Dissecting Nature "ad vivum": Parts and Wholes in Francis Bacon's Natural Philosophy

Dana Jalobeanu (University of Bucharest)

The ALEF research group (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) announces an online talk by Dana Jalobeanu (University of Bucharest) entitled "

"Dissecting Nature ad vivum: Parts and Wholes in Francis Bacon's Natural Philosophy". The talk is part of the group's regular seminar and takes place on Friday, MAY 13, 18.00 EEST. Please write to [email protected] or check our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ALEF-100692348488914) if you want to participate. For more information about ALEF, as well as the schedule for the seminar in the 2021-2022 spring semester, please visit https://sites.google.com/view/alefgroupcluj.

Here is the abstract of the talk:

Francis Bacon’s atomism has been discussed in the literature from the restricted perspective related to his appetitive matter theory. In this paper I will approach Bacon’s atomism differently, from the perspective of his numerous attempts to define and determine concrete, individual bodies, subject to experimental trials. I show that what Bacon finds useful about Democritian atomism is that it uses division as a method of investigation and a heuristic tool. Bacon is interested in division, but this is not solely for the purpose of building a matter-theory. His interest is more general and regards the ways in which experiments and the experimental investigation can be used to determine correctly the concrete bodies which undergo transformations. It is what Bacon calls “cutting nature at its joints”.