Meaning of monocausotaxophilia | Babel Free

Definitions

The tendency to explain everything as based on a single cause.

uncountable

Examples

“There is increasing evidence (Levy 1974, 1984, forthcoming) that it is the exchange of information between right-brain and left-brain modes which constitutes what various researchers have called the human “cognitive imperative, "the 'aha' or 'eureka' moment, monocausotaxophilia, "or the "what is it" syndrome: the human capacity to make sense of the world.”

“One might argue that storytelling itself is the answer arrived at by epic—but this would be to fall into the monocausotaxophilia—my friend Ernst Pöppel's term for the love of single causes that explain everything—that is the temptation of science.”

“Don't think that the Gini coefficient alone will describe the situation, however; this would be succumbing to monocausotaxophilia, the love of single ideas that explain everything, one of humanity's most common cognitive errors.”

CEFR level