Francis Bacon's “New Atlantis”

Francis Bacon's “New Atlantis” - Esoterica #1

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7 ай бұрын

Listen to the full lecture here: halkyon.substack.com/p/esoter...
In this lecture I delve into Faustian man, Aristotelian causality and Bacon’s destruction thereof, Goethe’s appreciation of America, the paranoia that comes with attempts at total control, as well as a call for a New Athens based on Plato’s dialogue Critias.
Francis Bacons’s New Atlantis is a most astounding utopian fable. Published shortly after his death by his former chaplain William Rawley Bacon here lays out the blueprint for the Royal Society - and in fact for the British Empire with its vast spy network. Not only that though. The New Atlantis, albeit unfinished, is a deeply significant fable for it aims to speak into existence total control over nature. Building on King Solomon’s supposed omniscience Bacon envisions an island (England?) where nature in all its causes and effects has been decoded and can now be controlled at will for the sake of technically enhancing human life and indeed for the sake of repairing creation which is implicitly understood as deficient and in need of repair.

Пікірлер: 4

@rlbonner123456

You have a formidable mind. And an elegant tongue. With an underlying poetic sensibility. A pleasure thru which to receive understanding. Thank you.

@arono9304

Bacon said it first; knowledge is power

@peimankhosravi

This is illuminating.

@RodrigoASolA

What a coincidence. I'm currently thinking how products of modern technique relate to time within Heidegger's proposal of "Gestell" through a term that I find very puzzling and rich, which is thrown around a bit in the geological and contemporary art sphere: "technofossil". I mention this because of Bacon's pretense of absolute control of the universe and technical products as κτῆσις εἰς ἀεί. I recently read another of Bacon's posthumous works titled none other than TEMPORIS PARTUS MASCULUS (related to a previous text titled TEMPORIS PARTUS MAXIMUS). Though the content doesn't really develop on the title (which suggests that the greatest birth of Time is scientific knowledge), I would think it to be very exemplar of his Faustian pretense to think that modern industrial enterprise would in fact be able to give birth to time. Think of transhumans, for example. But in another sense, one in which I'm more interested in: think how we can produce things that will endure for many centuries to come (produced, by the way, in mere milliseconds: plastic bags is a great), of which an extreme example is nuclear waste. Anyhow, I think Bacon ought to be read more. Thanks for the lecture and, by the way, have you any idea on Bacon's thoughts on time?