Monday, May 24, 2010

Hypatia

The great but little-known Hypatia gets her due in Agora, a new film reviewed yesterday in the Times. Carl Sagan raised her profile in Cosmos... (text); maybe now she'll make it onto the Top Female Philosopher lists where she should have been all along.

She said: To teach superstitions as truth is a most terrible thing.

2 comments:

Tim O'Neill said...

Unfortunately this movie distorts history to fit its agenda: see http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2010/05/hypatia-and-agora-redux.html for details. Sagan also bungled the history of her story even more badly. And the quote you attribute to her is fake - it was invented by Elbert Hubbard in 1908.

Phil said...

Assuming its correctness, pending further research, thanks for the correction. (BTW, in case anyone is confused about this: Elbert is not related to L.Ron.)

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