This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Surely the "problem" here would be the desire to understand why we bother thinking, wouldn't it? :wink: — Janus

Sounds to me more like a desire.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Do you think I see the process you described involving light bouncing off the tree and my eyes, my nerves and my brain? If not, and if you claim I don't see a tree, what is it you think I see? Something I can't see? Do I hallucinate? Or is it that you don't think I can see at all?

I think there's a problem with the claim that we don't see something because it's really something we can't see.

This thread has strayed from the OP topic of "Presuppositions" --- presumably referring to "unwarranted assumptions" and "biased beliefs" --- into the Epistemological questions of "what can we know, and what can we never know?" But I just came across a relevant description of the "Begging The Question Fallacy" in the current issue of SKEPTIC magazine. Rather than insert my opinion here, I'll just quote a few lines from the article : 25 Fallacies in The Case For Christianity, written by a trial lawyer.

"Begging the question is assuming the very thing you are trying to prove as a premise of your article. . . . A presuppositionalist begins with the assumption that Christianity is true and should be accepted unless definitively proven impossible. . . . . Being a presuppositionalist means never having to admit you're wrong, because you begin with the non-negotiable premise that your are right." ___John Campbell

Fortunately, we don't often encounter that kind of overtly biased argument on this forum. But posters sometimes seem to suspect, and to imply that their opponents are closet preuppositionalists, even for debatable scientific concepts. :cool:


Presuppositionalism meaning ... (theology) A school of Christian apologetics that presumes Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought
https://www.yourdictionary.com/presuppositionalism

By knowledge I understand 'a discursive practice that is conditional and fallibilistic, therefore provisional, and manifest via know-how (e.g. performing), know-that (e.g. describing) or know-what (e.g. explaining).'

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.

Sounds to me more like a desire. — Ciceronianus the White

You don't think that having a desire for something can become a problem until it is satisfied?

Maybe.

Stephen King has a catchphrase, born in the Dark Tower series.....”they have forgotten the face of their fathers”, a literary commentary on honor.

Pragmatists, and analytical philosophers in general, have forgotten their fathers, a philosophical commentary on teachings.

Progress, I suppose. — Mww

I don't think this is universally true. Peirce, the pragmat(ic)ist I am most familiar was certainly very familiar with the philosophies of both Kant and Hegel.He did have a scientific perspective on philosophy, which does include the idea of progress. The analytical side of philosophy which is more akin to science and exemplified in the inquiry into the nature of logic and meaning has certainly progressed since Aristotle and Plato.

The synthetic side, which I think is more akin to art, consisting as it does in the intellectual exercise of the imagination, does not progress, but rather evolves, I would say. It is an old chestnut of science that scientists "stand on the shoulders of giants". so I don't think the fathers are entirely forgotten there either; they are acknowledged, but not slavishly followed, of course. Hegel spoke of freeing ourselves from the "aegis of tutelage" as represented by submission to tradition. Kant has something like that in mind also, I believe, with his "sapere aude".

The problem would be how to satisfy it, or repress it, or eliminate it, not the desire itself.

It seems to me you are being pedantic, playing with words. What you suggest would be true of any question other than critical questions dealing with how to merely survive.

Good, well-thought, post. I note 1.) the transition from analytic/continental, to, analytic/synthetic, and 2.) the correctness of the pragmatist parenthesis.

Philosophically, Pierce blew himself up advocating objective idealism. Yea? Nay?

I mean...c’mon, man!!

“...A physical law is absolute. What it requires is an exact relation. (...) On the other hand, no exact conformity is required by the mental law...”
(Pierce, “The Architecture of Theories”, in The Monist, vol1, pg161, 1891., https://archive.org/details/monistquart01hegeuoft/page/n10/mode/1up?view=theater)

What....never heard of universality and absolute necessity?!?!?!
(Kidding. Piece was an intellectual giant, to be sure. Smarter than Kant if only because he was about a hundred years newer, with about a hundred years worth of.....you know, like..... progress, to work with.)

not universally true........ — Janus

Of course not.....just a prejudicial lament on my part. Pass the cheese, if you’d be so kind.

sapere aude has its own elder-Kant thematic rendering, but "aegis of tutelage" doesn’t Google. Cool soundbite, though. Like something just itching to be said.

Anyway....don’t take my flippancy seriously; it’s only the little George Carlin in me.

It seems to me you are being pedantic, playing with words. What you suggest would be true of any question other than critical questions dealing with how to merely survive. — Janus

Ah, "mere survival."

Words are significant (unlike survival?). But when we desire something, we're not engaged in problem-solving. You yourself seem to acknowledge this when you referred to a desire becoming a problem. If it hasn't become one, it can't be one, right?

