Talk:Roger Bacon: Difference between revisions

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==Roger Bacon and Islamic scholarship==

===Removing Arab embroidery===

Revolting. [[User:Rlinfinity|Rlinfinity]] ([[User talk:Rlinfinity|talk]]) 21:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

:I don't see the problem. It says he was "one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method" and says who he was inspired by. How does that detract from them? [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 01:21, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

=== 'Democracy in Islam', etc. ===

That book on 'Democracy in Islam', is of questionable topical focus here. First, it is actually emphasizing the Islamic influence on Bacon, not the Aristotelian one, so as a citation it was misused. Second, the names of the authors suggest rather obvious bias, they provide no supporting evidence, and their outlying point of view can hardly be found in your average work on Bacon. It's true that the [[Secret of Secrets]] may have had such origins. But it's not certain, and Bacon never read Arabic. The subsequent reference, Glick et al., discuss this in some detail without the sweeping remarks from 'Democracy in Islam'. I going to change Islamic to Arabic to follow them closer, by the way. [[User:Have mörser, will travel|Have mörser, will travel]] ([[User talk:Have mörser, will travel|talk]]) 16:03, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

 

Up in "Removing Arab Embroidery", I agree with 'flashinpon'. People bring Muslim things in places that don't need them and have never had them. It needs to be left "untouched" unless it has already been "touched". [[User:Kendall Shackelford|Kendall Shackelford]] ([[User talk:Kendall Shackelford|talk]]) 21:44, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

 

==Scholasticism==

shouldn't he also belong to [[:Category:Empiricists]]

:Yes. Done! —[[User:Aetheling|Aetheling]] 23:37, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

=== Scholasticism (specifically on Aristotle) ===

[[Aristotle]], though certainly not an [[empiricism|empiricist]], did at least try to derive science from the real world. [[Scholasticism]] relied on deduction from certain authorities (of whom Aristotle was one) whose claims were simply defined to be true—the real world had very little to do with it. In claiming that Bacon started to break from Scholasticism, I think we should careful not to also claim that he was breaking from Aristotle. —[[User:Ryanmcdaniel|Ryan McDaniel]] 19:45, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

:That's probably too general to be helpful here, with Bacon's scholarship being updated and improved so much lately but

::{{citation |editor-last=Bernardini |editor-first=Paola |editor2-last=Rodolfi |editor2-first=Anna |display-editors=0 |title=Roger Bacon's ''Communia Naturalium'': A 13th-Century Philosopher's Workshop |location=Florence |publisher=SISMEL: Edizioni del Galluzzo |date=2014 |series=''Macrologus Library'', No. 64 |isbn=9788884505736 }}.

 

== Dated historiography ==

== Quotations ==

How can this section be said to be unsourced/unreferenced, when it consists of quotations from Bacon's works, each referenced ? -- [[User:HenriLobineau|HenriLobineau]]

 

==Date of death==

===Death===

His life seems to peter out in 2010, with no mention of when, where and how he died. A death date of 11 June 1294 gets quite a run on Google, although some cites say it's "possible" or "probable" rather than "certain". A death year of 1292 is also found. -- [[User:JackofOz|JackofOz]] ([[User talk:JackofOz|talk]]) 00:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

===Death Date? ===

Currently, the article states that Bacon was born c. 1214 (correct), but that he died in 1240. That is patently false, as the article itself tells of events in his life in the 1270s. Presumably, the estimated time of his death is something like c. 1280. Perhaps someone with a bonafide source could supply a more accurate death date. [[User:Lapisphil|Lapisphil]] ([[User talk:Lapisphil|talk]]) 02:22, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

===Date of death===

 

== Beavers? ==

== Peter of Maricourt ==

The article states that Bacon regarded Peter of Maricourt and John of London as "perfect mathematicians", as do other sources such as the online DNB. However, the Wikipedia article on Peter suggests that the comment is probably a gloss by a later writer. No reference is given for this statement. Does anyone know whether it is generally accepted that Bacon described these two as perfect mathematicians? [[User:Dudley Miles|Dudley Miles]] ([[User talk:Dudley Miles|talk]]) 13:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

