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Two Concepts of Optimism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Sidney Axinn
Sidney Axinn*
Affiliation:
Temple University
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Extract

1. Objective of the Paper. This is an exercise in formalism; an attempt to see what a certain hypothesis would look like if it were spelled out in more detail than it has so far received. The object is to frame a self-consistent hypothesis that includes certain contributions of both optimism and pessimism. We would like to save the moral advantages of each position; at first glance they seem logically exclusive.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 1954 , pp. 16 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1954

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Footnotes

1

I think that the argument of this paper is directly descended from the position of Edgar A. Singer, Jr. (12). I should also mention that I owe my interest in Nietzsche to the instigations and stimulation of Professor Thomas A. Cowan, and my interest in Schopenhauer to the highly sophisticated analysis of Professor J. Stokes Adams.

References

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