Can you think of a way around the Iron Law of Oligarchy? — NOS4A2

If by oligarchy you simply mean rule by a few then by definition the rulers of a democratic republic are a few, although the few are actually many, but still a small percentage of the population.

In the absence of a better alternative I don't think there is a way around.

Or would you admit, like the conservatives do, that the very structure of your organization requires a hierarchy of betters and lessers, elites and the masses, masters and slaves? — NOS4A2

There is a difference between "betters and lessers". "Elites" is a term that is stretched in order to argue for or against something. Your man Trump is an elite, if by that term you mean rich and powerful, but there are many conservatives who object to him because he is not an elite in the sense of being capable of wise and beneficial leadership. "Masters and slaves" is even more loaded.

You would think that Trumps lawyers would have done better in the jury selection process. I hear he only hires the best people. — praxis

As I am sure you know, the best people will not work for him. I don't think they could have done better at selecting impartial jurors, although team Trump, led here by NOS will argue that any jury that finds him guilty must be biased against him.

There was no jury selection process. Such a fair trial. — NOS4A2

There was a jury selection process.

Do you think that when "they let you do it", it is assault? — NOS4A2

If they let you do it without them wanting him to do it, it is.

Nowhere does he admit to any assault in the video. — NOS4A2

If he grabs them by the pussy without their consent then he is admitting to assault. Groupie might consent because someone is a star, but this does not mean that if a star lets them do it they consent. Do you think Harvey Weinstein was innocent?

Nowhere has assault been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. — NOS4A2

As others have already pointed out, this was not a criminal case. He was found guilty based on the preponderance of evidence.

The crux of what I see is that Descartes is demonizing the inherent fallibility of our human condition. — Antony Nickles

Well, he does posit a demon but I do not think he is demonizing our fallibility.

But we regularly fail, make mistakes, don’t assess the situation (act thoughtlessly) or do so not taking into account the other, etc. None of this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. — Antony Nickles

We do, but he does not argue that this is reason for panic or a vortex of irrationality. Quite the opposite, it is reason to find something indubitable and build on that foundation.

so that we can just follow the moral rules and never be wrong or judged. — Antony Nickles

In the Discourse on Method Descartes presents his "provisional morality".

My third maxim was to try always to master myself rather than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world.

It is provisional because his method will allow man to master fortune. Man will no longer have to accept things the way they are. Descartes method of reason is, as he says in the Meditations, the Archimedean point from which he can move the world.

Who knows? — NOS4A2

You don't know what is to be done but think something should be done, even though you don't know that what should be done will make things better rather than worse. This is just the kind of thinking demagogues rely on.

So when NOS says: "Fact: He does not grab by the pussy the woman he was just talking about." He's saying that Trump has never grabbed for pussy and this is a fact. — praxis

That appears to be what he is arguing. I don't know if he actually believes what he says though. He also argues that Trump was just boasting. I don't know if he actually believes that either.

Note how he misrepresents in order to deny what no one has claimed:

... not what he does when he meets people. — NOS4A2

So, unless he grabs "people" by the pussy when he meets them it cannot be true that he has grabbed some women by the pussy. He seems to think that since he did not grab this woman on camera it cannot be true that he has ever done this.

... many people claim he is admitting to assault — NOS4A2

He does not admit to assault because he does not see it as assault. It is what "stars" do. They can do anything. But not this, it is just boasting.

One point that he continues to ignore is that a number of other women have accused him of the same thing. But by some perversion of reason he thinks or at least claims to think that is not evidence. In addition, the unanimous decision of the jury based on the evidence they heard is not evidence either because they are all biased against him.

How then can we reach it?

the people just need to go rule themselves. — NOS4A2

And how does that work?

I’m suggesting that democracy is impossible where certain organizational structures are concerned, for instance representative government. — NOS4A2

And what is the alternative?

As for grabbing pussy, he’s clearly speaking in the second person. — NOS4A2

He is speaking as a "star" about what stars can do.

I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

On the other side of your misrepresentation, he is not talking about some particular person but "they".

