Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores on Francis Bacon's complex relationship with the ancient tradition of atomism, and in so doing, demonstrates how Bacon struggled with the very form and meaning of the "particulate" matter upon which he would found his ratio-empirical natural philosophy. It delves into Bacon's debt to two strains of Franciscan philosophy: transcendental mysticism and Ockhamist nominalism. The book considers the extent to which Bacon's program of legal reform still speaks to the concerns of twenty-first-century institutions of legal learning. It also explores the unifying use of Baconian method by examining the latter's notions of historical thought and the degree to which Baconian inductive method could serve historical as well as natural philosophic research. It examines the ways that Bacon redeployed contemporary cultural discourses to articulate the character of his natural philosophy.