Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Bacon’s account of how knowledge is acquired, as presented in Aphorism I:37 of the Novum Organum (1620), resonates with other non-dogmatic conceptions of learning, both ancient and modern. Socrates, by contrast, maintained that knowledge is possible. Although he acknowledged the limits of his own knowledge, heContinue reading “Excursus 021 – On Recollection, Implicit Learning, and the Origins of Knowledge”
Tag Archives: epistemology
Excursus 020 – On Communication across Paradigms
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 The phenomenon of conceptual scaffolding may be clarified by analogy with coordinate transformations in linear algebra. When moving from one coordinate system to another, a point or vector is represented differently according to the basis in use. To understand the new representation, one must initially mapContinue reading “Excursus 020 – On Communication across Paradigms”
Excursus 019 – On Intellectual Inheritance, Conceptual Anagenesis, and the Three-Generation Heuristic
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Ideas are transmitted through intellectual lineages in a manner that resembles biological inheritance. A concept may pass from one thinker to another, retaining its name while gradually altering its function, scope, and internal meaning. In studying the history of ideas, one must therefore distinguish between verbalContinue reading “Excursus 019 – On Intellectual Inheritance, Conceptual Anagenesis, and the Three-Generation Heuristic”
Excursus 018 – On Epistemology and Cognitive Science
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Bacon’s taxonomy of idola was an early attempt to systematize the sources of error in human thought. While his classification emphasized cultural, linguistic, and experiential distortions, modern cognitive science reveals an additional biological dimension to these sources of error. Perceptual and cognitive processes are constrained byContinue reading “Excursus 018 – On Epistemology and Cognitive Science”
Excursus 017 – On Intellectual Autonomy and Heteronomy
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Bacon’s critique of received doctrine reflected a broader philosophical distinction between autonomy and heteronomy. An autonomous intellect forms its judgments—moral, epistemic, or conceptual—through independent engagement with reason and experience. A heteronomous intellect, by contrast, defers to external authorities or inherited frameworks. Bacon considered such heteronomy especiallyContinue reading “Excursus 017 – On Intellectual Autonomy and Heteronomy”
Excursus 010 – On Induction: One Word, Several Meanings
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 The first explicit use of the term inductio in the aphoristic sequence of the Novum Organum marks a structural and methodological transition. Bacon moves from diagnosing the corruption of notions to proposing the methodological alternative on which the Instauratio depends. To avoid attributing later developments toContinue reading “Excursus 010 – On Induction: One Word, Several Meanings”
Excursus 009 – On Induction, Deduction, and the Syllogistic Structure of Aristotle
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 In Aristotle’s theory of demonstrative science (epistēmē apodeiktikē), knowledge arises through necessary reasoning from first principles (archai). These principles are grasped intuitively by nous and form the foundation from which other propositions follow through deduction. The following outline summarizes the Aristotelian system of deductive reasoning: InContinue reading “Excursus 009 – On Induction, Deduction, and the Syllogistic Structure of Aristotle”
Excursus 008 – On the Scientific and Philosophical Senses of “Truth”
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30Revised: 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 prevailingContinue reading “Excursus 008 – On the Scientific and Philosophical Senses of “Truth””
Excursus 007 – On the Term “Notion” (Notio) in Bacon and Aristotle
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Bacon’s use of notio (“notion”) retained the Aristotelian conception of a form in the soul or intellect (μορφή ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ), yet fundamentally transformed its epistemological function. In Aristotelian psychology and logic, a notion denoted the intellect’s grasp of the universal—an abstraction derived from sense perceptionContinue reading “Excursus 007 – On the Term “Notion” (Notio) in Bacon and Aristotle”
Excursus 003 – Three Historical Roles of Dialectic
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30 Discussions of the history of dialectic often distinguish between different philosophers but less frequently between the fundamentally different roles that dialectic has played throughout intellectual history. A useful distinction may be drawn between three broad conceptions. The earliest conception, associated primarily with Socrates and much ofContinue reading “Excursus 003 – Three Historical Roles of Dialectic”
Hossein Jorjani 