It is instructive to note some of the attempts that have been made to
classify the main sources of error in reaching beliefs. Francis Bacon,
for example, at the beginnings of modern scientific inquiry, enumerated
four such classes, under the somewhat fantastic title of "idols" (Gr.
[Greek: eidôla], images), spectral forms that allure the mind into false
paths. These he called the idols, or phantoms, of the (_a_) tribe, (_b_)
the marketplace, (_c_) the cave or den, and (_d_) the theater; or, less
metaphorically, (_a_) standing erroneous methods (or at least
temptations to error) that have their roots in human nature generally;
(_b_) those that come from intercourse and language; (_c_) those that
are due to causes peculiar to a specific individual; and finally, (_d_)
those that have their sources in the fashion or general current of a
period. Classifying these causes of fallacious belief somewhat
differently, we may say that two are intrinsic and two are extrinsic. Of
the intrinsic, one is common to all men alike (such as the universal
tendency to notice instances that corroborate a favorite belief more
readily than those that contradict it), while the other resides in the
specific temperament and habits of the given individual. Of the
extrinsic, one proceeds from generic social conditions--like the
tendency to suppose that there is a fact wherever there is a word, and
no fact where there is no linguistic term--while the other proceeds from
local and temporary social currents.
[Sidenote: Locke on the influence of]
Locke's method of dealing with typical forms of wrong belief is less
formal and may be more enlightening. We can hardly do better than quote
his forcible and quaint language, when, enumerating different classes of
men, he shows different ways in which thought goes wrong:
[Sidenote: (_a_) dependence on others,]
1. "The first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think
according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbors,
ministers, or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an
implicit faith in, for the saving of themselves the pains and troubles
of thinking and examining for themselves."
[Sidenote: (_b_) self-interest,]
2. "This kind is of those who put passion in the place of reason, and
being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, neither
use their own, nor hearken to other people's reason, any farther than it
suits their humor, interest, or party."[5]
[5] In another place he says: "Men's prejudices and inclinations
impose often upon themselves.... Inclination suggests and slides
into discourse favorable terms, which introduce favorable ideas;
till at last by this means that is concluded clear and evident, thus
dressed up, which, taken in its native state, by making use of none
but precise determined ideas, would find no admittance at all."
[Sidenote: (_c_) circumscribed experience]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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