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Victoria Ellis

Professor Jacob
Honors 182
13 December 2013
The Four Idols Francis Bacons Philosophy on Human Understanding and
Empirical Induction
The discipline of science is in a constant state of change and
development, as our understanding of how the world works is altered by
new occurrences. Was this always the case? At one point in history,
Scholasticism was the only method used for study and scientific
development. The scholastic method involved reading the works
published by renowned authors of the past, and then analyzing this work
to better appreciate his theories. Essentially, scholasticism was merely
the rehashing of past knowledge and information; there was very little
generation of new knowledge or growth, especially in the field of science.
These are the conditions in which Sir Francis Bacon lived and worked
during his sixty-five year lifespan (1561-1626). Instead of falling in line
with scholasticism, Bacon championed a new idea called empiricism.
Empiricism is the idea that sensory experience should be the main source
of human ideas and knowledge. In Bacons opinion, scholasticism was not
the manner in which science and philosophy should be understood and
studied. Rather, as human beings we must experience life to grow in

knowledge, it is not something innate. He championed empiricism by


developing a new model of reasoning, which he called induction. Why
though did it take so long for intellectuals to come up with this concept
when it seems like something so simple? According to Bacon there are
four Idols of the Mind that prevent humans from reaching their full
potential on the quest for knowledge. What are those idols and how do
they stifle the growth of our minds? What did Bacon propose to overcome
these obstacles? This paper will discuss these questions and highlight the
conception of inductive reasoning.
Bacons idols are often misunderstood and perplexing to many
students and scholars of his work. Therefore, it is important to lay some
groundwork regarding Bacons philosophy before delving into a discussion
of the individual idols. Many scientists and philosophers of the mind
believed the tabula rasa ideology of Aristotle and Locke, which says
human beings are born with a blank slate having no preconceived notions
or ideas. Bacon believed differently. According to him the mind is not a
blank slate at birth. Rather, it naturally has certain inclinations,
prejudices, or preconceptions that have to be recognized to be successful
in natural philosophy. These preconceptions are what make up the idols
and in Bacons view they are the deepest fallacies of the human mind 1.
Bacons idols are tendencies for the mind to misunderstand and therefore
1 Francis Bacon, The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. Spedding, Ellis, and Heath
(London: Longman and Co. 1858) Vol. IV, pg. 431
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become misguided on its search for knowledge. Bacon goes so far as to


say these idols deceive us in our thirst for truth by [way of] a corrupt and
ill-ordered predisposition of mind, whichperverts and infects all the
anticipations of intellect. 2 In his opinion these idols are a significant part
of the natural realm and need to be strictly guarded against. In one of his
most famous works, The Novum Organum, Bacon separates his four idols
that plague the human mind into two separate categories: adventitious
and innate.2 The adventitious idols infect the mind because of certain
kinds of experiences. In Bacons words they come into the mind from
the doctrines and sects of philosophers, or from perverse rules of
demonstration.3 In other words, the idols in this category come from
personal experiences and information that we take in throughout our
lives. As the name suggests, the innate idols are part of the nature of
intellect meaning that humans are born with certain psychological
susceptibilities that obstruct the successful pursuit of knowledge. The
innate idols oppose the idea of tabula rasa as discussed earlier. Below, a
discussion on each of the idols will begin.
The first idol Bacon reveals are Idols of the Tribe. These are innately
occurring intellectual tendencies that lead to the inference of false things.
They are apart of the fabric of the human mind and lead a person to have

2 Francis Bacon, New Atlantis and The Great Instauration, ed. Jerry
Weinberger (Wheeling: Crofts Classics, 1980)
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a distorted image of reality.3 In other words, as humans, we naturally


envision that everything will have a certain standard, therefore we will
assume that nature has more regularity and stability than it actually
possesses. This is such a common trait that Bacon calls this idol tribe
because it is something innate within the entire human race or tribe of
men. They stem from the minds tendency to distort and discolor the
nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.4 He says that human
understanding is a false mirror in which the mind projects its own
desires on nature whether or not nature behaves how humans want it to.
This idea is very different from the manner in which scientific theories and
concepts were usually discovered in Bacons time. Typically, the
intellectuals already had an idea of how they perceived nature to be and
in order to prove their point they found evidence that supported their
theory. Rather than developing a theory based on the evidence, they
chose the evidence based on their theory. In Bacons opinion this is a
serious flaw when it comes to the pursuit of knowledge and
understanding.
Bacon gives several examples of this idol at work in the common
human understanding of his time. He asserts, human understanding is of
its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and
3 Douglas Walton, Francis Bacon: Human Bias and the Four Idols
Argumentation 13 no. 4 (1999): 386
4 Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, ed. Urbach and Gibson (Peru: Open Court
Publishing, 1994)
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regularity in the world than it finds.5 As an example of this, Bacon


