Department of "What the Hell?"

Linda Hirshman at TNR's Open University

"The conventional wisdom of course is that Aristotle was a defender of slavery and women's inferiority and thus disabled from providing wisdom in these emancipated times, an argument that would also eliminate the Declaration of Independence."

I should point out that Ms Hirshman does not make this argument herself and would in fact, I think, like to see us all read more classical philosophy. But does anyone really think this? Could, more to the point, this view be so widespread as to be the conventional wisdom? I ask in innocence since I've never heard anyone make such a claim. Then again, one should never be surprised by the folly of academia or the arrogance of modernity.