The Idols Of The Human Mind
Francis Bacon was a seventeenth century English writer, philosopher, statesman, and best known for his scientific method, although he made no discoveries in natural sciences. He wrote a book Novum Organum in Latin and published in 1620 in which he composed the ‘idols of the mind’ in the form of aphorisms. The idols of the mind represent the misleading images of truth besiege in human mind. According to Francis Bacon there are four idols, which from first notices of things established certain thoughts and beliefs in human mind. The first idol is the idols of the Tribe; the second, idols of the Cave; the third, idols of the Market-place; the fourth, idols of the Theatre. If we were to reimagine Francis Bacon as a 21st century writer composing his ‘idols of the mind’, then he will write the four idols corresponds to the modern fallacies of human mind regarding culture, science, humanity, media arts, and religion.
The first idol, idols of the Tribe take place in human mind through the ancestors. They arise from the first notices of thing in each particular race of human. For each tribe has its own canon of beliefs which form a misconception in individuals that they consider them only true means of perceiving things. For instance, in modern world human consider culture that is product of ancestors, as true sense of identity and the only thing to be followed ignoring reasoning and truth. Culture in itself is a bias element of human understanding as it is a core reason for fights and conflicts in the world. The other element of culture is of holding bias beliefs towards individuals of other cultures that result in racism. As recently in America the death of George Floyd, an African-American in the custody of a white police officer who put his knee on Floyd’s neck. This event shows the false mentality of superiority among white people over black skin people. Humans have false beliefs of superiority imbibed in their Tribe or race.
The second idol, idols of the Cave have its foundation in each individual. It arises in individual from whatever it receives or expose to. It is peculiar to individual’s interest and biases base on his/her knowledge of things. It includes individual fancy towards particular subjects. Hence, human perceptions of knowledge differ from each other. For instance, today individuals with interest in natural sciences surprises by theory of relativity, transform and perceive its concepts of time dilation, mass-energy conversion, length contraction into their false imaginations or into new philosophies of universe. This thing distorts the understanding of individuals and force to live in a cave. Likewise, humans have different understandings regarding humanity. Some suppose humanity has no religion and some suppose humanity has its foundation in religion and some suppose humanity has nothing to do with human nature. These suppositions are their beliefs that are result of each individual’s perceptions.
The third idol, idols of the Market-place, according to Bacon is the most troublesome of all. They take rise in the communication of human with each other. Particularly language as human intercourse with each other through language. The language consists of words and sometimes one word has different meanings. Although, meanings of words don’t exist they are constructed. The unsuitable choice of words leads to miscommunication and misconceptions of things. Present-day humans communicate through social media apps by developing language of their own that is much misleading and form false association of things with words. For instance, humans type words of local language in English language alphabets which result in false judgments of words and eventually distort the human understanding.
The fourth idol, idols of the theatre which comes into human mind from various media arts including use of rhetoric, portraying of relations in drama that leads to false learning of human nature. These idols also built through man made philosophies, theological myths, and antiquity. For instance, present-day on-air Pakistani dramas on television are depicting characters and relations of the society that are far from reality. They build the false image of characters and relations that ultimately lead to false understanding of relations. Also the all-time bombardment of negative news and talk shows on television badly effect the viewers’ thinking and opinion about the things.
So the four idols or fallacies of human mind are supported without questioning that leads to its acceptance. Inductive reasoning is proposed by Bacon as the solution for the removal of these idols. Individuals had to examine their beliefs with contemplation and reasoning to find the true knowledge of nature.
