Joe Jackson
1/27/2011
Hum 102-04
In Voltaire’s Candide, Pangloss is Candide’s teacher. He’s the teacher for the Baron of Westphalia’s family and was recognized as the authority of learning for their household. He was considered to be the greatest philosopher in Westphalia. Pangloss was a philosopher that believed in cause and effect. Everything happened for a reason and everything happened for the good of mankind. Whether it be a good or bad experience it had reason and was ultimately for the betterment of mankind.
There were some problems with that reasoning. Bacon talks about these logics in his New Organon. Bacon speaks of deductive and inductive logic. Deductive being logic that is necessary and inductive being logic based on probable cause. Obviously Pangloss is using a form of inductive reasoning since his core teaching was based on cause and effect. The only difference in his teachings were that all things experienced were at their bests. For example he said that the Baron’s lands were the best of all the worlds. Later on Candide and Cunegonde disproved this theory from their own experiences. They understood that some of there experiences did not feel like the best of the best. While inductive logic formed the core of Pangloss’ teaching, he kept a bit of deductive reason assuming everything was for the best.
As for the scientists of Bacon’s time, they used mostly deductive logic. Their reasoning was based on the obvious. There wasn’t any scientific method used to actually discover anything new. Not until Bacon’s New Organon were these ideas even considered. The illusions and false notions which have got a hold on men's intellects in
the past and are now profoundly rooted in them, not only block their minds
so that it is difficult for truth to gain access, but even when access has been
granted and allowed, they will once again, in the very renewal of the
sciences, offer resistance and do mischief unless men are...