How did Bacon and Descartes differ in their methods?

Answer 1

The new scientific method was really a revolution in thought. Two giants of this revolution were the Englishman Francis Bacon and the Frenchman René Descartes (ruh nay day kahrt). Each devoted himself to the problem of knowledge.

Both Bacon and Descartes rejected Aristotle's scientific assumptions. They also challenged the scholarly traditions of the medieval universities that sought to make the physical world fit in with the teachings of the Church. Both argued that truth is not known at the beginning of inquiry but at the end, after a long process of investigation.

Bacon and Descartes differed in their methods, however. Bacon stressed experimentation and observation. He wanted science to make life better for people by leading to practical technologies. Descartes emphasized human reasoning as the best road to understanding. In his Discourse on Method, he explains how he decided to discard all traditional authorities and search for provable knowledge. Left only with doubt, he concluded that the doubter had to exist and made his famous statement, "I think, therefore I am."