The Hermeneutic Implications Of Bacon’s Theory Of Natural Interpretation

This thesis aims to discuss and study Bacon’s theory of natural interpretation.The specific research is based on Bacon’s theory,which contains rich hermeneutic factors that are the key to deeply explore the root of problems.Digging deeply into the hermeneutic factors in Bacon’s theory can broaden the research field of vision,comprehensively and deeply discover the essence and internal laws of problems,and thus better guide the practical work.At the beginning of the thesis,the proposition that “human beings are the servants and interpreters of nature” put forward by Bacon is emphasized again.According to Bacon’s argument,human beings play the role of serving and interpreting in nature,and human beings should act according to nature rather than trying to control and dominate the natural world.From this point of view,the research objects and methods that need to be paid attention to in the theory of natural interpretation are briefly introduced.Bacon believed that through innovative tools and methods,we can better understand and study nature.Therefore,the focus of natural interpretation theory is the study of nature.Conducting natural research does not rely solely on the popular guessing method at the time.Instead,this kind of research is based on principles that provide human beings with the necessary guidance to interpret the workings and laws of nature.This kind of research requires people to uphold a rigorous attitude and follow scientific methods to collect,analyze and interpret data.Only in this way can we get reliable results and provide valuable knowledge for human society.This method requires going from ordinary low-level principles to high-level principles without intervals.Only in this way is it possible to pass through the outer court of truth into its inner court.In addition,the thesis emphasizes the need to guide theories of natural interpretation.The second part of the thesis discusses the origin and development of Bacon’s idols theory.It is known that Bacon believes that human beings are often deceived by idols and experiences,leading to misunderstandings about the real cognition of things.Through scientific empirical methods and thorough investigation,people can shed these idols and approach the truth.In the process of interpreting the natural world,idols become the biggest obstacle to people’s correct understanding of the natural world.The idols include racial idols,cave idols,market idols and theater idols.It can be divided into the following categories: idols based on racial attributes,idols formed by education level or environment,and idols caused by language,or idols from authoritative theories;but they all have one thing in common: that is,they hinder the correct progress of natural interpretation in different ways.Through the discussion and research on the theory of idols,it can be concluded that idols and the prejudice discussed in the theory of hermeneutics have something in common.The idols theory in Bacon’s idols theory can be understood as a hermeneutic bias to a certain extent.By analyzing and researching Bacon’s theory of four idols,we can see the hindering effect of the four idols as the pre-understanding structure in Bacon’s theory of natural interpretation,and we can also see the language problems in Bacon’s four idols related to hermeneutics.The third part of the thesis discusses the hindrance and removal of prejudice to natural interpretation.Based on the analysis and research on Bacon’s four idols,it can be found that prejudice is the source of errors in all natural interpretation.Bacon’s attitude toward idols or prejudice is itself contradictory.While he wished to remove the idols,he also realized that it couldn’t be completely eradicated.For that would mean clearing the human understanding itself.But Bacon’s final point ultimately has to be cleared of idols or prejudice.He proposed the solution of scientific induction.Bacon believed that scientific induction is an effective way to avoid misunderstanding.The fourth part of the thesis discusses some problems and limitations of Bacon’s theory.Scholars believe that Bacon’s theory tends to simplify nature into a predictable and controllable machine,ignoring the complexity and uncertainty of nature.In addition,Bacon emphasized empiricism and induction,while ignoring the role of reason and deduction.His theory still has certain subjectivity and limitations,and it is difficult to apply it to the research of certain fields and problems.Bacon’s theory is limited by the times and the environment,and its shortcomings are also obvious.Later Popper and Gadamer criticized the theory of natural interpretation on their own standpoints.Both Popper and Gadamer realized that prejudice promotes our understanding of nature and the interpretation of natural processes.They both expressed their support for prejudice from the philosophical point of view they advocated,and these supporting arguments also came from the opposite.The perspective allows us to discover the hermeneutic factors hidden in Bacon’s theory of natural interpretation.