Irving Copi’s Duluth Central High School year book photo. (Image: Duluth Public Library.)
On this day in 2002, Duluth native Irving Copi died in Hawaii. Born Irving Marmer Copilowish in Duluth in 1917 to Russian immigrants Samuel B. and Rose (Marmer) Copilowish, Irving grew up in Duluth’s Endion neighborhood, and his parents operated East End Cleaners at 916 East Tenth Street for nearly fifty years. The Duluth Central grad went on to earn several degrees from the University of Michigan before moving on to the University of Chicago to study with Bertrand Russell. Russell would later refer to Irving as one of his three best students, saying: “We used to have close arguments back and forth, and succeeded in genuinely clarifying points to our mutual satisfaction, which is rare in philosophical argument.” A philosophy professor, Copi’s most renown achievement was writing Introduction to Logic, a textbook used by American college students for generations. In this election year, a reminder of Copi’s reflections on democracy can serve as a guidepost or warning about choosing a candidate to support: “The success of democracy depends, in the end, on the reliability of the judgments we citizens make, and hence upon our capacity and determination to weigh arguments and evidence rationally.” read more about Irving Copi here, here, and here.
