the.com/supposition
a guess wearing a tuxedo, dressed up just well enough to start an argument.
means A supposition is something taken to be true for the sake of reasoning or argument, without being proven.
from From Latin 'suppositio,' a noun built from 'supponere' — 'to put under, to place beneath' (sub-, 'under,' + ponere, 'to place'). The literal image is of something set down underneath as a foundation; a supposition is the assumption you lay beneath an argument to hold it up. It reached English through Old French in the late Middle Ages, and the same 'ponere' root props up a whole family: position, deposit, compose, postpone — all words about placing things, just in different directions.
- latin root
- From supponere, meaning to place underneath.
- logic engine
- Proofs run on assumptions made only to be discharged.
- law term
- Courts distinguish supposition from evidence to bar speculation.
- math cousin
- Conjectures are suppositions awaiting a brutal proof.
descartes' cogito ergo sum — foundational supposition that consciousness proves existence, 1641 meditations on first philosophy
ptolemaic geocentric model — supposition that earth is center of universe, held until copernicus and galileo, 2nd century ad
phlogiston theory — supposition that fire-like element caused combustion, disproved by lavoisier's oxygen theory in 1770s