Roger Bacon, an Oxford Franciscan, was born on January 22, 1561, in London. He is well known for proposing a grand reform of learning and theology and for his interest in natural science. His vision of science was intensely practical, and he talks much of observation and experiment. Consequently, he has been represented as a precursor of the scientific revolution.
Although recent scholarship has considerably undermined the notion that Bacon was an empiricist anticipating the scientific revolution of the sixteenth century, he remains an interesting thinker. Bacon now viewed as something of an Avicennan conservative, who was impressed by Arabic scientific lore but began to look old-fashioned with the introduction of a stricter Aristotelianism in the second half of the century.
Bacon died of bronchitis on April 9, 1626.
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