:up:

BTW, it's a shame your OP has been somewhat derailed by all the pedantry. I agree with you on your distinction between beliefs that are truly believed, at a kind of visceral level (absolute presuppositions) and those which are given mere lip service. ("Hypothesizing something as a belief").

What people claim to believe can be a long distance from what they actually do. — Pantagruel

Indeed! The litmus test is action.

I take Kant's to be a construction, Collingwood's to be a finding. — tim wood

Pretty much, yeah. Kant bottom up construction, Collingwood top down analysis.
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The short historical perspective which Kant inherited from Voltaire was at this point his undoing — tim wood

As far as physics is concerned, and the notion that his presuppositions were sufficient for future physics, this is true. But Kant didn’t base his philosophy on physics, but on mathematics, which far antecedes both Voltaire and Greek physical science. He does this to demonstrate why physics as a science didn’t advance as far and as surely as mathematics, because the Greeks didn’t apply the same apodeitically certain a priori principles of mathematics to physical science. Enter Copernicus, whom Kant supposed, did.

Good stuff, Maynard.

I would say that, according to ordinary parlance, there is little difference between the two terms....... — Janus

Little difference in ordinary parlance, yes. But what difference there is, speaks volumes: the first says “the fact of believing....” and the second says “something believed....”. The first makes explicit an object that is a rational cognition, the second is a rational cognition in which an object is implied. The first presupposes believing, the second presupposes something. The first, iff it is a fact, stands as an absolute presupposition, the second can only be a relative presupposition because some question can be answered by it, what the something may actually be.

But even aside from that, the definitions are so close, virtually using the same words, they practically define the same conception. Except the conceptions are not the same.
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.......although a presupposition might be considered more basic. — Janus

Agreed; my sole raison d’etre for getting involved in the first place, to demonstrate how that is actually the case.

Cool. Thanks.

Thanks. I feel it generated quite a bit of substantive discussion, and raised some interest in Collingwood. Discussion is good. I'd like to look more into philosophies about shared background assumptions where that is the main topic, not a point of contention.

presupposition
noun [ C or U ]
uk
/ˌpriː.sʌp.əˈzɪʃ.ən/ us
/ˌpriː.sʌp.əˈzɪʃ.ən/
something that you believe is true without having any proof:....

....So suppositions and presuppositions are species of belief, but not all beliefs are suppositions in this strict sense, of course ( that is some beliefs are founded on evidence).

Now, Collingwood uses a term,"absolute presupposition" to denote those presuppositions which are bedrock for all metaphysical and physical inquiry. I see no reason to think that he could not equally well have used the term "absolute supposition" or "absolute belief" to denote the same thing.... — Janus

Except that, as I noted previously, it is at the heart of Collingwood's formulation that absolute presuppositions are not true. You are ignoring the most important part.

But whether they are true or not is not what I have been arguing about. If there can be presuppositions which are "not true", then since presuppositions, under any reasonable interpretation of the meaning of the term, are also both suppositions and beliefs, it follows that there can be beliefs which are not true, which seems unproblematic.

If there can be presuppositions which are "not true", then since presuppositions, under any reasonable interpretation of the meaning of the term, are also both suppositions and beliefs, — Janus

Absolute presuppositions have no truth value. Have you read the Collingswood essay? If so, you clearly misunderstood it. I'd let this argument go, but it's a wonderful essay. It means a lot to me. I don't want others to to be mislead.

The book is on my shelf, I've had it for years, I've read the book and understood it, so your claim is erroneous. I haven't claimed that so-called absolute presuppositions have truth value or don't have truth value according to Collingwood. It's a while since I've read the book and on this particualr point I have no opinion as to what Collingwood thinks. On the contrary it seems you have misunderstood what I've been saying, and keep reverting to arguing against a strawman.

Perhaps it will help to straighten out your thinking about what I've been saying if you look at this again:

And (p.51), "It might seem that there are three schools of thought in physics, Newtonian, Kantian, and Einsteinian, let us all them, which stand committed respectively to the three following metaphysical propositions:
1. Some events have causes.
2. All events have causes.
3. No events have causes."

