I'm not sure fact/belief/knowledge/truth distinctions are worth the trouble. — T Clark

Well, I am. It might help if he is able to say that Kelly-Anne Conway is wrong. That's harder to do if you are going to maintain that its belief that counts, not truth.

Apo has a neo-Hegelian tone that is too convenient; dialectic and pragmatism seem odd bedfellows. We had a long discussion years ago in which he insisted that Mount Everest did not have a height until it was actually measured. Olivier5 seems to think something similar when he proposes that facts are observations. — Banno

Not to speak for Oliver5, but facts as discrete observations/measurements or as proven or well-established truths is a perfectly common usage of the term... just not the one typically used in philosophy. So this usage doesn't necessarily commit someone to the sort of metaphysical position wrt truth you allude to here (although maybe that user has expressed such a position elsewhere, I can't say).

Introducing QM to a thread is a surefire way to ensure it goes for another twenty pages without being at all helpful. — Banno

I was explaining what I thought a case could be made either way, but recall that I also called it clever game, so I'm not trying to work through those 20 pages. As I see it, it's that kind of worry that Wittgenstein was trying to free himself and others from. There's no practical context here where the height matters, so it seems to be an expression of usage preference. No practical context leaves us with a free-for-all. The 'meaning' that most interests me is the noises and marks that climbers might use to survive together. What ought they do to avoid death? How do marks and noises figure into their total adaptive behavior ?

Well, I am. It might help ↪tim wood if he is able to say that Kelly-Anne Conway is wrong. That's harder to do if you are going to maintain that its belief that counts, not truth. — Banno

I think Trump has shown that it's not facts or truth that matter, it's belief. If you can't convince people, get them to believe, that you're right, you might as well not be. Perhaps you'll get some satisfaction so you and your political buddies can rant, rave, and feel superior, but it doesn't mean anything in terms of doing what politics is supposed to do - govern.

You're right, TC, but what hope for us all if politics, on whatever side, becomes immune to facts and will only accept and disseminate beliefs of increasing bizarreness? There's work to be done.

I always thought that one job in life was to try to believe as few false things and as many true things as possible. I can cheerfully believe I don't have diabetes and refuse all treatment. And die.

Information that conforms with the wishes, patterns, or beliefs of an authority. Be it real world observation and your own senses or legal decree and an enforcing body.

I reject the notion that the height of the mount came into existence only when the observation was made. — Banno

If we didn't have the concept of height, there'd be no way for us to say anything about the height of Everest -- what that height is, that it has one, or doesn't, nothing. That is a tiny, tiny sliver of what the other side in this wants.

But we can also say this: given our concept of height, it makes no sense to talk about Everest not having one. Everest having a height -- as you say, @Banno, a single specific height -- is built into our concept of height. There's enough Dummett still rattling around in my brain that I'd go further and say that measuring heights is built-in too, and that includes an idea about measuring the height of Everest, even if that idea is purely imaginary and wildly impractical. (I have in mind even something like those drawings to scale you see in textbooks, man standing next to Everest and a y-axis, with numbers and dotted lines.)

Not every concept works the way height does, requiring an exact value like that. Funny can't, because to start with it seems like it's not a 1-place predicate at all, but more like 3-place. (Something was funny to someone on a certain occasion.) But even allowing for that, it just doesn't seem to require definiteness. Asked "Did you think what he said was funny?", it's okay to answer, "Kinda but kinda not." A demand for a yes or no answer to "Is that funny?" comes off as confused or abusive.

The definiteness bit also implies that there can be a fact about the height of Everest -- and must be! -- but there can't be a fact about whether something is funny. (For other quite different cultures there might be facts about humor, but it will be obvious that their concept of funny works differently from ours.) And that's not only a matter of our concepts -- not just, we might say, a "fact about us" -- because not just anything gets a height, only Everest sorts of things. So there's that too.

I think Trump has shown that it's not facts or truth that matter, it's belief. If you can't convince people, get them to believe, that you're right, you might as well not be. Perhaps you'll get some satisfaction so you and your political buddies can rant, rave, and feel superior, but it doesn't mean anything in terms of doing what politics is supposed to do - govern. — T Clark

But if the counter to lies is just alternate belief, what's the point?

Isn't the point that the election was fair, vaccines do save lives, climate change is man-made?

If you start from the premise that truth doesn't matter, you've already lost.

You're right, TC, but what hope for us all if politics, on whatever side, becomes immune to facts and will only accept and disseminate beliefs of increasing bizarreness? There's work to be done. — Tom Storm

I agree, but I know if we treat people we disagree with with contempt and derision, it just won't work.

