Intellectual Hinterlands Panel: Francis Bacon, Theology, and Metaphysics
This panel seeks to discuss the theological context of Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) abstract physics and metaphysics. Recent scholarship on Bacon’s more ‘speculative’ treatises (c. 1611-1619) has demonstrated that he sought to develop his own unique understanding of the matter, forms, and laws which constituted and governed the universe. At the same time, it has increasingly shown his indebtedness to the religious climate of the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries. How, though, did theological and religious considerations contribute to the shaping of Bacon’s matter theory or to his theory of forms, for example? Is there a clear theological strand to Bacon’s thought about the underlying character of the universe, or is it genuinely eclectic? This panel seeks three papers which will address any question related to the religious context which informed Bacon’s abstract physics and/or metaphysics.
Number of participants sought: 3
Closing date: 6 January 2014
Please send all abstracts, biographies, and queries to the panel convener: James A.T. Lancaster.