Literary notes about Credulity (AI summary)
In literature, the term “credulity” has been employed as a multifaceted device to depict human naiveté and the uncritical acceptance of ideas or phenomena. Early sociological work, for example, frames it as an overly simplistic trait attributed to primitive belief systems [1], while satirists like John Arbuthnot use it to critique those who are easily manipulated [2]. Novelists such as Shelley and Austen explore the personal and moral dimensions of credulity, suggesting it both endears characters and exposes their vulnerabilities [3, 4]. Politically, writers like Jefferson reveal how fervor and a lack of skepticism can mislead even the well-intentioned [5], and educational theorists such as Dewey regard it as a natural starting point from which critical thinking must evolve [6, 7]. Across genres and eras, from debates on public belief to detailed portraits of character, credulity remains a key lens through which authors probe the human condition [8, 9].
- This blind credulity which is attributed to the primitive is really too simple.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - It is base to take advantage of their simplicity and credulity, and leave them in the lurch at last.
— from The History of John Bull by John Arbuthnot - They greedily imbibed this belief; and their over-weening credulity even rendered them eager to make converts to the same faith.
— from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - No lurking horrors were to upbraid him for his easy credulity.
— from Emma by Jane Austen - Years afterward I learned that in politics, as almost in everything else, Mr. Southwick was blinded by his enthusiasm and credulity."
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - We are made, so to speak, for belief; credulity is natural.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey - Independent of training, there is a "primitive credulity"
— from How We Think by John Dewey - We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy to think all men virtuous.
— from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) by Edmund Burke - We all, scientists and non-scientists, live on some inclined plane of credulity.
— from The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy by William James
