ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
The nature of knowledge has been of great concern to many prominent thinkers and philosophers who may represent different historical periods or schools of thought. Many of them examine the ways in which people can determine whether a certain premise is valid or not. This paper is aimed at discussing Richard Rorty’s approach to the interpretation of such a concept as truth. One should keep in mind that Rorty is a representative of pragmatism; according to this theory, the truth can be described as a “changing, subjective, and relative” phenomenon (Velasquez 414). In particular, it is necessary to evaluate his claim that when a person says something is true, he/she “commends” it (Rorty as cited in Velasquez 416). In other words, this argument implies that a person can accept anything as truth, provided that it is compatible with the standards of validity that are adopted by a group. Overall, this argument should not be overlooked because it highlights the unreliability of human knowledge; nevertheless, its relativism can be used to justify absurd or even atrocious ideas that can eventually prove to be disastrous. These are the main issues that should be discussed more closely. Overall, Richard Rorty believes that individuals accept something as truth if it passes the “procedures of justification” established in a certain community (Velasquez 416). In this context, the term justification procedures can be described as the tools or tests which are used to distinguish truth from falsity. The main issue is that various communities may apply different tests of validity. Therefore, it is possible to argue that the notion of truth is not a static phenomenon; on the contrary, it can vary and evolve considerably with time passing. It should be mentioned that the tests of justification can also evolve considerably. Therefore, one cannot say that a certain statement may always be accepted as true even in the same community. The main implication of that there is no statement that can be viewed as universally true. These are the main details that can be identified. On the whole, this approach to epistemology is accepted by many sociologists, anthropologists, or psychologists; yet, its principles can also be often debated, and these controversies should be examined in greater detail. To some degree, Richard Rorty’s claim can be partly supported because there are different c
The literature of the slavery period was written by black Americans of African bloodline. Its main theme is slavery but it also exhibits other themes like the fight by Afro-Americans for freedom, the search for the identity of black Americans and the appreciation of the uniqueness of African American culture. A lot of works with related themes were written during this time. The earliest of these works that are still preserved were written by African slaves in America from around mid-1700. An example of these works is “Bars Fight”, which was a poem describing a raid in Massachusetts, written by Lucy Terry. The slavery, somehow, contributed to the acquisition of literary skills by slaves and the resultant works (Terry 1). African-American writing and slavery are inseparable. At the beginning of the slavery period, almost all of the slaves were illiterate. They slowly learnt how to read and write while in slavery. Most of them were guided and motivated by the bible to learn how to read. This literacy provided inspiration and knowledge that helped the slaves find means of escaping bondage. An example of such works is, Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl , the story by Harriet Jacob in 1861that described the challenges women faced in slavery. The story has an honest bias in slavery rape which was common in those days (Jacob 1). Another example is Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various subjects, Religious and Moral which is based on the bible and touches on her American patriotism and African heritage. The difficulties these slaves were going through were a great catalyst of African-American literature. There was the need to record the events of the slavery period and thus slaves strived to acquire literacy in order to record these events. African-American literature was also used as a weapon for fighting slavery and thus the slaves were highly motivated to write these works. It is believed that African-American literature was one of the major contributors to the ending of slavery in America. The most celebrated works of the slavery period are done by Frederick Douglass. He became a very influential American after the slavery period. He was an American Ambassador, Presidential advisor and orator in the post-slavery period. His inspiration to literacy and writing was hatched when he heard his master’s wife reading the bible. Although his master did not want him to learn, he took this as an indication that knowledge is powerful and from that time on, he did not relent in his quest for knowledge (Wheatley 1). The African-Americans who were free at the slavery also gave substantial contribution to the slavery literature. These people were sympathetic of their ‘brothers’ and thus they were actively involved in the fight against slavery. They used literature to express their opinions towards slavery injustices like rape, racism etcetera. The Afro-American literature of the period between 1764 and 1865 and slavery are deeply related. While slavery gave the Afro-Americans exposure and themes to write about, the writings c
