By Schubert Ogden
If the activity of philosophy itself has necessary presuppositions--as it clearly does--exactly what are they?
If Whitehead answers that they are "the premises implicit in all reasoning," my answer is that they are our rock-bottom, basic beliefs. I mean such beliefs as that:
life is meaningful or has a ration aim;
the world is so ordered as to make pursuing this aim possible, including basing our expectations of the future on our experiences of the past; and
there is something properly called "validity," in the several forms of truth goodness, and beauty, as well as sincerity or authenticity, and, possibly, holiness or eternity, each constituting a domain of validity, distinct but inseparable from all the others.
1 October 2005