The fact is, he supported Mussolini. If he thought that Mussolini and/or fascism could lead to democracy he was wrong.

Are you suggesting that Trump's autocratic demography delivers democracy?

How do you reconcile socialism and fascism?

Another inept Trumpian apologetic. Michels supported Mussolini, you support Trump. Same difference. One fascist autocrat or another. Rather than the rule of a few, the rule of one.

Plato's degeneration of democracy into tyranny is remarkably prescient, as many pointed out when Trump rose to power.

Fact: He does not grab by the pussy the woman he was just talking about. — NOS4A2

Proof: He did not grab one woman he was talking to in front of the cameras, therefore contrary to what he said, he has never grabbed any women by the pussy.

I have no interest in the sexual lives of politicians. — NOS4A2

When someone's sexual life includes sexual assault it is no longer a private matter. This reflects poorly on you. Do you not know the difference?

You then switch gears and claim their is no evidence of sexual assault. The list of women who have accused him of sexual assault is long and goes back many years. But none of this matters to you because you have no interest in the sexual lives of politicians.

So our doubts continue to develop. — frank

He does not doubt that there are:

... simpler and more universal kinds include body, and extension; the shape of extended things; their quantity, size and number; the places things can be in, the time through which they can last, and so on. — Descartes, First Meditation

At this point the ontological status of these things has not been determined. Only that they are:

... the elements out of which we make all our mental images of things – the true and also the false ones.

but perhaps nothing more.

Now what seems indubitable is that two plus three makes five. — frank

He says that such obvious truths cannot be false, but the problem remains as to what they are truths of, that is:

... whether they really exist in nature or not ... — Descartes, First Meditation

The full significance of this is revealed in what follows immediately:

...I have for many years been sure that there is an all-powerful God who made me to be the sort of creature that I am.

This too must be doubted. Both that there is an all-powerful God and what sort of creature he, Descartes, is.

He has claimed that:

For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three makes five, and a square has only four sides.

but in what follows:

... how do I know that I myself don’t go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square?

Although the common picture of Descartes focuses on the dualism of mind and body, it should not overshadow the unity of his work as a whole which includes medicine, optics, and ethics. This is most easily seen in his Discourse on Method and the appendixes on geometry, optics, and meteorology.

Descartes' science of optics stands as a counterweight to the doubts raised in the Meditations. He begins the discourse on optics:

All the conduct of our lives depends on our senses, among which the sense of sight being the most universal and most noble, there is no doubt that the inventions which serve to augment its power are the most useful that could be made.

The science of optics is a study and theory of the nature of light. Its explanations are in terms of a physics of motion and physiology. Further, what is at issue is not the fact that the senses can deceive us but that they can be augmented and improved upon. Descartes overarching concern is not to bifurcate but to unify.

In his synopsis of the Meditations he says:

... the premisses which lead to the conclusion that the soul is immortal depend on an account of the whole of physics.

In other words, his metaphysics is grounded in physics. And yet he says in the First Meditation:

So a reasonable conclusion from this might be that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all other disciplines which depend on the study of composite things, are doubtful; while arithmetic, geometry and other subjects of this kind, which deal with the simplest and most general things, regardless of whether they really exist in nature or not, contain something certain and indubitable.

The problem is obvious. If his account of the immortality of the soul depends on an account of physics but it is reasonable to conclude that physics is doubtful then it is reasonable to conclude that the immortality of the soul is doubtful.

If only he had an Archimedean Point.

As with the God of Genesis Descartes creates the 'objective reality' in the Meditations in six days.

Without jumping too far ahead, a bit of explanation regarding this structure is needed. His use of the term 'objective' differs from ours. Objective reality refers to the ideas represented in the mind and differs from formal or actual reality. (Meditation 3)

For now I will only note that unlike the God of Genesis, Descartes' God does not rest on the seventh day (Meditation 3 on preservation and creation).

He could have doubted that "thinking" exists, no? — Benj96

No. To doubt is to think. He says so explicitly in the third meditation quoted above.

The only thing I don't understand is why, having considered that, and it's circularity, it did not lead him to a further reduction based on skepticism to the simpler statement "I am". — Benj96

It did:

So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.

