Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE WAR OF IDEAS
- PART II PATTERNS OF MISUNDERSTANDING
- 8 Understanding misunderstandings The intergenerational transmission of ideas and the time–factor
- 9 Contracts and traps Bacon's contract of error and the notion of pure misunderstanding
- 10 On the misuse of language Ordinary language, formalism and the false–security pitfall
- 11 Errors and illusions Francis Bacon on the sub–rational determinants of belief
- 12 The protection of belief Pure misunderstanding as the result of theoretical akrasia
- 13 On misunderstanding Malthus The reception of the Essay on Population: critics and supporters
- 14 Ideas into Politics, I The transmission of abstract thought: three levels of exchange
- 15 Ideas into politics, II Sweeping claims, the philosopher–king and pure misunderstandings
- Conclusion to part II
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Errors and illusions Francis Bacon on the sub–rational determinants of belief
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 April 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE WAR OF IDEAS
- PART II PATTERNS OF MISUNDERSTANDING
- 8 Understanding misunderstandings The intergenerational transmission of ideas and the time–factor
- 9 Contracts and traps Bacon's contract of error and the notion of pure misunderstanding
- 10 On the misuse of language Ordinary language, formalism and the false–security pitfall
- 11 Errors and illusions Francis Bacon on the sub–rational determinants of belief
- 12 The protection of belief Pure misunderstanding as the result of theoretical akrasia
- 13 On misunderstanding Malthus The reception of the Essay on Population: critics and supporters
- 14 Ideas into Politics, I The transmission of abstract thought: three levels of exchange
- 15 Ideas into politics, II Sweeping claims, the philosopher–king and pure misunderstandings
- Conclusion to part II
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Lack of clarity and the involuntary misuse of language work as two powerful catalysts of pure misunderstanding. Like the use of needlessly technical language, they are well–trodden routes to unintended results in the transmission of messages. But there are, no doubt, many more. An instructive collection of language–related problems in the transmission of knowledge has been given by K. Arrow:
Every piece of information can be regarded as transmitted in a code and can only be used if decoded. In the first instance, a language itself is a code, and the sheer difficulty of translation perhaps can be underestimated. (The inability of English–speaking economists to learn from their French, German, and Italian colleagues is notorious.) There are problems in nonverbal forms of communication. When the British in World War II supplied us [Americans] with the plans for the jet engine, it took ten months to redraw them to conform to American usage. More subtly, as several gifted observers of the educational scene have observed, there are class and racial differences in the meaning of words, not so much in the literal denotation, but in the connotations and associations, and in the significance of non–verbal behaviour. In the complicated interplay of messages between teacher and student, the unreliabilities of communication can lead to extreme inefficiencies.
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- Information
- Beliefs in ActionEconomic Philosophy and Social Change, pp. 150 - 159Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991