Francis Bacon catalogued four kinds of mental 'idols' that trick us before we even reason

In his 1620 Novum Organum, Bacon argued that genuine knowledge required first naming the biases built into human thinking: idols of the Tribe (flaws shared by everyone), the Cave (an individual's own quirks), the Marketplace (confusion from imprecise language), and the Theatre (false systems inherited from past philosophy). His proposed antidote was systematic observation and experiment, not pure reasoning.

— Francis Bacon, Novum Organum — 1620
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