Francis Bacon: the Four Idols

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Francis Bacon: The Four Idols

Directions: Answer all questions on this paper. Use complete sentences when appropriate.

1) Define idol in Baconian terms?

2) Summarize the idols of the Tribe.

3) Summarize the idols of the Cave.

4) Summarize the idols of the Marketplace.

5) Summarize the idols of Theater.

6) Define dogma?

7) Define deductive reasoning in your own words.

8) Define inductive reasoning in your own words.

9) Give an example of deductive reasoning in your own terms.

10) Give an example of inductive reasoning in your own terms.

11) Which one do you think is better and why?

12) Which one did Francis Bacon invent?

13) Why isn’t inductive reasoning used more than deductive reasoning?

14) On page 880, what is so intelligent about Bacon’s Four Idols?

15) On page 880 what is the most basic device Bacon uses in his rhetoric?

16) What does this device mean (please do you own research)?

17) Define sophistical? In your own words that you can understand.

18) Define hypothesis?

19) On page 886, what does Bacon mean by the word “senses”? Give me one word.

20) On page 882, when Bacon says, “For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things,” what does he mean by this?

21) On page 884, what does “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,” mean?

22) On page 886 in par. 13, what does Bacon my by, “For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes, therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature, from superstition; the light of experience from arrogance and pride, lest his mind should seem to be occupied with things mean and transitory; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinion of the vulgar. Numberless in short are the ways, and sometimes imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding.”

23) On page 886 in par. 14, what does the first sentence mean? “But by far the greatest hindrance and aberration of the human understanding proceeds from the dullness, incompetency, and deceptions of the senses.”

24) In paragraph 15 on page 886, what does the first sentence mean as well? “The human understanding is of its own nature prone to abstractions and gives a substance and reality to things which are fleeting.”

25) On page 887 in par. 18, what does Bacon mean when he says, “But men of this kind, if they betake themselves to philosophy and contemplations of a general character, distort and color them in obedience to their former fancies.”

26) On page 888 in par. 22, what does Bacon mean when states, “—that whatever his mind seizes and dwells upon with peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion, and that so much the more care is to be taken in dealing with such questions to keep the understanding even and clear.”

27) On page 888 in par. 23, what does Bacon mean when he says, “For men believe that their reason governs words; but it is also true that words react on the understanding; and this it is that has rendered philosophy and the sciences sophistical and inactive.”?

28) On page 889, Bacon states there are two kinds of idols that are imposed by words on the understanding. What are they and what does this mean?

29) What does par. 25 mean on page 889?

30) On page 890, Bacon says “…the idols of theater are but plainly impressed and received into the mind from the play-books of philosophical systems and the perverted rules of demonstration.” What does he mean by this?

31) In the end of par. 28 on page 891, what is Bacon’s ultimate goal in writing the Four Idols?

32) What is the significance of the end of page 29 on page 891?

33) What is the significance of par. 30 on page 891?

34) On page 892 in paragraph 32, which group of people is he criticizing?

35) In par. 33, why does he criticize this group of people?

36) In par. 34, when Bacon says, “yet in this vanity some of the moderns have with extreme levity indulged so far as to attempt to found a system of natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis, on the book of Job, and other parts of the sacred writings; seeking for the dead among the living: which also makes the inhibition and repression of the it more important, because from this unwholesome mixture of things human and divine there arises not only a fantastic philosophy but also an heretical religion,” what does he mean?

37) When Bacon concludes by saying, “Very meet it is therefore that we be sober-minded, and give to faith that only which is faith’s…,” what does he mean?

pg. 1 M. Denmon, MAT, BA www.litfit.webs.com