Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Hatred of reason, argument, or enlightenment.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Hatred of reason.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Hatred of argument or discussion; hatred of enlightenment.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Hatred or fear of reasoning or argument.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun hatred of reasoning

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek μισολογία (misologia), from μισόλογος (misologos), from μισέω (miseō, "I hate") + λόγος (logos, "account, reason").

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Examples

  • At a time when the American electorate is finally rejecting the misology of class warfare and Keynesian government interventionism, along comes a so-called “free market” supporter sticking his foot in his mouth.

    Put A Sock In Newt 2010

  • He had imagination enough and intelligence enough to perceive that they are the most pestilent of all the enemies of mankind, the sombre hierarchs of misology, who take away the keys of knowledge, thrusting truth down to the second place, and discrowning sovereign reason to be the serving drudge of superstition or social usage.

    Voltaire 2007

  • It has been well said that the theme of the Faust is the consequence of a misology, or hatred of knowledge, resulting upon an original thirst for knowledge baffled.

    Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Hall Caine 1892

  • The crowded annals of human misology, as well as the more terrible chronicle of the consequences when misology has impatiently betaken itself to the cruel arm of flesh, show the decisive importance of the precise way in which a great subject of debate is put.

    Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) Turgot John Morley 1880

  • But a love of knowledge for itself, and for pure ends, would never produce such a misology, but only a love of it for base and unworthy purposes.

    Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1803

  • The intended theme of the Faust is the consequences of a misology, or hatred and depreciation of knowledge caused by an originally intense thirst for knowledge baffled.

    Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1803

  • But this system is mere misology reduced to principles; and, what is the most absurd thing in this doctrine, the neglect of all scientific means is paraded as a peculiar method of extending our cognition.

    The Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant 1764

  • It's the old "appeal to other ways of knowing," a falling back on emotion over reason that is an all too common refrain in Christian misology.

    Planet Atheism 2009

  • Some other traits of his character may be noted; for example, the courteous manner in which he inclines his head to the last objector, or the ironical touch, 'Me already, as the tragic poet would say, the voice of fate calls;' or the depreciation of the arguments with which 'he comforted himself and them;' or his fear of 'misology;' or his references to Homer; or the playful smile with which he 'talks like a book' about greater and less; or the allusion to the possibility of finding another teacher among barbarous races (compare Polit.); or the mysterious reference to another science (mathematics?) of generation and destruction for which he is vainly feeling.

    Phaedo 427? BC-347? BC Plato 1855

  • "reinvent the wheel", and deal with the misology of the double standard.

    debito.org 2008

Comments

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  • "Oh, come off it, Jacqueline. What with your misology and my misoneism---"

    - Malcolm Lowry, October Ferry to Gabriola

    July 30, 2008

  • Coined by Plato, by the look of it: Gignetai de ek tou autou tropou misologia te kai misanthropia. "Misology and misanthropy are born in the same way." (Phaedo 89d)

    First used in German by Kant (1781), in English by Coleridge (1830s).

    August 28, 2008

  • He studied old tales and idolatry

    But, blameless, he’s charged with misology.

    Now willow-the-wisp,

    Betrayed by a lisp,

    He gives up pursuit of mythology.

    March 2, 2018