cf. Cozzens and Gieryn [17]).

  3. In what follows, I will discuss real-constructivism as one of numerous possible interpretations of Bacon (a similar discussion is found in [54]). Despite differences in the detail, I agree with Muntersbjorn [54] that “This constructivist interpretation is not intended to supplant inductivist or experimentalist interpretations.” Throughout this paper I will confine myself to epistemological aspects, which always contain normative convictions and political elements: “All questions of epistemology are also questions of social order”, writes Latour [46]. The same point had, of course, been emphasized by the Frankfurt School long before Latour. “Critique of society is critique of knowledge, and vice versa.” (Adorno [2]: 158) An appreciation of Baconianism would provide an excellent starting point for a critical review of recent technosciences—and for focusing attention on the ambivalence of modernity, its “politics of things” (Latour [46]; cf. Feenberg [24]) and on “technoscientific politics” [30].

  4. Often, this kind of society is called knowledge society (cf. Böhme and Stehr [13]) or information society (cf. Bell [9]).

  5. Krohn [43], Schäfer [67] and others show that it is misleading to ascribe the linear formula “knowledge = power” and its origin to Bacon. In general, according to Bruno Latour, epistemology and politics “go hand in hand.” (Latour [46]: 3) “[... Thus,] We are aiming at a politics of things, not at the bygone dispute about whether or not words refer to the world.” (Latour [46]: 3f) Similarly, in his classic text Winner had already asked: “Do artifacts have politics?” (Winner [77])

  6. Knowledge is still deemed to be pure, universal, value-free, truth oriented, and objective. Epistemology has a bias towards theory and to the context of justification. Traditional epistemology has disfigured science into a “mummy”, Ian Hacking ([31]: 1) writes. The ambivalent active force and the problematic power of natural science became epistemologically invisible. The impact of technically stabilized causality dissolved in Hume’s sequence of events.

  7. This is criticized by Dewey [19], Hacking [31], Latour [46], Nordmann [57], Baird [6], Daston and Galison [18], Grunwald [29], Ihde [36], Mitcham [52], and others.

  8. See the approaches to dealing with this deficit in: Böhme and Manzei [14]), Ihde and Selinger [37], and Feenberg [24].

  9. This position differs from classical cognitive constructivism as well as from many types of recent social constructivism. Real-constructivism is a materialist position that comes close to Latour’s point of view. The materialist background of Latour’s arguments is very clear throughout the controversy between Latour’s (materialist) constructivism and Bloor’s strong social constructivism (see the Bloor-Latour Debate: [10]; [47]). By advocating a new (programmatic and provocative) term, I also aim to stress that this type of constructivism should be considered as a very specific one—as one that is distinguishable from most positions of social constructivism (cf. Hackett et al. [30]).

  10. The dichotomies are sublated—in other words: preserved and eliminated. Such dialectic approach traces back to the idealist philosopher G.F.W. Hegel who coined the term “sublated” (in German: “aufheben”).

  11. Sometimes the German term “Revolution der Denkungsart” is translated as “intellectual revolution”.

  12. In German, Kant writes about a “Heeresweg der Wissenschaft”. A closer translation of “Heeresweg” would be “way of the army” rather than the present-day word “highway”. However, “highway” is the most common translation.

  13. Throughout this paper, the abbreviation “NO I” refers to Novum Organon, Part I, and “NO II” to Novum Organon, Part II. I have used the translation of Bacon by Graham Rees and Maria Wakely: [4]. I do not follow the translation of Lisa Jardine and Michael Silverthorne: Bacon, F., 2000 (1620): The New Organon; Cambridge. The classical translation is by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heat: Bacon, F., 1863 (1620) Novum Organon (standard translation by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath); in The Works (Vol. VIII), Taggard & Thompson. A newer edition is by Fulton H. Anderson: Bacon, F., 1960 (1620): The New Organon and Related writings; (ed. Fulton H. Anderson); Howards W. Sams & Co., Indianapolis.

  14. Misleadingly, this is translated by Ress and Wakely as “induction” and not as “inductive method” (NO I: 31).

  15. This sounds almost like contemporary self-organization theories, or perhaps even biomimetics or biomimicry.

  16. This point is not explicated here. It needs to be shown elsewhere.

  17. In the 1990s, Böhme [12] argued that we were experiencing the “end of the Baconian age”. However, this view does not seem to hold true for the last couple of years: we have witnessed a revival of the Baconian age.

  18. An inescapable normativity or, more strongly, politicity seems to be emerging here, which immanently characterizes present-day knowledge: “All questions of epistemology are also questions of social order” (Latour [46]). Nanoresearch is interlaced with “nano-technoscientific politics” which is de facto epistemology politics.

  19. An appreciation and awareness of Baconianism would provide an excellent starting point for critical questions about the fundament of technosciences in society. This constitutes part of the dialectic-materialist approach of the present paper: we have to address, manifest and preserve Bacon’s epistemology in order to overcome it; addressing, preserving and overcoming go hand in hand. The societal future of knowledge will (and should) not be determined without reflection on its origin—in order to strengthen or, at least, to preserve our critical faculties and powers of discernment. A discourse on Bacon could make a contribution in this respect: “A criticism of society requires a criticism of knowledge, and vice versa.” (Adorno [2]: 158)

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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Alfred Nordmann, Susan Keller, Nicola Erny, two anonymous referees and the nanoethics’ editor for valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Schmidt, J.C. The Renaissance of Francis Bacon. Nanoethics 5, 29–41 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-011-0109-z

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