(Second Meditation)

... doubting one exists would naturally lead to one not existing. — Benj96

He does not doubt he exists. That is the point:

I will proceed in this way until I recognize something certain, or, if nothing else, until I at least recognize for certain that there is no certainty. Archimedes used to demand just one firm and
immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakeable.

(Second Meditation)

Can one exist without thinking? I would imagine so, or else dreamless sleep would be ultimate death. As might deep and silent meditation. — Benj96

Can one consider that question if one did not exist? Descartes is not claiming that he only exists as long as he is thinking. You misconstrue what "therefore" means in the statement "I think therefore I am". It means, therefore I can be certain that I am. About this I cannot be deceived.

He who lived well, did not hide himself ... — Benj96

There are different ways in which one might hide. An important and influential contemporary work on this is Leo Strauss' "Persecution and the Art of Writing". The complement of the art of writing is the art of reading. It is through the art of reading that we find what Descartes hides in his art of writing.

for the benefit/teaching/education of others. — Benj96

One problem with writing, as Socrates notes in Plato's Phaedrus, is that what is said cannot be tailored to suit the reader. What may be of benefit to one person may be detrimental to another. Descartes gives us an example in the Dedication:

And since in this life the rewards offered to vice are often greater than the rewards of virtue, few people would prefer what is right to what is expedient if they did not fear God or have the expectation of an after-life.

For the benefit of others Descartes argues along traditional lines for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul; but he does not claim, as Proverbs does, that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In addition he equates soul and thinking, and is silent about an afterlife. The significance of this will become clearer when he replaces sin with erring, and connects the avoidance of error with perfectibility. The latter is accomplished not by obedience but by will and knowledge.

In other words, there is a potentially harmful esoteric teaching hiding in the salutary exoteric teaching.

If we are to take Descartes thinking = being sentiment, then we must assume the universe "thinks". — Benj96

There are two substances, two kinds of being, thinking and extended.

But for me "thinking" requires at its basis more than one "being" such that thought "leads" or "traverses" between once concept (one state of being) and another.

Not to mention thought requires memory otherwise it is a constant state of "what was I thinking about?" or "forgetfulness". — Benj96

He has a broad notion of what thinking is:

I am a thing that thinks: that is, a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things, is willing, is unwilling, and also which imagines and has sensory
perceptions; for as I have noted before, even though the objects of my sensory experience and imagination may have no existence outside me, nonetheless the modes of thinking which I refer to as cases of sensory perception and imagination, in so far as they are simply modes of
thinking, do exist within me - of that I am certain.

(Meditation 3)

its interesting to note his willingness to venture into unknown territory yet at the same time abide by church law. — Benj96

He took his motto from Ovid:

He who lived well hid himself well. (Bene qui latuit bene vixit)

"I think therefore I am" is the cartesian circle, the basis or hallmark for fallacious circular argument from Descartes. — Benj96

There is nothing fallacious about it. If you begin by doubting everything is there anything that cannot be doubted, anything about which you cannot be deceived? I doubt therefore I exist. I can be deceived therefore I exist. If I did not exist I could not doubt. If I did not exist I could not be deceived.

"I am" is not a relationship. It is one singular thing. I think and I am, is a relationship with 2 distinct phenomenon - being and thinking. — Benj96

He says that he is a thinking thing. One singular thing.

It isn't even circular because there is no cause or effect relationship as a relationship requires 2 things. — Benj96

There is no causal relationship here between between being and thinking. Being and thinking are one and the same. To be is to think. He is not claiming that he is a thing that thinks but that he is "a thinking thing or substance" (Meditation 3). Thinking is the kind of thing that he is, (Meditation 2) not something he does. For example, he walks but is not a walking thing. That is something he does.

Now we may not agree with Descartes claim of a thinking substance, but if so, we should disagree with what he says not with a misrepresentation of what he says.

