Roger Bacon’s Four Stumbling Blocks to Truth

Four very significant stumbling-blocks in the way of grasping the truth, which hinder every man however learned, and scarcely allow anyone to win a clear title to wisdom, namely:

  1.  the example of weak and unworthy authority;
  2. longstanding custom;
  3. the feeling of the ignorant crowd; and
  4.  the hiding of our own ignorance while making a display of our apparent knowledge.
Roger Bacon (1214 – 1292) also known by the scholastic accolade Doctor Mirabilis, was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empiricism. Wikipedia

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