To me, a fact is a record of events that actually happened. It is an experiential record. — BrianW

This seems prima faice inadequete. If you index facts to the past, one is hard pressed to make sense of straightforward statements like: "it is a fact that the heat death of the universe will occur"; similarly, if you index facts to experience ('experiential record'), what of "it is a fact that force is defined as mass multiplied by acceleration"? Or even analytic statements like "it is a fact that batchelors are unmarried men"?; Normativity is general wrecks all sorts of havok here, anything premised on some sort of commitment: "it is a fact that fraud is illegal under the law". Facts seem to have a wider scope than your definition allows for.

I seem to have a problem with a proposition being characterized as true or false because, by my understanding, a proposition is not definitive. Its values of truth and falsity are potential. To me, if the potentiality is verified, then it becomes an axiom. — BrianW

I agree, except for "axiom." You may care to research the meaning of this seeming-simple word. As it happens, axioms are presumed to be true, it being the case that in actuality they are beyond proof, unprovable. If they were provable, then it would be on the basis of something; in virtue of which they would be theorems, and the things that proved them (providing they are not themselves theorems) would be the axioms. Nor in a system with multiple axioms can any prove any other - else the one proven be shown to be not an axiom. Its all interesting and worth a few minutes of your research time. And it sharpens the mind and refines its store of knowledge.

There are many entries, and if you scan a bunch of them it should be clear to you that the terms are in many of those defined as terms-of-art. — tim wood

If you prefer to discuss what the word "fact" means to a lexicographer, perhaps you should go to The Lexicography Forum instead. Last time I checked, this is The Philosophy Forum.

|>ouglas

Facts seem to have a wider scope than your definition allows for. — StreetlightX

Absent definition, usage is like a neighborhood of cats that each marks and defends its own territory and views the others with suspicion and hostile intent. Gosh, can you think of anyplace like that?!

?

That "is" is a problem. I'd have thought that facts were things that propositions attempt to describe. — tim wood

I already ceded aletheist's point in this regard. Though, as I mentioned, the word "fact" can be and is used both ways by even famous, tenured philosophers at prestigious universities.

That is, the proposition itself is never in-itself true - or rigorously provable. And there's nothing wrong with this; it's how the world works, including science-on-the-Charles. The issue here is usage and understanding. — tim wood

A proposition can, of course, be "in-itself true" even if it is not rigorously provable. A proposition, if it has a truth value, is either true for false. In and of itself. The world is either as the proposition describes or it is not.

I studied Philosophy for many years, and not a single philosopher that I studied with ever used the term "fact" the way that you seem to be using it. To a philosopher in Cambridge MA, a proposition being a fact has nothing to do with whether you can prove it. It is a fact if it truthfully represents the world, and it is not a fact if it doesn't.

It may be the case that some people do use the word the way that you do. If so, I scarcely care.

Though lawyers, of course, have their own technical usage of the word "fact", and if I'm talking to a lawyer, then I care about how they use it. Potential paramours usually have a different idea of the term "proposition" than philosophers do. Unless they are both paramours and philosophers, in which case, hopefully, they will be able to figure out what type of proposition one has in mind.

But when I walk across the street to go to a Philosophy talk or conference, no one there will be using the term "fact" in the manner that you do, and so I chose to use the term in the way it will be understood amongst the people I am likely to actually have a dialogue with.

If you wish to say that I aspire to be willfully ignorant, then so be it. People who speak as you do, do not enter my world frequently enough for me to worry about presently. If and when the day comes that they do, then I can easily adapt.

|>ouglas

I thought axiom was appropriate because it is composed of a premise which leads to a conclusion through a particular line of reasoning/logic. This, to me, seems to imply a level of definitiveness to the process thus enabling a clear judgement of whether it is right or wrong, true or false.

If not axiom, then what? Theory?

How about a fact is an expression of a state of affairs or circumstance. This can also fit in statements like "it is a fact that force is defined as mass multiplied by acceleration," and "it is a fact that fraud is illegal under the law."

