AthenaSeptember 11, 2021 at 00:2812750 views798 comments
Everyone may know what a fact is but I am not sure what everyone thinks a fact is. I have a second question to ask when there is an answer to what a fact is.
That's a different question. What I said about facts stands.
But introducing knowledge brings with it belief, and to the distinctions made in my bio.
But mostly, the answer to "how do you know that it's true' is "how do you know what is true?" That is, there need be no general answer to every case. How do I know that the cat is on the mat? I see it there. How do you know your address? Presumably you remember it. And so on.
That is, "How do you know that such-and-such is true" is just a long-winded way of asking "How do you know that such-and-such".
Deleted UserSeptember 11, 2021 at 03:44#5922380 likes
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Reply to Athena
If I can offer a stubborn answer on a pet theme, it's hard to take this OP seriously. What is a fact? Could this be translated into "gimme some basic stuff about the word 'fact' for those learning English please"? Why not check the dictionary? Are anonymous strangers astride their hobbyhorses more reliable guides? I trust that writers of dictionaries are just reading and listening and distilling a highly complex phenomenon into a simple starter kit which is no replacement for immersion but in fact depends on it (since simple words are defined in terms of other simple words.)
I think of a magic trick. What will we pull from our hats?
I a buyer of the idea that all facts are historical facts.
How would that play out? It's a fact that tomorrow will be Sunday- what's the point of calling that an historical fact?
Given that her alternate facts are not true, they are not facts. She's misusing the term - that seems apparent. But doubtless she would claim that her alternate facts are themselves "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent", in which case @T Clark's definition is not much help.
Evidence comes in to play when we talk about belief, not truth.
Deleted UserSeptember 11, 2021 at 04:43#5922600 likes
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I hold truth and fact to refer to entirely different things. It's true that 2+2=4. It's a fact that it snowed last winter.
You can do what you like, but it seems odd to me that it might be true that 2+2=4, if it's not a fact; or that it's a fact that it snowed, but it's not true.
A fact is (often, not always) a proposition in which what is stated adheres to the situation the statement is aimed at elucidating.
Thus, that World War II ended in 1945 is a statement that corresponds to what actually happened in that period of time.
But it can soon become quite complex, as when new evidence renders the proposition obsolete. Maybe a new fact comes about in which we'd have to conclude that the WWII ended in 1946 because of some technicality concerning some document arises.
But doubtless she would claim that her alternate facts are themselves "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent", in which case T Clark's definition is not much help.
As you note, a fact is a statement that is true. Any definition of "fact" has to take into account that what we believe is a fact may turn out not to be true when we have more information. That's what I like best about the Gould quote.
The Kelly-Anne Conway problem has nothing to do with facts. It has to do with convincing people of what the facts are. That's rhetoric, not philosophy.
Damn right, sir. But I'm aware of it. Are you enjoying yours?
You haven't been here long. How many of my and other people's posts have you read? If you haven't read them, then you have no basis for judging the quality of my, or any other forum member's, work. If, in general, you don't respect the quality of the thinking or writing on the forum, what are you doing here?
Yep. That's the difference between facts and beliefs. Facts cannot turn out the be false. Beliefs can.
That seems like a plausible description of usage. It's a difference that makes a difference. A 'fact' is more settled. 'Belief' suggests a distance from the claim. A philosopher might be tempted to say, however, that therefore we only have beliefs and never facts. That to me would be an example of a rule-of-thumb being stretched into something less useful.
My hobbyhorse at the moment is the idea that words/meanings are like animals in the wild. We can play zoology and sketch these animals in broad strokes, but it's an empirical-interpretive activity. Since (as I think we agree) meaning is out there, it's a descriptive enterprise. (Creativity comes into play when parodying metaphysics, I guess.) On the other hand, the metaphysician will take this or that aspect of a word and make it absolute, so that a new kind of quasi-mathematical game is possible...but much more profound than math, since it scratches the religious/literary itch (somehow at no sacrifice of precision and certainty.)
Maybe that answers Athena's question - Facts don't exist. There are only beliefs.
You posted that a moment before I made a similar point. I think it's a reason to not take such a definition of 'fact' too seriously, despite what it gets right. Definitions are a questionable enterprise anyhow.
BartricksSeptember 11, 2021 at 05:25#5922820 likes
Reply to Athena I think facts are what true propositions assert. So if the proposition "It is raining" is true, then that it is raining is what's being asserted. That is, it is a fact that it's raining. Not married to that analysis, but it sounds about right to me.
