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I have this further reflection: Perhaps the third presupposition that I have identified, in addition to the two originally mentioned, is not so much a third as, rather, a necessary implication, or presupposition, of the second---in something like the way in which, in Apel's view, commitment to the validation of validity claims by rational discourse necessarily implies a "minimal ethics," including respect for one's discussion partners as persons, acknowledgement of their rights to participate in a completely free and open discussion, acknowledgement of one's own responsibilities so to alter existing conditions as to secure such rights, etc. If this suggestion should prove to be to the point, the most fundamental (ethical) principles of the Constitution would turn out to be already implied in the second of the original two presuppositions, which I have referred to as "the presuppositions of any and all enlightenment"--namely, "that religious truth and existential truth in any other [nonreligious] forms are no different from any other truth in that they have to be determined, finally, by human reason rather than by appeal to authority" (2). Given this presupposition," one can reasonably suggest that the third presupposition necessarily follows, and so is not really a third presupposition after all. 

14 November 1993