Presuppositionless pragmatics -- (Was: presuppositional apologetics)

Speranza

Oddly, wiki has this entry, presupposition,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presupposition_(philosophy)

that is totally unhelpful (They keep asking, "was this helpful to you?" -- such a presupposition-loaded query).

It reads:

"In epistemology, presuppositions relate to a belief system, or Weltanschauung, and are required for it to make sense."

Weltanschauung is a good one, and I will analyse it:

welt--- world
an----- German for 'in', or 'on', I'm never sure.
shau -- English: 'show' as in "Broadway show"
ung --- English -ing.

worldinshowing, as it were.

"A variety of Christian apologetics, called presuppositional apologetics, argues that the existence or non-existence of God is the basic presupposition of all human thought, and that all men arrive at a worldview which is ultimately determined by the theology they presuppose."

Or fail to presuppose. Indeed Grice grew tired of Strawson's Sticking with the King of France existing or failing to exist (before we can deem him bald or not). Perhaps the existence of (a bald?) God is more powerful?

"Evidence and arguments are only marshalled after the fact in an attempt to justify the theological assumptions already made. According to this view, it is impossible to demonstrate the existence of God unless one presupposes that God exists"

Ditto for the king of France.

Dummett, typically, argued that to demonstrate that

the QUEEN of England (he means Elizabeth I) was bald is just as otiose. He notes that there is a way to verify that (or not). He calls himself an intuitionist.

--- Recall that Russell ended the polemic by noting that a "Hegelian, who likes a synthesis" will possibly conclude that the king wears a wig.

----

This all escaped Strawson, who has "the king of France is _wise_" rather -- NOW THAT is presuppositionless!

"; modern science is incapable of discovering the supernatural because it relies on methodological naturalism and thereby fashions a Procrustean bed which rejects any observation which would disprove the naturalistic assumption. The best the apologist can do is to argue that the resulting worldview is somehow inconsistent with itself and therefore irrational (for example, via the Argument from morality or via the Transcendental argument for the existence of God)."

And so on!