What is the difference between the fact that grass is green and the green grass?

Nothing. They are truth functionally equivalent. — Banno

That's not the question here. The question is whether the content they convey is different from each other? Namely, is the statement that the fact the grass is green, observer-independent as opposed to the observer-dependent statement of green grass?

What is the difference between the fact that grass is green and the green grass?

Nothing. They are truth functionally equivalent. — Banno

I don't know if that works. As Sap has said, we can water the green grass but we can't water the fact that grass is green.

So a fact can be what is the case, and also a statement of what is the case. p as opposed to "p", an ambiguous disquatation. — Banno

I know that we often use the word "fact" to refer to a true statement/proposition, but that usage of the word "fact" isn't really that interesting. It's when we use the word "fact" to refer to what is the case that there's something to discuss.

Is there a difference between an object and what is the case? Between green grass and grass being green? Between a flying pig and that a pig is flying?

A thing: a,b,c...

A predicate: F,G,H...

A fact: Fa, Ga, Hb

Facts are not things. — Banno

I think this exemplifies the problem, depending on how you translate it into a real example. Would you accept that grass is an example of a thing, that being green is an example of a predicate, and so that grass being green is an example of a fact? Would you also accept that green grass is a thing? Then if facts are not things then grass being green is not green grass.

But if grass being green isn't green grass (a material object), then what is it?

None of this addresses the issue. We have the statement "the grass is green" and we have the green grass. But then we also have the fact as something else. So what sort of thing is a fact, if neither an utterance nor a material object? — Michael

Let me state my definitions again, starting with "Thing", because some of the other definitions make use of that word:

Things are whatever can be referred to.

(I justify that broad definition by the all-inclusive meanings of "everything" and "anything".)

A fact is a state of affairs.

A state of affairs could also be defined as an aspect of the way things are.

A statement is an utterance that tells about a fact.

By those definitions, facts and statements are things too.

So yes, as you said, a fact is neither an utterance or a material object. So, what is it then? It's a state of affairs, or an aspect of how things are. That's what kind of thing a fact is.

So I've addressed and answered that question.

And if we put the original question in context, are facts observer-independent?

That's a whole separate issue, calling for a separate thread. I addressed that question too, in a longer post, just few postings back. It calls for longer and more involved discussion.

But, to make a long story short, yes facts in general are observer-independent, unless you're a strict Anti-Realist.

But, in the context of your life-experience possibility-story, that story is about your experience, and, in that context, you and your experience are primary, and the facts about the rest of your world (the part you aren't experiencing) are secondary, and only meaningful by implication. So you could say that, in the context of your life-experience possibility-story, it all depends on you and your experience.

But that's true only locally, in the context of your experience-story. Of course the facts in that story aren't different from all the other facts. All the many facts that aren't part of your experience story are independent of you and your experience-story, just as your experience-story is independent of facts that aren't about it.

But this issue, the Realism vs Anti-Realism issue, is a separate issue. There was a thread about it, last month. I recently wanted to post to it, but couldn't find it.

Maybes the Realism vs Anti-Realism thread should be re-started.

I don't think it's really an issue, because "real" isn't really metaphysically defined anyway. But, in the broad, general, objective context, yes facts are observer-independent.

I've justified that claim, above in this part of this post, and in a previous one.

But it seems to me that you're complicating this thread, when you combine two issues, adding-in the involved Realism vs Anti-Realism issue.
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We can accept that material objects are observer-independent

No, not to a strict Anti-Realist. And, in the context of your life-experience possibility-story, your experience is primary, and material objects that aren't in your experience, like a certain pebble on the ground in a field in Paris, France, which isn't in your experience, is relevant only if someone there picks it up and e-mails you about it, which brings it into your experience. But that observer-dependence is only in the experience-primary context of your life-experience possibility-story.

More generally, broadly and objectively, facts are observer-independent, for the reason I've spoken of.