You posted that a moment before I made a similar point. I think it's a reason to not take such a definition of 'fact' too seriously, despite what it gets right. Definitions are a questionable enterprise anyhow.
Which I think brings us back to the Gould quote. Here it is again for reference:
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.
In a sense. In another sense a belief is just a statement that is held to be true. BOth are fine so long as we keep one eye on which we are using.
:up:
Good point. It's like we start with a sketch, see something missing, and add to it. I'd say that no sketch will ever master/capture the complexity of the use of 'belief.' It changes as we study it (our study is part of that change.)
I'm retired. I sometimes forget what day it is. Also, in Hawaii it's 7:30 pm on Friday now. There, tomorrow will be Saturday.
Sure, sometimes we are mistaken, but never as to the facts, only in our beliefs. And some facts are different elsewhere. None of that changes the fact that there are facts.
Determined to be true? Or determining one's belief as to it's truth?
It occurs to me that with a deductive argument we are talking about truth, but since induction is invalid, with a deductive argument we are talking about belief.
Being true is what makes a statement a fact, assented to or not.
OK, I grant that. But I'd frame this as a statement about usage as opposed to a science of truth, fact, and assent. "You can safely substitute 'true statement' for 'fact' most of the time." I think of humans in the world interacting, barking and scrawling tokens. A definition is like teaching someone to put a worm on the hook. It's that practical, finally.
Maybe the difference is only attitude. We can express advice about usage successfully in the register of describing entities like facts.
One can of course propose an ideal or proper or authentic or official use of 'fact.' And that can be worthwhile.
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.
That's not an answer to the question. That's a false statement about when a proposition expresses a fact. Even if it were true, it would not tell us what a fact itself 'is'. It's akin to answering the philosophical question "what is yellow" with "bananas".
Even if it were true, it would not tell us what a fact itself 'is'.
But you'll have to fix the sentence above. As I asked elsewhere, what is the form of the answer that could tell you what a fact is? What more can you ask for than a definition...a context-relevant description of usage? What's a shovel? Well, we use it to dig, see. No, I mean what is a shovel, really? It's as if there's an ultra-vague Beyond that haunts metaphysics.
BartricksSeptember 11, 2021 at 06:14#5923070 likes
You lot are so confused it is painful.
So, statements can be true. But statements aren't facts. That's nonsense. The propositional content of a true statement expresses a fact. But it - the statement - is not itself a fact, but a statement - a true one. That's why if it is true that p, then it is a fact that p. The fact that p is what the proposition "it is true that p" asserts to be the case.
It's like we start with a sketch, see something missing, and add to it.
...but pragmatism would have us throw out the sketch and draw something else. Failing to see the distinction between truth and belief they see belief can change and decide nothing is true.
BartricksSeptember 11, 2021 at 06:23#5923090 likes
But you'll have to fix the sentence above. As I asked elsewhere, what is the form of the answer that could tell you what a fact is? What more can you ask for than a definition...a context-relevant description of usage? What's a shovel? Well, we use it to dig, see. No, I mean what is a shovel, really? It's as if there's an ultra-vague Beyond that haunts metaphysics.
That too.
There's an ambiguity to the word 'is' that makes questions such as "what is a fact?" ambiguous. But clearly the questioner is not asking to be provided with a list of facts, or told when we have facts on our hands, but with insight into what a fact is made of, so to speak.
And that's what I'm addressing. A fact is the asserted content of a true proposition. To get more by way of an answer would require answering the question "what is truth?" For until one answers that question one can't gain further insight into what, precisely, being the asserted content of a true proposition amounts to.
I think it's a very good description of what a fact is. It captures the uncertainty associated with all our knowledge while still enforcing a rigorous standard. Most philosophical discussions dick around with that.
@Zugzwang, I don't know if you've come across @Bartricks in your wandering through the forum yet. He likes to insult people rather than engage in a collegial discussion.
Reply to Bartricks
Are you making empirical claims? Inferences from assumptions?? What case do you make ? My big point is that none of us control the use of these tokens. They are like the furniture of the social world. In that sense, we are in meaning, navigating signs that indicate promise and danger.
To my ears, talk about 'facts' and 'propositions' that isn't about usage is like talk about knights, bishops, and queens in chess. How are facts studied examined directly, as opposed to analyzing actual usage?
