What Does Inquiry Presuppose?

Metaphysics & Epistemology
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What — if anything — do we take for granted in any discussion aimed at knowledge ?

Obvious candidates are (1) that we share a world and (2) that communication is possible. Since the aim is knowledge, we seem to assume also that some beliefs are better than others in that they are somehow more warranted, etc.

I am hardly the first person to inquire into the framework presupposed by inquiry itself. One device used in this project is the famous transcendental argument.

As standardly conceived, transcendental arguments are taken to be distinctive in involving a certain sort of claim, namely that X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y—where then, given that Y is the case, it logically follows that X must be the case too.

I relate my own philosophical approach to Kant’s, but I see any results achieved as relatively blurry and always tentative. I am also not as keen on the argument framework. To me the problem is being understood and understanding the other in the first place.

questions/prompts

(1) What if anything do you think inquiry presupposes ?

(2) What if anything do you do with these unearthed presuppositions ?

I will offer my own answers to these prompts in later posts.

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I take the human context for granted here. We presuppose “shared” objects. By “shared,” I mean that we all have at least conditional access to these objects, most obviously via perception.

These objects include signs such as spoken or written words. I suggest that we assume something like the “consciousness” of other people. Our signs have to be “for” them in some sense for our communication to be genuine.

I think we also presuppose as individual participants that it is better to join the discussion than abstain. So participation in inquiry presupposes that inquiry is somehow “good.”

I don’t think that inquiry presupposes “truth” as the goal. To be sure, particular inquiries are often framed in this way. But I am asking here for the minimal presuppositions.

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time exists, our memory is reliable
our mind doesn’t lie when it says that our answers truly answer our question (or at least can be forced not to lie if we wish for it hard enough)

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I’m working at ontology via phenomenological excavation. In my Being and/or Time thread, I suspect that a hint of this aspect of my approach helped @Chelydra see where I was coming from. I hope they will join this conversation.

I suggested over in that thread that we already enact “shared” objects as interpersonal-temporal syntheses. So this theory of objects is not speculative but rather a foregrounding articulation of our primarily “blindly enacted” belief. Here of course I merely express my own belief. To the dismay of some, I understand the word “true” as a sign for indicating belief, and nothing more —to oversimplify.

In other words, all discussion of an object takes for granted the “unity” of that object “across subjects” and “over time.” Put otherwise, we can step in the same river twice because any discussion of a river “splinters” it beyond any particular subjects’s momentary encountering of that river. The speakable thing is always already “transcendent” in the phenomenological sense.

While I don’t lean on them as authorities, I think this approach offers a fresh reading of Heraclitus and Plato, especially Plato’s “idea.”

Elsewhere I have focused on Saussure’s sound-idea ( “acoustic image”) as an especially vivid version of “identity via temporal synthesis.” In short, Saussure’s sound-idea is a sonic specialization of Plato’s more general idea.

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Can you say more ?

Can you specify which answer goes with which prompt ?

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More?

This is just what we “take for granted in any discussion aimed at knowledge”. Or at least the part I still remember.

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It does presuppose truth because there’s got to be an assumed given. Under no circumstances that an inquiry would need to explain everything and anything.

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If the “truth” is given as in already there, then why inquiry ? One might think inquiry presupposes a dissatisfaction, or at least something to pursue. Or perhaps a boredom with silence. “Recontextualize just for the hell of it.”

Are you suggesting truth as the presupposed goal ? And that this goal is given ?

I like your second point. Indeed, I can’t even imagine a “total” explanation.

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I think the assumption we actually make is simply that we see something in common between ourselves and the person standing in front of us. But those assumptions will only truly become assumptions in our minds once we realize that what we thought was there is not actually there—not before that.

If you were to know your assumptions beforehand, that means you are actively trying to make the other person agree with you or understand what you are trying to express. Instead of a natural conversation, you would be trying to force the rules beforehand. We only notice an assumption when it fails, not while we are just experiencing that common ground.

For example, look at what a dog has in common in the background that makes it understand what is being told, or how a person in need of help assumes that the one they are asking will understand. It is like how we travel to places with different languages, thinking they will understand us. No matter how many words you put into a communication, there is no guarantee that the other person understands what you say unless they can feel the intentions or understand the feeling, because the modulation of a voice will completely change the meaning.

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This echoes one of my favorite ideas in Gadamer, which he takes from Heidegger. We are “blind” to our strongest assumptions. One of many reasons to engage with others is that it contributes to our own self-knowledge.

The assumptions we can already articulate are therefore almost optional. Our blind assumptions are experience as the reality in front of us, and not as what we “project.”

Exactly !

Right. And I think even the modulation of tone won’t always work. I do think that talking in person is better, but even here there are limits.

Thank you for jumping in with such an excellent post !

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Does inquiry presuppose a “strong” meaning for “true” ?

First let me discuss the “weak” meaning. To me we can think of the sound “true” like a turn-signal or a thumbs-up. We use the sound to endorse the claims of others or to express our own beliefs.

The strong meaning is something like a “true” statement “matching” a “true reality” that is often conceived of as essentially “external” to the perspectives of every participant.

For context, I currently propose an ontological perspectivism that stresses a common world but does not assume a “God’s POV” on this world (e.g. a “truth” about this world.) It’s a bit like Leibniz’s monadology, but we smash open all the windows on these monads and don’t have a God monad.

When I say we “smash the windows” of the monads, I mean that subjects are “emptied.” Each subject is “pure POV.” So the experience of each subject is immediately common-shared reality, but from a POV.

I suggest that this framework is enough to allow for inquiry. Yet it’s not obvious where we would hide a “truth-maker.” Indeed, this theory itself is presented as a (mere) belief, and not as “truth.”

