Knowledge is power. Who said the famous phrase?

Probably, each of us repeatedly heard the phrase "Knowledge is power". Who said these words? In connection with what was said such a phrase? And why is knowledge a force? Let's talk about this further.

What is knowledge?

So, today we will talk about the famous saying "Knowledge is power". Who said this phrase? When were the first words spoken that became known to everyone? We will answer all of these questions later. And now we will try to understand what knowledge is.

In a broad sense, this concept is interpreted as a set of norms and representations adopted by man. In fact, knowledge is the result of the cognitive activity of an individual or a group of individuals.

In the narrow sense, this concept means the possession of certain information, which allows you to solve the tasks.

Knowledge is not limited exclusively to science. It can also be extra-scientific, or ordinary-practical.

Next, we will consider the origin of the famous aphorism "Knowledge is power" (who said this phrase and in connection with what).

Who said?

So, the author of the statement "Knowledge is power" is Francis Bacon. The name of this person is known all over the world. Francis Bacon is a famous English thinker, philosopher, politician. He was born in 1561 in London. He graduated from Cambridge University. When he was only 23 years old, he was elected to the House of Commons of the British Parliament. Under Yakov I, he became the keeper of the royal press (this post was also occupied by his father).

In 1605 the first part of Francis Bacon's treatise "The Great Restoration of Sciences" appeared. The main theme of the philosopher's work was the idea of the limitless progress of human development.

Francis Bacon is considered the father of empiricism - a philosophical trend that recognizes sense experience as the main source of knowledge. He defended positions, cardinally opposed to Aristotle and the medieval scholastics.

The main thesis of the philosophy of Francis Bacon can be reduced to the following theses:

• God did not forbid the knowledge of things by men.
• The right method is the key to successful research.
• At the heart of scientific knowledge are induction (ie, in the generalization it is necessary to adhere to rules known to all) and experiment (the method of investigating a particular object under controlled conditions).
• There are 4 human errors that prevent cognition. These are the so-called ghosts: the "kind" (derived from the very essence of man), "caves" (individual features of the perception of the world), "horses" (arise from communication), "theater" (transferred from one person to another).
• Francis Bacon was not only looking for positions that would confirm any thesis, but facts refuting it.

So, we considered the origin of the phraseology "Knowledge is Power" (who said it). Now try to learn the original meaning of the famous phrase.

The meaning of phraseology

Saying that "knowledge is power," the author expressed one of the main provisions of the new thinking. It was Francis Bacon who revised the already established in philosophy understanding of the relationship between man and nature. He claimed that people are the subject of knowledge. At the same time, nature in its philosophy is the object of investigation.

Francis Bacon in knowledge saw a powerful impetus for progress in social relations. He was the founder of the scientific method of cognition. He divided the research into practical and theoretical, and also developed the principles of the so-called new logic.