There's an ambiguity to the word 'is' that makes questions such as "what is a fact?" ambiguous.
Yes, ambiguity. I agree. I suspect it's only practical concern that keeps us from floating away in the fog of our language. A beaver builds dams. We write novels, sure that there's some extra dimension of 'meaning' involved. But what if we view our tokens (words) like sticks that a monkey might use to fish out a grub? What if some final clarity was itself the vaguest of projects?
So to speak, figurative language. A metaphor. What are little [s]boys[/s] facts made of? Statements and truth. That's what facts are made of. Does that satisfy? Facts are strings of iterable tokens, spoken or written or telepathically transmitted in their pure transparent non-linguistic form.
BartricksSeptember 11, 2021 at 06:40#5923210 likes
I have said that a fact is what's asserted by a true proposition. Now, if you disagree then kindly tell me what you'd call what's asserted by a true proposition.
I don't know if you've come across Bartricks in your wandering through the forum yet. He likes to insult people rather than engage in a collegial discussion.
I find his insults amusing, to tell the truth. He's the straight man in his philosophical earnestness, and yet he'll shift into Tony Clifton when annoyed or frustrated. Fascinating combination.
I have said that a fact is what's asserted by a true proposition. Now, if you disagree then kindly tell me what you'd call what's asserted by a true proposition.
I don't dislike that definition in particular. The point is how you came up with it. Instead of talking about how a token tends to be exchanged, it's as if you are pronouncing truths about the supposed referents of these tokens. On what authority? In the real world, I have to worry about the many, many ways that 'fact' might be used by all kinds of people...and very little about the views of 'specialists' in such matters. (The idea of a 'specialist' in such a basic competence is a little absurd, like a professional chewer or walker.)
Stephen Jay Gould said:
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.
This is science apologetics.
If something can be confirmed as fact, explain how.
This definition is like saying 'something is confirmed if its been so confirmed that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent'.
There's an ambiguity to the word 'is' that makes questions such as "what is a fact?" ambiguous.
Not only that, but there is an ambiguity to the word 'fact'. There is a common usage shown in the sentence 'The encyclopaedia is a compendium of facts' that does not accord with the other common usage which equates facts with states of affairs or actualities.
You think? I find it a bit sad that those hereabouts are so ready to dispatch truth to the backroom.
To me the everyday uses of 'truth' are safe and sound. It's one of those primary words. You just gotta know how to use and react to it. I guess the issue is whether the study of truth (and/or 'truth') should belong to philosophers or linguists.
...but pragmatism would have us throw out the sketch and draw something else. Failing to see the distinction between truth and belief they see belief can change and decide nothing is true.
Pragmatism is a big tent though. And I relate more to empiricism anyway, in the broad sense of look and see. I think we humans can't help but care about truth, call it what we will. Even the suicidal want to tie a good noose.
Are philosophers experts on some strange entity known as 'truth'? Or are they experts on a particular conversation ? Do they use 'truth' more effectively than others in the world outside this specialized conversation ? I don't know. But it doesn't seem like the same skill.
So if it can't be observed it isn't a fact? Are you an empiricist?
Indeed, I am an empiricist.
The general use of the term 'fact' today is '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.
E.g. "It's a fact that Canada and the US share a rather long border". This example is purposely phrased a bit vaguely ("a rather long border"), because all human statements are ambiguous (to a smaller or larger degree), but note that it is still quite difficult to reject in good faith. So facts do not need to be super super precise to be facts.
My thesis is as follows: for a 'statement to be proved to be true' about some state of affairs, if empiricism is true and assuming the correspondance theory of truth, some accurate observations must have occured. Some dude must have seen something for a fact to be a fact.
To come back to our example, if you look at a map of North America, assuming the map is an accurate compilation of accurate geographical observations (eg satellite observation today) by well-trained and dutyful geographers, you can observe that the border between the US and Canada is indeed rather long.
Therefore, a fact is an accurate observation of some state of affairs.
Additionally, a time-honored method to explore the meaning of a word is to look at its etymology, and figure out how the word in question came to mean what it means today, via a historical evolution. It's like trying to trace the trajectory of a word's usage over time. Meaning being use, that method makes some sense.
Fact comes from Latin factum, neuter past participle of facere ‘do’. The original sense was ‘an act’, something done. Something you can't change, by implication, because it belongs to the past.
