In this short article I’d like to discuss a certain kind of belief that holds many people – people who are quite capable and talented – back from reaching goals, realizing dreams, and becoming all that they can become. The concept of the “Absolute Presupposition” is central to this discussion. (The term was originally coined by the British philosopher R.G. Collingwood, in a somewhat different context.)
What is an absolute presupposition? For our purposes here we may define it as a statement that is necessarily, unquestionably, inarguably true. You cannot imagine circumstances under which it can be false. “Two plus two equals four” is a statement of this kind. So is “If you throw a ball up in the air, it will fall back to Earth.” Absolute presuppositions are statements we must accept as true if our world is to make any sense to us at all.
However, as we shall see in a moment, sometimes we mistakenly believe a statement to be an absolute presupposition…and it turns out that it really isn’t. I’m going to suggest that if you are encountering an unusally tough problem in life – whether it be...