A philosophy of science, based on the writings of Francis bacon, rejecting natural philosophy and sensory knowledge in favor of an empirical and inductive approach to understanding the universe and nature. Fighting traditional medieval philosophy and the Renaissance cult of rediscovered classics, Bacon argued that the metaphysical philosophers of his time had made no progress since antiquity, and in fact knew less than their Greek predecessors. A new philosophy for the new world demanded that men should amass and judiciously interpret data and conduct experiments, with the goal of mastering nature by learning its secrets through planned and organized observation.
This new philosophy, which Bacon called “the Great Instauration,” was presented in six parts: a thorough classification of the existing sciences; a new inductive logic as the paramount means of interpreting nature; collection of empirical data and conducting of experiments; a series of examples illustrating the successful working of the new method; a list of generalizations that could be derived inductively from the study of nature; and the new philosophy presented as a complete science of nature. Thus Bacon, having no real scientific background, laid out for the world not so much an account of what he himself had done, as an outline of what others ought to do.