That's exactly the reason why "absolute presuppositions" cannot serve the purpose of underlying any field of study, or any knowledge in general... — Metaphysician Undercover

This presupposes that RGC claims otherwise. He doesn't. Absolute presuppositions are but one part in the field of study.

Read the paper.

Are we getting off-OP? — T Clark

Yes.

Collingwood and Wittgenstein...

For those interested in or also drawing this comparison...

It makes a connection between RGC's absolute presuppositions and Witt's hinge propositions. While there may be some similarity between them, Collingwood clearly stipulates that the former are not stated(not propounded) and that only that which is stated can be true or false. He draws an equivalence of sorts between that which is true or false(that which is stated) with propositions, and calls the act of stating "propounding". He also admits the arbitrariness of his use of the term "proposition" here.

So, on RGC's view...

Absolute presuppositions are not propositions. Their function as a basis is what's important. So, the similarity is the function of being a basis or foundation of sorts, but that's where it ends. Witt was attempting to answer the problem of justificatory regress, but Collingwood is attempting to offer an acceptable universal scientific account of human thought, or so it seems that way to me based upon the first few chapters. I could be wrong about that...

Take your time — tim wood

I've no choice given the sheer complexity of the essay...

:wink:

I'm still just beginning to grasp his framework, and am currently still studying the chapters regarding presuppositions...

I'm in the middle of cutting and pasting from the essay as a means to provide an acceptable and accurate portrayal of RGC's notion of absolute presupposition. hasn't done a bad job here, from what I can see thus far, but I think there's much more going on with RGC than first meets the eye.

The essay is very nuanced. I'm impressed by much of it, and find myself refraining from critiquing it yet, although there are a few problems within it.

Yes. Trigger happy and tired last night.

The more I read, the more I realized that I needed to study this paper in order to better understand.

I'm studying his framework of the differences between absolute and relative presuppositions...

This is as well...

prop. i. Every statement that anybody ever makes is made in answer to a question.

Reading it as we speak actually...

Found this particularly troubling...

I write these words sitting on the deck of a ship.
I lift my eyes and see a piece of string — a line, I must
call it at sea — stretched more or less horizontally
above me. I find myself thinking ‘that is a clothes-
line’, meaning that it was put there to hang washing
on. When I decide that it was put there for that
purpose I am presupposing that it was put there for
some purpose.

...for it flies directly in the face of actually learning what clotheslines are called or what they're used for. He didn't decide either.

However, I think I can see what he means though. This time, on the deck, he 'decided' "that's a clothesline", after wondering about the line he saw, when he could have also suspended judgment and perhaps thought of other things the line could be besides a clothesline. Supposing it's a clothesline, presupposes it's use to hang clothes.

It speaks to both the believer and the belief that they form, have, and/or hold.
— creativesoul
They? — tim wood

Yes, they. The candidates under current consideration... you know, the individuals capable of forming, having, and/or holding beliefs. All beliefs are meaningful to the creature forming, having, and/or holding them. Thus, because we report on those beliefs in statement form, and the same statement can have a plurality of acceptable meanings that vary according to the individual, we can certainly understand and see, if you will, that divorcing belief from believer and looking at only what's believed is to look at a statement of belief in general. The same statement can have more than one set of truth conditions, depending upon the believer.

As I mentioned earlier...

The divorce led to Gettier.

They? And how can a belief itself be anything other than a belief? And certainly how can it be absolute? — tim wood

What is this a test?

Are you exhibiting the dreadful behaviour that you're charging others with?

I never said that a belief can be anything other than itself. I'm saying that we cannot expect to understand belief and how it works if we divorce belief from believer, which is exactly what you suggested earlier. The two emerge simultaneously. Where there has never been a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things, there could have been neither believer nor belief.



I'm certainly not going to pay for that which needs put out to pasture.

"Absolute belief"? This speaks to the believer, yes? And not the thing believed? — tim wood

It speaks to both the believer and the belief that they form, have, and/or hold.

Divorcing believer from belief eliminates the very ability to take proper account of either. Basing one's subsequent considerations upon such a split leads the line of thought astray. That much can only be realized by virtue of keeping ourselves from inadvertently severing those connections.

The Gettier problem is built upon divorcing another individual from their belief.

If absolute presuppositions are claimed to be the unquestioned hidden basis of ones worldview,
— creativesoul

This is not the case. — T Clark

Good to know.

...your mother loves you... — tim wood

Absolutely presupposing the above is something that cannot happen unless one can first say that. Absolutely presupposing the above is one result of an ongoing process. Roughly, it goes like this...

