Re: Leadership can be taught? LO1709

JOHN N. WARFIELD (jwarfiel@osf1.gmu.edu)
Tue, 20 Jun 1995 06:38:57 -0400 (EDT)

Replying to LO1697 --

It seems to me useful to make a distinction between "suppositions" and
"presuppositions". Both of them share the notion that an individual is
behaving on the basis of some kind of belief. If you believe in the
subconscious or, what may be equivalent, Charles S. Peirce's notion of
"habit" as the consequence of long-held beliefs frequently acted upon,
then it may make sense to think of suppositions and presuppositions as
follows:

o A supposition is a belief that the individual is able to articulate in
the form of a written statement of a believed assumption that plays a
significant part in that individual's decision-action system

o A presupposition is a belief that the individual is not able to
articulate in written form because the individual has lost any sense of
awareness that the belief is held or, in some other language, it has been
transformed into a habit, or in some other language, it is buried in the
subconscious but is active in the decision-action system of the
individual. (Inability to articulate may reflect the status of
ineffability, or may reflect the lack of adequate linguistics,
sufficiently defined, to enable communication. In any case, it amounts to
what people may refer to as "trying to surface assumptions".

--
JOHN N. WARFIELD
Jwarfiel@osf1.gmu.edu