 

== Changing interpretations of Bacon ==

:::http://www.answers.com/topic/roger-bacon

::David C Lindberg is one of the world's leading historians of medieval science. His 'Beginnings of Western Science' is the leading textbook in it's area; hence why he is cited multiple times; or was until all the content was taken out of the article. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/217.205.116.242|217.205.116.242]] ([[User talk:217.205.116.242|talk]]) 15:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

 

== Bacon in Fiction ==

This paragraph is bylined 'dubious':

:"Probably the most comprehensive and accessible description of Roger Bacon's life and times to a modern reader is contained in the book Doctor Mirabilis, written in 1964 by the science fiction author James Blish. This is the second book in Blish's quasi-religious trilogy After Such Knowledge, and is a complete, at times biographical recounting of Bacon's life and struggle to develop a 'Universal Science'. Though thoroughly academically researched, with a host of accurate references, including extensive use of Bacon's own writings, frequently in the original Latin, the book is written in the style of a novel, and Blish himself referred to it as 'fiction' or 'a vision'."

:I support the assertion - could the contributor who assigned the 'dubious' status please step forward? This is weaselly nitpicking, and a clear failure to read the article and interpret context. Shame on you ! --[[User:Deepshark5|Deepshark]] ([[User talk:Deepshark5|talk]]) 12:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

::[[User:Stevenmitchell]] added that, and including the inline comment "This is totally ridiculous and unsubstantiated. For the author to come to that conclusion, they would have to ignore half of the information written about and by him. This book is based on research from 45 years ago - it is hardly current..." I tend to agree. If you want to say a piece of fiction is ""Probably the most comprehensive and accessible description of Roger Bacon's life and times", then you better cite a good secondary source for that opinion. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 01:19, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

::::Re last post by Dicklyon: Could you recommend a better parsing or phrasing ? Blish (1964) notes himself that '...A genius and his works remain unruly to this day...' Things haven't changed much since then, and working with Roger's ''Opus Tert.'' is a real headache - I gave it a go at University. Nevertheless, I suspect the assertion does have some validity - there are very few English language books that are not scholarly in form and function that give an account of Roger Bacon. In addition, there does not appear to be much research undertaken about Roger Bacon - searches on publisher's websites such as Springer, Elsevier, Wiley etc. who have Science History journals do not appear to be saying much about recent work in relation to Bacon studies - though please correct me if I am wrong, I have merely being skimming abstracts. The main contributor could perhaps be interpreted as saying that ''Doctor Mirabilis'' is the most non-scholarly English language account of Bacon's life. Would this perhaps be a better way to phrase the statement ? comments please - I can make the correction very quickly, if you would like me to do so (and its a quick job too!) --[[User:Deepshark5|Deepshark]] ([[User talk:Deepshark5|talk]]) 03:23, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

:::::I don't have any particular knowledge or insights about this, just pointing out that interpretive statements should follow sources. If you want to say something interpretive about a source (fiction or otherwise), you need another source that does that; otherwise, just reports fact and opinions from the source itself. [[User:Dicklyon|Dicklyon]] ([[User talk:Dicklyon|talk]]) 03:35, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

::::::It's now over a year since this discussion. Is the tag saying the claim is "dubious" still needed?&mdash; [[User:Rodw|Rod]] ^{[[User talk:Rodw|talk]]} 22:11, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

 

==Fansite!==

 

After the change above, I think I should cite at least some of the reasons that make me question the Goldstones: (1) They are not historians of science. (2) The book is not academic - their popularized account of Bacon did not necessarily received the same scrutiny expected from scholarly works (e.g. peer review, etc.). (3) They have received criticism such as this: "''In the coverage of Bacon's life and work there are a number of small but telling flaws that suggest rather rapid research from limited sources. Statements made as fact about Bacon's history (...) have no documentary basis. Bacon's medieval science is totally misunderstood (...) Similarly there are some worrying errors when they finally get onto manuscript and its encipherment...''" [http://www.popularscience.co.uk/reviews/rev185.htm] --[[User:Leinad-Z|Leinad-Z]] ([[User talk:Leinad-Z|talk]]) 12:31, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

