Wow, this thread has really deteriorated. I would love to clean it up by deleting the personal attacks — Athena

Philosophers....

The T-sentence. Statement mentioned on the left, — Banno

Agreed.

state of affairs, fact, statement used, on the right. — Banno

This is where you (always) confuse use and mention yourself. Or are out to subvert the distinction as it is commonly supposed. According to which, mention means refer to. I suspect that someone so opposed to the study of reference could actually be confused, though.

state of affairs, fact — Banno

Right, fact in the sense of state of affairs, an alleged entity or event ("truthmaker") perhaps (though it's problematical, and reference is better restricted to smaller phrases) referred to by or mentioned by or otherwise corresponding with the statement used (for the purpose of that reference) on the right. But not to be confused with that statement. If you claim to be recognising the distinction. So, not to be run together with that statement:

state of affairs, fact, statement used, on the right. — Banno

Or would you take this correction?

state of affairs, fact... statement used to mention which, on the right. — Banno

Come to think of it,

Statement mentioned on the left, — Banno

is confused if you mean the statement mentioned is on the left. It's on the right. (And elsewhere.)

Mention of the sentence (through use of its quotation) is on the left.

I'm being pedantic, but you're being mystical.

The door is shut.

That is a fact.

That is also a statement

Duckrabbits.

"The door is shut" refers to that statement by quoting it.

""The door is shut" is true

The sentence preceding this one is about the statement, not about the door. It mentions the sentence.

The door is shut

The sentence preceding this one is about the door. It does not mention the sentence.

"The door is shut" is true IFF the door is shut

The left part of this sentence mentions the statement that the door is shut.

The right part uses the sentence to talk about the door.

We can talk about the fact that the door is shut.

We can talk about it being true that the door is shut.

Where did I go wrong?

This thread has really deteriorated. I would love to clean it up by deleting the personal attacks that should never become part of a thread or just close it to stop the bad behavior. — Athena

The thread was attacked by a sock-puppet troll. Unfortunate, but it happens sometimes. Yes, a cleanup by a mod would be helpful. It might happen if you ask.

Where did I go wrong? — Banno

Everywhere before "duckrabbits". After that, much improved.

The door is shut. That is a statement. It is also a fact, because the door is indeed shut. It can be used as a statement and as a fact.

"The door is shut" is a reference to a statement, perhaps even the name of a statement. But it is not a statement. A name cannot be a statement.

I don't see what it is you are disagreeing with.

The philosophical question hiding behind this interminable debate is not ‘what is a fact’ but ‘what is truth?’ or ‘what is real?’, which is a much bigger question. The definition of ‘fact’ was given as soon as the thread started, but that by itself leaves a sense of vacuity, of something being missed, and that is because there are no absolute facts. Facts are always contingent or dependent - on other facts, on context, on judgement. To resolve the deeper question takes a much larger conception than that provided by ‘plain language’ philosophy because it has to deal with metaphysics - which is just the subject that plain language philosophy presumes to reject.

See for an example this critique of Lawrence Krauss’ book ‘A Universe from Nothing’, by Neil Ormerod, an academic theologian, in particular the section on Bernard Lonergan’s analysis of the nature of judgement.

That is a statement. — Banno

What is? The string of four words opening your post? Sure.

It is also a fact, because the door is indeed shut. — Banno

It's also a fact, then, because it's not only a sentence but true. Fine.

It can be used as a statement and as a fact. — Banno

What can? The string of four words which is indeed a statement and a fact, in the sense of true statement? Are you saying it can sometimes be used as a sentence whose truth is irrelevant?

What can? The string of four words which is indeed a statement and a fact, in the sense of true statement? Are you saying it can sometimes be used as a sentence whose truth is irrelevant? — bongo fury

I don't understand what you are asking. Your point remains obscure.

To resolve the deeper question takes a much larger conception than that provided by ‘plain language’ philosophy because it has to deal with metaphysics - which is just the subject that plain language philosophy presumes to reject.

