Francis Bacon`s Philosophy of Science: machina intellectus and forma indita

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) wrote that good scientists are not like ants (mindlessly gathering data) or spiders (spinning empty theories). Instead, they are like bees, transforming nature into a nourishing product. This essay examines Bacon`s "middle way" by elucidating the means he proposes to turn experience and insight into understanding. The human intellect relies on "machines" to extend perceptual limits, check impulsive imaginations, and reveal nature`s latent causal structure, or "forms." This constructivist interpretation is not intended to supplant inductivist or experimentalist interpretations, but is designed to explicate Bacon`s account of science as a collaborative project with several interdependent methodological goals

A Burgessian critique of nominalistic tendencies in contemporary mathematics and its historiography

We analyze the developments in mathematical rigor from the viewpoint of a Burgessian critique of nominalistic reconstructions. We apply such a critique to the reconstruction of infinitesimal analysis accomplished through the efforts of Cantor, Dedekind, and Weierstrass; to the reconstruction of Cauchy's foundational work associated with the work of Boyer and Grabiner; and to Bishop's constructivist reconstruction of classical analysis. We examine the effects of a nominalist disposition on historiography, teaching, and research.Comment: 57 pages; 3 figures. Corrected misprint