The Political-philosophical Interpretation Of Bacon’s"Great Instauration"

The "Great Instauration" was named by Francis Bacon for his overall writing project. This plan had not been accomplished, but this incompleteness is precisely one of the important features of this project for it points to the future and requires cooperation of all mankind in this regard. Past studies about Bacon either were from the perspective of epistemology (thus ignoring the to-be-extended integrity of Bacon’s philosophy), or just treated the "Great Instauration" as carefully artful rhetoric (thus ignoring this feature completely). In recent years, scholars have begun digging the theological basis of the philosophy of Bacon, tried to show that Bacon’s admiration of science and technology must be placed in the context of the Christianity. But this makes the understanding of Bacon’s philosophy too confined to the range of religion.This paper seeks to explain the proposition of Bacon’s "Great Instauration" from the perspective of political philosophy, to establish contact with its times, and to show the integrity of Bacon’s thought. To do this, a careful textual analysis is always a priority; and I focus on Bacon’s published works. Following Quentin Skinner, this paper explores the social and intellectual origin of Bacon’s works, including the main problems he faced in his political life and the inheritance of assumptions on the political society. In the analysis of Bacon’s social and intellectual context, we are not only concerned about the general opinion of the times of Bacon, but also particularly Bacon’s potential interlocutors.More specifically, this paper will be organized in three parts:the first part, start from the historical background and knowledge environment, the context of the proposition of Bacon’s "Great Instauration" is established. The historical background he faced was the breakdown of a unified Christian world, and the religious and political crisis it brought. Knowledge environment has two aspects, one is the Renaissance, the other is the religious reform movement. The Renaissance discussed the background and key insights of Italian humanism and biblical humanism, while the religious reform movement discussed the key points about the theological reform and its political implications. On this basis, Bacon’s thoughts are ideologically positioned.The second part of this paper analyzes the connotation of the "Great Instauration" proposition, including two layers:the intellectual renaissance, and the human dominion over universe. The "Great Instauration" was defined as these two because of Bacon’s interpretation of the Bible. The relationship between these two can only be understood in the Christian context. The intellectual renaissance was comprehensive with a focus on natural philosophy. Through natural philosophy Bacon established the road to the power of God for mankind.The third part interprets the "Great Instauration" from the perspective of political philosophy. On the relationship between religion and politics, Machiavelli placed politics on top of the religion while Erasmus placed religion above politics. For Bacon, to solve the conflict between religion and politics one must rely on the philosophy, specifically, natural philosophy. Only natural philosophy rationalizes the relationship between man and God, providing a Christian understanding about the origin, range and destination of secular power.