Discussion Topic
Analysis of Francis Bacon's essay "Of Truth."
Summary:
In "Of Truth," Francis Bacon explores the nature and value of truth, emphasizing its importance in human life. He argues that truth is essential for personal integrity and societal stability, contrasting it with lies and deceit, which lead to corruption and moral decay. Bacon also reflects on the human tendency to avoid the harshness of truth, favoring comforting illusions instead.
How can Francis Bacon's essay "Of Truth" be analyzed?
Francis Bacon is a seventeenth-century philosopher and scientist generally considered an early founder of empiricism, which is a branch of philosophical thought in direct conflict with the theory of rationalism. It would seem logical that any analysis of his famous essay “Of Truth” should include a consideration of both perspectives. Various views and opinions about the acquisition of knowledge and truth continually emerge and puzzle philosophical explorers of truth even to this day.
The rationalist school of thought (propounded by scholars like Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) argues that all knowledge and truth is innate in human beings, which could be discovered through deductive reasoning. In that view, logical thinking is the pathway to truth. The empiricist school of thought (followed by scholars like Berkeley, Hume, and Locke) suggests that all knowledge and truth is derived from experience. They favor inductive reasoning, claiming it is observation and reflection that leads...
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to truth. In their view, sensory perceptions, not innate ideas, enable human beings to discover the truth.
Francis Bacon believed in scientific theory but gradually doubted that science alone is able to explain reality. He thought science offered manufactured explanations and argued that scientific theory stems from philosophical thought. Bacon is often credited with the discovery of the scientific method, and his point of view helped to ignite empiricist thought.
“Of Truth” might be analyzed by examining the language in the essay and determining how Bacon’s meaning reflects his empiricist point of view. In the essay, he concludes that truth comes from God, while many people spread lies. Therefore,
it is heaven upon earth, to have a man’s mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
Consistent with empiricist philosophy, he explains that the “Inquiry of truth,” not lies, is the proper direction for humankind and brings people closer to God.
Francis Bacon’s essay “Of Truth” is one of the more famous of his works of prose. The essay begins by mocking those who refuse to admit that there is any certain, objective truth. Bacon argues that people have a natural love of lying, even when lying brings no obvious advantage. Truth, Bacon says, resembles light, but he suggests that many people prefer to flirt with darkness because they take some pleasure in lies and lying. Bacon, however, asserts that truth is the greatest good humans can possess. Truth comes from God and attaches us to God, and it is from truth that we derive our deepest pleasure.
Bacon’s essay is structured in various ways. It begins, for instance, by mentioning Pilate, a symbolic Christ-killer and enemy of God, but it ends by elaborately celebrating God’s goodness and creativity. Pilate (Bacon says) was dismissive of truth; God, on the other hand, created truth and celebrates truth and, in a sense, personifies truth. Thus the essay is framed by references especially relevant to Christians. Inside that frame, Bacon cites various classical authorities and discusses various classical opinions. He alludes to classical philosophical sects who doubted the existence of truth, but he also alludes to classical thinkers who agree with Christians that truth should be highly valued. As the essay continues to develop, Bacon discusses the attractiveness of lying – an attractiveness that coincides with Christian ideas about the fallen state (and natural sinfulness) of human nature. People lie, Bacon suggests, even when lying is of no practical use to them; they seem in fact to find pure truth boring. Poetry, he suggests, seems to appeal to this natural human interest in lies, although he implies that the lies told by poets are not especially harmful. By the conclusion of the essay, the structure comes full circle, concluding with a very heavy emphasis on standard Christian doctrine.
Stylistically, the essay employs a number of different techniques. One of the most important of these involves allusions to other texts and other authors, especially classical texts and classical authors. Bacon also uses questions effectively. He begins with Pilate’s short and famous question, which Bacon regards as frivolous, and then, throughout the essay, Bacon poses various, and quite serious, questions of his own, thus provoking readers to think for themselves and use the reason that he later says is one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity. Besides using allusions and questions, the essay also uses imagery effectively, especially imagery of light and darkness and imagery involving various kinds of jewels:
Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights.