, but given that facts aren't material objects, it doesn't then follow that facts are observer-independent.

True, the fact that facts aren't material object doesn't make them observer-independent. A strict Anti-Realist wouldn't say that they are.

But the complete unrelatedness of most facts to your life-experience story, and the fact that the facts of which your life-experience possibility-story is composed aren't really different from all the other facts, makes facts, in general, observer-independent.

To place experiencing beings at the center of all metaphysical existence would be chauvinistic. ...like that Giraffe that says it's entitled to all the jellybeans because it has the longest neck.

We can certainly say that facts are dependent on material objects

We certainly cannot say that.

"2 + 2 = 4" is true, if the additive associative axiom of the real numbers (and integers, and rational numbers) is true. ...by a natural and obvious definition of 1, 2, 3, and 4 in terms of the multiplicative identity of those number systems and addition.

So we have the following abstract if-then fact:

"if the additive associative axiom of the real numbers is true.then 2+2=4.(by a certain simple specified definition of 1, 2, 3 and 4 in terms of the multiplicative identity of the real numbers, and addiition."

That abstract if-then fact's truth doesn't depend on any material object. It's an inevitable abstract logical fact.

Material objects have nothing to do with what makes "2 + 2 = 4" true.

, but then they might also depend on something else (e.g. statements).

Abstract if-then logical facts don't depend on anything.

(...except their own internal logical validity.)

The if-then fact's "then" conclusionof course depends on its "if" premise being true. But the truth of the abstract if-then fact, itself, doesn't depend on anything.

And likewise for a complex system of inter-referring abstract logical if-then facts. ...an infinity of them.. ...including one whose events and relations matches those of our physical universe.

There's no reason to believe that our physical universe is other than that.

If this universe has objective existence (not just consisting of abstract facts),and if the "stuff",the "matter" of this universe is objectively and fundamentally existent, then it's also superfluous. It superfluously duplicates what is already there. A proposition about its objective existence is an unfalsifiable, unverifiable proposition.

Michael Ossipoff

"But surely facts are things," — Michael Ossipoff


A thing: a,b,c...

A predicate: F,G,H...

A fact: Fa, Ga, Hb

Facts are not things. — Banno

What does that prove? The fact that a fact can be about a thing doesn't mean that a fact, itself, isn't a thing too.

(That sentence, directly above states a fact about a fact.)

Or here's another:

"The fact that you got a job is the reason why I didn't evict you."

Michael Ossipoff

The error here is to think that fact has one meaning, one use, and our job is to fathom that. It ain't necessarily so.

So a fact can be what is the case, and also a statement of what is the case. p as opposed to "p", an ambiguous disquatation. — Banno

Incorrect. A statement isn't a fact. A statement is an utterance telling about a fact (or claiming one, whether truly or falsly).

Michael Ossipoff

None of this ambiguity would apply in a formal language like mathematics; but, this isn't the case informally, why is that?

I don't think there is the ambiguity that Banno spoke of. A statement just plain isn't a fact. It's an utterance that tells about or claims a fact.

A statement is a thing, however.

But there's ambiguity about what's real, existent, or what is. ...because those words aren't metaphysically defined.

Yes, I don't think mathematics uses undefined terms, as ordinary speech.does . A finite dictionary can't define all of its words non-circularly.

I guess mathematics relies a bit on dictionary definitions, but the important terms evidently don't have an ambiguity problem. I guess it could be said that mathematics avoids ambiguous terms.

Michael Ossipoff

I'm not comfortable with saying facts are out there in the world. — Marchesk

But you know that they are. Not everyone calls them "real" or "existent". (Those two words aren't metaphysically defined, and so people can have different opinions about what's real.)

I myself don't claim that abstract logical facts are objectively real, or that a universe consisting only of them is objectively real.

There is a close relationship with facts and states of affairs, but they're not the same thing in my view. Consider that the facts can be wrong.

