Characterizing a legal–intellectual culture: Bacon, Coke, and seventeenth-century England

Peter Grajzl and Peter Murrell

Cliometrica, 2021, vol. 15, issue 1, No 2, 43-88

Abstract: Abstract A characterization of the ideas of Francis Bacon and Edward Coke, two preeminent English lawyer-scholars, provides insights into the nature of the legal–intellectual culture of early seventeenth-century England. This emerging culture remains underexplored, even though it immediately preceded and provided essential input into the ‘culture of growth,' the eighteenth-century cultural paradigm viewed as a catalyst for England's historically unprecedented technological advance and economic growth. To develop insights, we employ a methodology not previously used in this context, applying structural topic modeling to a large corpus comprising the works of both Bacon and Coke. Estimated topics span legal, political, scientific, and methodological themes. Legal topics evidence an advanced structure of common-law thought, straddling ostensibly disparate areas of the law. Interconnections between topics reveal a distinctive approach to the pursuit of knowledge, embodying Bacon's epistemology and Coke's legal methodology. A key similarity between Bacon and Coke overshadows their differences: both sought to build reliable knowledge based on generalizing from particulars. The resulting methodological paradigm can be understood as reflecting a legacy of common-law thought and constituting a key contribution to the era's emerging legal–intellectual culture. More generally, our analysis illustrates how machine learning applied to primary texts can aid in exploration of culture.

Keywords: Culture; Bacon; Coke; England; Seventeenth century; Machine learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B31 K10 N73 P10 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11698-020-00202-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Journal Article: Characterizing a legal–intellectual culture: Bacon, Coke, and seventeenth-century England (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:cliomt:v:15:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s11698-020-00202-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11698

DOI: 10.1007/s11698-020-00202-5

Access Statistics for this article

Cliometrica is currently edited by Claude Diebolt

More articles in Cliometrica from Springer, Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().