The so-called “Scientific Revolution” is the result of a complex interaction between the world of ideas and that of concrete human activity with the aim of discovering the mysteries of nature. Not only books but also notebooks mediate this dialectical relationship: in this way, the complex features of a theoretical system can coexist with the detailed observations of everyday natural phenomena (like water drops, or burning candles), in order to test the foundations of a whole philosophy of nature in the (...) micro-world. Bacon himself suggested leaving general observations aside in order to reach closer to phenomena: Isaac Beeckman, in the isolation of his Journal, notes in chronological order his own laboratory and reading experiences, together with his meditations, producing an intellectual account of great cultural and scientific interest, discovered by Cornelis De Waard in 1905, in the Provincial Library of Zeeland [Middelburg]. Beeckman also owned some of Francis Bacon’s major works: from some of the notebook annotations presented in this article it is possible to see that Bacon’s explanations of simple natural phenomena did not always agree with the emerging physico-mathematical turn. Bacon is blamed for the use of old-fashioned categories, like sympathies and occult qualities, which need to be replaced by a fully corpuscular, mathematical and geometrical mechanical philosophy. (shrink)

La crítica que Francis Bacon dirigió a la concepción aristotélica del movimiento no tuvo como punto de partida las obras originales de Aristóteles sino la vasta literatura de texto que durante los siglos XVI y XVII ofrecía una interpretación novedosa y ecléctica del pensamiento aristotélico. En este trabajo analizo la crítica de Bacon concentrándome en los textos aristotélicos más corrientes de su medio intelectual (Magirus, Keckermann, Conimbricenses, Toledo, Zabarella). El artículo está dividido en tres secciones: la crítica epistemológica, la crítica (...) del movimiento natural y el movimiento violento y la crítica del movimiento de ascenso y de descenso. En la conclusión señalo en qué medida la teoría baconiana del movimiento rechazó los conceptos aristotélicos y, al mismo tiempo, adoptó nociones aristotélicas claves al construir su propia clasificación de los movimientos. (shrink)