Roger Bacon · Science
Bacon opens the <em>Opus Majus</em> with a diagnosis of why even learned people err: four <em>offendicula</em>, or stumbling blocks - deference to weak authority, the force of custom, the opinion of the ignorant crowd, and the concealment of one’s own ignorance behind a show of wisdom. A medieval theory of bias.
You learned that Bacon named four offendicula that hinder every mind from truth: frail authority, custom, the crowd’s opinion, and the concealment of ignorance under a show of wisdom - and that he called the fourth the most dangerous. Explain the four and why the fourth is the root of the others.
Leads to Francis Bacon.
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