Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon was a firm believer of the theory that true knowledge derives from experience. Reading his works my first impression is how he was not afraid to be cynical in what he is writing about and perhaps slightly exaggerate the extremity in his point of view. In the essay "Of Studies" Bacon starts off by sharing his view that books can be a source of delight when those who have enough time read them; books can also provide knowledge to a certain level and this is helpful when one is in a discussion with other people, especially about politics. However, Bacon believes that to truly be an expert on a subject, one must have had persoanl experience on that ground, and only that can be relied upon for the wisdom. Learning could be used to improve knowledge on a subject, but not to become an expert on it. When I was reading Bacon's point of view on studying, I can see his way of looking at the matter, but I cannot fully agree with him. I agree that if a person is talented on
I believe that a subject can be learned from books and experiences of others; personal experience will only make it unique by shaping a particular angle of the matter. But, as the famous saying preaches, one must never judge a book by its cover. Even if one should base wisdom on personal experience, there is a boundary as to how far one can go; a person in the 21st century will not see the world with the same eyes as two-hundred years ago. But I would say that I believe that knowledge, even a certain wisdom, can be gained by reading books and learning about the matter. In the end, I would have to say that I believe that to start with, a person may be talented on an area. It is true that literature varies from one book to next, and accordingly some are better than the rest. There are also limited opportunities to actually recieve the chance to ever learn some of the things that otehrs may have already experienced. How is one to know beforehand, whether one should be reading between every line of the book, or simply every second page? In this case, one must either depend on the opinion of others, which they recieved from their own experience, or one must read a book page by page, line by line, and then decide at the end for oneself whether or not it was worth the time. Bacon also mentions that only a few books deserve the time to be read and really digested - the rest are only worth a skim or a brief reading. This limits them in chiselling out a unique point of view - it is therefore important to be able to learn from experiences of people form the past, to view the world in a more open-minded understanding. For example, in the 21st century, a person will be thinking completely differently than a person who had lived back in the 16th, 17th or even 18th century. I believe that one can merit a lot by reading and learning about the experiences and points of views of other people from the past. To bring out this certain talent, knowledge can be sought in books and in education on the matter, and to cut out the details on the edges of these views, I think this can be done by pesonal experiences on the matter. Firstly, to actually bring out a talent, one must learn about this matter - an person may be able to paint, but to paint, for example abstract art, one has to have a basic knowledge of what abstract art actually is.
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