Francis Bacon is considered the father of modern scientific method. Basically, the scientific method includes the principles and empirical processes of discovery and demonstration considered characteristic of or necessary for scientific investigation, generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis.
In his book, Novum Organum, he warned that four Idola, or obstacles to clear-thinking, idols of the Tribe, Den, Market, and Theatre, had to be removed in order to insure against error in the collection of facts. After exposing obstacles to accurate thinking, Bacon went on to suggest ways of overcoming them. He rejected traditional dogmas and individual prejudices, directed the thought of Europeans to the study of the particular, and shifted the emphasis from arguments to facts. Experience, he said, is the only medium through which we may know things. The new science was strongly influenced by Bacon’s classical formula: “Man, who is the servant and interpreter of nature, can act and understand no further than he has observed, either in operation or in contemplation, of the method and order of nature.”
In his book, Novum Organum, he warned that four Idola, or obstacles to clear-thinking, idols of the Tribe, Den, Market, and Theatre, had to be removed in order to insure against error in the collection of facts. After exposing obstacles to accurate thinking, Bacon went on to suggest ways of overcoming them. He rejected traditional dogmas and individual prejudices, directed the thought of Europeans to the study of the particular, and shifted the emphasis from arguments to facts. Experience, he said, is the only medium through which we may know things. The new science was strongly influenced by Bacon’s classical formula: “Man, who is the servant and interpreter of nature, can act and understand no further than he has observed, either in operation or in contemplation, of the method and order of nature.”
Specifically, the Four Idols, which Bacon said were preventing people from thinking more accurately, actually were flaws and fallacies of the human mind. These are flaws that each human being has to overcome in order to think scientifically.
The four idols distinguished by Francis Bacon are erroneous images of things:
1. Idols of the Tribe—general tendencies to be deceived, inherent in our nature as human beings
2. Idols of the Cave—distortions arising from our particular perspectives
3. Idols of the Marketplace—errors that come in the course of communication with others: misunderstandings arising through misuses or abuses of words
4. Idols of the Theater—errors of introducing ideas, theories, and imaginative notions as facts
As you read Bacon’s explanation for the human tendencies to think inaccurately, it may help to think of “Idols” as meaning false notions.
1. “The Idols of the Tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions as well of the senses as of the mind are according to the measure of the individual and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.” –Novum Organum, Aphorism XLI
In other words, the senses are flawed in that they are capable of illusions; and, the mind is capable of delusions.
2. “The Idols of the Cave are the idols of the individual man. For everyone (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature, owing either to his own proper and peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation with others; or to the reading of books, and the authority of those whom he esteems and admires; or to the differences of impressions, accordingly as they take place in a mind preoccupied or predisposed or in a mind indifferent and settled; or the like. So that the spirit of man (according as it is meted out to different individuals) is in fact a thing variable and full of perturbation, and governed as it were by chance. Whence it was well observed by Heraclitus that men look for sciences in their own lesser worlds, and not in the greater or common world.” –Novum Organum, Aphorism XLII
The mind itself may cause its own distortions called delusions. People are predisposed to thinking that opinions and imaginings profoundly stated and faithfully believed by the masses are somehow true. And, some of us not only have blind faith but are also blinded by our faith.
3. “But the Idols of the Market Place are the most troublesome of all—idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of words and names. For men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that words react on the understanding; and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive. Now words, being commonly framed and applied according to the capacity of the vulgar, follow those lines of division which are most obvious to the vulgar understanding. And whenever an understanding of greater acuteness or a more diligent observation would alter those lines to suit the true divisions of nature, words stand in the way and resist the change. Whence it comes to pass that the high and formal discussions of learned men end oftentimes in disputes about words and names; with which (according to the use and wisdom of the mathematicians), it would be more prudent to begin, and so by means of definitions reduce them to order. Yet even definitions cannot cure this evil in dealing with natural and material things, since the definitions themselves consist of words, and those words beget others. So that it is necessary to recur to individual instances, and those in due series and order, as I shall say presently when I come to the method and scheme for the formation of notions and axioms.” --Novum Organum, Aphorism LIX
According to Bacon, there are two basic kinds of Idols of the Market Place:
“They are either names of things which do not exist (for as there are things left unnamed through lack of observation, so likewise are there names which result from fantastic suppositions and to which nothing in reality corresponds), or they are names of things which exist, but yet confused and ill-defined, and hastily and irregularly derived from realities.” --Novum Organum, Aphorism LX
Bacon said that the Idols of the Market Place were given this name by him because "on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar [deficient in refinement]. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies."
4. Idols of the Theater are “Idols which have immigrated into men’s minds from the various dogmas of philosophies [religions, myths, superstitions], and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call Idols of the Theater because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the systems now in vogue, or only of the ancient sects and philosophies, that I speak; for many more plays of the same kind may yet be composed and in like artificial manner set forth; seeing that errors the most widely different have nevertheless causes for the most part alike. Neither again do I mean this only of entire systems, but also of many [false] principles and [false] axioms in science, which by tradition, credulity, and negligence have come to be received. --Novum Organum, Aphorism XLIV
Concerning the number Bacon says furthermore: “Idols of the Theater, or of Systems, are many, and there can be and perhaps will be yet many more. For were it not that now for many ages men’s minds have been busied with religion and theology; and were it not that civil governments, especially monarchies, have been averse to such novelties, even in matters speculative; so that men labor therein to the peril and harming of their fortunes—not only unrewarded, but exposed also to contempt and envy—doubtless there would have arisen many other philosophical [and religious] sects like those which in great variety flourished once among the Greeks. For as on the phenomena of the heavens many hypotheses may be constructed so likewise (and more also) many various dogmas may be set up; and established on the phenomena of philosophy [religion, mythology, superstition, etc.]. And in the plays of this philosophical [imaginary] theater you may observe the same thing which is found in the theater of the poets, that stories invented for the stage are more compact and elegant, and more as one would wish them to be, than true stories out of history. –Novum Organum, Aphorism LXII
