Thursday, August 28, 2014

Biases and Truth

In The New Organon by Francis Bacon in book1, aphorism 46, he discusses that if one forms an opinion, he will then “draws all things else to support and agree with it.” Even when the evidence against an opinion is greater than the evidence for it, he believes that humans will still stick with their opinion. “The first conclusion colors” and biases our opinions, but how are we to avoid that? We have the “being” of humans, our own biases, the distortion of language, and the influence of philosophy warping the opinions that we form. Even after we form our opinions, those opinions color and blur the way we view other opinions and ultimately the truth. Bacon breaks down all we have to hold our views on, but does not give a way to properly view things. In a world full of biases and distortions, how are we to find truth without having others or ourselves influencing it? How can we find ultimate truth and see through all of the biases?

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