See for an example this critique of Lawrence Krauss’ book ‘A Universe from Nothing’, by Neil Ormerod, an academic theologian, in particular the section on Bernard Lonergan’s analysis of the nature of judgement.
3h — Wayfarer

I read that critique as a rejection of naive realism in favor of Kantianism. I’m not sure what this has to do with ordinary language philosophy. If you’re looking for a metaphysics compatible with ordinary language philosophy you’ll find it in Nietzsche and phenomenology

@Joshs
Metaphysics Is really just psychology.
And psychology is verbal and emotional language expression.
However,I'm a Linguistic realist,which means our language is a direct reality and we experience objects directly. None of this kantian nonsense.

Cheers. That works for me.

I'm not convinced that the success of science does not constitute proof of the intelligibility of the universe. Consider the sentence I italicise in:

Of course, we could ask ourselves, what would happen if the scientists had not found the Higgs boson, and the standard model was not verified? Certainly the response would not have been, "Well, why should we expect the universe to fit our mathematical models?" Rather it would have been something like, "We'll go back to the drawing board and develop new models and then test them." The scientific drive to understand presumes rather than proves that the material world is intelligible. The continued success of science is a testament to the fact that this presumption is well founded.

Well-founded but not proved. So what constitutes proof? Or more, how do we differentiate what is proved from what is well-founded? Proof brings with it the air of certainty, which is what @Olivier5 and @T Clark both crave and fear, since it gives some support o their scientistic views.

Of course I acknowledge that not all what passes for a fact deserves the title. Which is precisely why I am interested in a pragmatic definition, that gives a sense of how facts are determined by us human beings in practice. — Olivier5

In that case I have no idea what you are arguing about.

I don't understand what you are asking. — Banno

It can be used as a statement and as a fact.
— Banno

What can? — bongo fury

Metaphysics Is really just psychology.
And psychology is verbal and emotional language expression.
However,I'm a Linguistic realist,which means our language is a direct reality and we experience objects directly. None of this kantian nonsense. — Ambrosia

Who do you get your ideas about philosophy and psychology from? Who do you read?

@Joshs
I think for myself.
But I engage with bakhtin,lacan,dostoevsky,nietzsche,plato and Julia kristeva.

The door is shut.

I give up. Unless you can make your point, a point you have tried to make before, I don't see any purpose in continuing. I was expecting you to chime in with this criticism, and did kinda hope you would, since last time we reached the same impasse, and I thought that maybe this time...

But it seems not.

Proof brings with it the air of certainty, which is what Olivier5 and @T Clark both crave and fear, since it gives some support o their scientistic views. — Banno

This is not an accurate characterization of my views.

Janus, maybe, but Banno from the POV of Banno. For so long as he can maintain his pickets - his definitions - without being forced to yield, he's secure in his redoubt.

@BannoIt would appear you want "the door to be shut" to be true, saying that the door is shut [is true] IFF the door is shut. This gets a lot of the world's work done, agreed. But at the cost of using "fact" and "true" interchangeably. But what it really means is that at a given time a given observer observed at that time that the door was shut and reported his observation. It then becomes the business - presumably - of the recipient of the report to assess it as to whether it's a fact that the door was shut at the time in question.

On being apprised, however, that "the door is closed" is a true statement, all that he can reasonably make of that is that the door is closed and will remain so until another report is received, and in the meantime he should not expect to find the door open.

Or somewhat more colorfully, if the report says the mountain pass is impassible because held by enemy soldiers, that's in the nature of a fact presumably accurate wrt what it says and implies, whatever that is. On the other hand, a report that the mountain pass is impassible because of winter snows would be more in the nature of being a truth. Facts contingent; truth self-evident.

You can call the distinction a mere matter of usage, but I would call - do call - using them interchangeably ignorant.

For so long as he can maintain his pickets - his definitions - without being forced to yield, he's secure in his redoubt. — tim wood

That'll be 'cause they are right.

