Page 8 - GALIET UNAPHORISMS and the 4 Idols: Bacon IV

The “Idols” in Bacon’s “Novum Organum” represent all those false notions or perceptions that corrupt the human mind through the senses causing prejudice: for in obstructing truth, our senses lead us through the obscure labyrinths of distortion. For Bacon, therefore, it is imperative that the mind be made into what later Locke calls a “tabula rasa,” a clean slate so that individuals may make true and authentic interpretations of nature. Bacon, by insisting that we discredit our idols and thus our senses, is asking us to deny our experiences while paradoxically contradicting himself at the same time for he says that “the best demonstration by far is experience” (LXX, 67). While, it might be true that we tend to distort things by observing them, there cannot be distortions in our own perceptions for they lead us to the knowledge of the self.
Bacon argues that our intellect is corrupted by four types of idols: The Idols of the Tribe, The Idols of the Cave, The Idols of the Market Place and the Idols of the Theatre. The Idols of the Tribe arise out of the actual nature of the human race. He asserts that our understanding is hindered by our tendencies to suppose that in nature there is more regularity and order than actually exists, by our tendency to stick to our own opinions, by our tendency to be harmfully influenced by the incompetence and delusions caused by the senses which are bound to lead us astray “for the sense by itself is a thing infirm and erring; neither
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