The father of the British empiricist tradition, arguably the most important branch of philosphy in the last 500 years. Bacon was the first European philosopher to completely break with Aristotle, whose ideas had dominated European philosophy since their recovery in the 13th Century. Bacon stressed reasoning from observation rather than speculation; his ideas inspired Hobbes, Locke, Hume and (in the 20th Century) Bertrand Russell and David Stove, among others. He also wrote a proto-science-fiction story (The New Atlantis) which acurately foresaw many of the technological and scientific discoveries of the 19th and 20th century. Bacon's essays are outstanding, and his prose is very clear and incisive; particularly striking as most philosophers are not known for either of these qualities.

Sir Francis Bacon practically invented modern scientific thought. Government getting involved with funding science? His idea. Without him, there may have been no scientific revolution. Also, he was probably buddies with Shakespeare, how cool is that?