Francis Bacon

No one disputes the tremendous importance of Francis Bacon in the context of early modern natural, moral, and legal philosophy, but assessments of that importance in the long term, and of the man himself, have been subject to considerable debate. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Bacon’s empiricism, specifically his inductive method, was viewed as leading inexorably to modern science; for others, however, Bacon’s larger “reformation of learning” had little to do with the “new science” that ensued. In the 20th century, Theodor Adorno acknowledged Bacon’s importance but criticized the idea he was said to have originated, of a science based on the domination of nature—a view that was reiterated, with some variation, by feminist and eco-minded scholars in the 1980s and later. Meanwhile, Bacon’s moral character as well as his political career were also in doubt, beginning with Thomas Macaulay’s demolition of him in 1837, but recent decades have witnessed a rehabilitation of the man and his work. Whatever the opinion held, the range of Bacon’s thought is so encompassing as to extend across the disciplines, eliciting scholarship from historians of science to political and literary scholars. The following bibliography reflects this range, even if the categories are somewhat arbitrarily imposed and most books move across the boundaries of Bacon’s life and thought. On a final note, the role of Bacon in the ongoing Shakespeare authorship debates has been omitted because it is dismissed by most scholars; for that subject, interested students should nevertheless consult James Shapiro, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010).