Bertrand Russell is the most overrated philosopher of all time.

@MAW Said

Apart from philosophy students, who all have beards, listen to Coldplay and drink guiness.

@jmo Said

I definitely prefer Bertrand Russel to Friedrich Nietzsche if it comes down to the two.

@galasTAray Said

You and your British psychologists.

@galasTAray Said

Sometimes we listen to something different like Gorillaz.

@Carnotaurus Said

I'm getting sick of Bertrand Russell. I'm sick of seeing quotes by him in the subreddit r/athiesm. I'm sick of seeing people on the internet who admire him. Bertrand Russell might be the most overrated philosopher of all time.

Here a Bertrand Russell quote that proves my point.

?"Since Rousseau and Kant, there have been two schools of liberalism, which may be distinguished as the hard-headed and the soft-hearted. The hard-headed developed, through Bentham, Ricardo, and Marx, by logical stages into Stalin; the soft-hearted, by other logical stages, through Fichte, Byron, Carlyle, and Nietzsche, into Hitler."

Oh god! Look at Bertrand Russel go! He's claiming that Hitler was inspired by Nietzsche even though they had nothing in common with each other. I find it pretty Ironic that Bertrand Russell claimed that Nietzsche inspired Hitler since Russell advocated eugenics wheras Nietzsche did not.

Bertrand Russell said this in ICARUS or the Future of Science: "Eugenics has, of course, more ambitious possibilities in a more distant future. It may aim not only at eliminating undesired types, but at increasing desired types."

https://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/Icarus.html

“It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion”

In my opinion, Bertrand Russell is the dragon who has to be slain if Nietzsche fans are ever going to be able to discuss their beliefs without being labeled Nazis.

@MAW Said

Yeah well the new album is pretty good. But can there be anything more pointless than debating which philosopher is the greatest?

@sister_of_mercy Said

I'm more of a Sartre girl myself, but I actually quite admire Russell's work. I don't think he's better than Nietzsche (who does tend to be a tiny bit overrated by undergrad philosophy students for some reason), but a lot of his ideas make sense and are cohesive- which is something that brings down a lot of philosophers imo.

@jmo Said

A tiny bit? God at my uni everyone was obsessed with him until about half way through third year. Couldn't move for people talking about him, and quoting him and going on and on and on about him.

Finally people got to third year and got over him. 2 and a half years of tutorials where Nietzsche was quoted in every class no matter how irrelevant he was to the discussion.

*shudders* One of few things I do not miss about being a philosophy student.