directly criticizes the Aristotelian cosmology that all celestial bodies move
in perfect circles. To him, this portrays the human tendency to view the
universe as more orderly and regular a fitting example of the tribe idol
at work in the human mind. His point being that the mind simplifies things
by imposing order where it may not even exist. As mentioned earlier,
Bacon also points out that the human mind will adopt an opinion and
ignore evidence that proves this opinion wrong. He says it is the peculiar
and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited
by affirmatives than by negatives, whereas rightly and properly it ought
to give equal weight to both.6 He illustrates this point in a parable about
a man taken to a temple where he is shown a picture of all the men who
escaped a shipwreck as a result of saying vows the gods. The man was
then asked whether he recognized the power of the gods, to which he
asked, Where are they painted that were drowned after their vows? 7
The point being that those who showed him the picture were ignoring the
people who may have died in shipwreck, to avoid questioning their belief
in the power of the gods. Our minds have such a strong desire to be
correct that they will ignore evidence that goes against what it believes is

5 Bacon, Novum, pg. 56


6 Ibid, 58.
7 Laurence Carlin, Empiricists: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum
International Publishing Group, 2009) pg. 18
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the truth. As seen in the quote from Bacon earlier in the paragraph, we
should give equal weight, if not more weight to the negative evidence.
Bacon goes on do describe more flaws of the human mind that he
classifies as idols of the tribe. Human thinking is too greatly affected by
passion, namely impatience, superstition, and pride. Bacon puts it
poetically stating, numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes
imperceptible, in which the affections colour and infect the
understanding.8 Bacon next mentions final causes, a major tenet in
Scholastic philosophy. Final causes are part of Aristotles philosophy;
specifically they are future conditions, entities, or events regarded as the
cause of the thing in question.9 Bacon disagrees, saying Matter rather
than forms should be the object of our attention, its configuration and
changes of configuration, and simple actions, and law of action or motion;
for forms are figments of the human mind.10 Here he is criticizing this
scholastic tradition for assigning reasons and purposes; he finds this trait
to be associated with the tribe because it is human tendency to assign
human nature to non-human things. For Bacon this is something that
needs to be changed because it is not allowing nature to interpret itself,
rather it is humans forcing their own ideas onto nature. However, in
Bacons opinion, the most heinous display of failed human understanding
is the dullness of our senses. He reasons that these prevent us from
8 Bacon, Novum, pg. 57
9 Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed. s.v. biology, philosophy of
10 Bacon, Novum, pg. 58
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perceiving the subtle inner workings of matter, because of this we are


easily deceived into accepting what appears to us at first sight. This is a
serious flaw in the study of science, because science requires in depth
experimentation and examination. All of these Idols of the Tribe represent
the human tendency to project its own nature onto the external world, in
Bacons mind this idol is one of the reasons natural philosophy remained
stagnant for such a long period of time.
The next idols that Bacon describes are the Idols of the Cave. These
idols are also in the innate category, however they vary according to
personal characteristics. This differs from Idols of the Tribe because this
idol manifests itself differently in different people. As Bacon describes
these are idols of the individual man. For everyone has a cave or den of
his own, which refracts and discolours the light.11 So it is apparent that
even though this idol is innate, it is not the same for every person. The
main point of these idols are that people possess certain character traits
that cause them to be attracted to erroneous ways of viewing nature.
Some character traits, when combined with exposure to certain kinds of
education and experiences with others will result in their judgment of
science and philosophy. This tribe causes the judgments to be formed
unreflectively because the tribe stops them from paying attention to

