 The task of philosophy, Collingwood claims in An Essay on Metaphysics, is not to assert propositions in answers to questions but to uncover presuppositions. Philosophy is therefore concerned not with propositions but with presuppositions. Propositions are answers to questions. For example, the proposition “This is a clothes line” answers the question “What is that thing for?” (EM 1998: 24). Presuppositions, on the other hand give rise to questions. When one asks, “What is that thing for?” one must presuppose “that it is ‘for’ something” (EM 1998: 26). Without any presuppositions the question would not arise.