An example of what you believe is a desire which is a problem would be useful.

Absolutely not. Presuppositions that ground what you say and do, and absolute presuppositions that stand in relation to those things as being like axioms. Nothing whatsoever unwarranted or biased about them. — tim wood

Point taken. I may have missed your intention in the OP. Yet, in my experience, the term "presupposition" is typically used as a negative assessment of someone else's unwarranted beliefs. However, in the usage by Christian Apologists, it is intended to imply a positive meaning : faith in the Judeo-Christian God.

However, I suppose the positive or negative inflection is, as usual, in the mind of the Apologist, or Denier for the belief in question.. Anyway, I would tend to use "Axiom" as a more neutral (and scientific) way to label a self-evident assumption that is taken as true, prior to (pre-) empirical evidence. For Christians, the existence of God is axiomatic. Therefore, to me, "absolute presupposition" implies unshakable faith, not subject to counter evidence. Which may also be the case for mathematicians, who believe that mathematical "objects" absolutely exist as metaphysical ideals. :cool:

Do Mathematical Objects Exist? :
I am slowly working on an article for Skeptical Inquirer about the ways in which religious apologists use mathematical arguments in their rhetoric.
https://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2012/10/02/do-mathematical-objects-exist

Ah, "mere survival."

Words are significant (unlike survival?). But when we desire something, we're not engaged in problem-solving. You yourself seem to acknowledge this when you referred to a desire becoming a problem. If it hasn't become one, it can't be one, right?

An example of what you believe is a desire which is a problem would be useful. — Ciceronianus the White

I wasn't seeking to depreciate the importance of survival, which might have been the impression you received it seems. I should have written "bare survival"; I wanted to indicate those desires, or better feelings of need, which are urged by necessity and are inherently problematic as opposed to those which may be prompted by desire to improve living conditions or by mere curiosity, and so on.

Something is certainly a problem for us if it threatens survival or the basic needs for adequate food, water, warmth and shelter. Beyond that what would, for you, qualify as being more than merely a desire that becomes a problem insofar as we wish to satisfy it (as opposed to needing to satisfy it)?

Philosophically, Pierce blew himself up advocating objective idealism. Yea? Nay? — Mww

My familiarity with Peirce doesn't extend to scholar status, so I'm not sure whether I would class him as an objective idealist. From the reading I have done he is a dense (not in the sense of stupid, obviously), hard nut to crack. One day when I have more time free from what I need to do on the 15 acres I live on to make further progress towards scholar status. I certainly think he is a fascinating figure in the history of ideas.

but "aegis of tutelage" doesn’t Google. Cool soundbite, though. Like something just itching to be said. — Mww

when I searched I get a book, then this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1367/fichte-theorist-of-the-i/p3

I don';t believe I invented the term; I'm pretty sure I read it in Hegel and not in a secondary work about Hegel.

Anyway....don’t take my flippancy seriously; it’s only the little George Carlin in me. — Mww

:up: I like George too!

Absolutely not. Presuppositions that ground what you say and do, and absolute presuppositions that stand in relation to those things as being like axioms. Nothing whatsoever unwarranted or biased about them. — tim wood

I don't mean to harp on one note, but I didn't interpret the topic of this thread as referring to pragmatic mathematical axioms -- that are "rationally adequate for a reflective task". Instead, I thought it was referring to presumptuous beliefs and attitudes. Which implies an unshakable faith in what is True and Real.

Although Kant asserted that ultimate Reality is beyond the scope of human senses, I didn't get the impression that he was being Presumptuous. But merely making an unprovable Supposition for philosophical purposes. We can reason to hypothetical "facts" (conclusions) that we can't actually see or touch. As with Darwin's real-world observations, the "real" evidence may only add-up to a reasonable "theory" much later. Even then, it's "only" a theory, not an observable fact.

Maybe your debate with 180 about seeing a tree is based on presumed meanings applied to different contexts. "I see a tree" versus "I believe there is a tree behind that wall". One statement is grounded in sensory data (real), the other in imagination or memory (ideal). :smile:

Presumptuous :
1. The definition of presumptuous is taking things for granted or being overconfident.
2. (of a person or their behavior) failing to observe the limits of what is permitted or appropriate.

"To my mind, a philosophical expression amounts to a supposition – 'Suppose X, then possibly Y' – that is, a proposal for reflective consideration (e.g. dialectics, gedankenexperiment, daily (fitness / therapeutic) praxis, etc) tested only by its comparatively rational adequacy for some reflective task, and not a proposition asserting what is or not a fact of the matter." — 180 Proof