Когда тайное остается тайным

Философский журнал. 2016. Т. 9. № 3. С. 148–153.

Paramonov A. A.

In the present article, Andrei Paramonov brings under a close examination the fragment of Francis Bacon's 1623 book De Augmentis Scientiarum (On the Advancement of Learning) where the philosopher explains his invention of the method of hiding a secret message by means of two specially devised cipher alphabets. It is argued that along with the principle of imperceptibility of the hidden message present in writing, a good illustration of which gives his famous method of biliteral cipher (an analysis of which one finds in Ivan Efishov's paper published in this volume), Bacon also adopts the opposite strategy where the very apparency of the hidden is the instrument of concealment. It is the latter principle that underlies the method of hiding the secret message by using the two alphabets. Unfortunately, the existing Russian translation of the chapter expounding this method, which is contained in two-volume academic edition of Bacon's works published in 1977, is so imprecise that no adequate understanding of Bacon's invention can be derived from it. Dr. Paramonov discusses the existing text and suggests a corrected translation of the relevant passages. 

Keywords: Francis Bacon, Фрэнсис Бэкон, шифр, cipher, алфавит, двухлитерный шифр, прием со- крытия текста, использующий два шифровальных алфавита, biliteral cipher, method of steganography using two cipher alphabets