Prose and ideas

The use of prose in philosophy is an attempt at avoiding the unavoidable: the infinite reduction of argumentation. The text is used as a smoke screen to hide the fact that not every premise can have a premise, and thus the normative subtext behind every idea.

For example try and depict an idea in point form. When taken apart and put so plainly it’s obvious that each claim would need support, and so on and so on; your assumptions are those premises you not to explain. In essay format, it’s considerably more difficult to pick out assumptions unless they are stated explicitly: “I am making the assumption that…”

Musing: a special dimension. Imagine any paragraph but in point form with each sentence corresponding to a separate point. It seems to take on a very different and more transparent shape. Is it sentence structure that hides meaning or paragraph structure? A case of the reification of a textual forms – is the paragraph (sentence even) not simply the sum of its parts?

Which brings me to another thought: the cultural dynamic of assumptions. Some claims can be made in light of certain circumstances. I.e. I feel no need to explain that words are abstractions and deferred from signifieds (A hidden and underlying assumption throughout this post.).