Bacon created four ideas that describe how many people are misled into false understanding of the world. These are called the Four Idols.
- Idols of the Tribe: This idea states that many people are unable to understand the world simply because of the faulty human nature. Bacon states that a person's perceptions of the world are not based on how the universe actually is, but rather filtered through the individual's own mind and self. He says that humans mingle their own nature with the real nature of things, which distorts understanding.
- Idols of the Cave: This type of misunderstanding is based on the distortion that occurs within each individual person, which is different from the distortion that all humans as a whole experience. Each individual has different ideas about everything, because of his/her own nature, education, discussions, and other impressions and experiences. Because each person has different experiences in life, each person thinks differently. Therefore, the information that they take in is filtered through what they know, since they are unable to look outside of their own understanding.
- Idols of the Market Place: The use of language and conversation between people also changes the true meanings of ideas. Words mystify the real ideas that people have in their minds.
- Idols of the Theatre: This idol describes how various institutions and organizations distort true knowledge and understanding by promoting only ideas that support their own agendas. For example, the Catholic church revered only a few ancient Greek philosophers, but didn't discuss any of the other Greek philosophers' works. This kind of idol limits the scope of knowledge that people understand. A limited knowledge leads to biases.
