Francis Bacon and the Project of Progress

✍ Scribed by Robert K. Faulkner

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 324
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book rehabilitates the reputation of Francis Bacon as one of the seminal founders of modernity, especially of modern political and economic science. Robert K. Faulkner argues that Baconian concepts have come to underlie a number of the progressive philosophies of the modern world. The book is clearly written and makes available a wide range of issues concerning the style of Bacon's writings and his politics. Highly recommended to both general and academic libraries at all levels.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Publication Data
Contents
Acknowledgments
Part I: The Politics of Enlightenment
Chapter 1: A Plan and Its Interpreters
Bacon's Project
Questioning the Importance of the Project
Questioning the Project
Notes
Chapter 2: The Art of Enlightenment
The Disorderly Order of the Essays
Literary and Rhetorical Methods: Essays as Agitation by "Dispersed Directions"
Of Discourse: Communication as Insinuating Domination
The First Stage: Sedition by Concealed Boldness
The Second Stage: Getting the Able Down to Business
The Third Stage: New Men and New Orders
The Fourth Stage: Image Making and the Father of Enlightenment
Notes
Chapter 3: Improvements on Machiavelli: Empire Humane, Civil, and Visionary
Machiavelli and the Essays
The Policy of Humanitarianism
Sedition by Economic Development
Custom as Regulated Opportunity
States and States of Learning
Notes
Part II: Self, Society, and Domination: Reconsidering Baconian Individualism
Chapter 4: The Self-Made Man
Bacon and the Varieties of Individualism
Opportunistic Individualism
An Art of Life
The Skeptical Critique
The Dynamics of Self-Making
Public Persona as a Delivery of Self
Notes
Chapter 5: The Ancients Corrected: Wisdom as Policy, Friendship as Leadership
The Illusion of Wisdom, the Policy of Knowledge
Friendship as Negotiation with Followers
Notes
Chapter 6: The Emperor over Time
Lessons of the Caesars
Lessons of the Inventor-God
Notes
Part III: The State of Progress
Chapter 7: Bacon and the Modern State
The Enigmatic Outlines
Modern State and Modern Thought
Notes
Chapter 8: Henry VII, the State-Builder
History as Enlightenment by Civil Memory
Marks of Statecraft
The King and His Rivals
Laws and Legislature
King and Counsellors
Notes
Chapter 9: The Great Power
Civil Politics
Essays and the Civil State
Counsellors as Framers and Administrators of Growth
Five Formulas for a Growing Nation
Five Formulas for Mobilizing a Nation for War
Notes
Chapter 10: The Politics of Hope
The Economics of Progress
Law as Effectual Security
The Fighting Creed of Humanity
Notes
Chapter 11: Visions and Powers: The Comprehensive Politics of Progress
Visionary Politics
"A Work Unfinished" - But a Literary Work Completed?
Conversion Poetry
Not Utopia But Real Progress
Progressive Visions and Civil Policies
The Progressive Vision as Exaggeration of Future Security
A Vision of Science
The Power of the State
Notes
Chapter 12: The Foundation of the Project
Danger and Disillusion
The Problem of the Foundation
The Problem of the Self
Notes
Appendix 1: Civil Image of Julius Caesar
Appendix 2: Imago Civilis Julii Caesaris
Appendix 3: Civil Image of Augustus Caesar
Appendix 4: Imago Civilis Augusti Caesaris
Index
Index to Discussions of 'Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral'
About the Author
Back Cover