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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
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In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
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In the philosophy of science, the pessimistic induction, also known as the pessimistic meta-induction, is an argument that seeks to rebut scientific realism, particularly the scientific realist's notion of epistemic optimism. The pessimistic meta-induction is the argument that if past successful and accepted scientific theories were found to be false, we have no reason to believe the scientific realist's claim that our currently successful theories are approximately true.
Scientific realists argue that we have good reasons to believe that our presently successful scientific theories are true or approximately true. The pessimistic meta-induction undermines the realist's warrant for their epistemic optimism (the view that science tends to succeed in revealing what the world is like and that there are good reasons to take theories to be true or truthlike) via historical counterexample. Using meta-induction, Larry Laudan argues that if past scientific theories which were successful were found to be false, we have no reason to believe the realist's claim that our currently successful theories are approximately true. The pessimistic meta-induction argument was first fully postulated by Laudan in 1981.[1]
However, there are some objections to Laudan's theory. One might see shortcomings in the historic examples Laudan gives as proof of his hypothesis. Theories later refuted, like that of crystalline spheres in astronomy, or the phlogiston theory, do not represent the most successful theories at their time. A further objection tries to point out that in scientific progress, we indeed approximate the truth. When we develop a new theory, the central ideas of the old one usually become refuted. Parts of the old theory, however, we carry over to the new one. In doing so, our theories become more and more well-founded on other principles, they become better in terms of predictive and descriptive power, so that, for example, aeroplanes, computers and DNA sequencing all establish technical, operational proof of the effectiveness of the theories. Therefore, we can hold the realist view that our theoretical terms refer to something in the world and our theories are approximately true.
However, as articulated by Thomas Kuhn in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, new scientific theories do not always build upon the older ones. In fact, they may be created by an entirely new set of premises (a new "paradigm"), and reach vastly different conclusions. This gives greater weight to the proponents of anti-realism, and illustrates that no scientific theory (thus far) has proved infallible.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
In the philosophy of science, the pessimistic induction, also known as the pessimistic meta-induction, is an argument that seeks to rebut scientific realism, particularly the scientific realist's notion of epistemic optimism. The pessimistic meta-induction is the argument that if past successful and accepted scientific theories were found to be false, we have no reason to believe the scientific realist's claim that our currently successful theories are approximately true.
Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann (23 February 1842 – 5 June 1906) was a German philosopher, independent scholar, and writer. He was the author of the influential Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869). Von Hartmann's notable ideas include the theory of the Unconscious and a pessimistic interpretation of the "best of all possible worlds" concept in metaphysics.
Philosophical pessimism is the view that life or existence has negative value. It is often stated as the claim that life is not worth living, or that non-existence would be preferable to coming into or remaining in existence. Other accounts define it by the claim that suffering and other harms outweigh pleasure and other goods, that happiness is unstable or unattainable, or that existence has no inherent meaning or purpose. Pessimistic themes appear in several religious and philosophical traditions, including parts of Buddhism, the book of Ecclesiastes, some forms of Gnosticism, and the work of Hegesias of Cyrene. In the 19th century, Arthur Schopenhauer gave pessimism a systematic form in The World as Will and Representation. Later German philosophers, including Eduard von Hartmann and Philipp Mainländer, developed related systems. In the 20th and 21st centuries, writers including Peter Wessel Zapffe, Emil Cioran, Thomas Ligotti, David Benatar, Julio Cabrera, and Drew Dalton have argued for pessimistic positions using claims from ethics, psychology, metaphysics, and the natural sciences. Arguments for pessimism often concern the relation between pleasure and suffering; whether later goods can compensate for earlier or simultaneous harms; life as striving, frustration, boredom, and decay; asymmetries between the harms and benefits of coming into existence; the absence of cosmic meaning; and the suffering of non-human animals, including wild animal suffering. Pessimists have proposed different responses to these claims, including renunciation, compassion, political or social reform, antinatalism, voluntary extinction, and positions on suicide and abortion. Critics, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Bertrand Russell, Bryan Magee, and James Sully, have disputed both the arguments for pessimism and its psychological basis.
Charles "Charlie" Brown is a fictional character and the principal protagonist of the American comic strip Peanuts, created by Charles M. Schulz and syndicated in daily and Sunday newspapers in numerous countries worldwide. Depicted as a "lovable loser", Charlie Brown is a popular and widely recognized cartoon character. Charlie Brown is characterized as a person who frequently suffers, and as a result, is usually nervous and lacks self-confidence. He shows both pessimistic and optimistic attitudes: on some days, he is apprehensive to even get out of bed because he cannot face the world, but on others, he hopes to accomplish things and is determined to do his best. Charlie Brown is easily recognized by his round head and trademark zigzag patterned shirt. His catchphrase is "Good grief". Schulz said that Charlie Brown "has to be the one who suffers, because he is a caricature of the average person. Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than we are with winning." Despite this, Charlie Brown does not always suffer, as he has experienced some happy moments and victories through the years, and he has sometimes uncharacteristically shown self-assertiveness despite his frequent nervousness. Schulz also said: "I like to have Charlie Brown eventually be the focal point of almost every story." Charlie Brown is the only Peanuts character to have appeared regularly in the strip throughout its entire 50-year run. Lee Mendelson, who produced most of the Peanuts television specials, has said of Charlie Brown that "He was, and is, the ultimate survivor in overcoming bulliness—Lucy or otherwise." Charlie Brown is eight years old for most of the strip's floating timeline. Initially, he suggests he lives in an apartment, with his grandmother occupying the one above his; a few years into the strip, he moves to a house with a backyard. He is always referred to as "Charlie Brown" and never simply "Charlie" by most of the other characters in the strip, including his sister, Sally (who also refers to him as "big brother") and Snoopy, his dog (who sometimes calls him "the round-headed kid"), with the exception of Peppermint Patty and Marcie who address him as "Chuck" and "Charles" respectively.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