Executive Summary Leadership integrates and intertwines followers and leaders. It also influences organisational and societal objectives and missions. Considering this importance, it is critical for all organisations and societies to develop effective leadership. The current paper analyses the effectiveness of leadership with reference to Nelson Mandela, the late former president of South Africa, as depicted in the movie, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. It uses the DuBrin (2013) model for analysis to achieve this objective. The model depicts leadership effectiveness as a function of the internal and external environment, group membership characteristics, and leader’s behaviour, styles, and characteristics. Linking this model to leadership theories, the paper concludes that Nelson Mandela was an effective leader to the extent that he possessed many of the leadership traits, skills, and capabilities, which leadership theorists describe as constituting an effective leader. Introduction Leadership is essential at all levels of society. It is crucial for the success of any nation (Atchison, 2003; Dye, 2010). Leadership inspires followers to work collectively towards the achievement of specific goals, aims, and objectives. As a practice, it influences not only followers, but also leaders in a manner that ensures the attainment of societal objectives through change. This claim means that leadership incorporates followers and leaders in an attempt to influence and/or achieve societal objectives and missions (Lussier & Achua, 2004). While leading, followers or group members must be involved. Steered by Justin Chadwick, the movie, ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’, Nelson Mandela, as played by Idris Elba, depicts various leadership traits among them being his transformational leadership aspects and ability to influence and guide his followers/group members. He is also a determined character who lives to achieve the objective of delivering South Africa from apartheid. This paper analyses the effectiveness of leadership as depicted in the film ‘Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom’. Movie Synopsis Directed by Justin Chadwick, the movie borrows its plot from an autobiographic book that was distributed under the same title and authored by an anti-apartheid revolutionary group based in South Africa. The movie reflects the early life of the late Nelson Mandela, his journey in education, and his 27-year life in prison. It also chronicles his life as the president of South Africa with a focus on his contribution to rebuilding nation, which had then been divided along racial lines, to foster reconciliation and healing. His achievement of this objective reflects his effectiveness in leading by influencing people to adopt a common way of thinking to foster nationalism that is built around perspectives of embracing ethnic and racial diversity. In the movie, Nelson Mandela constitutes a lawyer who leaves his career to become a political actor by forming and leading ANC (African National Congress). In 1940, the apartheid law became unbearable amo
The General Topic: The War of the Machines The effects that technological development has on people’s lives have always been an issue for the entire humankind. Even though the notorious fear of the rise of machines has become an issue only in the late XX century, the negative effects of technology have been noticed since the invention of the wheel. Nowadays, with the recent innovations and introduction of the concept of social networks into the everyday life of ordinary people, technology seems to have integrated into people’s lives completely. The Alienation of Social Networking As it has been stressed, the fact that people are becoming increasingly attracted towards the realm of virtual communication, which doubtlessly affects the quality of their real-life interactions and makes the latter unnecessarily complicated. To make the matter worse, it is claimed that modern technology, especially social networks, makes people lose their communication skills and, therefore, turns the process of live interaction into an unbearably stressful process. Therefore, the question of the given research is whether technology has such negative effects on people’s communicational skills and whether social network sets people apart from each other. Hypothesis: Taking Communication Process to a Different Level Even though to answer the given question, it will be required to consider not only the factors that affect people’s communication skills as they use the social network but also the specifics of human psychology and the process of communication in general, which sets certain limitations for the study, it can be assumed that technology does alienate people, making them lose their communication skills. However, it must be admitted that technology also has a positive effect on the communication process, since it allows for crossing the boundaries between cities and states and bringing people from the remote parts of the Earth together. Therefore, when used responsibly, technology can become a perfect means to improve one