"What they failed to see
was that ‘fact’ is a term belonging to the vocabulary
of historical thought. Properly speaking a ‘fact’ is a
thing of the kind which it is the business of historians
to ascertain. The word is sometimes used in another
sense, as if it were merely a synonym for ‘truth’;
there are people who will not shrink from calling it
a fact that twice two is four; but no such misuse of
the word is implied when facts are spoken of in the
vocabulary of natural science. Here facts are always
and notoriously historical facts. It is a fact for the
astronomer that at a certain time on a certain day a
certain observer saw a transit of Venus taking place.
If it is of any interest for this observer or any one
else to know subsequently that the transit took place
then, the only way in which he can know it is by
knowing the historical fact that it was observed; and
historical facts are not apprehensible to our senses."
An Essay on Metaphysics, R. G. Collingwood, 145.

If it is of any interest for this observer or any one
else to know subsequently that the transit took place
then, the only way in which he can know it is by
knowing the historical fact that it was observed; and
historical facts are not apprehensible to our senses." — tim wood

If some event or purported event is not apprehensible to our senses then it may or my not be a fact; we could never know for sure, even if we think we might have very reliable evidence for believing it to be or not to be a fact.

Interesting point. Wile's proof of Fermat's last theorem involves maths that most folks don't and won't understand (so it's said, nor do I disagree). So the proposition is true, as true as 2+3=5, just wa-ay more difficult. The best most of us can do, then, is take it as a fact, something historically conditioned, and present the available evidence in support of it - which of course is not the proof itself - and appeal to the weight of the evidence. One difference: in the case of the proof, we know so, in the case of the fact, we suppose so. — tim wood

Yeah in the case of the very complex mathematical proof, the variables typically are drastically less than if i try to tell you i had eggs and ham for breakfast. There are multiple ways to prove something like that but, they would cost so much money and resources for me to quickly prove thats what i had for breakfast this morning to you, that we both might say its not worth it. Then after proving to you that thats what i had for breakfast, i would have to convince notable historians that that is what is true. The amount of variables involved, to put it simply are astronomical.

As I mentioned previously, you can find a philosopher somewhere to support any position.

At least where I am, when philosophers discuss something that might be of interest to a layperson, philosophers want to use the same meanings of the words that the layperson would be using. Philosophers around here wish to capture as best they can what a normal speaker means when they ask a philosophical question using normal English.

I.e., when answering the question of what a fact is, you have to capture the meaning that a layperson is using by the word "fact" when they ponder on the mysteries of facts.

The reason for this, is that if you use a different meaning of the word than that of a normal speaker, you've answered a different question than the one that a normal speaker would want to know when they come to ask philosophers for their wisdom. One major point of philosophy is, in theory, to answer mysteries that perplex even normal people.

How you are using the word "fact" has nothing to do whatsoever with how a normal speaker of English uses the word. Judith Jarvis Thomson herself would berate me for trying to use normal English words in ways that were incompatible with normal English usage when I wrote papers for her in her Philosophy 101 class. E.g., when I argued that two people could exchange bodies because they could exchange minds, and a person is a mind, her reply was, "A person is not a mind. A person has a mind." I fell into the trap of using normal English words in a non-standard way.

Now I could have fixed my argument by saying, "The only essentional component of a person is their mind. And a mind can be relocated from one body to another. The person would follow the mind into the new body, since the mind is the only essential component of the person." Or something like that. But I wasn't quite savvy enough back then to use words with that kind of care.

In any case, to your average Joe a fact is just something that is true. To Joe, it is a fact that 1 + 1 = 2. It is a fact that not all horses are brown. And it is a fact that horses are all animals.

You might confuse Joe by asking him if a toy horse is an animal after he agreed that all horses are animals. Or how it can be true that Santa Claus wears a red suit if there is no Santa Claus. But this is why you need philosophers, I guess. Joe can't necessarily figure out everything on his own, even if he knows how to use the language.

As for natural science, I have worked for scientists my entire adult life. At MIT and Harvard. None of them use the word "fact" the way that Collingwood says that they do. To a scientist, just as it is for Joe, it is a fact that 1 + 1 = 2. It is also a fact that if I drop a pencil, it will fall down due to gravity. This is not a statement about history. It is a prediction about a future event, and we know what the outcome will be. It is a fact that eventually, our sun will become a red giant. These are facts about the future, not about history.

|>ouglas

P.S. Yes, Philosophers use tons of jargon. And this jargon may use English words that differ from normal English usage. But they don't do this when a lay-mystery to be solved is expressed using those words. E.g., no layperson asks questions about the nature of "propositions". Or at least not the kind that philosophers talk about. If there were philosophical mysteries about the type of proposition that you might present to a paramour, then philosophers would, of course, not confound the jargon usage of "proposition" with the type of proposition being proposed by the paramour.

