Elements of Epistemology
	Chapter I Socrates and Plato
	Chapter II Corpus Aristotelicum
	Chapter III Laughing and Weeping Philosophers
	Chapter IV Skepticism and Stoicism
	Chapter V Scholastic Epistemology
	Chapter VI Friar Roger and Sir Francis Bacons
	Chapter VII Cosmology and Epistemology
	Chapter VIII Classic Protagonists of Epistemology
	Chapter IX The Sociologists
	Chapter X Logical Positivism and Beyond ...

Friar Roger Bacon and Sir Francis Bacon

Friar Roger Bacon was called by his friends 'Doctor Mirabilis' (the admirable doctor) and by his enemies the 'Crazy Monk at Oxford.' Roger Bacon is best known for his

"Sapientia sine eloquentia est quasi gladius acutus in manu paralytici,
sicut eloquentia expers sapienti est quasi gladius acutus in manu furiosi"

(Science without eloquence is like a sharp sword in the paralyzed hands,
while eloquence without science is like a sharp sword in the violent hands).

Roger Bacon asserted the necessity of the study of languages, mathematics, experimental sciences, and moral philosophy. Scattered throughout his writings are descriptions of mirages, burning- mirrors, eclipses, laws of ebb and flow, diameters of the celestial bodies and their distances from one another, and shortcomings of the Julian calendar. Roger Bacon also affirms the possibility of microscopes and telescopes, steam- vessels and balloons.

Sir Francis Bacon was described by some of his contemporaries as 'cold, calculating and arrogant'. In Novum Organum (1620) Francis Bacon introduces his well known doctrine of the 'idols' and describes the scientific method as follows:

Collect reliable data
Classify data
Generalize data
Form a hypothesis
Verify hypotheses by further experiments
Elaborate hypotheses into a theory