The idol of the Tribe roughly corresponds to the terrain I covered in the last three chapters: universal, species-wide cognitive habits that can lead us into error. The idol of the Cave refers to chauvinism—the tendency to distrust or dismiss all peoples and beliefs foreign to our own clan. The idol of the Marketplace is analogous to what the earlier Bacon called the influence of public opinion, and includes the potentially misleading effects of language and rhetoric. The last idol, that of the Theater, concerns false doctrine that are propagated by religious, scientific, or philosophical
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