In short, Bacon’s essay is solid in its structure, intriguing in its stylistic and rhetorical methods, and (for many readers then and now) persuasive in the arguments in presents.
Can you explain Sir Francis Bacon's essay "On Truth"?
A helpful discussion of Sir Francis Bacon’s essay “Of Truth” might begin by simply paraphrasing the argument of the essay. Essentially, Bacon argues as follows:
- Although there are few philosophical skeptics left, many human beings still seem to prefer the freedom to adopt their own views over the hard work of pursuing truth, since they consider truth constricting.
- Human beings seem to have a natural disposition to want to lie.
- To many people, simple truth never seems as attractive as appealing falsehoods.
- People seem to take pleasure in lying.
- The worst lies are those that take deep root in people’s minds.
- The pursuit of truth is, or should be, “the sovereign good of human nature.” After all,
The first creature of God . . . was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason.
- To possess truth is like standing on a tall hill and observing the follies and errors of mankind below.
- Yet we should pity those who lack truth rather than being proud of our superiority to them. Love of our fellow creatures is the true companion of truth.
- Truthfulness should especially be valued in daily conduct; no sin is more shameful than lying.
- Those who lie to others show their fear of other humans but their misguided bravery and foolish defiance in dealing with God.
Bacon’s essay is a typical reflection of Renaissance thought in a number of ways, including the following:
- It draws both on Christian scriptures and on classical literature and classical philosophy to make its points. Since one of the main purposes of the Renaissance was to reconcile Christian truth with truths also apparent in the classics, Bacon is here writing as a typical “Renaissance man.”
- Bacon clearly assumes that "truth" should be identified with the "truths" of Christianity.
- It emphasizes that reason is one of the earliest and most important of all the gifts God gave to man, and it implies that reason should be used properly – that is, as a means of discovering truth.
- It assumes, as most Renaissance Christians did, that humans are corrupt by nature (ultimately as a result of the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden).
- However, it also assumes that humans have a moral and spiritual obligation to struggle against that corruption in order to pursue truth and thus discover and love God.
- It emphasizes another of the key Christian virtues: charity, or love of other creatures as creatures made and loved by God.
- It doesn’t merely discuss truth in the abstract, as a simple philosophical concept, but also discusses the importance of truth-telling and truthful behavior in daily life. In other words, a main purpose of the essay is an ethical purpose, so that truth is linked with practical goodness.
- It ends by implying that the ultimate judge of human conduct is and will be God, and that humans should always think of God first in forming their thoughts and behavior.
How does Francis Bacon convey his moral in “Of Truth”?
In his essay “On Truth,” Francis Bacon argues that people have a natural tendency to tell lies. Furthermore, he maintains that we have a “natural, though corrupt love, of the lie itself.”
Belief in the truth, on the other hand, the enjoying of it, is “the sovereign good of human nature.” Bacon cites with approval the words of the great Roman poet Lucretius, who maintained that no pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage ground of truth. Holding to the truth is not just a matter of doing our duty; it also brings us pleasure.
Having cited pagan wisdom in support of his argument, Bacon then goes on to deal with the practicalities of telling the truth. When it comes to dealing with others, being truthful and honest is the “honor of man's nature.” Bacon regards this as a universal truism, acknowledged as such even by those who don't practice it.
To drive home his point, Bacon uses the metaphor of debasing the coinage with inferior metals. Debasing the coinage was a very serious criminal offense in Bacon's day, punishable by death, and so by comparing it to double-dealing indicates just how seriously he takes the practice of lying. Telling lies comes naturally to us, but that doesn't make it right.
Finally, Bacon draws upon Christian teaching. He says that telling lies constitutes the “winding and crooked courses” of the serpent. By this he means the snake into which Satan transformed himself in the Garden of Eden in order to trick Adam and Eve into defying God by eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.
To continue with the Christian theme, Bacon concludes his essay by reminding his readers that they will stand before God on the Day of Judgement, where they will be judged, among other things, for “the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith.”
In “On Truth,” we can observe, in succession, three of the most important elements of Bacon's thought: pagan wisdom, practical morality, and a formal respect for Christian teaching.