Have you made that argument elsewhere in this thread. If so, I've missed it. I'd be interested in taking a look. — T Clark

No, I had a lengthy discussion with tim wood (to spell the name properly) before on this subject, and I'm just not interested any more. I concluded that Collingwood simply misunderstands the grounding of epistemology, trying to assign to it something (absolute presuppositions) which just cannot serve the purpose. This is why there is so much disagreement amongst readers of the work in this thread, as to what exactly the term refers to. It is just a fictional thing made up by Collingwood, which he believes must exist in order for knowledge to exist. I find it's quite similar to Wittgenstein's epistemology.

When we start to look around at existing knowledge, and try to identify these absolute presuppositions, we find that it really can't be done. For one reason or another, any proposed example can be rejected. So we must conclude that people like Collingwood and Wittgenstein really didn't understand what supports our knowledge, and their proposed epistemologies are misguided.

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.

For one reason or another, any proposed example can be rejected. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand that you're not interested in getting into this discussion, but I can't resist responding to this. Yes - any proposed example can be rejected. That's the whole point. It's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of choice.

No, I had a lengthy discussion with tim wood (to spell the name properly) before on this subject, and I'm just not interested any more. I concluded — Metaphysician Undercover

Thank you. And I remember that. What I remember is that you flat-out refused to engage with the topic or look at any references about it, having already made up your mind as to what you think it's about.

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. ↪tim wood 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. — creativesoul

When you're done with your cut and paste, please send it out to the rest of us.

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...

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...

With respect to the subject matter, which can be refreshed by looking at the OP, do you have any correction to make for my improvement? — tim wood

Only that you seem to comment upon interesting aspects of the text with fall squarely in the sights of my reading.

This comment

Being foundational to their respective endeavors, they're not usually matters of or for attention - why would they be? — tim wood

for example, for me leads naturally into the question posed by several philosophers, as to the relative in-excavatability of background assumptions. Which Habermas for example describes when he talks about communicative action being "embedded in lifeworld contexts that provide the backing of a massive background consensus" which is especially interesting because of its "peculiar pre-predicative and pre-categorial character, which already drew Husserl's attention in his investigations of this "forgotten" foundation of meaning inhabiting everyday practice and experience." (Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 1.2.3)

So perhaps this pre-categorial and pre-predicative character could explain the apparent lack of fit between my description and yours. You do not believe that the pre-predicative committment is tantamount to belief. I do. I think that the primitive hunter who can nail a rodent with a long, loping throw can be said to "believe" the theory of gravity, and maybe in some sense even to "know" it better than Newton (I'm not sure how adept Newton was tossing a stone).

So perhaps look more for the possibility that what is being said actually agrees with your own point of view, rather than disagrees with it?

Tim didn’t quote absolute presuppositions; they were explicitly stated by the author as metaphysical propositions, and as such, can have truth value. You are justified in asserting truth values are possible for them as propositions, but cancel yourself by calling them absolute presuppositions.

On pg 52, the author says these proposition express an AP, albeit under three different configurations, which is very different than saying they are AP’s, in and of themselves. It is in the underlaying conception expressed, taken for granted, by the proposition, to which a truth value assignment is tantamount to “nonsense”, because that which the proposition takes for granted, assumed as immediately given, is nothing but a single, solitary, unconditioned conception, re: causality.

For all intends and purposes, pursuant to the reference literature, AP’s are just single words, which is sustained by the author asserting that AP’s are not propositions. — Mww

It's a long time since I've read the work, and Tim did present those as absolute presuppositions and I assumed that he was following Collingwood in doing so. Without going back to the text, I'll take your word for it that Collingwood "says these propositions express an AP, albeit under three different configurations"; so the question then becomes, since these three presuppositions or propositions are contradictory or incompatible, what is the absolute presupposition they express?

You say it is causality; but what could it mean to presuppose causality if you were proposing its absence? If causality is "taken for granted, assumed as immediately given" then its actual existence, in some form or other, is being proposed, and the history of ideas, where causality had always been asserted as real, up until the advent of QM bears this out.

What you seem to be proposing is unintelligible, incoherent, unless all you are saying is that human (and animal) experience itself inevitably leads to causal thinking. But if that is what you are saying, then the term "absolute presupposition" understood as being beyond truth aptitude, seems itself simply wrong, because causality is being proposed, even if not explicitly.

Once the concept of causality is formed, then the idea that it either obtains or does not obtain logically follows. Presupposition has nothing to do with this; it is the only way we are able to think. which reflects the inherently binary, "yes or no", "true or false" nature of all our analytic conceptual thought. It is then not a matter of presupposition, absolute or otherwise, but of constitution.

If causality is "taken for granted, assumed as immediately given" then its actual existence, in some form or other, is being proposed, and the history of ideas, where causality had always been asserted as real, up until the advent of QM bears this out. — Janus

First off, the idea that causation is not necessary to understand the universe has been around for a long time. It is close to, maybe equivalent to, claims that induction is impossible. I'm not sure about that. I'll have to think some more.

Some questions:

• Does a belief in causation imply a belief that the world is deterministic?
• If I cannot determine the cause of something, even in principle, does it have a cause.
• If I cannot determine the cause of something because it is practically impossible, does it have a cause, e.g. if determining the cause would take more time than the life of the universe.
• Are we getting off-OP?

