H Glen Taylor
Thesis
Thesis
Industrious gentlemen and the moral material of individual knowledge in seventeenth-century England
Supervisors: Sophie Weeks and Mark Jenner
Research
Research
My research focuses on Francis Bacon’s (1561–1626) prescriptions for the individual cultivation of moral virtue pertaining to his project for the reform of natural philosophy. The overarching historiographical thrust of my analysis holds that Bacon’s philosophy is unique in its objective diagnosis of the human animal as an intrinsically flawed instrument of methodology which, if not properly conditioned, is destructive to the integrity of natural enquiry.
In Bacon’s view, it is only through the self-disciplined, independent husbandry of moral virtue that the enquirer’s sensorium is able to subdue the inimical forces of the intellect and thereby effect an unobstructed interpretive – and manipulative – relationship with nature. Natural enquiry and its purpose, which is to harness nature to the end of human utility and beneficence, must proceed as an individual exercise of the native human capacity for moral discipline.
My thesis argues against claims that Bacon’s provisions sought to disqualify the solitary practitioner in deference to the methodological and epistemic authority of collective assessment. Within the context of moral virtue as a foundation of operative natural enquiry, my analysis follows the initial posthumous progress of Bacon’s natural and experimental philosophy as it influenced such figures as Samuel Hartlib and Robert Boyle in the 1630s and 1640s.
Papers and publications
Papers
- 'The vital material of moral virtue in Francis Bacon's natural philosophy', 10th European Society for the History of Science (ESHS) Conference: Science Policy and the Politics of Science, Brussels, 7-10 September 2022.
- ‘Conviction, convenience, and consent: individual agency versus collective consensus in Francis Bacon’s natural philosophy’, University of York History Department Research Seminar, University of York, 2 December 2020.
- ‘“Places appointed”: the role of formal education in Francis Bacon’s Great Instauration’, Edinburgh Early Modern Network Series, University of Edinburgh, 27 October 2020.
- ‘What sense in a witness? The ontology of authority in Francis Bacon’s experimental philosophy’, Medieval and Early Modern Student Association (MEMSA) Michaelmas Seminar Series, University of Durham, 2 December 2019.
- ‘From truth to utility: Francis Bacon and the reconceptualisation of truth in the seventeenth century’, British Society for the History of Science (BSHS) Postgraduate Conference, University of Cambridge, 10–12 April 2019."
Teaching
Teaching
Graduate Teaching Assistant for the module 'Knowledge and Beliefs in World History' (Autumn terms 2021 and 2022).