11 Ibid, 54.
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natures actual processes and causes the discolour of the light of


nature.12
Bacon does not go into as much detail for these idols as he did for
the Idols of the Tribe, however he does include some examples to
describe his statements. For instance, he speaks of men becoming
attached to certain particular sciences and speculations 13 simply
because they have labored under them and become used to them. Bacon
specifically mentions Aristotle as someone who made his philosophy a
slave to his logic, rather than making his logic a servant of philosophy.
One scholar discusses how Aristotle and the other practitioners of
Scholasticism had a love for syllogistic logic and they focused on this
heavily; so much so that it determined the entire method they used to
pursue natural philosophy.14 Bacon also describes one more example of
how this tribe can manifest itself in a person. He claims that some will be
inclined to have extreme admiration of the ancient philosophes and their
ways of thinking, while others will be drawn to an extreme love and
appetite for novelty.15 This idea is no doubt reflective of Bacons
criticisms of Scholasticism, because the main manner by which
scholastics studied was to look at the works of ancient writers and use
those to supposedly gain knowledge. Bacon asserts that this blind
12 Carlin, Empiricists, pg. 57
13 Bacon, Novum, pg. 59
14 Brian Vickers, Essential Articles for the Study of Francis Bacon (Hamden:
Archon Books, 1968) pg. 107.
15 Bacon, Novum, pg. 60
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allegiance can distort ones understanding of nature; these allegiances


must be avoided because it will rob the intellect from even the smartest
of intellectuals.
Bacon categorizes both Idols of the Tribe and Idols of the Cave as
innate idols. The main reason is because these cannot be avoided, as
they are innate propensities of the mind. All we can do is be aware of
their existence and do our best not to fall prey to them too frequently. The
main difference between these two idols is that while Idols of the Cave are
innate, they are influenced by a persons individual character traits and
manifest themselves differently based on those traits. Therefore, only
some people are prone to mark distinctions or resemblance of things in
nature to the human experience. Idols of the Tribe are similar in the minds
of every human being, so we all tend to look for more order in nature than
is justified. This completes the discussion of the idols that fall under the
innate category, next are the adventitious idols.
Adventitious idols are ones that infect the mind due to experiences
and happenings in ones life. The first of these that Bacon discusses are
Idols of the Marketplace. According to him these idols are the most
troublesome of all[they] 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 that
it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and

inactive.16 Bacon finds these idols the worst of all and blames them for
the stagnation of philosophy and science. When he speaks of
understanding of words and names, he is referring to the framing of
words and definitions constructed based on false understanding of nature,
particularly being the conception of the common people. 17 Hence, why he
calls these idols of the Marketplace, because they are influenced by
common misuse of language and description.
Bacon further breaks down the Idols of the Marketplace by
identifying two types of idols imposed in the understanding of by the
ordinary use of words. The first kinds are words that designate things that
quite frankly do not exist. This concept is in connection with the
Scholastic tradition of hylomorphism, which claims that the world is
composed of the four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. 18 Bacons
skepticism of hylomophism stems from the lack of empirical evidence that
fire is truly a basic substance from which things are composed. Therefore
the expression element of fire would be an expression that designates
something non-existent. Yet, Bacon says that this type of marketplace idol
would be easier to expel because it is simply the result of a faulty theory
in natural philosophy. He says, it is only necessary that all theories
should be rejected and dismissed as obsolete19; which plays into his
16
17
18
19

Ibid.
Vickers, Articles, pg. 45
Ibid, pg. 48
Bacon, Novum, pg. 61
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concept of wiping out old theories and discovering new ones through
empirical means.
The second kind of marketplace idol is more easily dismissed
because it springs out of a faulty and unskillful abstraction, is intricate
and deeply rooted.20 These idols are the naming of things that seem to
exist, but are not defined well. According to Bacon, these words have no
clear meaning since they were defined too hastily without careful
observation of the entities they were set to define. To better explain this,
Bacon takes the word humid as an example of an Idol of the Marketplace.
During the time in which he lived, the word humid had no clear
application, when it was used it had two different senses. One of those
senses it could refer to a substance as humid, while if used in the other
sense the same substance could not be described as humid. This
therefore, convoluted the real meaning of the word and shows how it was
acceptable in his time to use terminology without having a clear
understanding of what it refers to. In Bacons opinion this is a great
obstruction to natural philosophy. How does he describe the manner in
which to remedy this horrible obstruction? In one passage Bacon relates:
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
20 Ibid.
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presently when I come to the method and scheme for the formation
of notions and axioms.21
From this passage we can see that the only way to help combat this type
of marketplace idol is through Bacons method of induction: building your
knowledge base from the ground up instead of in the Scholastic tradition.
The final category of idols that Bacon discusses is the Idols of the
Theatre. This group of adventitious idols consists of the false theories of
natural philosophy and science. Bacon describes them as play-books of
philosophical systems with perverted rules of demonstration. 22
Highlighting the idea that these idols come from experience in the world
and images that are forced upon us. Bacon further breaks down these
idols into three kinds of false systems: the Sophistical, the Empirical, and
the Superstitious.
The Sophistical system directly targeted the promulgation of
Aristotelian philosophy that dominated his day. The problem Bacon had
with Aristotelian learners and scientists was that they generally did not
base their beliefs and understandings on experience.23 Also, when they
did participate in experimentation they would take the results and make
them the general rule based on that one experience. This system
therefore is insufficiently based, if at all based, on experimental
observation. As Bacon put it, this Sophistical system is the most
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid, pg. 64.
23 Vickers, Articles, pg. 25
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conspicuous examplewho corrupted natural philosophy by his logic. 24


