I.
III.
We are, here, reminded of similar
attempts made by eminent philosophers in the Middle Ages and in the modern
period in the west to clear the cobwebs of thought for the sake of
establishing the truth. Socrates aimed at defining terms. Some the logins
in the middle ages sought to give the guidelines for thought. But we
should note that til the beginning of the era, philosophy was tied down to
the apron stings of Aristotle�s philosophy. One who deviated was
condemned. There is a story of a serious attempt made by eminent
philosophers to find out the number of teeth a horse has. They refereed to
the Classical texts and the books of Aristotle. But when a young
scientist, imbued with the modern sprit of investigation, humbly suggested
that a horse be brought to the Conference hall to count the teeth instead
of pouring in the ancient classical texts, the elderly scholars looked at
him with surprise and derision, because �Aristotle never did that�.
It was against this type of stagnation
of knowledge and academic slavery that Francis Bacon protested. He said
that if we have to pursue truth, we have per force to be free from the
follies arising out of the fallacies I thought and due to the purely
deductive approach towards the seeking of truth. Truth needs to be sought
in the world outside and not merely I the deduction of conclusions from
the premises in the Aristotelian syllogisms. Francis Baconstartead the
movement of induction in the scientific investigation as a methodology of
investigation.
Francis Bacon wanted to remove the
cobwebs of thought in order to get the correct picture of reality. Bacaon
put more life into logic. Making induction an epic adventure and a
conquest. Philosophy needed a new method. In order to seek the truth in
the real sense of the term, Bacon urged us to free ourselves from the
traditional stagnation�s and the fallacies of thought. �Expurgation of
thought is the step� we must become, as little children, innocent of
�isms� and abstractions, washed clear of prejudices and preconceptions. We
must destroy the Idols of the mind. Idol is a picture taken for a
reality, a thought mistaken for a thing. Becon mentions 4 Idols of the
mind we should scrupulously avoid in seeking truth.
The 4 Idols of the mind
are:
(i)
Idols of the tribe,
(ii) Idols of the Cave,
(iii)
Idols of the market place and
(iv)
Idols of the Theatre.
(i)
The idols of the tribe constitute the
fallacious nature to humanity in general. �For man�s sense is falsely
asserted to be standard of thing- Our thoughts are pictures rather of
ourselves than of their objects. For instance human understanding, from
its peculiar nature, easily supposes a greater degree of order in the
Universe than it really finds. Hence, the fiction that the celestial
bodies move in perfect circle .52 � All superstition is much the same,
whether it be that of Astrology, dreams , omens, retributive judgement or
the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are
fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more
common� 53
(ii)
The Idols of the cave are errors
peculiar to the individual man. � For every one. . has a cave or den of
his own, which refracts or discolors the light of nature� 54 The
judgements are vitiated by individual moods and the personal factor in the
constitution of the mind. Some minds are synthetic, and some analytic.
Some show unbounded enthusiasm for antiquity, some others eagerly embrace
novelty. Only a few can have a just perspective. Truth has no parties.55
(iii)
The Idols of the Market place
arise from the commerce and associatio of ment with one another.
They use language as the medium , but they forget that words are sometimes
misleading, as they are imposed according to the understanding of the
crowd. We I the present day have used the word �socialism� without
understanding the connotation of the word. Philosophers have used the
phrases like �the infinite� or The first mover unmoved� but these are
Fig-leaf phrases used to cover naked ignorance and perhaps indicative of a
guilty conscience in the user. 56
(iv)
The Idls of the Theatre have
migrated into men�s minds from the various dogmas of philosophers and
also from the wrog lowas demonstration. All the systems of philosophy are
so many stage plays representing worlds of their creation after an unreal
and scenic fashion. And in the plays of this philosophic theatre you may
observe the same thing which is found in the theatre of poets, -- that
stogies invented for the stage are more compact and elegant, and more as
we would wish them to be, than true stories out of history. The world as
Plato, ad pictures of Plato rather than the world. 57
We shall never get far along the path of truth
if these idols are still tied to us. We should free ourselves from the
subjective elements in the pursuit of truth. Truth is to any man�s
monopoly. It is universal as objective. The philosophers and the seers
from times immemorial have striven to reach the highest through the means
of reason and intuition. Reasion leads us to the understanding of
empirical reality, while it is the highest experience, which leads us to
the Truth. Francis Bacon had the limited objective of providing the
methodology of scientific investigation. Acarya Samantabhadra has taken
the perspective of spiritual reality and has shown the pitfalls in the
path to self-realisation. It is the seers; the Rsis light they lead
us on. Such enlighten ones or the �sages are the first hand exponents of
philosophy. 58
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