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Comment by lucidguppy | Hacker News Reader

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lucidguppy·

Some say that the enlightenment was a refutation of Plato and Aristotle.

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Bertrand Russell especially hated him for this. Just read "History of western philosophy"-s section on Aristotle! ;)

e.g.

"Throughout modern times, practically every advance in science, in logic, or in philosophy has had to be made in the teeth of the opposition from Aristotle's disciples."

"Aristotle, it should be said, has been one of the great misfortunes of the human race." (Scientific outlook)

Bertrand Russell also paints an extremely negative view of Nietzsche in that book. The whole work is extremely biased, it's a dangerous book to read on philosophy if you dont already know the field well, theres too much bias and its too difficult to tell what is bias.

I wouldn't call it dangerous. It's pretty obvious from the literary style that it's partly a diatribe against particular intellectual factions Russel didn't like. It's an enjoyable diatribe! But... the lack of objectivity should be pretty obvious to any modern reader. For example the part about Virgin Mary being direct retcon of Artemis is not really defendable. Although the larger idea of a continuity of worship of a mother goddess from pagan times is correct in the larger context.

I say dangerous because of the way I came about the book. I read it in high school before I knew any philosophy and it formed the basis of my perception about which philosophers are important. A decade later, after much self study, I reread the book and was horrified at the hand waving and blatant bias.

Bertrand Russell also had his own elitist agendas.

Guess I hit a nerve.

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