Lecture
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Tuesday 1.09.2026
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
René Descartes and Francis Bacon: Novum Organum and Cogito Ergo Sum
Tuesday 1.09.2026
How to watch
This lecture starts on 1 September at 5:00pm (UK).
Summary
This lecture explores how René Descartes (1596–1650) and Francis Bacon (1561–1626) laid the philosophical foundations of modern science in the 17th century by challenging traditional Scholasticism with distinct epistemological frameworks. Ultimately, this lecture contrasts Bacon’s bottom-up, empirical model—which laid the groundwork for experimental science—with Descartes’ top-down, rationalist model, which shaped modern mathematical analysis. Together, their complementary methodologies synthesized to form the modern scientific method.
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite teaches Chinese History, Middle Eastern and Islamic history, and sometimes Jewish history, at New York University. He is author of The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China (Harvard, 2005); The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History (Oxford, 2009); co-editor of Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Culture, and Politics (Brandeis, 2013); The Scaffolding of Sovereignty: Global and Aesthetic Perspectives on the History of a Concept (Columbia University Press, 2017); and Time and Language: New Sinology and Chinese History (Hawaii University Press, 2023).