Presupposition

A presupposition is normally a proposition that is or has to be taken for granted, or ‘supposed’, before (‘pre-’) a certain statement or other linguistic act can be made sense of. A presupposition is not so much the ground you stand on, or the thinking that you rely on, but more like what comes before the ground you stand on, or what comes before the thinking that you rely upon. The notion of presupposition is therefore in essence quite a philosophical subject. By the same token, presuppositions are things which one can try to communicate, without actually stating them. “Has Alfred stopped smoking pot?” Even if you do not know the answer to a question like this, it can be used to communicate, not question, that Alfred used to smoke pot.