Instead of being rooted in experiment, their philosophies were fixed in
syllogistic logic and abstract speculation. To clarify, syllogistic logic is a
very Aristotelian notion in which conclusions are drawn from inferences
based on two or more known premises. In another passage, Bacon links
Aristotle with the Scholastics, in connection with the employment of a
false method of learning:
For [Aristotle] had come to his conclusion before; he did not consult
experience, as he should have done, in order to the framing of his
decisions and axioms; but having first determined the question
according to his will, he then resorts to experience, and bending her
into conformity with his placets leads her about like a captive in
procession; so that even on this count he is more guilty than his
modern followers, the schoolmen, who have abandoned experience
altogether.25
Schoolmen is a mocking nickname of sorts that empiricists like Bacon
use in reference to the followers of Aristotle in his time period. In this
quotation he links these men with the promotion of false reasoning not
based on experimentation; something Bacon finds appalling. His main
complaint in connection with the Sophistical false system of philosophy
was the methodology used within them. He claims that Aristotle bended
24 Bacon, Novum, pg. 64
25 Ibid, pg. 65.
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his experiences to force conformation into his own established system.


Rather than letting the system reflect nature, he forced nature to reflect
the system. Further, Bacon criticizes the schoolmen by suggesting that
their allegiance to Aristotelian logic is blind and foolish.
The other two types of theatrical idols are the Empirical and Superstitious,
and the errors of these were different from the Sophistical. According to
Bacon those in the Empirical School of Philosophy did perform some
experimentation diligently and carefully, unlike Aristotles followers.
However, these men took the results of these experiments and applied
them to a broad spectrum of situations, rather than just the specific
experiment. These broad generalizations, based on narrowly constructed
experiments were problematic for Bacon because in his opinion this would
be faulty logic. He uses William Gilbert, a philosopher, as an example of
someone who made broad generalizations based on narrow findings.
Gilbert took his limited experiments on magnetism and used them to
formulate an entire system, hastily claiming that the soul of the universe
is magnetism.26 He exemplified the problem Bacon had with this type of
theatrical idol, in that you cannot make broad sweeping statements
without sufficient evidence to back your claims. The Superstitious school
of philosophy consisted of people who illegitimately mixed natural
philosophy and theology in their understanding of the world. In the
discussion of final causes, Bacon cited Plato and his followers as being
26 Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed. s.v. William Gilbert
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guilty of this methodology. Bacon is so disgusted by this combination that


he asserts from this unwholesome mixture of things human and divine
there arises not only a fantastic philosophy but also a heretical religion. 27
For Bacon mixing science and religion is utterly obscene and
inappropriate. Thereby completing his discussion of the three systems
among Idols of the Theatre: Sophistical, Empirical, and Superstitious.
As discussed earlier Bacon insisted the only means to overcome the idols
was to use inductive methods of knowledge acquisition. This means of
learning is in stark contrast with the method most common in Bacons day
that of deductive reasoning. Bacons complaints about Aristotle and his
followers methods were the lack of experimental observation and the
root in deductive reasoning. Similarly, Scholastic syllogism was based on
only a few experiences, rather than a significant amount that would
satisfy the needs of Bacon. Take for instance how Aristotelian followers
would reach a conclusion with the syllogistic method:
General Statement:
1. All objects are composed primarily of the earth element naturally
descend.
From this general principle one could form deductive inferences, meaning
from this generality draw specific conclusions such as:
2. This book is composed primarily of the earth element.

