Hope you enjoy these short essays by the tasty Bacon himself. Who else here loves both forms of BACON?

These videos are the mental equivalent of my daily workout routine. Looking forward to sipping the coffee while following you in your journey over the next few months.

Glad to hear you say the idea of Bacon writing/contributing to the works of Shakespeare is "implausible," as indeed it is.

I have never been exposed to the writings of Francis Bacon before in earnest. I didn't know what I was missing. Attending to remedy this situation on a priority basis ! Thank you again dear Mr. Pirie. GOD Bless you Sir.

Every light shined creates shadow. Every truth disguises a consequence.

You have inspired me. Thanks

I just came across your channel today and have binge-watched every video. I'm loving it! I'm in a Discord group with a bunch of others who do a program from The Art Of Manliness (it's called The Strenuous Life if you want to read about it), and we've been doing a book club via Zoom calls for a while now. We started with Meditations, and most recently finished The Odyssey. Watching you talk about these books is like a stimulating conversation with the club. Coincidentally, I also enjoy a good cup of coffee while doing it, haha.

Very nice, as always. Thank you!

It is absolutely insane to argue that "religion has always united us." Religions are just forms of ideology, and ideology is the most effective way of getting decent people to do horrendous things. Atheism would do much more to unite us than religions ever could. Nice series, Rob.

#13:25 interesting because mortimer uses this same line in his book how to read a book- and he defines reading as the forth stomach which means a good reading should be well digest to the extent it nourish our actions and thinking

Very nice commentary, thanks

#14:13 many past intellectuals has the way with words and one present one said that- a sentence from the past can be explained in a book and today,a book can be sum up in a sentence

man this channel is growing really quickly congrats on 700 subs! that is a very full description The bit about people and keyboards made me laugh the comment section reminded me why a friend of mine sometimes calls good ideas "mind snacks"

#10:40 to choose time is to save time. If we all live by this line, then it would suffice some people commonly say "let's go burn time", no we cannot burn time, time is the house we live in, either we benefit from it or not

Excellent video! You always present enlightening biographical information about the authors. Given that Bacon never had children and given the innuendo you made about Bacon and the king, I suppose that he never consummated his marriage with his young bride - thankfully! Nevertheless, his marriage is still repulsive, no matter what the time period and what the circumstances. It surprises me that such a marriage was ever acceptable in the West. After reading the mostly morbid mediations of the Stoics in Volume 2, I found Bacon's writings refreshing. About the Stoics he writes, "Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful." Perhaps this quote explains why Marcus Aurelius never seemed to discard his fear of death. Regarding the quote at 5:52, it seems plausible that wives and children are impediments to great enterprises, but many men of the past who had wives and children undertook great enterprises. For example, in the domain of poetry, Shakespeare and Milton had wives and children. In the domain of music, Bach and Mozart had wives and children. In the domain of exploration, Columbus and Cook had wives and children. To me, wives and children seem to be inducements, not impediments, to great enterprises. I have often read and heard the following sentiment expressed: "Women are the reason men do everything." Of course, this is an overstatement of men's motivations, but perhaps it is not far from the truth, especially after adding children to the mix. Orwell is one of my favorite authors. In his novel 1984, he writes, "The best books are those that tell you what you know already." I will expand on that and say that the best books are those that tell you what you know already but cannot articulate. While reading the essays, I often felt that Bacon was telling me something that I knew already but could not articulate. Furthermore, Bacon expressed those ideas in an elegant and concise way. Below are some of the quotes that made me say, "Ah-ha! that's exactly what I have been trying to pull out of the mist in my mind." "Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue." "It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty." "Riches are for spending, and spending for honor and good actions." "They that write books on the worthlessness of glory, take care to put their names on the title page."

Love your channel. I really admire all the things you are doing in terms of raising and educating your family and starting your coffee business. Not going into debt and living your own life by your own standards. It's admirable. Even though I have a doctorate I love the concept of being able to get a great education from books and I also feel that our educational system often does less to educate a person than critical reading and experience can. In terms of Bacon's philosophy towards atheism, I have to disagree. I feel it is the opposite. As a person becomes more enlightened they will tend towards atheism and not religion. Faith by definition is a sort of anti-enlightenment as it requires you to believe in something without evidence or rationality. I think a person reaches a higher level of philosophical learning when they choose to be an ethical person for its own sake without regards to punishments or rewards after death and most christians are motivated by the later. In reality a christian is almost as much of an atheist as an atheist is as a christian does not believe in the vast majority of gods who have ever existed. Atheists simply take it one god further. I for myself am hopeful that there is something after death, but I won't base my faith on simple fear of nothingness, society conformity, or peer pressure. In any event, thank you for being awesome! I'll be following along on your journey for sure. Can't wait to buy some coffee!