But if the counter to lies is just alternate belief, what's the point?

Isn't the point that the election was fair, vaccines do save lives, climate change is man-made?

If you start from the premise that truth doesn't matter, you've already lost. — Banno

If we can't work with people we disagree with strongly to work out a way forward, we can have a great feeling of satisfaction about being right while the country goes down the fucking toilet.

"What do I do now?" — T Clark

Good question. If you've been cavalier and indiscriminate in understanding and use of "fact/belief/knowledge/truth" then how are you gong to decide?

Good question. If you've been cavalier and indiscriminate in understanding and use of "fact/belief/knowledge/truth" then how are you gong to decide? — tim wood

Once you flush out all the bullshit Philosophicationismness®: fact, belief, knowledge, and truth are all pretty much the same thing. That's a new word I made up today. You'll be seeing more of it in the future. And that brings us back to Gould:

In science decision making, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.'

If we can't work with people we disagree with strongly to work out a way forward, we can have a great feeling of satisfaction about being right while the country goes down the fucking toilet. — T Clark

Sure. But there's no point in pushing your solution unless it is the right one; unless it is true.

You came in with:

I think Trump has shown that it's not facts or truth that matter, — T Clark

I'm saying that Trump is wrong, that truth matters; we can add to that questions of strategy aimed at convincing others, but again, if you begin by agreeing with Trump, you've lost.

if you begin by agreeing with Trump, you've lost. — Banno

I didn't say I agree with Trump, should agree with Trump, or will agree with Trump. I said what I believe is true doesn't matter if we can't convince others.

If we didn't have the concept of height, there'd be no way for us to say anything about the height of Everest -- what that height is, that it has one, or doesn't, nothing. That is a tiny, tiny sliver of what the other side in this wants. — Srap Tasmaner

And then there's yanking Everest out of its background, etc.

But we can also say this: given our concept of height, it makes no sense to talk about Everest not having one. Everest having a height -- as you say, Banno, a single specific height -- is built into our concept of height. — Srap Tasmaner

Agree, though we could shift away from concept talk toward something like usage. The token is usually employed in such a such a context. Things like mountains have a height that can be measured. That's just the way we talk. To say so would be a kind of empirical statement, albeit depending on linguistic competence (harder to imagine presenting quantitive summaries of the data.)

The definiteness bit also implies that there can be a fact about the height of Everest -- and must be! -- but there can't be a fact about whether something is funny. (For other quite different cultures there might be facts about humor, but it will be obvious that their concept of funny works differently from ours.) And that's not only a matter of our concepts -- not just, we might say, a "fact about us" -- because not just anything gets a height, only Everest sorts of things. So there's that too. — Srap Tasmaner

Well said. And related this we have statements about sensations. A person can't be wrong about what something seems or feels like to them. That's a rule of politeness. It's baked in to the grammar of the words. Not a cosmic principle, just the way we use 'seems' and 'feels' and other 'subjective' terms. The 'funny' example is nice. I can imagine individualistic cultures stressing subjectivity (everyone has their own funny) and other cultures doing otherwise.

Isn't the point that the election was fair, vaccines do save lives, climate change is man-made?

If you start from the premise that truth doesn't matter, you've already lost. — Banno

Butting in, but...I get your point. Perhaps the ultimate point, though, is what we do. Do people vote for creeps, allow the needle into the arm, change their non-verbal climate-affecting behavior? Talk is related to all this, but it's 'meaning' is 'grounded' in action, risk.

It's as if the philosophy forum is a strange game somewhat isolated from the rest of life. With our philosopher caps on, we have clever and over-careful things to say about truth, facts, knowledge, reality, and so on. Still, it's easy to imagine people politically at odds agreeing on some metaphysical point...which isn't great for metaphysics, perhaps.

In science decision making, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' — T Clark

I like the focus on decision making. I'd make this even more active. Not mere assent but action, action with risk especially. For instance, it's one thing to assent to the soundness of a business idea and another thing to invest in that business. 'Put your money where your mouth is.'

I suppose in your quote the perverse person is taking a social risk. To some degree the quote is proposing a relationship between the words 'science', 'fact', and 'perverse.' 'Reasonable' seems implicitly invoked as the opposite of 'perverse' in this context. Perhaps it could be translated as 'a fact is the kind of statement that all us reasonable people consider true, for now.' A more 'behaviorist' rendition might be ' a fact articulates a state of affairs that we seem to take for granted and rely on in our serious business.'

