12 Reasons Francis Bacon Is The Most Buzzed About Rhetorician We Have Ever Known (But We Already Knew That)

Hey EWM-ers, we all know learning about different rhetoricians is hard, but Francis Bacon is one of the coolest you'll meet-- and that's why he made our countdown. Read more to learn about why he is the most sizzling rhetorician that has ever graced a Buzzfeed. By: Maddie McCanna

1. He was born in the Enlightenment, which was so full of awesome people do we really need to continue?

Francis Bacon was born in England on January 22, 1561 and left us on April 9, 1626. Could you have rocked that outfit? The answer is definitely not.

2. He has put all of our educational pursuits to shame, because he started college at age 12.

At only 12 YEARS OLD, he started at Trinity College. 12 YEARS OLD, can we take that in people?? He was admitted to the bar in 1582 and wrote his first book in 1584, what have you done with your lives?? Not what this sizzler did that's for sure

3. He was the Enlightenment's version of a political mogul, put that in your pan and cook it.

Cool down Kanye, he has a LONG resume, like he's held more positions than Kris Jenner and Dina Lohan COMBINED. In 1613 he became England's Attorney General, England's Keeper of the Seal in 1617, and became Chancellor of England in 1618. It's okay, Kanye, you can pick your jaw off the floor because we're all as amazed as you are.

4. He was a scandalous bad ass.

He was convicted for taking improper gifts and was imprisoned, fined, and banned from holding a position in public office EVER AGAIN. Tough love, I guess. Now that we know about his life and tragic end (because let's be honest, he wouldn't be Buzzfeed-able if he didn't have at least one scandal) let's get down to the delicious details of his man-crushes, theories, and his work.

5. He had some prime man-crushes and clearly, great taste.

I'm sure there would be a Ryan or two on his list if Bacon was alive and well today but he had the original bad asses and heart melters back in the day. He crushed hard on Plato, Augustine, and Peter Ramus when he thought of his theories and wrote books and other things Francis Bacon did in his free time.

He agreed with Plato's psychology of dispelling worldly illusions and he understood Ramus' value of the dialectic as well as agreeing with Augustine's linguistic theory of purifying language.

6. The Five Faculties of the Mind

Bacon took what he loved from his three heartthrobs and formulated his faculties of the mind. Each of the five faculties below implement different functions of the brain, according to Bacon:

1. Understanding

2. Reason

3. Imagination

4. Appetites

5. Will

He also claimed that academic knowledge are products of the components of the mind. For example, history relates to memory, poetry to imagination, and theology to reason and imagination.

7. The Functions Performed by the Faculties

Don't move on so fast, there's EVEN MORE faculty fun that Francis Bacon delved into. He came up with four functions performed by the faculties, which were:

1. To inquire or invent, which basically is that we want to discover how things work, propose hypothesis and link ideas similar to each other

2. To examine and judge, meaning we take ideas apart to analyze them and asses their worth

3. To recall ideas and maintain custody over them, meaning we remember ideas and objects and relive events allowing us to retain knowledge and methodologies of analysis

And lastly number four:

4. To transmit thought in language, basically meaning that we compare things to make our ideas clearer to others.

8. He showed us communication is not as basic as we all thought.

Bacon's 3 Realms of Communication

1. "Organon of Tradition" is the study of discourse including delivery as the voice and includes grammar, vocabulary and diction.

2. "Method of Tradition" contains the rules for judgment, planning, logic, and organization.

3. "Illustration of Tradition" contains all rhetoric, basically arguments on probability, ethos, and style.

9. He was BIG on delivery and presentation, without that how would we have gotten through our powerpoint stages in high school? Oh yea, we wouldn't have.

I bet these guys took some notes on Bacon because he believed that eloquence "prevails in civic life" and that delivery was crucial to delivering a message to the public. The body delivery is just as important as the message.

10. He has Idols, just like everyone else.. well sort of.

Francis Bacon made up 4 Idols, which he claimed corrupted language.

1. Idols of the Tribe: desires and prejudices instilled by the tribe which can blind members from reality. For example, in "Mean Girls", on Wednesday's the plastics wear pink and you better believe you can't sit with them if you don't. The tribe says Wednesday's are for pink and so that is what everyone does. The Idols of the Tribe is pretty fallacious, kinda like those CalTeen bars Regina eats..

2. Idols of the Den: individual fallacies from living in a limited view of the world. This idol is super similar to Plato's (man-crush wink wink) Allegory of the Cave. Karen, living in suburban America, thinks that everyone from Africa is black until she meets Cady. This is Idols of the Den at its finest people, Karen's own limited view of the world prompts her to make yet again, another less than intelligent comment that we all love to quote, so thanks Idols of the Den, thanks.

3. Idols of the Marketplace: corrupts our language so we use language in a popular although incorrect way. Every time you say "fasho" or "foshizzle" you're wrong. Remember that. YOU. ARE. WRONG. Just like Gretchen Wieners will never make "fetch" happen, you will never make "fasho" and "foshizzle" happen; they are just idols of the marketplace making it hard to remember that the correct term you're looking for is "for sure".

4. Idols of the Theatre: fools us into thinking what we hear is true. When Cady is super rude to Regina in "Mean Girls" and Regina unleashes the completely scandalous Burn Book, everyone thought that sweet Ms. Norbury is a drug pusher when really all she wanted was Cady to push herself to pass Calculus. Crazy how the Idols of the Theater make people believe those psycho rumors, huh?

11. He thought that the role of rhetoric is to recall and explain what was discovered by other arts.

In short:

"The invention of speech or argument is not properly an invention: for to invent is to discover." -Francis Bacon

12. He knows and agrees that plagiarism is completely uncool and NOT okay

Works Cited (Texts):

"Francis Bacon." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jul 28 2013, 10:57 http://www.biography.com/people/francis-bacon-9194632.

Smith, Craig. Rhetoric and Human Consciousness: A History. Third Edition. Long Grove: Waveland Press, Inc., 2009. 212-215. Print.

Works Cited (Pictures): located in gif above