Francis Bacon's Alternative
to More's Utopia
Thomas More's Utopia vs. Francis Bacon's
Model Society
What is the difference between a utopia and a model
society? To help reflection on this issue, see not only the questions that
follow but also the CTMS Study Questions on Utopia and Gulliver's
Travels that can be found in their corresponding curriculum units on
the Teacher Support
page.
In his New Atlantis, Bacon presents the first
model society based on empirical science and on Machiavelli's critique of
classical utopias. As such, Bacon does not present a utopia ("no place")
as More did, but Bacon sets forth what he considers to be a realizable city
of peace and prosperity founded on what he presents as a scientifically inductive
study of nature and of "humanity."
To appreciate what is at stake in the difference between
Thomas More's Utopia and Bacon's New Atlantis, you might
consider books three and four of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
Swift sides with Thomas More while satirizing such enterprises as Bacon's
New Atlantis in the voyage to Laputa and in the "pure
reason" of the Houyhnhnms. (Notice that, in book three of Gulliver's
Travels, Swift praises More as one of the six great defenders of freedom
of all time.)
Click below to download.
Click here to download Acrobat Reader.
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Francis Bacon's
New Atlantis (PDF
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Study Questions
for New Atlantis (PDF
format)
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Study Outline
for New Atlantis
(PDF format) |
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Send corrections and suggestions
to: ctms@thomasmorestudies.org |