Listening to your commentary I can see you did a good job of annotating Bacon's essays. But it is one thing to read the essays and another to think upon them and how they contribute to his basic philosophical teachings. There is a difference between reading for information (which public education teaches as a matter of rote, and reading for understanding, something like the Bible demands. One can teach knowledge easily enough but teaching understanding is significantly harder. What matters is that you are on the right track, your main "job" is to spark the listener's interest in acquiring intimacy with the great thinkers of the past.

I thought Aristotle was the one who started the scientific method.

Great episode Rob. How did he take his coffee with all that Bacon? I imagine with a name like that he would have to add a little flavor to his coffee. Haha

Where did you buy the books and for how much?

Are vegetarians allowed to read Bacon?

Didn’t Edgar Allan Poe also marry a very young girl? Please excuse me if I have misspoken.

" Perhaps there are only three books which can be said to be really important. One is written by Aristotle. The name of the book is Organum. It means the first principle of wisdom. The second book is written by Bacon, who is the father of all modern science. His book's name is Novum Organum, new principle of wisdom. Aristotle is thought to be the father of Western logic, mathematics and related sciences, and Bacon is certainly the most important figure who has created the whole of science, the whole technology that has made the West strong, rich, affluent, healthy. And the third important book is Ouspensky's Tertium Organum, the third principle of wisdom. Lord Bacon, a great scientific mind, has written in his famous book, Novum Organum, that Pythagoras was a great fanatic. Now, this is utter nonsense. Bacon's book is really great; except for this one statement, the book is of immense value. It is said that there are three great books in the world. First is Aristotle's Organum - Organum means principle. The second is Bacon's Novum Organum - new principle. And third is Ouspensky's Tertium Organum - the third principle. And they ARE really great books, incomparable. In the West this is very significant. People go on writing books and books about whether Shakespeare ever existed or not. As if it makes any difference. The plays that Shakespeare wrote are so beautiful - why not look into the plays and love and enjoy them? This seems to be going astray to ask whether Shakespeare existed or not. And the problem arises because it is thought that Shakespeare was an uneducated man so how could he write such beautiful things? Have you ever known very educated men to write beautiful things? It is thought that it was not Shakespeare but Lord Bacon who was the real author. But I cannot trust this because I have read Lord Bacon's other books - they have nothing to compare with Shakespeare. Lord Bacon is just ordinary. He may have been a very learned man, he may have been a great scholar, but his books are ordinary, rubbish. Just because he is Lord Bacon and a very famous name, who is deceived? Have you ever heard the name of any book by Lord Bacon? Who is bothered? How could Lord Bacon write these Shakespearian plays? Under his name he has not written a single masterpiece so how could he write one under a pseudo-name? And if he can write such beautiful plays as the Shakespearian plays are, under a pseudo-name, then what was he doing when he was writing under his own name? It doesn't seem right. Thinking is like that - it goes on missing the whole point. If you really want to have any contact with reality, then thinking is not the bridge, it is the barrier. In only three hundred years science has touched great heights. And the reason? The reason is simple. The reason is that Bacon introduced experiment into the world of science. In just three hundred years so much has happened - it did not happen in three thousand years or even in thirty thousand years. It is because of one man, Bacon. He changed the whole course of science and the whole course of human consciousness just by creating a new door of experimentation. He said, "Speculation is not going to help. People have speculated down the ages and nothing has happened. They go on quarrelling about theories and those theories don't mean a thing." He introduced experiment. You will be surprised to know where Bacon got the idea of experiment from. You will not believe it! He got it from Sufism. He was a great reader of Sufi books, he was immensely interested in Sufi books, and from the Sufi ideas he got the idea that if experiment is the door to the inner world, why could it not be the door to the outer? Science owes much to Sufism because of this. If some day the right sources are searched for, then the real fathers of science will be the Sufis, not the Greek philosophers, Aristotle, Plato and others, no. They were all speculators. From where did the idea of experiment enter into the mind of Bacon? It entered from Sufism. He may have read this story or something else, but it entered from Sufism because Sufis are very insistent on experiment. And if religion is also going to grow, then experiment has to become its very foundation. Just as science has reached such a great height within such a small time limit - three hundred years - so religion can also have great possibilities if it becomes experimental. Religion has much to learn from Sufism. Sufism is the most essential religion - that's why I say it is existential, experimental, experiential."