| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

Stephen Gaukroger. Francis Bacon and the Transformation of Early-Modern Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2001. Pp. xii, 249. Cloth $59.95, paper $21.95.

This is a remarkable book, written by one of our leading authorities on René Descartes and Cartesianism, who turns his attention here to Francis Bacon and Baconianism, one of the most densely researched topics in the history of early modern science. Stephen Gaukroger offers one more reading of Bacon's philosophical achievement. "Bacon," he says, "is concerned with nothing less than a new era in human existence, the key to which lies . . . in a new kind of natural philosopher, whom Bacon hopes to mould" (p. 115). This new man (not woman), unlike philosophers of old, would not merely contemplate the world but use his knowledge to improve the human condition by providing us with "infinite commodities" (p. 71). Nor would he contemplate in splendid isolation; rather he would furnish a method of collective inquiry into nature that would allow us, with state sponsorship, to marshall the talents of many researchers. . . .

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