No, then they aren't facts. A statement (utterance claiming a fact) can be wrong, false, but there aren't wrong facts. When we say that someone's facts are wrong, we really mean "facts", not facts.

States of affairs can't be wrong. But what we take to be the facts can be.

...when what we take to be facts aren't really facts.

This suggests that facts are observer-dependent to an extent.

I'm not saying that Anti-Realism is wrong. The undefinedness of "real" and "exist" means that Realism vs Anti-Realism isn't really an issue.

From our own point of view, in the context of our life-experience story, our experience is primary, but, in previous posts here, I told why there's good reason to say that facts in general aren't dependent on our experience of them. Facts not about our experience are independent of our life-experience story, just as it's independent of them.


.[/quote]

A thing: a,b,c...

A predicate: F,G,H...

A fact: Fa, Ga, Hb

Facts are not things. — Banno

You could replace "thing" with "variable" and the question still stands.
However, you could resolve it by simply saying that "thing" is purely an objectual demonstrative.
Everything is a thing!

The question is whether the content they convey is different from each other? — Posty McPostface

Content. What's that?

Referentialy, extensionaly, they are identical. If you think there is a sense in whcih they are different it is up to you to present it.

I am using the italicised words in their philosophical sense.

Would you accept that grass is an example of a thing, that being green is an example of a predicate, and so that grass being green is an example of a fact? Would you also accept that green grass is a thing? — Michael

Tha's what I was pointing out.

Vegetation might have used to be purple, long before peeps were peeping. That is both rad, and couldn't possibly be true if it was based in our eyeball seeing in toto.

I'm not sure what you mean. You've said that 1) facts aren't things, 2) there's no difference between the fact that grass is green and green grass, 3) green grass is a thing, and 4) grass being green is a fact.

That's inconsistent.

If there's no difference between the fact that grass is green and green grass, and if green grass is a thing, then facts are things.

But again, we can water green grass but we can't water the fact that grass is green. And so it seems that the fact that grass is green is different to the green grass.

Referentialy, extensionaly, they are identical. If you think there is a sense in whcih they are different it is up to you to present it. — Banno

Going back to this...

I don't think they are referentially or extensionally equivalent. I think, talking about a fact is different from a statement based on observation. So, green grass is a statement based on observation, where talking about the grass being green is an observer-independent fact derived from reasoning about the world.

Different things, no?

Obviously, we can't claim the fact that grass is green, is true, if the grass isn't green.

So, it would seem that this is an issue with inductive reasoning. We can't deduce a fact without prior observation, can we? At least not in an informal language.

Meant to come back to this. In some of my earlier posts, while trying to work out what was being claimed I misspoke.

Facts, i've been convinced, are neither true nor false - that is, truth an falsity does not apply to them. So, if you like, the difference between "the grass is green" and the green grass is that one can be true, the other just is.

Facts, i've been convinced, are neither true nor false - that is, truth an falsity does not apply to them. So, if you like, the difference between "the grass is green" and the green grass is that one can be true, the other just is. — Banno

Yeah, that may be true, pun-intended. But, the ontology of a fact has to be grounded in a statement either being true or false.

Does that make 'facts' metaphysical or in other words what performative role does the inclusion of a 'fact' have on a state of affairs?

the ontology of a fact has to be grounded in a statement either being true or false. — Posty McPostface

It does? What's that mean?

Then, what is the alternative if that is not the case?

As per Wittgenstein in the Tractatus, the totality of facts of either what is or is not the case, constitute the world of objects, not things.

the totality of facts of either what is or is not the case, constitute the world of objects, not things. — Posty McPostface

What did he say about that in Philosophical Investigations?

He never objected that idea explicitly in the Investigations. In fact he talked in great finesse about bedrock beliefs and such, which constitute what is or is not the case.

Hm. xii.

Sorry, I have no idea what passage you are referring to. I have the book in front of me trying to find what passage you might have in mind.