Reasoning and Presuppositions
Carlotta Pavese,
Philosophical Topics,
Nov 30, 2021
I have said in my course that the call for an 'objective' perspective is in fact an endorsement of orthodoxy, that is, of prevailing systems of power and influences. Here's why. As this paper argues, using examples like Lewis Carroll's (1895) argument between Achilles and the Tortoise, it is not possible to reason without presuppositions of some sort (you'd think this would be a truism, as the author suggests, but a lot of people, in fact and deed, express their belief in the opposite). This means that in any instance of reasoning, you are selecting presuppositions to begin your inference from, and those that appear the most 'objective' are those that cause the least debate and dispute (especially from those who manage and fund your work), which entails that 'objective' reasoning is based on an endorsement of orthodoxy.
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