Who is employing private armies/mercenaries in Ukraine?

[Igel]

2. Ooh, a buried presupposition.

To evaluate a sentence you assume everything is true.

Give people a bunch of assertions like "Hitler was not born on 5/16/1876" and test them a few days later and more will say that Hitler was born on 5/16/1876 than would deny it. Before we add a negation, we first posit the positive. Still, that's a proposition that can be denied. You can say, "Yes, he was" or "No, he wasn't." The brain can easily deny it. Still, few days later there are two parts to the proposition: the assertion and the denial. If you forget the assertion, the denial's gone as well and you draw a blank. If you forget the denial, you remember the assertion as true. It's why test questions with "no" in them are considered somehow bad--students forget that part or really can't process something that complicated. We like to think it's the latter because it gets them better grades. It's both.

It's worse with embedded propositions. They're sheltered. "Has John stopped beating his wife?" You can't say "Yes, he has" or "No, he hasn't" and mean anything more than "he's stopped" or "he hasn't." You have to stop and realize there's a presupposition you have to accept as true in order to process the rest of the sentence. It's not a simple denial or affirmation, you have to ignore the question to say, "He hasn't ever beaten his wife." If you have no information about John's behavior towards his wife, then all you have is a presupposition that your brain treats as an assertion. Your take-away message is, "John beats, or at least used to beat, his wife." You've taken the unproven, buried presupposition as true. That middle ground, "I have no information so I'll ignore it" is a hard spot to stay in.

It's why "What's the current barnyard animal that Michelle is having sex with?" might be offensive, esp. if you are (D) and interpret "Michelle" to mean "Michelle Obama" (and not Bachmann; or if you're rabid (R) and interpret it to mean "Bachman" and not "Obama&quot . You unpack the question as, "Michelle's has had at least one animal in the past that she's boffed. She's moved on from that one and now has another one. Which is that current one?" You have to ignore the task your brain takes up and reach down and deny the presupposition. It's easy when the presupposition if offensive and provokes an emotional reaction.

It's harder when the presupposition is neutral and you have no opinion or information about it.

It's harder yet when the presupposition has already been entertained as true. This is taken as a secondary source of information. You now have two witnesses. That neutral, "I don't know" space--already hard to reach--is under clear assault.

It's a real challenge to even good critical thinking skills to reach down and question an unproven presupposition when you want to agree with it because agreeing with it reinforces something else you think or want to think is true.