So originally, a fact is an act. How did it come to mean 'a true statement' or 'an accurate observation'? This semantic transition happened in the 17th century, precisely when empiricism established itself as one of the pillars of modern science. (The other pillar being rationalism)
I propose that in the work of scientists, a lot of observations get done, that observations are precisely an 'act’, something done. Something you can't change, by implication. If Galileo and others saw the moons of Jupiter in a correct or accurate observation, then it is a fact that Jupiter has moons.
Tom StormSeptember 11, 2021 at 09:55#5923540 likes
Reply to Olivier5 So how do you determine if religious claims are fact or fiction?
But point taken: a fact has to be accurate and in order to be widely accepted as such, to be 'a statement that is known or proved to be true,' it needs to be objectively or intersubjectively verifiable ie observable by several people.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 11, 2021 at 13:24#5923990 likes
I get that this is a sort of dictionary meaning, but there is an alternative usage that's roughly "to the best of our knowledge and with very high confidence". It's what Samuel Arbesman writes about in The Half-Life of Facts.
For instance, humans have 46 chromosomes, but it used to be widely believed that we have 48. "Widely believed" is the way most of us would say it, I guess, but it doesn't quite convey how firmly established this belief was. It's what all the textbooks said. It was considered settled science. Researchers who found only 46, while doing something else, assumed without question that they had screwed up somewhere. Doubting that humans have 48 chromosomes was akin to doubting the periodic table.
Now of course we know there are 46, so now we say it's a fact that there are 46. But is it impossible that we're wrong? Honestly hard for me to say. I'd like to think so because now we know a mistake is possible in this area, so perhaps we upped our game in 1955 when we finally got it right. But the point remains that scientists before 1955 had a similar level of confidence about 48.
And it turns out you can measure the turnover of facts, as Arbesman has done, along the lines of how many years does it take for half of what's published in a field to be overturned? He's found some pretty stable patterns there, that out on the high end, with medicine, it may be less than 10 years, while on the low end, with fundamental physics, it might be more like 40 or 50.
His book, by the way, was only okay. Not philosophically sophisticated, but some pretty interesting case studies, and an interesting way of looking at progress in science.
I get that this is a sort of dictionary meaning, but there is an alternative usage that's roughly "to the best of our knowledge and with very high confidence".
But it can soon become quite complex, as when new evidence renders the proposition obsolete. Maybe a new fact comes about in which we'd have to conclude that the WWII ended in 1946 because of some technicality concerning some document arises.
Oh no, that could not be because I was born a little over 9 months after the end of the war and my birth certificate says that year was 1946. However, I read something about when we figured out the year of Jesus's birth and the beginning of our calendar, that was 4 years off the actual date. So when we were figuring with the Mayan calendar the beginning of the new age we could not be sure of the correct date for that moment of transition. For reasons like this, I don't think we should say science is truth and assume there is no doubt that what believe is true. My very old logic book, explains we should never be too sure of what we think we know, and in fact. Unlike religious beliefs, in science, there are rules for determining facts and a belief can be changed with new information. The difference is religion is mythology and science is validated facts.
I like to address everyone who addresses me, but I might look like an egomaniac if I do that with so many replies so I am condensing. Some of you got, I am getting at the problem of religious conflicts, and the democratic belief that reasoning is the way to resolve conflicts. We do not want religious wars and we do not want people treated badly for religious reasons, so when it comes to knowing God's truth, shouldn't we pay attention to what is a fact and what is not a fact?
My preacher nephew is glad when archeologists prove an event in the bible did happen, but he was not at all happy when a terribly bad time was revealed as a climate-caused event. I thought he would be happy about that proof, but no, he was mad because his belief system demands such things be the act of God, not nature. Okay, but he is glad when the ruins of a building prove an event in the bible happened. However, then I must point out, even though archeologists have evidence of Troy that does not prove the gods are real.
Help me on this. If we are going to make laws that affect everyone, and put people in penitentiaries to save their souls, and go to war because that is the will of God, shouldn't we have really good grounds for what we believe?
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.
Yes, yes, and yes. How can anyone today believe a god walked in a garden with a man and a woman and this is the beginning of our history? If that story is accepted as factual, isn't there a problem with our thinking? Like before scientific thinking why wouldn't everyone believe that story? There was not a method for thinking that would clarify the story as a myth, not a fact. Democracy is about reasoning and that is only possible when our minds are prepared to think independently and scientifically, right?
