Great Philosphers

Science and technology have been evolving since the being of the scientific revolution and are still relevant today. Without the evolution of science our economy, society and lifestyle would have greatly suffered, undergoing only minimal improvements. Science and technology make society prosperous while making people better. Scientists and philosophers, such as Bacon and Condorcet, who have devoted their lives to the study of science, would strongly agree with this statement; although there are other philosophers such as Rousseau who would have to disagree.

Francis Bacon, who was an influential public servant and a philosopher of science, devoted his life to a new scientific method for knowing the world. He developed five basic ideas that changed the way we think about knowledge. Art, literature, and other such pursuits took a back seat to science. Bacon stated that only through the five basic ideas of experimentation, organization, probability, power is knowledge and knowledge is power, can we acquire real knowledge. Knowledge is power became Bacons motto, stating that all former ideas of knowledge: virtue, true, right, were no longer good measures. Bacon strongly believed that science and technology shaped society and bettered the people. He believed that science was needed in order to find true knowledge and that knowledge gives you power over nature to produce better crops, control where water flows etc. In his book The New Atlantis Bacon clearly states" science and technology lead to happiness and progress both moral and materiel" (The New Atlantis p 149). Without scientific research there would be no true knowledge, so it is no surprise that Bacon believed it bettered both society and its peoples.

Francis Bacon was not the only philosopher who believed in the power of science and technology. Antoine Condorcet, a French nobleman who embraced the ideals of the enlightenment and its campaign for social reform, also saw science as a vital step toward society's betterment and prosperity. Condorcet used a scientific view of studying history, focusing heavily on metaphysics which is the study of historical progress. Condorcet argues that through scientific analyses we see that there are natural laws of social development guaranteeing that