But what it really means is that at a given time a given observer observed at that time that the door was shut and reported his observation. — tim wood

No, it doesn't. The notion that a sentence has a real meaning is bogus. "The door is shut" might be a code indicating that all the spies here have been betrayed and must flee...

And not all facts are believed because of observations. That has been argued by myself and others, yet remains unrequited.

all that he can reasonably make of that is that the door is closed and will remain so until another report is received, — tim wood

...see the problem here? The door might blow open, unseen, and then it would be a fact that the door was open; but you cannot say this on your account.

This is not an accurate characterization of my views. — T Clark

Doubtless.

That's great!
Nice to hear!
Peace to you!

I read that critique as a rejection of naive realism in favor of Kantianism. — Joshs

That's pretty right. I am not an admirer of Nietzsche, personally. I don't see how you can admire both Nietzsche and Platonism, and I certainly admire the latter. Nietzsche seems to me to want to completely dissolve classical philosophy, rather than re-intepret it. I guess that's a whole other can of worms, so I don't necessarily want to debate it here. (Besides I've learned that it's highly non-PC to criticize Nietzsche on internet forums.)

I'm not convinced that the success of science does not constitute proof of the intelligibility of the universe — Banno

That's not quite what Ormerod says. What he says is 'That reality is intelligible is the presupposition of all scientific endeavours: that the intelligibility science proposes is always subject to empirical verification means that science never actually explains existence itself but must submit itself to a reality check against the empirical data.' Hence fallibilism, Poppers 'conjecture and refutation'.

But the point I take from the article is the 'anxiety over contigency', that observable facts are grounded..well, in what, exactly? They're like the Cheshire cat's grin. That's how you arrive at post-modernism, groundlessness, relativism (which Lewis Carroll definitely foresaw in his tales). I prefer Ormerod's style of analytical neo-thomism. I'm not necessarily on board with all its religious implications, but philosophically it seems superior to the alternatives.

From Elsewhere:

(Bring a torch! My limited experience with real math matches that. To prove a theorem in topology, say, you build some really specialized sort of set or space or transformation -- your torch -- and then you send it down into the cave and it lights up your surroundings for you, shows you exactly how things stand. That suggests that philosophical problems might be solvable with a sort of Deleuzean, or at least pragmatic, concept craftsmanship.) — Srap Tasmaner

That's what is going on here. Getting the distinction between belief and truth shines light on

• the relation between truth and certainty,
• when an observation is true
• how we can make errors
• how maths and logic work
• necessity and contingency
• the nature of proof
• faith

...and much more.

In that case I have no idea what you are arguing about. — Janus

I am arguing for conceptual clarity. I think a lot of people here, including you, want the opposite: you guys are after getting your head all muddled and confused by concepts. Gives you a kick I suppose. And that's why you have no idea what I am saying: you simply can't be bothered so you don't pay attention.

You can call the distinction a mere matter of usage, but I would call - do call - using them interchangeably ignorant. — tim wood

Or redundant and useless. If there exists a word, 'fact', it must be because this word brings a nuance not brought by other words... In language, there are only differences (Saussure).

Proof brings with it the air of certainty, which is what Olivier5 and T Clark both crave and fear, since it gives some support o their scientistic views.
— Banno

This is not an accurate characterization of my views. — T Clark

Banno is on his own orbit here... He doesn't even know if you and I crave or fear certainty, but he's gona accuse us of both regardless. What a joke!

This is said in bad faith. I can understand your definition of 'fact' and I've acknowledged it accords with one of the common usages, but not with the other. You seem to want to dictate that the other, which makes perfect sense to me, and, I have no doubt, many other people, is somehow wrong or incoherent. Well, it might seem incoherent or confused to you, but a decent level of modesty should lead you to allow that others might not see it that way.

Besides I've learned that it's highly non-PC to criticize Nietzsche on internet forums.) — Wayfarer

It's bad form to criticize authors you haven't actually read.

Wouldn't it be jolly good fun if you addressed the topic?