I said what I believe is true doesn't matter if we can't convince others. — T Clark

Indeed, you did. But it does, since if we do not convince those in power, the truth will unfortunately make itself plain. Truth will out. So truth matters.

Perhaps the ultimate point, though, is what we do. — Zugzwang

And let what we do be based on the facts; then it will be worth doing.

That's my pompous hobbyhorse.

And let what we do be based on the facts; then it will be worth doing.

That's my pompous hobbyhorse. — Banno

Fair enough. God knows I'm not saving the world from its ordinary madness with my own points.

I suppose we could also throw in that one of the effects of reification (or, conversely, one of its motivations) is the bestowal of definiteness on something, creating an expectation of there being facts. (A "fallacy of misplaced definiteness" people around here might say.) Dummett spotted something like this in the debates between realists and anti-realists across a number of issues. Quine, for example, was an anti-realist about propositions and pretty close to being an anti-realist about meaning to boot, and he was wont to say that "there is no fact of the matter" about, say, whether a translation is correct. If you reify meaning -- if you are a meaning-realist -- you'll need meaning-facts. (Or maybe you reify meaning because you want there to be meaning-facts.) But if the rest of your language doesn't expect meanings to have this kind of definiteness, for there to be facts about meaning, you're in for a lot of weird.

Truth will out. — Banno

I like "Reality bites back." (No doubt because it doesn't care about your feelings...)

There's also the version in Chernobyl: "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt must be paid."

Excellent points. What comes to my mind is that gap between the game of philosophical spiderweb (some of them spectacular) and all the stuff we do outside the game of those spiderwebs. I suppose that law and politics are close to philosophy, perhaps even the 'real' or 'more' applied philosophy. 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman*'. Or judging edge cases of premeditation, deciding obscenity, what is reasonable, what are community standards. But here at least there's a counting of votes, some kind of objective measure (not definitive enough these days, it seems.).

But with law and politics the stakes are obvious, whereas the spiderwebs of philosophy are more like art. 'If I accept principle X, then I have to edit principle Y, or the composition is fucked.' It's a slippery beast to articulate. Because I'm tempted to criticize statements like 'there is no fact of the matter.' Maybe a better play is gesturing toward the concrete case, mostly shooting down grand general statements. 'Meaning is use' can backfire, seeming to slake or encourage the thirst it can be taken to chastise.

I like "Reality bites back." (No doubt because it doesn't care about your feelings...) — Srap Tasmaner

:up:

I think reality not caring about our feelings is a 'cultural fact '(or a subcultural fact, let's say). As in I'd think it was flaky or suspect to talk otherwise, without being able to prove that I'm right and also not feeling the need. I just act on the apathy of nature. The mountain doesn't want me to fall. Nor will it mourn me if I do. It's on me to prepare for the climb.

Subcultural intellectual 'elitist' 'facts' : One is scientific. One knows that we are clever monkeys who find ourselves in this strange, heartless machine. (One knows that God is fantasy, etc.)

I suppose we ought to have a word for the opposite of reification, something like "nebulation", @Banno's foe in this thread: the blurring of edges and misting over of shape to reduce definiteness so there aren't any facts anymore to worry about. If that produces knock-on confusion because it's the sort of thing you expect there to be facts about, maybe that confusion will only thicken the mist.

(I confess to being enough of an analytic that I never met a distinction I wanted to elide.)

I suppose we ought to have a word for the opposite of reification, something like "nebulation", Banno's foe in this thread: the blurring of edges and misting over of shape to reduce definiteness so there aren't any facts anymore to worry about. — Srap Tasmaner

Beautiful. I love that. I like to think that my pragmatism is partially redeemed from that critique by pointing toward practical reality. 'Truth' is definitely a token in wide use. Not knowing how to use it can get you killed. Experience suggests that trying to pin it down exactly is...problematic. The self-proclaimed experts call one another idiots. There's some melancholy in this, because philosophy is addictive, exciting, and....not very respected. Well, gurus and mystics get some customers, but the whole elitist 'veganism of the mind' (conspicuously hyper-fastidious about knowledge claims) seems to be its own reward...sort of like atheists enjoying their higher standards. I think of bearded Romans turning their nose up at a plurality of superstitions, rationally and ethically eating their beans.

(I confess to being enough of an analytic that I never met a distinction I wanted to elide.) — Srap Tasmaner

Seems like some positions, maybe mind, want to critique distinctions for being too simple without being eager to replace them. 'What do you think of my method?' 'I...don't see any method.' It occurs to me that the best way to express my own vague position would be to argue about conversations in the real world, predict where someone was going to get a job offer based on a recorded interview, for example. Advice for or against dating so-and-so.

