Idola theatri

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Idola theatri" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Idola theatri (singular Idolum theatri) is a type of tendency towards logical fallacy or error, normally translated as "idols of the theatre". The Latin was coined by Sir Francis Bacon in his Novum Organum—one of the earliest treatises arguing the case for the logic and method of modern science. Bacon described them as "Idols which have immigrated into men's minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration." He named them Idols of the Theater "because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion."^[1]