How about a fact is an expression of a state of affairs or circumstance. This can also fit in statements like "it is a fact that force is defined as mass multiplied by acceleration," and "it is a fact that fraud is illegal under the law." — BrianW

You could do this (both sound odd to me, to be honest), but this seems like a stipulative definition, in which case it's not clear what the impetus for doing this is.

This seems prima faice inadequete. If you index facts to the past, one is hard pressed to make sense of straightforward statements like: "it is a fact that the heat death of the universe will occur"; similarly, if you index facts to experience ('experiential record'), what of "it is a fact that force is defined as mass multiplied by acceleration"? Or even analytic statements like "it is a fact that batchelors are unmarried men"?; Normativity is general wrecks all sorts of havok here, anything premised on some sort of commitment: "it is a fact that fraud is illegal under the law". Facts seem to have a wider scope than your definition allows for. — StreetlightX

Exactly so!

|>ouglas

"Fact" is a term that has several different acceptable uses. On pains of coherence, one's manner of talking will be helped or hindered, depending upon the way they use the term.

It's interesting to see the changes necessary to subsequent talk depending upon the way one uses "fact".

A popular notion is that facts must be true. So, facts must be truth-apt. What makes them true?

Another is that facts are something like states of affairs, events, what has happened and/or is happening. In that case facts are not truth apt at all.

How "facts", "truth", and "reality" intermingle in language use is interesting in and of itself, or at least it has been for me.

So, facts must be truth-apt. — creativesoul

Facts are not truth-apt. Truth-aptness refers to that which is capable of being true or false. There are, however, no false facts. Facts are incapable of being false. At best, a 'false fact' is a manner of expression ('façon de parler') meant to indicate 'not a fact'.

But street, that all depends upon how we define/use the term "fact".

Right?

Sure, but one is hard pressed to speak coherently if false facts are admitted as a class of facts. One might as well speak of true lies (not impossible, but very ugly).

Yeah. I reject the notion of false facts. Facts must be true... You're also saying that they are not truth-apt though, and that is throwing me off...

So, it seems that the notion of "truth-apt" is what's at issue then. I suppose if facts cannot be false, but they can be true, then they must be true - by definition... on that use, or in that sense. Is that about right?

It just seems rather odd to say that something can be true but cannot be false. Facts, in this sense, are not equivalent to statements. Rather, they must be true statements as compared to just statements, which are truth-apt.

So, what makes statements true?

One might as well speak of true lies (not impossible, but very ugly). — StreetlightX

There are true lies however, as a result of a lie being a statement by a speaker who is deliberately misrepresenting his/her belief. Not really ugly, but quite nuanced. What makes a statement a lie, is that it is not believed by the speaker, not that it is false. Rather, it is believed to be false by the speaker. That's another thread topic though. Just wanted to comment.

I suppose if facts cannot be false, but they can be true, then they must be true - by definition... on that use, or in that sense. Is that about right? — creativesoul

Depends I guess. If one holds to the classic (simplified) conception in which truth can only be predicated of propositions while facts simply are states of affairs (words vs things, roughly), then even to speak of 'true facts' is a kind of category mistake, or, like false facts, simply a mode of expression which is simply speaking a tautology (a 'round circle'). In this scheme one might say truths express facts or somesuch (alternatively: truths are stated facts), whereas facts simply are or are not (or hold/obtain or not). Things are confusing because one constantly needs to keep an eye on what counts as surface and depth grammar in talking about this stuff.

I'm not committed to this way of putting things (although I think there's a degree of truth in it), but it's one way of cashing out the intuition that false facts ought to not be a thing. One corollary that would follow is that facts, being non-propositional, would not be said to belong - or not-belong - to statements.

In my humble opinion, a fact is a proposition demonstrated as true with logic. It seems, defined thus, that facts constitute what we call knowledge - when we know a fact, we say we have knowledge.

I'm not sure about knowledge being about utility because while it seems instinctively desirable, tool-makers that we are, to put knowledge to some use, utility per se doesn't constitute an essential feature of the definition of knowledge. I mean that if ever we encounter a well-justified proposition it would still count as knowledge to know it even if it proved to be completely useless.