27 Bacon, Novum, pg. 66.


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3. Therefore, this book naturally descends.28


In other words, given that premises one and two are accurate then three
must also be a true statement. For Aristotelian scholars this concept is
paradigm for scientific knowledge; if the general principle is true its
vouches for the certainty in truth of premise three. Bacon did not find this
to be substantial for reaching scientific conclusions. He found it suspicious
that the general principles were not based on much experimentation and
that the terms, such as earth element were not clearly defined. In many
ways his Idols described the problems with Aristotelian methods of
learning about the world. Therefore, Bacon introduced his new method of
induction to represent the best approach for progress in physical sciences
and philosophy.
Bacon firmly believed that his method of reasoning was far superior to the
deductive syllogism of Aristotle and his followers. His empiricism was
firmly grounded in experimental observation and allowed for the
acceptance of new knowledge, which inevitably leads to growth. Baconian
induction requires the assembly of three tables called the Presentation of
Instances29 to find what part of nature correlates with whatever is under
investigation. Induction has the goal of finding specific forms of things in
nature and identification of the internal constitution of natures objects in
such a way that could explain all that objects properties; this is different
28 Carlin, Empiricists, pg. 24
29 Bacon, Novum, pg. 145.
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from deduction because it does not leave holes in the understanding. To


better explain this we will look at Bacons investigation into the form of
heat. Bacon used three tables: Table of Essence and Presence, Table of
Deviation, or Absence in Proximity, and the Table of Degrees or
Comparison in Heat. The first table was the list of instances agreeing
with heat; in other words cases in which heat was present. Bacon uses
examples such as sunrays, boiled or heated liquids, and fresh animal
excrement.30 The second list consists of instances in which heat is not
present obviously a much lengthier list that could go on indefinitely. To
keep the list a reasonable size he listed things related to the first column;
for example moon-rays as opposed to sunrays. The third table contained
examples in which heat occurred but in varying degrees. As examples he
listed substances that can become hotter than flame, such as iron, and
the heat experienced by animals when they exercise. These tables are
supposed to increase the possibility of being able to rule out certain
properties not involved in the ultimate form of heat. 31 This ruling out is
therefore the process of induction that Bacon believed to be inextricably
linked to empiricism. Once we have ruled out everything possible based
on the tables, a given hypothesis concerning, in this case heat, is
confirmed. Only after this arduous process can we put forward the true
form of heat, which Bacon defines as a motion, expansive, restrained,
30 Ibid, pg. 128.
31 Carlin, Empiricists, pg. 26.
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and acting in its strife upon the smaller particles of bodies. 32 Once this is
done, then general laws can be stated based on these discoveries. Bacon
also takes note of the counter-examples; he does not avoid them like
traditional Scholastics.
There are two features in the method of induction that make it such
a revolutionary form of thinking. First, the extensive and detailed
empirical observation for the purposes of gathering information is
unprecedented. Before Bacon, there was no one who put such an
emphasis on the process of gathering data. Second, the conclusions
drawn from Bacons inductive method are not guaranteed to be correct.
This concept is in vast contrast to the Aristotelian deductive reasoning,
because they ignored it when what they hypothesized to be the
conclusion, did not match the evidence. Even though Bacons method was
not immune to error, it definitely proved a to be an important and
revolutionary step in the processes of the scientific world.
Sir Francis Bacon is famous for many contributions to the worlds of
science and philosophy. A true renaissance man, he experimented and
dabbled in many different areas of interest. In my opinion one of the
greatest contributions he made to the scientific world was this idea of
inductive reasoning. His inclusion of these Idols was merely icing on the
cake. Instead of just blatantly stating how wrong and ignorant it was to
approach the study of science in such an unscientific way, Bacon
32 Bacon, Novum, pg. 154.
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explained how the human mind up until that point essentially did not
know any other methods. He broke down the human brain into four areas
of flaw and explained how to overcome these. Even though the scientific
method is not an exact replica of Bacons methods, he definitely set the
blueprint for the modern one that is used today. The work of Bacon has
far reaching effects, which I would be hesitant to say he understood
during his time. Francis Bacon was revolutionary in his ideas and truly
rocked the science world into the future, long after his death. He
influenced progress and brought forth important changes in the scientific
method and in the process altered the course of scientific history.

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