Deleted UserSeptember 11, 2021 at 14:43#5924110 likes
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Oxford languages:the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions.
But quantum physics has proven uncertainty. I think that is a fact that makes a previously accepted fact wrong.
What we believe here has social, religious, legal, and political ramifications. Those nations that centered on determinism were conservative and that hindered all forms of progress. I think the science and the results of the different beliefs prove we can determine our own future. However, all our decisions need to be based on the best reasoning possible because the human will has created a man-made reality and not all this is good.
Deleted UserSeptember 11, 2021 at 14:54#5924150 likes
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But changes in usage are inexorable, usually to the side of increasing ignorance. Probably because ignorance is the easier way.
I have to stress- the word ignorance means to ignore something. I do not think people intentionally ignore facts that mean we will survive or we won't. We will go to war, or we will not. We will allow scientific exploration of cells and ending birth defects or we will not. However, they may not have the thinking skills to do the required thinking. Learning how to think scientifically is a learned thinking ability not one that comes naturally just because we have a brain.
We can not change the way people in Afghanistan live without changing how they are taught to think. Let us be very clear about this- Our concern needs to be with[b]how people learn to think, not what they learn to think.[/b]
Most simply, because beliefs can serve purposes that facts and truth do not. To my way of thinking, a person gets a pass on his or her beliefs because they're a kind of private property. Of course, as you note, the problems come when believers want to impose on others. And this not confined to religion. It's on display in a nearby thread on abortion. And politics is riddled with it.
Here's a variety of it in action.
"I'm always right"
"I believe X."
"X is therefore a fact."
"X is therefore true."
"Therefore pay me."
A powerful argument, with so much wrong with it that it is hard to refute, and the Kelly-Annes of the world thrive feeding on in it.
THAT IS EXACTLY WHY I STARTED THIS THREAD. THANK YOU :love:
Ennui ElucidatorSeptember 11, 2021 at 15:00#5924220 likes
How can anyone today believe a god walked in a garden with a man and a woman and this is the beginning of our history? If that story is accepted as factual, isn't there a problem with our thinking? Like before scientific thinking why wouldn't everyone believe that story? There was not a method for thinking that would clarify the story as a myth, not a fact. Democracy is about reasoning and that is only possible when our minds are prepared to think independently and scientifically, right?
The sentiment is nice, but thinking along these lines is muddled. All we have is extent stuff - the eternally present now. What we have is theories about how things were and how things will be based upon what is now. Some people are OK with patterns not holding and some people insist that there are “laws” out there that make things in the past behave like things in the present or such that things in the present give an indication of what happened in the past or will in the future. Asking why/how people believe what they believe (if it is true that the world revolves around the sun, why wouldn’t everyone 10,000 years ago have believed that?) sounds a bit like a reasonable challenge to the “truth” of some claim, but people can be (and are) wrong about big and little things.
The religious folk you are likely talking about are not engaged in arguments about religious belief from extent stuff as interpreted through their paradigm, but about personal revelation that made them believe some lot of stuff is/was “true.” Different groups have some modifications to this general line of thinking, but ultimately what is grounding their paradigm is of a different sort than the stuff that grounds a good theory about the fate of the mammoth.
Descriptions of the world and how it functions (the sorts of things that presumably make up the corpus of what you call scientific thinking) do not address the existential questions that people seem to be discussing when talking about why things should be done (like living or dying). Imagination (whether based in current states of affairs or otherwise) is what permits people to envision the past and work towards the future, both of which are counterfactuals.
A functioning democracy is about functioning, not about adherence to some ideology or another. If a functioning democracy is one that allows for relatively peaceful (i.e. not subject to group violence) existence, then the measure is the extent to which it does that, not how that peace is achieved.
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Ennui ElucidatorSeptember 11, 2021 at 15:12#5924320 likes
Both a boat and goose float, yet one is not the other. Democracy is not the only form of government that can lead to peace.
Also, I was not claiming that peace is the measure of the functioning government, but that it is an example of a measure that one can use to make a judgment. This has philosophical implications, but was made in a political context - participants in a democracy need not make everyone agree about everything unless that is one of the goals of democracy.
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Srap TasmanerSeptember 11, 2021 at 15:25#5924420 likes
It isn't obviously something you have a choice about. Right now, you and I both believe some things are Facts, with a capital F, that will turn out to have been facts, with a small F.
