Contemporary Logical Knowledge and Bacon's Idols of the Mind: Biases or Fallacies?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31649/sent45.02.043Keywords:
cognitive biases, confirmation bias, formal fallacies, informal fallacies, formal logic, argumentation theoryAbstract
What are Bacon's idola mentis in the context of modern logic and theory of argumentation – biases or fallacies? Given the current terminological ambiguity, the authors justify the rejection of a single Ukrainian equivalent for bias and the need for a methodologically rigorous contextual translation (equivalents are “uperedzhennja” and “vykryvlennja”). At the same time, idola tribus and idola pecus are correlated with confirmatory biases as a systematic and unconscious manifestation of the subjective perception of reality. Idola fori and idola theatri generate formal and informal fallacies: idola fori serve as a basis or component in the formation of such fallacies during the construction of an argument, and idola theatri in pragma-dialectics are considered a violation of the rule of relevance (i.e. arguments to authority)
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