Francis Bacon (philosopher)

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans (1561–1625) was an English philosopher,scientist and statesman.

Bacon was educated at Trinity College,Cambridge for three years from the age of 12, under the tutelage of John Whitgift, later Archbishop of Canterbury, and then at the University of Poitiers. He later studied law, and became a member of parliament. He rose to be Lord Chancellor, but fell into debt. In 1621 he was convicted of corruption, and debarred from holding further offices.

Bacon is known as an early proponent of the scientific method, in opposition to the then-popular Aristotelian philosophy. His devotion to scientific experiments is said to have been the cause of his death: he died of pneumonia after stuffing a fowl with snow to study the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.

Bacon is the author of the utopian novel New Atlantis, and the philosphical work Novum Organum. Some writers have claimed that Bacon was the author of the plays attributed to Shakespeare.

Bacon