Bacon remains one of my favourite philosophers. Either maligned, ignored, or misrepresented, he is an enigmatic blend of rational and spiritual, practical and idealistic. His audacious plans for a complete revamp of science and knowledge (his "Great Instauration") are often taken as the stimulus for the scientific revolution, though in actual practice most scientists seem to have taken a more ad hoc approach.

Philosophically, his main contribution may be said to have been his exploration of the practical consequences of the problem of induction. He had recognised that the contemporary reliance upon Aristotelian deduction from first principles was sterile and frequently mistaken. Before we arrive at the conclusion that "All x's are y", we must amass as much data as possible, and then only gradually inch toward a general conclusion (which will necessarily remain conjectural and subject to revision).

But it can be seen that Bacon's "new induction" was not something that had a narrow, scientific application, but one that he envisaged would be applied broadly to all aspects of human knowledge. As his four "idols" reveal - those fallacious tendencies of human thinking that lurk beneath our common assumptions - we can only fully understand the world and our place in it by purging the mind of its prejudices.

Gareth Southwell is a philosopher, writer and illustrator.