The Four Idols of Francis Bacon

Bias in thinking

According to Bacon, the idols that “overmaster” critical inquiry are “the idols of the tribe: […] the idols of the cave; […], the idols of the marketplace;[…] [and] the idols of the theater.”#1 These refer to apparent biases in human reasoning. Respectively, the first bias refers to the misconception that human perception is sufficient to understand the world and its ontology (“[“man is the measure of all things,” meaning that human perceptions correctly describe what is the case.]”#2). The second bias, that of the cave, refers to the ideas or prejudices that any person acquires by innate character quirk, reading, education or social association (“because of his own particular and peculiar character, or because of his education and relations with others, or because of the books he has read.”#3). The third bias, that of the marketplace concerns the imprecise or casual misuse of language in conversation and argument (“the words are invented by ignorant masses. Consequently, a clumsy and faulty use of words remarkably obstructs thought.”#4). The final bias Bacon cites is that of the theater, which refers to erroneous ideas introduced to the public by authorities, such as philosophers (“so many philosophical notions have been transmitted or invented, so many fables devised and farces concocted, that we find they have created fictitious and imaginary worlds.”#5).

Bacon makes the point that knowing about the existence of such biases “forewarns” thinkers to be more critical of such arguments, so that such arguments can be disregarded (“forewarned and as much as possible armed against them, they once again impede and disrupt the very process of pursuing knowledge.”#6).

Bacon’s fundamental argument is that traditional (Aristotelian) logic does not use evidence gained from experience and makes too much use of “unexamined assumptions” thereby serving “to fix and establish error” and thus “does more harm than good.”#7 The new tool required “derives axioms from the particulars of sense experience, from which, proceeding gradually and steadily, it ascends at last to universal truths.”#8

Bacon’s ideas are clearly precursors to ideas common to modern psychology, in such works as Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow. The latter demonstrates how the human mind is subject to thinking biases when constructing opinions (and arguments), although these biases are different in their particulars to Bacon’s (E.g., recency bias, fear of loss, thinking heuristically, reactions to framing). The cure against these biases is the same as Bacon’s. That is, according to Kahneman, to be aware of such biases and control for them. #9

Arguably the most pernicious bias identified by Bacon is the one concerning the introduction of fallacious ideas into the public sphere.#10 Such a bias is reminiscent of arguments made from authority which is a modern-day logical fallacy. The best way to counter such biases is to use the standards of the modern academy when judging ideas and arguments. That is, to present modern (non-Aristotelean) logical arguments based on transparent evidence (and not unexamined axioms), both of which should be peer-reviewed. Although not perfect, such standards help reduce error associated with academic (and authoritative) knowledge without overreliance on received wisdom and lack of ability to develop new knowledge, which are the cause of Bacon’s complaint.

#1 Frances Bacon, “The New Instrument,” in Margaret King (editor and anthologist), Enlightenment Thought: An Anthology of Sources, Hackett Publishing Company, 2019, Kindle Edition, pp. 6 — 7.

#2 Ibid.

#3 Ibid.

#4 Ibid.

#5 Ibid.

#6 Ibid, p. 6.

#7 Ibid.

#8 Ibid.

#9 Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Kindle Edition. See discussion on p. 418: “The identification of judgment errors is a diagnostic task, which requires a precise vocabulary. The name of a disease is a hook to which all that is known about the disease is attached, including vulnerabilities, environmental factors, symptoms, prognosis, and care. Similarly, labels such as “anchoring effects,” “narrow framing,” or “excessive coherence” bring together in memory everything we know about a bias, its causes, its effects, and what can be done about it.”

#10 One only has to look at pundits on American cable television news to see a modern-day version of this phenomenon.