So I think that some people who propose that truth is a necessary presupposition of inquiry are just carrying along a “local” inherited prejudice. I am open to feedback on this, but I hope for more than "it’s obvious ( to me). "

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"If presuppose means assumption, then how can an assumption be made just by observing from the outside? Even if we break the windows of the monads like you said, we are still just seeing the other person from our own point of view, not from their actual position. You can never stand in their exact spot.

We ourselves make the assumptions, but there is a real truth behind it that we don’t see or consider simply because it is so common. We only realize we actually made an assumption when things go in the opposite direction. But for it to go in the opposite direction, it means there is an understanding or a truth that it knows in itself, right?

For example, look at a guy visiting a psychiatrist. The doctor makes a report and a list of things to do based on answers that are treated as ‘truth’ by both sides. But suddenly the patient doesn’t need it anymore, or they change to worse. That doesn’t mean pattern or trait recognition failed—it’s just that a person doesn’t actually fully know their own self.

If you think a dog actually knows it’s a ‘dog’ and we are ‘humans,’ you are simply thinking that the animal kingdom knows the names of other species. They don’t. But there is their own truth in the background. Like how the sun rises in the east—it is a fact, but to label something as a fact, you need everyone to see it the same way. But opinions don’t impact the truth. The truth is just a certain way because that entire place is a certain way. It’s like how a child runs away and becomes a talented individual because they know—not what at that point, but feeling that ‘this is not the way.’"

While typing this, I thought what I am thinking and saying is true and correct. But after finishing this reply, I thought maybe I didn’t actually answer you. But it doesn’t matter, because you from the other side have your own truth.

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Yes indeed. I strongly agree with that, and for that reason we open ourselves to others. In this case, digging for that “blind” common ground is the explicit theme. I want to see what others take for this common ground. One person already introduced “truth.” But I don’t think we must assume that. I think it’s just a traditional inclusion.

I’m looking the for minimum. Basically we want to avoid performative contradiction. At the same time, we don’t want to drag in anything extra.

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What does inquiry presuppose?

An intellect capable of, first, conducting inquiry consistent with itself, and second, having an interest sufficient for it to exert itself.

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No, that’s not what I meant about the given, the truths that we take for granted in order to move forward with our inquiry about an issue. Inquiring about the origin of the universe presupposes its existence and our being in it.

There are nonsense inquiries, of course. “Do we exist?” That’s nonsense.

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I like the focus on interest or motive. We have to care.

Do we need a community for inquiry ?

I grant that an individual raised in a community and therefore able to speak language can go off alone and the do inquiry. Are the results of such private inquiry still somehow connected to at least an ideal future reader ?

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OK, but must we call what we take for granted “truths” ? Would you be OK with shared beliefs ?

I agree that “do we exist ?” is nonsense. But some radical questioning can pay off. For instance, absolute time and absolute space were once taken for granted.

Radical inquiry might exactly question the “obvious.”

So I am looking for the minimal blurry set of “beliefs” ( or viscerally enacted “presuppositions” ) that enable a inquiry that is still genuine and not “nonsense.”

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This deserves another reply. If all are already satisfied by their own “truth” and uninterested in the “truths” of others, then perhaps we don’t have inquiry.

Is there a tension in your gesture here ? I credit you that it may be artful. Perhaps you are making a point indirectly.
But that tension is the explicit “not-mattering” and the implicit “mattering” in the transmission of a mark.

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I mentioned this elsewhere to @Wayfarer. I think it fits in here. As a thought experiment — somewhat motivated by my reading of Gerson — let us imagine Plato’s work as focused on the intelligibility of the world.

Let us imagine an “foundational” investigation into the structure that enables any and every “surface” investigation. In my view, this include what is so basic as to even be boring — at first. We live in a world of common objects that we discuss.

"Here comes Socrates again. "

“Let us discuss ( the same ) ( concept of ) Justice again.”

Let us discuss. The sounds from our mouths ( words ) somehow “access” or “touch” these common public objects, be they obviously sensory or otherwise.

What does it mean for inquiry to “make sense” of the world ? In a peculiar sense — and almost tautologically — the essence of the world is sense. But I don’t see this “sense” or “significance” as “internal stuff.” I see Socrates himself, flesh and blood, walking over. My “direct perception” of the world is of a world of enduring intersubjective entities.

I do not sincerely doubt that what I perceive is also there for others, excepting rare cases that get labelled as “hallucinations,” etc.

So the world is there as a common world of “wholes” or “unities.” While sensation is “continuous” in some sense, this “sensory-affect continuum” is always already organized into a system of “discrete” or “digital” objects.

I don’t mean anything fancy here. We can count that there are seven red apples on the table. I am tempted to understand “idea” in Plato to point at the unity of each apple.

The apple does not obviously have some exact boundary. My friend Bob is nearsighted, but he is close enough to count 7 apples also, though they are blurrier for him than they are for me.

We have no doubt that we are discussing and counting the same apples. We have not yet concerned ourselves with the exact spatial boundaries of the apples. Perhaps we do not agree on the chemical makeup of these apples. But we can’t argue about and come to a consensus about the boundaries or make-up of the apples if we don’t already “co-intend” the same apples.

I have also been trading words with Bob. I make sounds for him and he makes sounds back for me. Those sounds are words that are fundamentally repeatable. As with the apples, I don’t know exactly how my words are there for Bob in sensory terms, but I trust that he recognizes their “form” in the sense of what word was spoken. Here Saussure’s “sound-image” is useful.

In short, the “formal” or “ideal” element that makes the world “countable” and capable of repetition looks necessary for inquiry. I suggest that Plato’s “idea” is aimed that this formal component of the world.