RGC then points out that while seeming contradictory, each of these stands as a foundational and structural part of the science that presupposes it, and as such, the question as to the truth of any one of them is a nonsense question because their value as presuppositions lies in their "efficacy" and not in their being thought true. — tim wood

What I've been saying has no argument with any of that. That said, I don't agree the three examples of absolute presuppositions Tim Wood quotes there have no truth value, as I thought you at least, if not Tim had been claiming. I don't believe "the question as to the truth of any one of them is a nonsense question" as Tim says. It does not follow from the fact that we may not be able to establish the truth of such propositions that they have no truth value, all that follows is that whatever we believe about the question as to whether some, all or no events have causes will be a matter of faith.

"Some events have causes", " All events have causes", "No events have causes": of course these are, whatever else they might be, beliefs. They are also suppositions or presuppositions. If they count as absolute presuppositions, then they count also as absolute suppositions or absolute beliefs; as I said before, the logic is inexorable. (Personally I don't think the "absolute" works very well, 'foundational' or 'bedrock' would have been better in my view). — Janus

Also Tim apparently disagrees with you and or seems to be contradicting himself, so one (or both) of you has misunderstood Collingwood or else he also contradicts himself:

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


He does not say that. — tim wood — creativesoul

Anyway all this is an aside and is relevant neither to what I've been saying nor to Pantagruel's OP.

Exactly. There is a correspondence between the quality of belief and the quality of the presentation (enactment) of the belief. — Pantagruel

But how can we know what a person truly believes?
If we ask them point blank, how can we be sure they won't lie or otherwise give a deceptive answer?

We somehow need to account for strategizing and cunning, on the level of verbal expressions and on the level of actions.

Personally, I assume there are manifestations of genuine belief that distinguish it from fake belief. That's what the bit you quoted suggests. Authenticity, credibility, efficacy, communicability, comprehensibility.

Also Tim apparently disagrees with you and or seems to be contradicting himself, so one (or both) of you has misunderstood Collingwood or else he also contradicts himself: — Janus

I've discussed this with timmy before, and I've come to the conclusion that the idea of "absolute presuppositions" as proposed by Collingwood, is itself contradictory. This is what happens when someone pushes the boundaries in proposing a concept, trying to assign to the concept, a function which is impossible.

Personally, I assume there are manifestations of genuine belief that distinguish it from fake belief. That's what the bit you quoted suggests. Authenticity, credibility, efficacy, communicability, comprehensibility. — Pantagruel

I don't see how this works in practice.
I don't see how one could see through a person's strategizing and cunning.

I don't see how this works in practice.
I don't see how one could see through a person's strategizing and cunning. — baker

I am assuming that, empirically and socially, the actions of a person that are directed by a genuine belief must be measurably different from those of a person promulgating a false belief. Presumably things like long-term consistency, cogency of presentation, tendency to evoke comprehension in others. I am assuming that "the truth will out" in some sense, or more precisely, "the false will out," and reveal its own falsity. It is an hypothesis.

If you are dissimulating, you are intentionally mis-communicating. If you are practicing authenticity, then the possibility of understanding is greatest. That would have significance for coordinated group planning and action, for example.

Absolute presuppositions have no truth value. — T Clark

No, but they relate to a set of propositions which do or can have truth values.

This is what happens when someone pushes the boundaries in proposing a concept, trying to assign to the concept, a function which is impossible. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is exactly the error that Collingwood says results in the suicide of positivistic metaphysics, trying to justify the presuppositions of natural science. It is unlikely that he is making the error that you suggest as his whole intention is not to make that error.

I don't agree the three examples of absolute presuppositions Tim Wood quotes there have no truth value — Janus

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. Linguistics attributes truth value to propositions alone, which includes beliefs, but single words are not propositions not are they beliefs, hence, as such, can not have the truth value of a proposition, re: is “yes” true or false? Metaphysics can ask if AP’s are logically valid, and if answered that they are, then to ask if they are true or false, is utterly irrelevant. Or.....in the author’s vocabulary......nonsense.
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I would consider it a great success if I could get you to see that AP’s are not beliefs, I shall smooth potentially ruffled feathers beforehand, by reminding you that while your ordinary language use is all fine and dandy, the reference material for this thread is predicated on critical thinking, for which, one must admit, ordinary language use lacks sufficient authority.
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Once more, into the breach........

as I said before, the logic is inexorable. — Janus

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON. DANGER!!!!