 

=== The Goldstones are amusing ===

The last chapter of their book starts with "INSTEAD OF BEING THE MAKING OF BACON'S REPUTATION, the cipher manuscript turned out to be the ruin of it." Never mind that no serious work on Bacon has spent any time on the Voynich MS before or after. And they wildly flap their arms on the edge of the abyss after that, trying to show that the 20th century reevaluations of Bacon couldn't have possibly been caused by anything else. For example, after dismissing Thorndike and Hackett, they write "As for the academic community, the only serious study of Bacon's life since Thorndike was Stewart Easton's ''Roger Bacon and His Search for a Universal Science''. Easton, while assuring the reader that he had “tried to keep from any bias for or against” Bacon, went on to say, “I have worked on the assumption that he cannot have been unique, and that his originality, as, indeed, all human originality, has rested on his treatment of materials familiar to large numbers of people in his time.” Would Easton have taken the same approach if he were writing about Newton or Einstein? As it was, through the filter of that assumption, Easton came to the conclusion, not surprisingly, that little that Bacon did was original (or unique)." Etc. [[User:Have mörser, will travel|Have mörser, will travel]] ([[User talk:Have mörser, will travel|talk]]) 23:46, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

 

===References===

==The Name of the Rose==

Note he is a major background character in Ecco's "Name of the Rose" and also that he is said to have written on hiding messeages in paintings as well as the more obvious cyphers.[[User:Wblakesx|Wblakesx]] ([[User talk:Wblakesx|talk]]) 10:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)wblakesx

 

== crackpottery ==

 

== 'Opus Majus', 'Opus maius' ==

 

I suspect this came to be because of the capitalization rules in Wikipedia article titles, which don't conform to the academic practice for Latin titles with respect to capitalization: [[Opus Majus]], [[Secretum Secretorum]], [[Liber Ignium]] etc. [[User:Have mörser, will travel|Have mörser, will travel]] ([[User talk:Have mörser, will travel|talk]]) 04:22, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

 

== Astrology ==

== Quote from Mayer ==

<blockquote>A few outstanding minds like Roger Bacon stood out, but they were regarded with great suspicion by the Church. Small wonder that Bacon had vast contempt for the prevailing knowledge of his time and he thought that he could learn more from the man in the street than from renowned scholars. He felt that the only road to truth lay in experimentation, not in abstract statements about God, the soul, and angels. While predicting the invention of the airplane, the submarine, and the motor car, he urged also the study of mathematics to give a quantitative basis to science. Still he was suffering from the limitations of his time. His main purpose was to substantiate the truth of the Bible and he believed in experimental science to ward off the onslaughts of the Anti-Christ</blockquote>

: Okay, thanks. It's quite difficult to consider Mayer as RS about Bacon, but at least we know he emitted that opinion. [[User:ASCIIn2Bme|ASCIIn2Bme]] ([[User talk:ASCIIn2Bme|talk]]) 07:53, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

 

:::This discussion isn't very productive. The recent work of Easton (1952) and Hackett (1980) supercedes older historiography. Since Easton's study in 1952 there's been a historical consensus that Bacon opposed what he saw as the poor preparation of Albertus and those like him who taught theology without having studied natural philosophy in the arts curriculum.

:::We've both said our piece. If you want to edit the article to provide other well sourced interpretations of the "unnamed master", do so. Then we'll have a concrete alternative to consider. [[User:SteveMcCluskey|SteveMcCluskey]] ([[User talk:SteveMcCluskey|talk]]) 13:20, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

 

== In popular culture/trivia ==

 

A "trivia" banner has been added to the "In popular culture" section of this article, suggesting "This article appears to contain trivial, minor, or unrelated references to popular culture." Do other editors feel this is appropriate/valid and should any changes be made a s a result?&mdash; [[User:Rodw|Rod]] ^{[[User talk:Rodw|talk]]} 10:52, 25 November 2015 (UTC)