Technical and aesthetic project in British philosophy

The paper examines the mutual influence of two major currents in European culture, advocating the idea that British philosophy is the cradle of both. A turning point was reached with the philosophy of Francis Bacon and his view that the real value of knowledge is utilitarian. With his insistence that man has rights over nature and study and conquer nature in order to increase his own power, Bacon laid the philosophical foundation for technological civilization. The paper goes on to trace the transfer of utilitarian values from the field of knowledge to the whole spiritual space particularly the aesthetic, and identifies a so-called aesthetic project emerging in reaction to the overwhelming utilitarianism of the modern world.