by Michael Taylor
“But the Idols of the Marketplace are the most troublesome of all: idols which have crept into the understanding through the alliances of words and names.”
Novum Organum, Book I, Aphorism 59 (1620)
Aphorism 59 from Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum directly addresses his view of the “most troublesome” of the fallacies he categorised in his four Idols – are the idols of the marketplace:
“There are also Idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I call Idols of the Market Place, on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.”
Idols of the marketplace are fallacies created by public discourse – people simply talking to people, as well as institutions communicating with the public through any means. Either way, people and institutions using and mis-using language and creating misunderstandings and false conclusions in the minds of others, is the basis for this idol, and deserves close analysis because of its pervasiveness – it is literally happening every day, to everyone on the planet, across all languages.
It deserves close analysis because we literally live in a sea of communication, and our (true or false) conclusions about reality are primarily formed by this sea influencing our worldview. No matter how much we seek to limit our access to this endless sea, any discourse between one person and another is an opportunity for misunderstandings to be communicated and accepted by the listener or reader.
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