“...Now it may be taken as a safe and useful warning, that general logic, considered as an organon, must always be a logic of illusion, for, as it teaches us nothing whatever respecting the content of our cognitions, but merely the formal conditions of their accordance with the understanding, which do not relate to and are quite indifferent in respect of objects, any attempt to employ it as an instrument (organon) in order to extend and enlarge the range of our knowledge must end in mere prating; anyone being able to maintain or oppose, with some appearance of truth, any single assertion whatever. Such instruction is quite unbecoming the dignity of philosophy....”

Nothing wrong using the logical form supposition/belief; presupposition/belief; absolute presupposition/absolute belief. They’re just words thrown together. But try to substitute reasonable arguments against the words, and you find that the relationship the words imply were, shall we say, unbecoming.

Now for the success. Maybe. Logical consistency maintains that if suppositions are beliefs, which could be true, then presuppositions should be pre-beliefs, which is a logical illusion, for we have no idea what is contained in a pre-belief. And then we have what should be.....absolute pre-beliefs. You can easily get from supposition to belief and do so rationally, but you cannot get so easily from presupposition to pre-belief. And it is quite irrational indeed, to attempt to get to absolute pre-belief from absolute presupposition. Parsimony suggests the better illusory reconciliation to be, therefore, that suppositions can be beliefs, but presuppositions and absolute presuppositions, cannot.

TA-DAAAA!!!! (Mic drop, exit stage left)

One man’s pedantry is another man’s precision.

There seem mainly two groups arguing in this thread. One is those who have not read any RGC but are quite sure his ideas are nonsense. And others who have read more-or-less but have not, more-or-less, understood what he is about with his absolute presuppositions. And it is really too simple to argue about. Any endeavor whatsoever worthy of name is built on let's-call-them rules. Some of the rules can be adjusted and the endeavor remains essentially the same, and some rules cannot be adjusted without destroying the endeavor itself.

Baseball, for example, and most professional sports are always reviewing their rules to improve their product. Some rules cannot be changed without destroying the product. You cannot, for example, in the four major US sports exchange the puck for the football for the baseball for the basketball. And the question of these exchanges never arises, and would be nonsense if they did.

But how do you figure out what the APs are? One way is to keep asking why or how until you have that wtf moment. And you have that moment because the particular why or how has blown you out beyond the boundaries of the endeavor itself. Usually the reply to that why or how, if it's civil, will be something like that's just the way it is, or we just take that for granted. These replies and similar are clues that an AP has been uncovered.

Being foundational to their respective endeavors, they're not usually matters of or for attention - why would they be? Like the foundation of your home they're just not matters of current interest. If you move a table from one side of a room to another, it would be in most cases absurd to hire a civil engineer to create a report concerning the weight bearing capacities of that side of the room. And if anyone asked why you didn't, or suggested that you should, that might well be a wtf moment.

RGC's insights - and it is not clear to me if he is completely original with them; he seems to be - are 1) that all endeavors are built on APs. APs in themselves as APs are never in question, in the sense that asking of APs as APs if they are true or false is a nonsense question. E.g., "Why cannot you play hockey with a football?" Now of course, if you do identify an AP, you can ask. You can ask a mathematician why 2+2=4? Keep at it and see how soon he throws you out of his office. 2+2 can equal 5 if you want it to, but whoops, there goes mathematics.

2) APs can change/evolve. But with most inevitably it's a big deal and takes a long time. APs are foundational, and extending that metaphor, are subject to deterioration over time. They can be repaired, the rules adjusted, but usually after a long time they just rot out and the building itself that rests on them must change/evolve or fall.

