[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.27.4″ hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” background_enable_image=”off” sticky_enabled=”0″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]Originally published in\u00a0Classis
\nVolume XIX, No. 4<\/p>\n
By Phil Arant<\/p>\n
In viewing the original frontispiece from Francis Bacon\u2019s 1620 work Novum Organum<\/em> (\u201cNew Method\u201d), the observer is intended to notice ships leaving the familiar waters of the Mediterranean and venturing out into the vast Atlantic.\u00a0 The analogy implies that Bacon\u2019s new empirical (experimental) approach for explaining reality was intended to replace Aristotle\u2019s former deductive approach of logic endorsed in his Organon.\u00a0 In other words, an old limiting method needed to be replaced with a new limitless method.<\/p>\n Before providing an explanation of what would become an early version of the Scientific Method in Book II, Bacon first turns his guns upon some of these limiting mindsets and warns in Book I of four pre-commitments or \u201cidols\u201d that could jeopardize the objectivity intended within experimentation.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how Bacon named them.<\/p>\n Four species of idols beset the human mind, to which for distinction\u2019s sake we have assigned names, calling the first Idols of the Tribe, the second Idols of the Den, the third Idols of the Market, the fourth Idols of the Theatre.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Though I could spend some time here stressing how individuals can never completely avoid these \u201cidols,\u201d I still find Bacon\u2019s breakdown quite enlightening for my science students.\u00a0 Let\u2019s consider each of the four issues and see how they can indeed do harm to the scientific enterprise.<\/p>\n First the Idols of the Tribe<\/em> represents inherent tendencies of humanity that are fostered by the consensus of my surrounding community.\u00a0 The preferences of my \u201ctribe\u201d weigh heavily upon my conception of truth.\u00a0 If everyone says it is true, then in order to fit in I feel obliged to concur.\u00a0 Bacon analogously compared such an ill-fated persuasion to an uneven mirror that tends to distort incident light.<\/p>\n The idols of the tribe are inherent in human nature and the very tribe or race of man; for man\u2019s sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things; on the contrary, all the perceptions both of the senses and the mind bear reference to man and not to the universe, and the human mind resembles those uneven mirrors which impart their own properties to different objects, from which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Because of such an attachment to \u201cthe very tribe or race of man,\u201d we might consider the problematic issue to be one of ethnocentrism<\/em>.\u00a0 If the human \u201ctribe\u201d is \u201cfalsely asserted to be the standard of things,\u201d then the scientist could be persuaded away from an interpretation that is consistent with his data.\u00a0 This faulty precommitment is sometimes referred to as an argumentum ad populum<\/em>, which means \u201can argument from the populous.\u201d\u00a0 Thus if many believe so, it is so.\u00a0 Perhaps you have noticed how the Idol of the Tribe has been influential in the current debate on global warming.\u00a0 \u201cTribe\u201d consensus could distort (as with an uneven mirror) an objective attempt to interpret global temperature trends.\u00a0 John Locke also pointed at the same fallible tendency of trusting the group instead of embracing truth for its own sake.<\/p>\n I mean the giving up our assent to the common received opinions, either of our friends or party, neighborhood or country\u2026 Other men have been and are of the same opinion, and therefore it is reasonable for me to embrace it.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Secondly the Idols of the Market<\/em> represent errors arising from the false confidence bestowed upon word usage. In Bacon\u2019s day, the marketplace was a locus for verbal intercourse.\u00a0 Language could be handled carelessly to the point of creating a confusion of meaning.\u00a0 Let\u2019s again look at Bacon\u2019s wording.<\/p>\n There are also idols formed by the reciprocal intercourse and society of man with man, which we call idols of the market, from the commerce and association of men with each other; for men converse by means of language, but words are formed at the will of the generality, and there arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Placing too much faith upon language can produce difficulties referred to as fallacies of ambiguity.\u00a0 One such problem would be found in equivocation<\/em>.\u00a0 Words can often have more than one meaning.\u00a0 For example, the word \u201cevolution\u201d can lead to a commonly abused misunderstanding whether the speaker is referring to the phenomena of microevolution or macroevolution.\u00a0 Another problematic example is the postmodern emphasis that all words mean what the reader thinks regardless of what the writer intends.<\/p>\n Thirdly the Idols of the Den<\/em> represent errors that arise within the \u201ccavern\u201d of each unique individual rather than the entire \u201ctribe\u201d of humanity.\u00a0 Personal desires can lead to a type of egocentrism that could derail one\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n The idols of the den are those of each individual; for everybody in addition to the errors common to the race of man has his own individual den or cavern, which intercepts and corrupts the light of nature, either from his own peculiar and singular disposition, or from his education and intercourse with others, or from his reading \u2026.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Through a life of personal accumulations, the individual has erected a particular habit or \u201ctaste\u201d for data that accommodates his own delights.\u00a0 John Locke pointed at the same tendency with the phrase \u201cQuod volumus, facile credimus<\/em>,\u201d which can be translated \u201cWhat suits our wishes, is forwardly believed.\u201d<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span>\u00a0 Ancients as well played upon the supposed friendship that Aristotle enjoyed with his mentor Plato with the phrase, \u201cAmicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas<\/em>,\u201d which reads \u201cPlato is my friend, but truth is a better friend.\u201d\u00a0 Delights in maintaining a friendship could hinder our commitment to truth.\u00a0 Immanuel Kant also noted the danger of allowing a personal benefit to influence how we draw conclusions.<\/p>\n Now to this one might indeed reply that no inquisitiveness is more detrimental to the expansion of our cognition than the inquisitiveness that always wants to know the benefit in advance.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n A derivative notion of this third precommitment might be found in the fallacy termed argumentum ad baculum<\/em>, which means \u201cthe argument to the stick.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0Here the \u201cstick\u201d refers to taking a beating.\u00a0 In other words, the particular statement had better be endorsed or else some undesirable consequence will impact me.\u00a0 Because I don\u2019t want my \u201cden\u201d shaken, I will hold it as true.<\/p>\n Lastly the Idols of the Theater<\/em> represents the theories that have been \u201cplayed out,\u201d as on the \u201cstage\u201d by the renowned performers of our culture.\u00a0 I the lowly spectator become moved by the eloquence of the \u201cexperts\u201d of the past.\u00a0 These are the sacred truths that have been passed down to our generation.\u00a0 The Theater could thus impose a rigid dogmatism upon a culture.<\/p>\n Lastly, there are idols which have crept into men\u2019s minds from the various dogmas of peculiar systems of philosophy, and also from the perverted rules of demonstration, and these we denominate idols of the theatre: for we regard all the systems of philosophy hitherto received or imagined, as so many plays brought out and performed, creating fictitious and theatrical worlds \u2026 but also to many elements and axioms of sciences which have become inveterate by tradition, implicit credence, and neglect.<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n