Unfortunately, this translation does not include the Dedication, Preface, and Synopsis. They can be found here

Writing in the shadow of what happened to Galileo at the hand of the Church, Descartes dedication to the faculty of theology is both revealing and concealing. He tells them that once they understand the principle behind his undertaking they will protect it. This raises the question of what that principle is. Telling them that they will protect it is perhaps misdirection, but determining whether this is the case requires understanding what that principle is.

The second paragraph begins by declaring the superiority of philosophical demonstration and natural reason over that of theological argument. He goes on to defend belief in a way that defies natural reason and runs counter to the principle behind his undertaking:

It is of course quite true that we must believe in the existence of God because it is a doctrine of Holy Scripture, and conversely, that we must believe Holy Scripture because it comes from God; for since faith is the gift of God, he who gives us grace to believe other things can also give us grace to believe that he exists.

Of course, as he has just noted, the unbeliever is not persuaded of the truth based on a doctrine of Holy Scripture or faith and grace. Indeed, as he immediately goes on to say:

But this argument cannot be put to unbelievers because they would judge it to be circular.

The argument in the dedication contains its own circularity.

... in geometry everyone has been taught to accept that as a rule no proposition is put forward in a book without there being a conclusive demonstration available ...

In philosophy, by contrast, the belief is that everything can be argued either way; so few
people pursue the truth, while the great majority build up their reputation for ingenuity by boldly attacking whatever is most sound.

Hence, whatever the quality of my arguments may be, because they have to do with philosophy I do not expect they will enable me to achieve any very worthwhile results unless you come to my aid by granting me your patronage.

... As for the atheists, who are generally posers rather than people of real intelligence or learning, your authority will induce them to lay aside the spirit of contradiction; and, since they know
that the arguments are regarded as demonstrations by all who are intellectually gifted, they may even go so far as to defend them, rather than appear not to understand them.

On the one hand he argues that philosophy like geometry relies on conclusive demonstration, but on the other, since unlike geometry in philosophy everything can be argued either way, it is not demonstration but being persuaded on the authority of the Church that such demonstrations exist that one accepts them as true.

To pursue the truth itself requires something else:

In the same way, although the proofs I employ here are in my view as certain and evident as the proofs of geometry, if not more so, it will, I fear, be impossible for many people to achieve an adequate perception of them, both because they are rather long and some depend on others, and also, above all, because they require a mind which is completely free from preconceived opinions and
which can easily detach itself from involvement with the senses.

Preconceived opinions, including the opinions of the Church stand in the way of the few who are to achieve an adequate perception. Descartes makes a distinction between an exoteric teaching for the many and an esoteric method of inquiry suitable only for the few.

He cites two passages, the first from the Book of Wisdom, Chapter 13 and the second from Romans, Chapter 1, in support of the claim that God may be more easily and more certainly known than the things of this world. He will do this by doubting everything the senses tell us, but both passages do just the opposite, they move from the things of this world to God their creator. Both are rendered unreliable, however, if, as he proposes in the first meditation:

I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious demon of the utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me.

The idea that what is normative is what all rational people would advocate is Bernard Gert’s (see SEP’s morality entry of the last 20 years or so), not mine. I leave it to Gert to defend. — Mark S

If you bring it up then it is up to you to defend it, not leave it up to someone who is not here to defend.

My main point has been that there is an objective standpoint about the function of human morality. The evidence is that past and present cultural moral norms and the judgments of our moral sense are all parts of cooperation strategies. — Mark S

What is the relationship between morality and cooperative strategies? They are not, as you assume, one and the same. Cooperative strategies to achieve immoral goals are immoral cooperative strategies.

In addition an appeal to cultural moral norms is an appeal to moral relativism. The exact opposite of an objective standpoint.

Neither of your counterexamples contradicts the function of human morality being to solve cooperation problems. Both are more about the morality of 'ends', a subject the function of human morality is largely silent on. — Mark S

If the function of human morality is to solve cooperation problems, then this a "morality of 'ends'".

If human morality is largely silent on the morality of ends then whatever means or strategies are employed to solve cooperation problems would be moral. This would include coercion, imprisonment, and public execution in order to achieve cooperation.