3) APs held currently are often taken to be incontrovertible laws. RGC, however, was an historian and an archeologist and knew very well the difference between APs and laws, and further that most laws just are APs mistaken for laws (challenge: can anyone list below any law not an AP?) His analysis of cause in EM case in point. That is, with respect to any endeavor, its APs are subject to stress and in course of time change.

In sum, human knowledge is plastic and subject not just to increase (one hopes) but inevitably to change. Or another metaphor, not just one ever-growing plant, but instead a garden with varieties of plants that come and go.

And last, his analysis and argument that metaphysics is the scientific endeavor itself of identifying the APs of endeavors both past and current. His thought on these matters is c. 1930s, a time when even the APs of science, society, and culture were all under extreme stress, himself as an historian recognizing that stress and the importance of knowing what was happening and not being deceived or misled by events and wrong thinking and wrong understanding.

There seem mainly two groups arguing in this thread. One is those who have not read any RGC but are quite sure his ideas are nonsense. And others who have read more-or-less but have not, more-or-less, understood what he is about with his absolute presuppositions. — tim wood

This is pretty presumptuous of you. You already stated that you were "not an authority" on RGC.

Quite so, but I can read, and I do the best I can with 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?

I haven't claimed that so-called absolute presuppositions have truth value or don't have truth value according to Collingwood. — Janus

The truth value of absolute presuppositions is at the heart of Collingwood's understanding. You can't toss that out without tossing out his whole argument.

1. Some events have causes.
2. All events have causes.
3. No events have causes. — Janus

You set me thinking. It's a really good question whether these statements are APs. Are they true or false? I think I can make a good argument they are neither. But that would be a different thread. Maybe I'll start one - Is there such a thing as causation?

It does not follow from the fact that we may not be able to establish the truth of such propositions that they have no truth value, — Janus

I recognize the difference. That doesn't change my assertion that a good argument can be made that the idea of cause may be useful or not in specific situations but is not true or false.

I've discussed this with timmy before, — Metaphysician Undercover

Hey @tim wood, are we allowed to call you "Timmy." At least I capitalized it.

I've come to the conclusion that the idea of "absolute presuppositions" as proposed by Collingwood, is itself contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover

Have you made that argument elsewhere in this thread. If so, I've missed it. I'd be interested in taking a look.

What Collingwood (seems to have) found is that any endeavor is characterized not alone by what it does and how it does it, but also by what it implicitly takes absolutely for granted, its absolute presuppositions, and taking that thus never explicitly questions them. One may call them the axioms of the enterprise. — tim wood

I'm a bit behind and am catching up on some older posts. This is a good summary of all the things I've been trying to say.

RGC was an historian. While I have no idea how or why he came to his conclusions - and would like to - I can imagine a day early in his career as a historian recognizing for the first time that different people at different times thought differently, and, that this thinking in each case was not a deficient version of what came after, but was rather something simpler: a different set of axioms. He observed that folks tend not to question their axioms and instead are likely to jealously guard and protect them on those occasions when they do surface. — tim wood

I like this too.

Hey tim wood, are we allowed to call you "Timmy." At least I capitalized it. — T Clark

Some people have. You do not want to be considered as being among that group for various reasons.

As to APs being true or false, they are APs with respect to what they are APs for. As such, per RGC, truth or falsity does not apply to them because they are never propounded. But this is just a matter of reading the book.

There seem mainly two groups arguing in this thread. One is those who have not read any RGC but are quite sure his ideas are nonsense. And others who have read more-or-less but have not, more-or-less, understood what he is about with his absolute presuppositions. — tim wood

Now you're just trying to piss people off. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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.

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. — creativesoul

Yeah, there's a lot going on there. It's probably time for me to go back and reread the whole thing.

For anyone reading it, (Essay on Metaphysics) I recommend chapter XXV just for itself.

although there are a few problems within it. — creativesoul

And here, when you get a settled sense of your own objections, we may get meat in the stew. I am eager to hear them because if based in the text they - your objections - can only add light, either in refining and improving our own view or forcing us to confront yours, to and for the benefit of all. Take your time; it's imo a very interesting topic; and no need to shoot from the hip - too much of that already.