First off, the idea that causation is not necessary to understand the universe has been around for a long time. — T Clark

I'm not aware of that, but I'm open to the possibility; can you provide an example? (I have to go to work pretty much immediately so I probably won't be able to respond or attempt to address your other questions until later this afternoon).

I'm not aware of that, — Janus

Per RGC, chapter VI in EM lays it out.

Perhaps it helps to remember that an AP is an AP for the people who hold it in respect to the endeavor in which they're engaged. That is, it may be mine and at the same time not yours. As mine, as pointed out above, it is not propounded, but only presupposed. But you can make your own test of it - but even that won't apply to my endeavor, because what matters to my endeavor is the efficacy of the presupposition's being presupposed. And so forth. It seems that folks here are turning to the book, available as a PDF and referenced above, and in a discussion of a text, reference to that text at least to start seems best.

Yes - any proposed example can be rejected. That's the whole point. It's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of choice. — T Clark

That's exactly the reason why "absolute presuppositions" cannot serve the purpose of underlying any field of study, or any knowledge in general. If they can simply be accepted or rejected at will, they have no capacity for creating the coherence which we actually find within knowledge. To adequately account for the existence of knowledge we need to understand the power which logic may have over will. And the idea of "absolute presuppositions" essentially denies the role of logic in producing the fundamental metaphysical principles which serve as the basis for epistemology. In reality the fundamental principles are produced by reason, and we adhere to them because we have faith in the capacity of reason.

That's exactly the reason why "absolute presuppositions" cannot serve the purpose of underlying any field of study, or any knowledge in general. If they can simply be accepted or rejected at will, they have no capacity for creating the coherence which we actually find within knowledge... And the idea of "absolute presuppositions" essentially denies the role of logic in producing the fundamental metaphysical principles which serve as the basis for epistemology. — Metaphysician Undercover

Now you've got it. That's exactly right. There is no logic in the fundamental metaphysical principles which serve as the basis of epistemology. Only human preference. Maybe preference isn't the right word. Intuition? Bias? Habits of mind? Convention?

Are we getting off-OP? — T Clark

Yes.

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.

To adequately account for the existence of knowledge we need to understand the power which logic may have over will. — Metaphysician Undercover

This presupposes that logic precedes thought.

(i) 'That all science is of the universal or abstract ; in other words, that its procedure is to ignore the differences between this individual thing and that, and attend only to what they have in common.

(ii) That there is potentially at least a science of every universal, that is, of everything which is common to the individual things we call its instances.

(iii) That there are degrees of universality or abstractness, and that these give rise to a hierarchy of universals and a corresponding hierarchy of sciences ; so that whenever a generic universal A is specified into sub-forms B and C there will be hierarchical relations between the superordinate science of A and the subordinate sciences of B and C.

(iv) That A is not only the indispensable presupposition of B and C, but their sufficient logical ground, so that the subject-matter of any superordinate science can be rightly described as generating or creating, in a logical sense, those of the sciences subordinate to it.

This is the general groundwork for the book/essay.

What exactly is the point of this though?

I'd agree that things may be provisionally assumed for the sake of inquiry. As I said before such an assumption would count as a belief, but not all beliefs have to be believed. That there is a golden fairy on Mars is an example of a belief and yet probably no one believes it.

So, that there is causation, if counted as an absolute presupposition, need not be actually believed but may be merely provisionally entertained to see where it might lead an investigation; but to say it is merely provisionally entertained doesn't only entail that it is not believed, but that strictly speaking it means that it is not even presupposed, it is merely entertained for the sake of investigation, so to speak.

Having said all that is it is hard to see how there really could be any investigation without the notion of causation when it comes to most fields of inquiry. So, causation looks more like a constitutive element of human thinking than it looks like a mere presupposition, absolute or otherwise. This leans more towards Kant than it does Collingwood, as far as I can tell.

...not all beliefs have to be believed. — Janus

That's nonsense Janus. The paper is proving interesting enough for me to set aside my position on human thought and belief as a means to understand it. There's good stuff in it.

I strongly suggest that you take the time to read it. I'm still studying it myself, and suspect that I will be for some time to come. I do not agree with everything, nor do I need to. I am suspending judgment and for the sake of argument, seeing where his line of thinking goes.

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. ↪tim wood 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.
— creativesoul

When you're done with your cut and paste, please send it out to the rest of us. — T Clark

I will. It's proven to be necessary...

I own the book and have read it before. Your comment is superfluous.

It doesn't show here.

Whenever anybody states a thought in words, there are a great many more thoughts in his mind than are expressed in his statement. - Among these there are some which stand in a peculiar relation to the thought he has stated : they are not merely its context, they are its presuppositions.

So, here we can see that for Collingwood, presuppositions are kinds of thought not expressed in one's statement. However, to get a good understanding of what species and/or kind they are, it requires a bit of study. I'm off again to do exactly that...

There also may be many implicit beliefs that are not expressed in statements.

It doesn't show here. — creativesoul

I can't be responsible for your lack of insight.

Squabbling over the whether the terms "belief" and "presupposition" pick out the same thing is rather dull, especially when we're talking about RGC's use of "presupposition". Not interested in personal jabs.

Tim and T Clark have been derailing the OP by arguing about that very point. I have been arguing against their objections. This thread was never designed to be a forum for exegesis of Collingwood's essay. So your objections are moot.

Not interested in personal jabs. — creativesoul

That's laughable considering how you have approached me in this thread.

R.G. Collingwood's recasting of metaphysics from its Aristotelian origin... — Pantagruel