Description: An Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon is one of Joseph de Maistre's most original and important works. Best known for his defence of throne and altar and for his critique of the political and religious thought of the Enlightenment, Maistre also addressed more fundamental philosophical issues. His critique of Bacon, written between 1814 and 1816, is a vigorous attack on the materialism and scientism that he believed characterized the thought of the French philosophes.
Brief description: Richard A. Lebrun is professor emeritus of the University of Manitoba.
Review Quotes: "This new translation will help to moderate the emphasis normally placed upon Maistre's authoritarianism. He anticipated something of the twentieth-century understanding of the active role played by the human mind in the empirical/inductive process utilized in modern science. An Examination of the Philosophy of Bacon reveals Maistre to be a complex thinker, whose focus on the centrality of power, in the tradition of Machiavelli and Hobbes, is balanced against a genuine spiritualism informed by Christian neo-Platonism and the European tradition of humane learning." David Klinck, Department of History, University of Windsor