Learning to See: The Visualizing Instruments of Francis Bacon’s Interpretation of Nature

This essay highlights one generally neglected way in which Francis Bacon described his interpretation of nature: as relying on a set of instruments apt to train inquirers’ minds to see as they proceed along the path from sensory to intellectual perception. I show that these include a set of symbolic images and a class of experiments. I argue that Bacon’s “new logic” critically depends on such instruments of visualization, and, thus, on a cognitive mechanism associated with the imagination. I further assert that, contrary to the prevalent view, Bacon’s “art of tradition” has deep ties with his “art of direction.”