[Spacemonkey]

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I told you that your summary was incomplete.

Summaries are incomplete by definition. That is why they are summaries.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

His observations support his conclusions.

In this case, his 'observations' are unsupported presuppositions within the context of his book.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

There were no presuppositions in his demonstration whatsoever.

Yes there are. I've already given them to you. Unless you can show me where he gave support for them they remain presuppositions.

Originally Posted by peacegirl

I gave this example earlier: If I observe that apples fall down from trees, and I want to explain this observation to you, who has not observed this because you don't live near any trees, all I'm doing is describing what I see. What am I presupposing here?

I see you still haven't learned the difference between an observation and a conclusion inductively inferred from observations.

No-one ever directly observes that all apples fall downwards, because no-one ever observes all apples. The most one can do is probabilistically infer that all apples fall downwards on the basis of specific and particular observations of a finite number of specific falling apples.

What you are trying to pass off as Lessans' 'observations' about conscience are universal claims (like the one about all apples) which can never be directly observed. They can only be more or less reliably inferred as probable on the basis of specific direct observations of conscience (equivalent to the observations single specific falling apples).

If Lessans had any such specific direct (rather than inferred) observations that he based his claims about conscience on, then he never shared them. That means no-one has any reason to think that they are correct. And it means that these 'observations' remain presuppositions in his book.

If you tell me all apples fall downwards, I can ask how you know that. Telling me you observed it doesn't work, because you can't observe all apples. But you can tell me you have observed x number of specific apples, all of which fell downwards, from which you reasonably inferred that all apples probably fall downwards.

You can't do the same for Lessans' claims about conscience. He made no real observations, and settled instead for assumptions which he merely asserted as 'undeniable' facts, and presuppositions which he relied upon without even being aware of.