Be loved by your mother. Feel loved by your mother. Learn to talk about it. Have experiences where love is shown, shared, and lived with the individual one calls "mother". Live it often enough and the idea, the belief that your mother loves you becomes unconscious. Then, and not one second before then, can we begin to absolutely presuppose that our mother loves us.

That's a bare minimum criterion of what it takes.

Collingwood wants to say that these have no truth value, — creativesoul

He does not say that. — tim wood

:brow:

Collingwood defines absolute presuppositions as having no truth value. — T Clark

If absolute presuppositions are claimed to be the unquestioned hidden basis of ones worldview, then they exist in their entirety prior to being named and/or picked out to the exclusion of all else.

Given that we're talking about that which existed in it's entirety prior to our naming and talking about it, we can be mistaken in what we say about such things.

Collingwood wants to say that these hav no truth value, but is that simply because they've gone unstated, and thus not articulated by the person holding them?

the key here is being more clever in the use of taxes. — javi2541997

What taxes are spent on is important. Sure. The issue is that there are many many things that need to be done and there is not enough money to do it all.

Here's the pattern of the last four decades...

Give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest, most financially privileged citizens. Claim there's not enough money to continue with everything as it is. Cut social services. Cut public education. Begin the public narrative of running the government like a business. Pronounce how much more it costs for a government to provide services that private industry would cost. Get people believing that it's a good idea to have a small government. Make "big government" a derogatory slur and/or slight to attack another politician with. Begin attempts to privatize everything. Give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest and most privileged. Cut public education even more. Cur social services even more.

Rinse and repeat until there is no longer anything that can be called "commons"; no publicly owned anything, no public parks, no public education, etc.

Shit, to be frank... we - in the States, that is - have the very best government and justice system that private money can buy. It's called lobbying nowadays though, not bribery or corruption. Hell, sometimes legislation is passed that is not even written by an elected official.

Taxes are necessary for government and society to function... in the States anyway. Best thought of as user fees.

The collective idea that taxes are bad... the scare tactic of "they will raise taxes" and the like has done a horrible disservice to America as a whole since Reagan.

A "belief" is a thing, the word used in this way is a noun. That thing is a memory which has been subjected to the process of believing. Believing is an activity and it is produced by the attitude of confidence. The belief is the result of this activity. So the belief is the memory which has been subjected to that process, of believing. It is not the attitude of confidence, nor is it the process (believing) which is produced by that attitude, it is the result of that process. — Metaphysician Undercover

Gibberish.

Yeah the guy who shot McKinley, wasnt he at a meeting with some hotshot anarchist celeb before shooting the Hawaii stealer? — Ansiktsburk

I've no idea.

Like the sophists of old, some believe words can harm the human body, and if they rid the world of the words their pain will end. — NOS4A2

I know, right? I mean can you believe such people?

:smirk:

They are almost as stupid as those who believe that words are completely powerless...

The primary issue was a belief that Trump had been elected, that evil forces had interfered with the election, and that Mike Pence was committing treason. — frank

I'm more interested in how it happened. Where did these ideas come from?

Ouch!

Roger that!

For folk like me who are working on a computer that is pretty much useless aside from being able to access this particular site, you'll have to provide a different link(compatible to pre chrome days I guess?) or copy and paste the part you want me to review.

:worry:

:lol:

It is our ability to discern meaning... — Wayfarer

"Discern" presupposes that meaning already exists.

"Attribute" does not.

:wink:

So all this talk about determinism, free will and physical processes - how does that have an impact on Free speech at campuses? — Ansiktsburk

It's about the effects/affects of free speech, and responsibility for behaviours of listeners... such as the recent insurrection attempt.

Some claim that free will precludes a speaker being held responsible for listeners' actions.

Let's talk about what we're doing when we say that the linguistic turn is over...

:rofl:

This makes sense to me. Much of what you have written is difficult for me to follow, but I get the sense that we’re roughly on the same page here...?
— Possibility
This reminds me of a Blackadder response - "Yes.. And no." — simeonz

:smile:

Get used to it with Possibility.

It was just another cult... — javi2541997

Freemasonry is alive and well... not 'was'... a cult? I'm not so inclined to say that.

To deny the power of words could be a defensive stance taken as a means to exonerate someone from bearing the responsibility of the results stemming from their own word use(free speech). It is self-defeating. In order for it work, the defender and/or defendant uses the power of words(free speech) to convince the jury that words(free speech) have no power. The key to defeat such a defense is to point this out to the jury.

