Monday, November 17, 2008
Bacon or Descartes? Deductive method or the inductive method?
I think Bacon and Descartes are equally important. Descartes was important because he decided that he existed and related thought to the universe and how relative thoughts are in a bigger picture. Bacon depicted information and conclusions as obvious and unnecessary: conclusions should only be based on fact and experience. Descartes also was very religious and that was important because it was science and the belief in God that influenced his experiments and reason. And inductive method...this is based again on truth and experience... and I think that that was what Bacon was trying to get across from the beginning.
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6 comments:
I think it's interesting that through the process of doubting Descartes came up with the conclusion that being capable of doubting meant that he was in fact real. Just interesting.
A part of me feels like Bacon was more important to the Scientific Revolution. Not to take away anything from Descartes or anything, I mean the world needs mathematicians and coordinate geometry and all that jazz but Bacon laid the foundation for the scientific method. Which is obviously still in great use even today. His theory of Inductive reasoning and belief in the importance of knowledge I think set him apart. For those are things that are irreplaceable to modern science.
I agree that they are equally important. Bacon showed how to "doubt" scientifically, and Decartes showed that nature can be represented in mathematical forms. Also, scientists adopt both inductive and deductive methods now. They create theories, test them through experiments and observations, and then conclude whether the theories were right or wrong.
i see how theyre both important but i still like Descartes better. He is responsible for much of how we view geometry as well. but you nailed both main points as to why both these guys are important.
i agree with atticus
I think Descartes and Bacon are both equally important. They both discovered an essential part of math and science. But personally I would be more likely to defend Bacon just because of the fact that I immensely despise math.
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