OFB V: Early Philosophical Writings

Oxford Francis Bacon V:
Early Philosophical Writings to c.1611

Ed. by Rhodri Lewis, Sophie Weeks & Daniel Andersson

Dating many of the texts in this volume is extremely difficult. With the exception of the De sapientia veterum, none were published in Bacon’s lifetime, and most are incomplete or unfinished. Be this as it may, these works are vital to any understanding of Bacon’s development as a philosophical (and natural philosophical) thinker in the years immediately before and after his Advancement of Learning. They give us a much clearer idea of what and how he read, thought and wrote at a time when he was first defining what his instauratio magna might look like. All but two of them are written in Latin. This volume will establish, annotate and translate these texts, making them newly accessible to interested scholars across a broad range of disciplines.

Contents

1 [Cogitationes de scientia humana] (before 1605?) CDSH
2 De interpretatione naturæ proœmium (before 1605?) DINP
3 Cogitationes de natura rerum (before 1605?) CDNR
4 Valerius Terminus of the interpretation of nature (by c. 1603) VT
5 Temporis partus masculus (c. 1603) TPM
6 Tradendi modus legitimus (c. 1603) TML
7 Caput secundum (c. from 1603) CSec
8 Filum labyrinthi, sive formula inquisitionis (c. 1607) FL
9 De interpretatione naturæ sententiæ xii (c. 1607?) DIN
10 Cogitata et visa de interpretatione naturæ (c. 1607) CV
11 Indicia vera de interpretatione naturæ (from 1607) IVDI
12 Partis instaurationis secundæ delineatio & argumentum (by 1609) PID
13 Redargutio philosophiarum (by 1609) RPh
14 Scala intellectus sive filum labyrinthi (n.d.) SI
15 Franciscus Bacon lectori (1607–08?) FBL
16 Filum labyrinthi sive inquisitio legitima de motu (1607–08?) FLIL
17 Inquisitio legitima de motu (by 27 July 1608) ILM
18 Aphorismi et consilia de auxiliis mentis (c. 1607?) AC
19 Historia soni et auditus (c. 1608?) HSA
20 Calor et frigus (n.d.) CFr
21 De sapientia veterum (1609) DSV