What modern people want to be made to understand is simply

Last updated: 7/9/2022

What modern people want to be made to understand is simply that all argument begins with an assumption; that is, with something that you do not doubt. (2) You can, of course, if you like, doubt the assumption at the beginning of your argument, but in that case you are beginning a different argument with another assumption at the beginning of it. (3) Every argument begins with an infallible dogma, and that infallible dogma can only be disputed by falling back on some other infallible dogma; you can never prove your first statement or it would not be your first. (4) All this is the alphabet of thinking. (5) And it has this special and positive point about it that it can be taught in a school, like the other alphabet. (6) Not to start an argument without stating your postulates could be taught in philosophy as it is taught in Euclid, in a common schoolroom with a blackboard. (7) And I think it might be taught in some simple and rational degree even to the young, before they go out into the streets and are delivered over entirely to the logic and philosophy of the Daily Mail. In sentence 1 (reproduced below), the writer is considering deleting the bolded text. What modern people want to be made to understand is simply that all argument begins with an assumption; that is, with something that you do not doubt. Should the writer keep or delete the bolded text? Keep it, because it clarifies what the writer means by the word "assumption." Keep it, because it is essential to the line of reasoning which will follow. Delete it, because it adds unnecessary wordiness without adding meaning. Delete it, because it contradicts the line of reasoning which will follow.