Idola tribus is a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 term, normally translated as "Idols of the Tribe", coined by Sir Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...

 and used in his Novum Organum

Novum Organum

The Novum Organum, full original title Novum Organum Scientiarum, is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, written in Latin and published in 1620. The title translates as new instrument, i.e. new instrument of science. This is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on...

, one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the logic and method of modern science.

The term is one of four such "idols" which represent "idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, not only so beset men's minds that truth can hardly find entrance, but even after entrance is obtained, they will again in the very instauration of the sciences meet and trouble us, unless men being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults".

Besides idola tribus, there are also idola specus

Idola specus

Idola specus is a Latin term, normally translated as "Idols of the Cave" , coined by Sir Francis Bacon and used in his Novum Organum, one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the logic and method of modern science....

, (Idols of the Cave, caused by one's personal peculiarities and experiences) idola fori

Idola fori

Idola fori is a Latin term, normally translated as "Idols of the Market Place", coined by Sir Francis Bacon and used in his Novum Organum, one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the logic and method of modern science....

(Idols of the Market Place, caused by language) and idola theatri

Idola theatri

Idola theatri is a Latin term that Sir Francis Bacon coined in his Novum Organum—one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the logic and method of modern science...

(Idols of the Theatre, caused by philosophers).
And so in this category are cases of people being misled by anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...

. In more detail, Bacon enumerated several specific such barriers to science which are part of human nature, coming into this category:

• "The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds."
• "The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it."
• "The human understanding is moved by those things most which strike and enter the mind simultaneously and suddenly, and so fill the imagination; and then it feigns and supposes all other things to be somehow, though it cannot see how, similar to those few things by which it is surrounded."
• "The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest, and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we cannot conceive of any end or limit to the world, but always as of necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond." Bacon gives as example the Aristotelian doctrine of final cause, which he says has "relation clearly to the nature of man rather than to the nature of the universe; and from this source have strangely defiled philosophy".
• "The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called "sciences as one would." For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes."
• "But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses; in that things which strike the sense outweigh things which do not immediately strike it, though they be more important."
• "The human understanding is of its own nature prone to abstractions and gives a substance and reality to things which are fleeting."

Bacon said that the Idols of the Tribe "take their rise either from the homogeneity of the substance of the human spirit, or from its preoccupation, or from its narrowness, or from its restless motion, or from an infusion of the affections, or from the incompetency of the senses, or from the mode of impression".

External links

• Novum Organum (in Latin
  Latin
  Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
  
  )
• New Organon (1863 English
  English language
  English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
  
  translation)