If Aristotle said it, then it is almost certainly wrong. Is generally a good rule not to trust the opinion of someone who can't count the legs on a fly and who also claims that menstruating women cloud mirrors.
Well, I've read through a bit of his stuff that I found on Project Gutenberg. Personally, I prefer the outlook of Diogenes.
[edit] And don't get me started on Aristotle's politics, which in my view were largely self interested, shallow and myopic. For example -
"But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature?
There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule."
Now if we compare that to the story of Diogenes when he was taken and sold as a slave and then asked by the gangmaster what he was useful for, he apparently told them that he was quite useless at everything, other than as a governer of others. Also he apparently told Alexander the Great "I was searching through some bones for those of your father, but could not distinguish them from those of a slave."
Aristotle was a philosopher, not a pundit. Most of his opinions were rooted in reason, even ones that seem silly or backward to us now. It's easy to read the work of people from past eras and be dismissive of them. After all, they were wrong about so much.
Aristotle was certainly a philosopher,but i fail to see how he could not see that slavery is wrong,that barbarians are somehow 'inferior'.No,it isnt based on logic.I guess that makes him as human as the rest of us.
Have you studied Plato and Aristotle? There are arguments behind those opinions. I disagree with them, mind you, but it's easy to just scoff at the past for holding presently unpopular opinions.
That's why I made comparisons with one of his contemporaries. Now don't get me wrong, I do appreciate his genius in logic and maths, however I think his influence in many other areas has been profoundly damaging.
What am I to make of this? I don't know who to trust anymore.