Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of Spanish Renaissance science - or rather, its methodology - on the scientific thought of Francis Bacon. The aim of this study is to identify the features of Baconian thought that are similar to some of the concepts and practices of Spanish scholars. Specifically, the text tries to demonstrate the hypothetic influence of Spanish thought on Bacon’s concepts of the institutionalisation of knowledge, empirical and experimental methods of scientific research, the idea that "power is knowledge" and the ways of classification of sciences. Some simplifications and misinterpretations of the Spanish roots of Baconian science are also reappraised or refuted in this paper. © FILOSOFIA, 2013.