Well, yes, that’s the point. — NOS4A2

Glad we're clear on that then.

I'm less inclined to agree that people always have a choice, but I think we both agree that folk bear responsibility for what they do.

The insurrection attempt...

Do you find that all the leaders perpetuating the big lie(that the election was stolen, that there was widespread election fraud, that Trump actually won, etc.) and the individual insurrectionists are responsible?

Do you think that people ought be held responsible for the effects/affects of their speech? — creativesoul

No, not unless they are in a position of great influence, but I do think that so-called hate speech should be banned.

Why do you ask? — Janus

There's seems to be a problem with holding a speaker responsible for the effects/affects of their speech if we also claim that the listener acted on their own free will, as if they were not influenced by the speech.

However, clearly you acknowledge the influence. How then do we draw the line between holding one responsible for the effects/affects of their speech and not?

Being in a position of "great influence" seems to need a bit more unpacking in terms of what warrants that as bearing responsibility. I'm inclined to agree in general that the responsibility one bears ought be determined by the harmful effects/affects of their speech. However, I'm just uncertain of your stance on matters of free speech, free will, and responsibility regarding who ought be held accountable for one's actions(or a group of people should they follower a leader).

I would wager on him escaping the country first...

The power of the written word cannot be understood by looking at the physical components. We cannot measure the power of the written word in terms of the equal sums of energy inherent to the physical components themselves; the ink and paper, etc.

The power of the written word is shown in it's effects/affects.

There have been wars over words. There have been sustained assaults on entire groups of individuals based upon words. Civilizations thrive based upon the power of the written word. Knowledge is both lost and gained via the power of the written word. Civilizations can also self-destruct based upon the power of words. People have openly espoused to be fighting a holy war based upon words. People on opposing sides of a war have shed each other's blood all in the name of the same god. That god remains pervasive due to the power of words.

The written word is a vehicle... by virtue of which meaning transcends time and individual language users. Words make people cry. Words make people rejoice. Words stoke emotions, memories, desires, fears. Words build civilizations, uphold dignity, offer condolence, cause confusion, add clarity, make promises, offer a bit of kindness, express gratitude, offer greetings, bestow namesakes, etc.

To deny the power of words could be a defensive stance taken as a means to exonerate someone from bearing the responsibility of the results stemming from their own word use(free speech). It is self-defeating. In order for it work, the defender and/or defendant uses the power of words(free speech) to convince the jury that words(free speech) have no power. The key to defeat such a defense is to point this out to the jury.

...your accurately describing in different ways doesn’t have anything to do with such constituency. — Mww

Indeed. Elemental constituency doesn't seem to be considered... yet.

Exactly. Although it's hardly a big deal if the different ways are in no kind of conflict or competition. (E.g. if they are, at least, all accurate.) And then each different way seems bound to shrink in significance, or degree of informativeness. The aspiration to describe or otherwise represent an object "as it is" seems to react against that impression of relativism or subjectivity.

Goodman is (I think) objecting (there) to the notion that some pictures succeed in that aspiration and are intrinsically more realistic or informative than others. — bongo fury

I find no reason to say that all of the different ways are on equal footing aside from being about the same thing. The significance of each description is slightly different than the rest, again... with the same thing being talked about. I mean, that's what makes them different ways, assuming the language remains the same(say English). So, I'm not inclined to agree that each different way is bound to shrink in it's significance. Rather, it would sharpen the significance of each by comparison to the others, and some may rise above others in terms of importance. I'm not sure what being "more realistic" or "more informative" amounts to here. I suppose there would need to be something more added to the notion of "as it is"...

The thing before me is a man, a swarm of atoms, a complex of cells, a fiddler, and a fool simply because we've agreed to call it such. None of these descriptions exhaust the thing before me. None, when isolated from the rest, pick out the thing before me to the exclusion of all else aside from "the thing before me". However, prior to becoming a man, the thing before me was already a swarm of atoms and a complex of cells. Prior to becoming a fiddler or a fool the thing must have already become a man. So, perhaps here we can begin to see some semblance of existential dependency along a timeline.

Agree, but beware also the profundity of "as it is":

"To make a faithful picture, come as close as possible to copying the object just as it is". This simple-minded injunction baffles me; for the object before me is a man, a swarm of atoms, a complex of cells, a fiddler, a friend, a fool and much more. If none of these constitute the object as it is, what else might? If all are ways the object is, then none is the way the object is. — bongo fury

Fair point.

Cannot something be accurately described in more than one way?

Your position is self-contradictory.