A study of the thirteenth-century philosopher Roger Bacon reveals the medieval thought that erased non-Christian texts, figures and cultures from the history of science
In his works, the 13th-century English scholastic philosopher and Franciscan Roger Bacon depicted an alluring future that included, among other technological wonders, chariots of speed unimaginable without animal power, diving bells for exploring the ocean floor, and mirrors and lenses that could incinerate entire armies.These speculative techniques embody the promise of “scientia experimentalis,” Bacon's term for his theory of the production of scientific knowledge, which relied on both theory and empirical knowledge to obtain accurate knowledge of the natural world.
In the centuries after his death, others depicted Bacon's creativity and anticipation through partial readings, creative mistranslations, and intentional distortions of his works, especially with regard to experimental science.In his book Necessary Inventions, E. R. The figure of Roger Bacon and his subsequent legacy are used to establish and critique the role of chronology in the writing of the history of science, specifically the division between the “medieval” and the “modern era.” Truett shows how, in his lifetime, Bacon was part of an intellectual stream of men in Oxford and Paris, and how he consulted texts written in Arabic, which had recently become available in Latin, from which he borrowed. Bacon compiled and adapted knowledge related to optics, experimentation, and subjectsOthers with Christian thought. By the nineteenth century, Bacon had come to be seen in the context of the history of scientific development as a visionary who predicted (or, according to some views, invented) later technologies, and whose theory of experimental science preceded the scientific method by five hundred years.This framing suggests that Bacon's own era - the Middle Ages - was an era of intellectual immaturity, and that Bacon's ideas were premature because the period in which he lived was an era of intellectual stagnation, hostile to rational thought. Truett unravels the history of this characterization of the Middle Ages, showing how it organizes both the writing of the history of science and the narrative of scientific progress.Necessary Inventions reveals the logic of alternative theology that supports Bacon's characterization as a prophetic figure of scientific modernity, and exposes the medieval thought that enabled modern science to tell a story of scientific development that erased non-Christian texts, actors, and cultures from the history of science.
