Argumentation

If assumptions are the beginning of knowledge, thinking, and learning, the next step is to test and question those assumptions. Argumentation is the skill that does this work. It is not casual opinion, and it is not debate in the noisy sense. It is the disciplined movement from an assumption to a claim that has earned the right to be believed.

The five foundational assumptions of chemistry do not, by themselves, produce the first principles of chemistry. The principles are what we get when the rules of argumentation are applied to the assumptions. That is a strong claim and it is worth pausing on. Observation, composition, property, conservation: none of these appear out of thin air. Each is derived from one or more of the five assumptions by argument.

The path from assumption to knowledge has a shape. First, identify the assumption; bring it into the light and name it. Second, gather information; seek evidence through objective observation and research. Third, ask critical questions of your own thinking. What evidence supports this? What if the opposite were true? What alternative explanations fit the same observations? What follows if the assumption is wrong? Fourth, seek other perspectives; blind spots are, by definition, invisible from inside. Fifth, revise. If the evidence supports the assumption, your belief is strengthened. If it contradicts the assumption, you discard and form a new one. If the evidence is mixed, you refine. This process of failing and iterating is a critical part of true learning, not an embarrassment.

Q. Why does this process never finish? Because new information can always lead to new conclusions. Assumptions are never truly proven true; they are tested and shown to be more or less likely given the evidence available. That is not a weakness of the method. It is the method. Philosophical doubt is the requirement for a critical thinker to continually question the truthfulness of what is regarded as fact. A chemist who has stopped questioning has stopped doing chemistry.