I understand why thinking of human morality in terms of its function (the principal reason it exists) rather than in terms of its imperative oughts (the traditional perspective) can be initially confusing. — Mark S

It is what you do not understand that has led not simply to your initial but to your persistent confusion. A rejection of deontology may be part of a more promising path of moral deliberation but is not a solution. Deontology is not "the traditional perspective" but one traditional perspective. There are others.

All well-informed, rational people will have shared goals and ideas about how to morally accomplish them. — Mark S

Your ideal of well-informed, rational people with shared goals and ideas is nowhere to be found. The standards that might apply to science and technology do not apply to ethics and politics because there is nothing resembling an objective standpoint. Opinion and self-interest play an essential role.

Well-informed rational people agree that an embryo is a fertilized egg, but there is no information, no evidence, and no reason that leads to general agreement as to the moral status of an embryo.

Well-informed, rational people may agree that global warming is a serious problem, but there is no information or reason that leads to general agreement about what should be done. No information that leads to a general agreement on how to balance competing needs and interests.

You cite moral norms as part of the solution but moral norms are often part of the problem. For most of our history slavery was a moral norm. Gender inequality is still a moral norm. Prioritizing corporate profit over the health of people is still a moral norm.

In your other thread you claimed:

I propose that all past and present moral norms can be explained as parts of cooperation strategy explanations.

The "cooperative strategy" more often than not has always been and continues to be that those in power make the rules and those who are not "cooperate" by submitting to their power or suffer the consequences.

With regard to the saying showing distinction:

4.022 A proposition shows its sense.
A proposition shows how things stand if it is true. And it says that they do so stand.

but:

4.1212 What can be shown, cannot be said.

What is it that a proposition shows but cannot be said?

4.121 Propositions cannot represent logical form: it is mirrored in them.
What finds its reflection in language, language cannot represent.
What expresses itself in language, we cannot express by means of language.
Propositions show the logical form of reality.
They display it.

6.13 Logic is not a theory but a reflexion of the world.
Logic is transcendental.

There are two reasons why Wittgenstein attempts to draw the limits of language.

From the preface:

It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense.

On the one side is what language shows and on the other what it does not show. This other side is not called nonsense because it is of no importance but because propositions about what lies on this side lacks sense (Sinn). There is nothing in the world that they show.

But:

6.41 The sense (Sinn) of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists—and if it did exist, it would have no value.
If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental.
What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if it did it would itself be accidental.
It must lie outside the world.

6.42 So too it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics.
Propositions can express nothing that is higher.

6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words.
Ethics is transcendental.
(Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)

What is higher of the greatest importance. It is nonsense (Sinn) for the very reason that it is higher than what is in the world.

Wittgenstein make a distinction between 'the world', that is, the factual world, and 'my world'.

5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

5.62 The world is my world: this is manifest [zeigt sich (shows itself)] in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.

Far from rejecting what cannot be said, he points to limits of what can be said in order to able to "see the world aright". (6.54) That is, to see what no proposition can show.

The "final analysis", in the Tractatus is not the names of objects. — Banno

I agree. What I said is:

That in the final analysis we have a configuration of simple names of simple objects. — Fooloso4

2.0231 For these are first presented by the propositions—first formed by the configuration of the objects.

2.0272 The configuration of objects produces states of affairs.

3.21 The configuration of objects in a situation corresponds to the configuration of simple signs
in the propositional sign.

His a priori assumption is that there are elementary propositions. That in the final analysis we have a configuration of simple names of simple objects.

4.221 It is obvious that the analysis of propositions must bring us to elementary propositions
which consist of names in immediate combination.

It is an a priori assumption because nowhere are these names or objects identified. Nowhere are elementary propositions given. It is just assumed that the world and language must be built from this starting point.

Some people like speculating — schopenhauer1

I think this might be what is really at issue for you, at least in part, although it does not explain your apparent animosity. You like speculative philosophy.

I didn't see anything about empirical observation. — schopenhauer1

How can we compare a proposition to reality without empirical observation?

That is either saying nothing or saying something so obvious as to be not worth saying, "Ok, and anything of significance?". — schopenhauer1

This needs to be read against what he says about metaphysical propositions. The former have a sense the latter do not.

