Hossein Jorjani
First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30
Revised: 2026 – 09 – 06
In Aphorism I:12 of the Novum Organum (1620), Bacon argues that the logic inherited from the scholastic tradition serves less to discover truth than to preserve and stabilize errors arising from widely accepted but defective notions. He therefore contrasts the prevailing logical method with the inquisitio veritatis (“inquiry into truth”), making this the first occurrence of veritas in the Aphorisms. Here, “truth” is employed in a methodological rather than a metaphysical sense. To understand what Bacon means by inquisitio veritatis, one must be cognizant that three concurrent senses of veritas may be distinguished in Bacon’s corpus. (1) In the philosophical or scholastic tradition, it denotes the correspondence of intellect and reality as a metaphysical principle. (2) In the moral or legal domain, as in the Essays (“Of Truth”), it signifies veracity or the conformity of speech to fact and justice. (3) In the scientific sense emerging in the Novum Organum, “truth” denotes the dependable conformity of the intellect to nature attained through systematic experiment and induction—a procedural rather than a metaphysical adequation.
In the present Excursus, attention is directed specifically to this third, scientific sense of veritas, and to the question of how it may be understood in our own time. The issue is not merely historical. Since the mid-twentieth century—particularly in the wake of the catastrophic events of the Second World War (1939–1945)—the ideals of impartiality and objectivity in science have been repeatedly questioned. Sociologists and philosophers of science have argued that theoretical frameworks are never wholly autonomous from the social, political, and institutional conditions in which they arise (see also I:38 [2]). Yet if Bacon’s inquisitio veritatis is to remain meaningful for modern inquiry, one must articulate how scientific objectivity can still be maintained within a socially situated practice. This requires defending the reliability of the measurements that theories both invoke and test: for only if such measurements retain intersubjective validity can the correspondence between experiment and explanation—the very ground of empirical truth—be preserved.
Consider a simple but telling case. A calibrated mercury thermometer placed in a room registers 21 °C. Its operation presupposes conventions of calibration and the physical theory of thermal expansion; in this sense, the observation is indeed theory-laden. Yet the act of observation itself remains strikingly robust. Any competent observer—irrespective of class, gender, ethnicity, religion, or political persuasion—will see the same mercury column and read the same number. The thermometer does not discriminate among observers; it mediates a stable relation between a physical state and a numerical value. The reading may be misused or misinterpreted, but its reproducibility across persons and conditions affirms a level of objectivity that social or ideological differences cannot efface. Here the empirical act—the shared perception of a consistent measurement—embodies what may be called relative objectivity: not absolute detachment, but intersubjective agreement grounded in the disciplined interaction between observer, instrument, and world.
The question of what is meant by “reality” has been debated for centuries, both in philosophy and in the natural sciences. Philosophers have offered divergent accounts—from idealist claims that reality depends upon perception, to realist assertions that it exists wholly independent of the observer. Scientists, too, have engaged in similar debates, often divided between those who emphasize the theoretical construction of phenomena and those who defend the autonomy of the physical world. Each of these positions, when taken to extremes, risks either dissolving the object of inquiry into pure subjectivity or treating theory as a transparent mirror of nature. For the purposes of scientific inquiry, and in continuity with Bacon’s methodological concerns, aspects of reality may be represented operationally by reproducible observations and by estimates obtained through repeated measurements, independent instruments, and controlled conditions. This operational criterion makes no claim to metaphysical finality. Reproducible regularities are treated as evidence about reality, not as identical with reality itself. It is this operational and cumulative stability—the convergence of independent measurements—that lends empirical inquiry its authority and gives content to the Baconian idea of inquisitio veritatis (“inquiry into truth”).
On the basis of this working definition of “reality,” one may also clarify what is meant by “theory” and “truth.” The genesis of a theory in the human mind—whether it arises through the systematic inductive procedure envisioned by Bacon or through other, less formal paths—remains largely inscrutable. What can be said is that, once formed, a theory may operate as a simplicus, isolating a particular component, relation, or explanatory mechanism, or as a compositum, integrating multiple components, relations, levels, or mechanisms whose combined effects may not be reducible to their separate contributions. In either form, theory functions as a structured anticipation of experience: it projects relations into what remains unknown or incompletely known, in the expectation that subsequent observations and measurements will support, modify, or reject them. For explanation of Simplicus and Compositum see: Excursus 013 and Excursus 090. “Scientific truth,” accordingly, may be understood as a consistently high degree of agreement between a provisional theory and reproducible empirical representations of the aspect of reality it seeks to explain, with the remaining uncertainty stated as explicitly as possible. This formulation neither divinizes theory nor dissolves reality into perception. It situates scientific truth in the evolving correspondence between theoretical constructions and disciplined empirical access to an independently existing reality—a correspondence that gives modern content to Bacon’s inquisitio veritatis.
Bacon, F. (1620) Novum Organum, Aphorism I-XII (1:12)
The logic currently in use is better suited to preserving and stabilizing errors—errors rooted in widely accepted but flawed notions—than to aiding the inquiry into truth. In this sense, it is more harmful than beneficial.
Hossein Jorjani 