Depends I guess. If one holds to the classic (simplified) conception in which truth can only be predicated of propositions while facts simply are states of affairs (words vs things, roughly), then even to speak of 'true facts' is a kind of category mistake, or, like false facts, simply a mode of expression which is simply speaking a tautology (a 'round circle'). In this scheme one might say truths express facts or somesuch. — StreetlightX

True propositions express facts.

I like it.

"Express" may be problematic.

You could do this (both sound odd to me, to be honest), but this seems like a stipulative definition, in which case it's not clear what the impetus for doing this is. — StreetlightX

It's just an attempt at finding a most comprehensive definition possible. Anyway, I think the word fact would be somewhat deficient if it were limited to only one definition when it's supposed to include propositions which express subjective statements. I think I'm looking for something I can find to be more comfortable, and possibly more personal, than accepting the whole range of meanings available in philosophy or semantics. I'm just being stubborn for no good reason.

I'm not sure about knowledge being about utility because while it seems instinctively desirable, tool-makers that we are, to put knowledge to some use, utility per se doesn't constitute an essential feature of the definition of knowledge. I mean that if ever we encounter a well-justified proposition it would still count as knowledge to know it even if it proved to be completely useless. — TheMadFool

I've tried to hold this sort of position before and I think my worry is it doesn't seem to give much of a difference between knowledge and information. I've been using utility to, primarily, differentiate between the two. Is there another way?

I've tried to hold this sort of position before and I think my worry is it doesn't seem to give much of a difference between knowledge and information. I've been using utility to, primarily, differentiate between the two. Is there another way? — BrianW

What do you mean? Information? Well, I don't know but I remember someone remark, "that's too much information". I quite forgot the context but it had to do with something disgusting I presume. Nobody talks about knowledge in that tone; I've never heard someone say "that's too much knowledge". I guess the difference then is that some types of information are undesirable but knowledge is always valuable to possess. Can you pick up the thread from there?

Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon is a fact. — tim wood

Agreed. It is backed by witness depositions vetted by means of the historical method.

2+3=5 is true. — tim wood

Somewhat agreed.

It is true in every model-universe-world that satisfies the number theory ("arithmetic") at hand, which is by default Dedekind-Peano (PA), including its standard model-universe-world, the natural numbers $\mathbb{N}$.

The arithmetic expression 2+3=5 is true because it is provable from PA.

It does not necessarily correspond, however, to anything in the physical universe.

For that purpose, you would still need to drag an empirical discipline into the fray. Furthermore, any empirical correspondence asserted will not be provable from any of the aforementioned number theories.

It is only provable to be a truth about a symbolic expression that lives in an abstract, Platonic world (constructed by a number theory).

Maybe the problem is the terms themselves, facts, truth, knowledge.

Maybe we should dispense with their use for the moment and talk about states-of-affairs and aboutness instead.

Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. — tim wood

Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon was a state-of-affairs. You typing those words is another state-of-affairs that is about the prior state-of-affairs, and then there is the state-of-affairs that is the relationship between the prior and latter state-of-affairs - of how much the latter accurately signifies, or is about, the prior. I can say, "Tim Wood said "Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon."" and that would be another state-of-affairs about the latter state-of-affairs, and we can keep doing this forever - of talking about some other state-of-affairs, which can include the uttering or typing of statements.

Now, what terms do we use to refer to the prior state-of-affairs, the latter state-of-affairs (statements about the prior state-of-affairs) and the relationship between the two?

I guess the difference then is that some types of information are undesirable but knowledge is always valuable to possess. Can you pick up the thread from there? — TheMadFool

Yeah, thanks. I've learned quite a lot from that. It seems that there's an inherent idea that, at least, one of the differences between knowledge and information is based on some kind of judgement with respect to its significance to us, e.g. desirable/undesirable, valuable/useless, etc.

Yeah, thanks. I've learned quite a lot from that. It seems that there's an inherent idea that, at least, one of the differences between knowledge and information is based on some kind of judgement with respect to its significance to us, e.g. desirable/undesirable, valuable/useless, etc. — BrianW

At any given moment you possess information/knowledge that is useful and not useful for some goal.

While you possess information/knowledge that...

Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. — tim wood

this information/knowledge is only useful when you need it - like when you're taking a history exam, and useless in all other instances. So, is your long term memory composed of information or knowledge?