"The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood."
— René Descartes
The Chief Cause Of Human Errors
The chief cause of human errors is to be found in the prejudices picked up in childhood.
About this quote
From Part I of the Principles of Philosophy (1644), Article 71, where René Descartes explains why even careful thinkers make errors. The culprit is not the senses or the intellect itself but early childhood, when the will forms hasty judgments before the intellect is mature enough to evaluate them properly. These prejudices (praejudicia) then ossify into apparent certainties. This account of cognitive bias was influential on later Enlightenment epistemology, and the proposed remedy — systematic doubt to clear away old prejudices — became the hallmark of Cartesian method.
Source
Principles of Philosophy, Part I (1644)
