The incomprehensible effectiveness of logic, or The scandal of Francis Bacon’s true induction

Abstract

We take seriously a statement of Francis Bacon (1561–1626) that what is he creating is no new philosophy, but a new logic. The demarcation of the disciplinary boundaries of the experimental natural science and the new logic, “the art of questioning and interpreting nature”, turns out to be the key task of the grandiose reform of scientific knowledge initiated by his Novum Organum. Bacon proposes his “logic of discovering” including the true induction as the first part of the four parts of logic three other parts of which have been invented before him. This task involves a design of a double transition, from the experimental data in the “lower axioms” though the “middle axioms” to a particular logical system with its “higher axioms”, and vice versa, from the logical system to the experimental data. We consider Bacon’s true induction as a conceptual technology for eliminating of the “vague abstractions” in a conversation with nature about the truth. Based on the generalization of data from the examples of presence, absence, and degree, the true induction through the data refinement and validation relates its outcomes to probabilistic and plausible reasonings about reasonings. Technological devices of Baconian conceptual design are constructed to provide the imperfect cognitive agent with instructions for the interface design of sequential step-by-step ascent through the levels of abstraction from initial experimental data to true knowledge, thus presumably guaranteeing the comprehensible effectiveness of logical knowledge.