Each person describing reality thinks they are accurately picturing reality. — schopenhauer1

Right, and how do we determine which is an accurate picture of reality? There are facts about the world, but no facts about God.

It doesn't explain why observation and empirical evidence is more important than intuition, feeling, immediate sensation, abstractions of imagination, etc. — schopenhauer1

He does not claim it is more important.

6.432 How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference for what is higher. God
does not reveal himself in the world.

6.4321 The facts all contribute only to setting the problem, not to its solution.

6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.

6.45 To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole—a limited whole.
Feeling the world as a limited whole—it is this that is mystical.

6.52 We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of
life remain completely untouched. Of course are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer.

6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest.
They are what is mystical.

My interpretation: Shut up in order to allow things that can be seen and experienced to manifest themselves.

So it's neat that you interpreted him this way — schopenhauer1

These were direct quotes from the text.

It doesn't tell us what true propositions are or anything like that, so I don't quite see the significance here of his project. — schopenhauer1

True propositions are those that accurately picture reality, propositions that state the facts.

He's basically saying, "Anything beyond atomic facts and their combinations is nonsense". — schopenhauer1

The totality of facts is the world. (1.1) The world is not nonsense.

But without explaining what makes something true, this is just a preferential or prejudicial statement about what statements/propositions are meaningful. Something he saw clearly as an error in his later work. — schopenhauer1

2.221 What a picture represents is its sense.

2.222 The agreement or disagreement of its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity.

The proposition, "it is raining", is true if it raining and false if it is not raining. The proposition has a sense, that is, we know what is the case if it is true or false.

What about the proposition, "God exists"? Does this agree or disagree reality. Can we know whether it is true or false?

It should be noted that Wittgenstein is neither affirming or denying metaphysical beliefs, he is attempting to draw the limits of what can be said. And what can be said is what has a sense, what can be determined to be true or false.

6.53 The right method of philosophy would be this: To say nothing except what can be said,
i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy:
and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate
to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other—he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—but it would be the only strictly correct method.

He doesn’t really go into a thorough investigation on how to determine true propositions other than the circular understanding that it’s atomic facts, deduction of these atomic propositions and some remarks about observation and empirical investigation. — schopenhauer1

You have provided the answer: observation and empirical investigation.

4.01 A proposition is a picture of reality.

2.223 In order to tell whether a picture is true or false we must compare it with reality.

4.05 Reality is compared with the proposition.

4.06 Propositions can be true or false only by being pictures of the reality.

What value does any of this obviousness have? The important part is figuring out the true propositions. — schopenhauer1

How can we distinguish between and true and false proposition?

You are thinking of 'fact' as equivalent to 'actuality'. — Janus

Following the Tractatus, there is a distinction between facts, which are a combination of objects (2.01), and statements of facts which are propositions.

In a different sense, the encyclopedia is a compendium of facts, or true propositions and descriptions. — Janus

It is a compendium of statements of facts, that is, propositions. It does not contain the objects that make up facts.

What Wittgenstein is saying is that you can create any proposition you want by starting with the whole set of atomic propositions and negating a certain subset of those. — Reddit

Right:

6.001 What this says is just that every proposition is a result of successive applications to elementary propositions of the operation N(ξ).

Science as removing the false propositions from logical space...? — Banno

The problem is atomic propositions are an a priori assumption. He never identifies an elementary proposition. Without elementary propositions we cannot get started.

This is silly. — Banno

I agree.

2. What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.

2.01 A state of affairs (a state of things) is a combination of objects (things).

What is the case, the state of affairs, the fact is that the baby (the thing) is crying.

The term 'fact'; is ambiguous; it can mean either 'true proposition' or 'actuality'. — Janus

A fact is not true or false. There are no false facts, only false claims and beliefs about what is a fact.

Where did I do that? — Banno

Here:

Neither does the fact. You're thinking of the baby. — Banno

The fact is what is the case. What is the case is the baby is crying. You are conflating the fact and a statement of fact.