Summary Rapid Application Development is a team-based model that uses a large group method to fasten the information systems development and gives a useful information system that functions. Their final result is the new information system. The companies use this technique to minimize the cost and the development time and to raise their chance of success. This process that is the RAD gives the users chances to test their working model earlier and if it meets their needs. The project team makes use of the CASE tools to make the prototype and create a flow of documentation. It consists of four stages which include: The user design Here the user communicates with the systems analysts and designs models and prototypes which represent the system processes inputs and outputs. This group makes their work by using JAD techniques and CASE tools to transform user needs into working models. The requirement planning In this stage, the managers, the users, and all the IT staff members get to merge their views by discussing and coming to an agreement on the business requirements and the system needs since it combines elements of system planning and analysis. Cutover This stage is as that the last task of the SDLC implementation stage in which the new system is made, delivered, and assigned the task. Construction This stage pays attention to program and application development jobs related to the SDLC. In RAD, the users contribute and can even give their opinion on changes to be done or to better as the real screens or reports are designed. RAD Advantages and Disadvantages The key advantage is that the systems can be designed faster at a low cost while the disadvantaged part of it is that there is a risk since the systems might work well in a short term, thus making the corporate not meet their long term objectives for the system. Another disadvantage is that the required period might give less time to design consistent, quality, and design rules. Modeling Tools and Techniques Modelling is a graphical method that represents the system at different stages of development. During modelling, a variety of tools can be used to explain the business needs and user interaction with the system. The tools used include the CASE Tools which is used to document the functioning of the business, the reasons as to why it functions in that manner and who does the very task and how it is done. Also to help them understand the system needs, the analysts use what is known as functional decomposition diagrams which gives an overview of the business and the modelling language, that defines how people interact with the system.
Introduction Tropical rainforests comprise an ecology that has the highest species diversity due to the availability of food, water, space, and sunlight. In essence, tropical rainforests have a high carrying capacity of flora and fauna when compared to ecosystems in Arctic and Antarctic regions. However, increasing habitat loss is a major challenge of tropical rainforests because it threatens the existence and survival of fauna and flora (Aparecida et al. 2015). Although natural activities such as volcanism, climate change, and fires contribute to habitat loss in tropical rainforests, anthropogenic activities are the primary causes. Land conversion for agriculture, settlement, and infrastructure coupled with pollution has immensely contributed to the destruction of habitat in tropical rainforests (Morante-Filho et al. 2016). The existence of numerous factors that contribute to habitat loss complicates conservation efforts aimed at maintaining species richness and diversity of tropical rainforests. Therefore, the purpose of this research paper is to examine how habitat loss affects the ecology of tropical rainforest. History of Habitat Loss The history of habitat loss correlates with the encroachment and settlement of people in tropical rainforests. Ecologists predict that mass extinction of species would occur in tropical forests because they host a significant proportion of the Earth’s terrestrial species (Alroy 2017). Human activities have a disastrous impact on the existence and survival of species in tropical rainforests because they contribute to global warming. According to Morante-Filho et al. (2016), global climate change has catastrophic effects on flora and fauna because it has irreversible effects. Since forests dominate the tropical ecosystems, their destruction by human activities and climate change reduces water, food, and space for flora and fauna to grow sustainably (Aparecida et al. 2015). Massive deforestation of tropical rainforests to harvest wood for construction resulted in the decline of global forest cover by 5% in 2000-2010 (Alroy 2017). The ecological implication is that habitat loss reduces species diversity, disrupts food chains, and displaces organisms in their native habitats. Decreases Growth Germination and Recruitment of Seedlings Habitat loss due to human activities has a negative influence on the growth and establishment of tropical rainforests. Anthropogenic activities contribute to the loss of h
Individuals should compose a proper letter of complaint that uses a standard strategy to resolve the occurred problem in due course. The presented text is an official document addressed to the authorities that can solve the problem of youth misbehavior in the community during Halloween. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the complainer to write a well-organized and concise letter that the Town Hall would admit. The sample writing does not meet the requirements of a complaint because it does not have a proper introduction paragraph explaining the situation, evades formal language rules, and contains many impartial expressions. The introduction is the first component that designs and frames a formal letter. For instance, the heading comprises a sender’s address, location and the date of the letter composition (Martin 5). The accepted guidelines suggest applying a block design, where the heading goes in the upper left-hand corner of the page (Martin 5). It is also essential to express the reason for the conventional letter in the main section and not to veer from the subject (Martin 6). In the sample, however, in the first paragraph, the author describes the background story of the situation and does not define the purpose of why he or she is writing to the committee. Instead, the person filing a complaint should state the problem of youth misconduct in the neighborhood in the first paragraph. Moreover, a business or formal letter ought to be written in a more formal tone than in ordinary communicative language. The writer needs to restrict slang and jargon in the formal text (Martin 11). This similarly applies to contractions such as ‘wouldn’t, isn’t’ and ambiguous words like ‘good, bad’ which were used in the sample. Similarly, the term ‘kids’ is only used in casual communicative speech in unofficial circumstances. It is appropriate to replace the word with ‘children’ that is generally accepted by the English language writing standards. The sentence length also plays an important role when constructing a formal letter such as a complaint (Martin 6). The
As Augustine personally encountered the problem of being too imperfect for Christianity and Christian standards, he founded his concept of original sin within Christianity (Catholic Online, 2019). According to Augustine, God gifted Adam and Eve free will to accept his love and live in Paradise or to reject it (Philosophy Vibe, 2018). When Adam and Eve rejected the love of God, he sent them to Earth and forced their descendants to possess God’s rejection due to Original Sin. Applying Augustine’s idea of free will to the concept of an all-knowing God, one could think that after God deprived Adam and Eve of free will, the future choices we make are made by God himself. However, Augustine stated multiple times that God does not give the privilege of wealth and that it is not God’s decision to make someone poor or to make someone fail (The School of Life, 2015). Augustine explains the free will we express now as God’s gift of a second chance. People are free to choose a righteous way to live and go to heaven afterward or use their free will as they want. In terms of free will be the second chance for people to eventually come back to God, the idea of all-knowing God could be reconciled with human free will. However, it is unknown whether Augustine’s understanding of free will was impacted by his subjective goals, as he lived a ‘sinful life’ himself (Catholic Online, 2019). In my opinion, the overall idea of an all-knowing God implies an absence of free will. I think that God is only there to guide people and not interfere directly with their actions. I believe in the idea of loving God, but the all-knowing aspect contradicts the concept of redemption of original sin, in my opinion. I think that the concept of reincarnation that I believe in fits the idea of the journey of returning to God.
While the fact of bias against black-colored people is widely known, there are some less established issues concerned with discrimination that pertain only to some specific groups of blacks. The article by Jones (2016) discusses one of such minority groups – black gay men. It is rather surprising to learn that while gays frequently hear intolerable remarks about their way of living, they should think of setting a hierarchy of opinions among their representatives. According to Jones (2016), as many as eighty percent of black men have suffered from racist remarks or attitudes at some point. On social networking applications for gay men where they can get acquainted and start relationships, black males are constantly discriminated against, and they experience rejections because of their skin color. This article about white gays victimizing black gays illustrates an outrageous example of bias within the world of the biased. Instead of supporting one another as members of a minority group, these people arrange internal arguments within the society of LGBT that leads to the increased feeling of depression and psychological pressure on behalf of black gay men. In the context of such discrimination, black gay males are viewed as those who are less worthy not only than white people but also than white gay individuals. Such an augmented issue of prejudice is a rather serious problem in the world where the rates of suicide and psychological disorders due to being considered as different and dishonorable from the majority are too high to be neglected. Jones’s (2016) article reveals many facts that are frequently either unknown or neglected by the public. Probably the most gruesome point made by the author is the account of some men’s confessions about how others treat them. They say that while being rejected because of racial differences is already a highly negative thing; it is much worse to be “reduced” to one’s ethnicity without even giving the person a chance to show his character and attitude in relationships (Jones 2016). Such a state of affairs seems dangerously unfair and may bring even more adverse outcomes. According to Jones (2016), a large part of the responsibility should be taken by the LGBT organizations and their publications. These institutions are usually governed by white men, and they have arranged their functioning in such a way that they disregarded the question of race, entitling white males the symbols of beauty. The men of color have to suffer discrimination in gay media where they are only mentioned in relation to some homophobic activities. As one of black males mentions, the gay media “is completely whitewashed” (