Roger Bacon,
OFM ( or , also , "Brother Roger"; ), also known by the
scholastic accolade (
Latin for "miracle doctor"), was an
English philosopher and
Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of
nature through
empirical methods. In the
early modern era, he was regarded as a wizard and particularly famed for the story of his
mechanical or
necromantic brazen head. He is sometimes credited (mainly since the 19th century) as one of the earliest European advocates of the modern
scientific method inspired by
Aristotle and by later scholars such as the
Alhazen. His linguistic work has been heralded for its early exposition of a
universal grammar. However, more recent re-evaluations emphasise that Roger Bacon was essentially a medieval thinker, with much of his "experimental" knowledge obtained from books in the
scholastic tradition. He was, however, partially responsible for a revision of the
medieval university curriculum, which saw the addition of
optics to the traditional . A survey of how
Bacon's work was received over the centuries found that it often reflected the concerns and controversies that were central to his readers.