One last thought, then I'm calling it a night.

A tempting next step would be to suggest (?) that definiteness isn't definite -- that the boundary between concepts we expect to support judgments of fact and those we don't is itself blurry.

I don't want to say that. I want to say that these are different kinds of concepts; that the difference is grammatical not one of degree. It's not that funny is just "less definite" than height -- definite doesn't fit here at all.

But I'm troubled because another way to do this would be to imagine surveying a population. Given the same instruments and the same training, we'd expect an awfully tight clustering of the measurements each of them gave for the height of some object. A really steep and skinny bell curve. We could do the same for a joke by asking how funny it was. Who knows what we'll get -- maybe a normal distribution, maybe random, maybe a distribution with two humps is common. Who knows? But it looks like we can get away with treating them similarly and concluding that height measurements are not qualitatively different, just more predictable, more stable.

But what does that really show? If they are qualitatively different, then the statistical approach doesn't explain that, it reflects it, albeit imperfectly, because there's always noise. In fact, I'll bet we could amplify that noise. The whole height-measuring story sounds a little too good to be true. People have a wide range of aptitudes for dealing with even moderately technical equipment, and if using it properly also required a particular level of comfort with math, we could see even more variation. It's not hard to imagine a population that would produce a disheartening range of results for some measurement task, maybe with spikes in the distribution representing common mistakes. But none of this would show that our expectation of a definite answer was misplaced. (I suppose you could argue that even the held-it-upside-down sort of mistakes still yielded a definite result, just not the answer to the question asked.)

So maybe we can make the original idea work, that some concepts are fact-friendly and some aren't. (There may still be some trouble about determining whether a certain sort of thing falls within the domain of application of a given concept -- but I don't want to recreate the Wittgenstein thread over here with a lot of talk about rules and how we extend them and all that.)

The first occurrence of fact as truth or reality is dated at 1581, well pre-dating your supposition that it derives from17th century empiricism. (SOED) (Edit: on checking the OED, the date is "1632 — Banno

Ok, so you haven't disproven my hypothesis that early empiricists had something to do with the word's most modern meaning. Good.

The upshot is that the sense is in a state of flux. Nevertheless we can maintain a distinction between what is the case, and what is believed to be the case; and mark this distinction with care by distinguishing fact from belief. — Banno

Of course. Other useful distinctions can be drawn between fact and fiction (reality as opposed to some invented story); or between facts and theories (observations as opposed to explanations arrived at through induction).

The latter distinction requires my definition, though. It doesn't work with yours ("a fact is a true statement").

he insisted that Mount Everest did not have a height until it was actually measured. Olivier5 seems to think something similar when he proposes that facts are observations. — Banno

Until it was measured, the height of Mount Everest was simply unknown, and that was a fact.

Perhaps it could be translated as 'a fact is the kind of statement that all us reasonable people consider true, for now.' A more 'behaviorist' rendition might be ' a fact articulates a state of affairs that we seem to take for granted and rely on in our serious business.' — Zugzwang

:up:

As pointed out, the general use of the term 'fact' today is for 'a true and settled statement about the state of affairs', or 'a statement that is known or proved to be true.' The implication is: undeniable by a sane person in good faith.

This indicates another interesting distinction between facts and doubt: facts are beyond reasonable doubt. This is what @T Clark meant I suppose.

Certainly the concept is used this way in the current fight between post-truthers and the rest of us ('truthers', I guess): the rational folks are saying things like: climate change is a fact, and denying it is folly, or deception. While the post-truthers say: we don't know, there is still doubt.

A fact is a fact. And that's a fact. Quarks are facts. Thoughts are facts. Everything there is is a fact. Even lies. All there is is interdependent, meaning that thoughts influence matters in the physical world, but nor in the quantum mechanical sense that our consciousness influences outcomes of measurements. That's an old-fashioned view. To be replaced with a modern field theoretical approach.

This indicates another interesting distinction between facts and doubt: facts are beyond reasonable doubt. This is what T Clark meant I suppose. — Olivier5

And it provides another reason to define facts as 'accurate observations', at least in scientific language: science is made of 1) observations and 2) induced theories tying the observation in a logical or mathematical net. Now, logicians tell us that induction never provides certainty, that just because you never saw a black swan doesn't mean there's no such thing. Therefore our induced theories are provisional. But the observations that were done, remain done, factum, unless they were poorly done of course. Any new theory would have to contend with past observations. So observations (and only they) are facts.

So, if you never saw a black swan, that is a fact that you never observed a black swan. The theory that no black swan exists is a different thing, not a fact.