Just consider the insistence of neuroscientists that your memories are reconstructions, practically confabulations. There are things you believe about your own life, your own experiences, that are not true. You remember lending Banno a book he never returned, but it was actually me you lent it to. You remember your mom wearing a blue dress at your graduation, but it was green, you're thinking of the blue dress she bought for your brother's wedding. You don't know which of your own memories are facts. How many times have you gotten a quote from a book or a movie just slightly, or a lot more than slightly, wrong?
In that very paragraph, I use "true", "actually", "know" and even "was" to make the point. We have no other vocabulary for saying that we cannot know our beliefs to be true.
And no, we cannot use "It used to be a fact that ..." to mean "We all used to believe with high confidence that ..." (On the implicature accompanying "used to", there's Mitch Hedberg: "I used to do drugs. I still do but I used to too.")
There are a lot of quirks to "fact" and "fact that" I guess we could get into.
I wasn't speaking about science when I gave my example about WWII, so I'm not sure I follow what you're saying in this part. It wasn't a scientific fact, but a historical one.
Faith is faith because it is based on belief alone, with little to no attention to facts. Science and religion in this sense are not compatible when describing the same situations. Sure, science is not sure proof, but nothing is. It's just that science is the best tool we have for ascertaining facts about the world.
Absent good evidence, we need good reasons to belief so and so. Philosophy can help us here. But if you want to speak about facts and how they relate to religion, I don't think one will get very far.
Citation, please. I can't find that.
This just one entry;
"ignorance (n.)
1200, "lack of wisdom or knowledge," from Old French ignorance (12c.), from Latin ignorantia "want of knowledge"
To ignore is an action. It appears that ignorance is at best a passion, or unawareness. But I agree that an ignorant person can indeed ignore.
For me, what is important is if the person can perceive the necessary information or not. That is different from having the capability to perceive information and choosing to ignore it. I have checked dictionary definitions and they do not clarify that point. It is like everyone takes for granted our ability to receive knowledge.
Most of the time, I read what you all are saying, and it is over my head. I am a gifted idiot. I have a terrible time understanding what people are saying. I have college lectures produced by the Great Course company and I listen to them again and again and still do not receive the information that is given. I am not ignoring the information. I just can not understand it. It bounces off my brain like a rubber ball bounces off a wall. I know it would help if I were more intent on learning and wrote notes while listening to the lecture. It takes a lot of effort and energy to learn something, and often comprehending what you all are talking about seems totally beyond what I am capable of. You use the word "unawareness", we have to know something before we can learn more. But that is not intentionally ignoring the available information. That is the point I want to make. Along with the points I want to make about education in other threads.
Believing a holy book and not the science that is vital to the health of our nation, is an educational failure that comes with replacing liberal education (how to think) with education for technology (what to think) and leaving moral training (the ability to think) to the church.
Deleted UserSeptember 11, 2021 at 16:49#5925000 likes
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Actually, I've always thought that hanging would be a good way to commit suicide if I ever want to do so. When I picture it, I always just tie a slip knot. It is my understanding the fancy-schmancy hangman's noose was developed as a way to break the hangee's neck when they are dropped from a gallows.
So the true is tentative? And, "turns out not to be true" means something else is true? It becomes a hall of mirrors.
Our knowledge of what is true is always tentative, or as Gould writes, "provisional." any definition of truth that doesn't take that into account is missing the point. Truth that can't be known is meaningless.
This is science apologetics. — Yohan
Explain please.
Science doesn't have a way of establishing fact. Rather than admit this, which I believe honest scientists do, some science advocates and probably actual scientists won't admit it, but will instead rearrange the goal posts so that a fact can mean something that is agreed upon by the majority of scientists.
That's a quick theory, though I could be wrong. Quoting T Clark
It says "confirm to a degree" and "provisional assent." I don't see any problem, just follow the scientific method, i.e. provide evidence.
I think its a problem because how do we determine what counts as sufficient reason to accept something as evidence. And then how much of such evidence is enough to accept something as fact beyond a reasonable doubt? It reminds me of the heap paradox. How much could be considered a big enough heap of evidence? Quoting T Clark
I think you're playing around with language. Do you really not know what Gould is saying?
I don't think I am.
Something is either proven to be a fact or it isn't. No amount of induction will ever establish a fact. At least, I don't see how it could.
If we are going to make laws that affect everyone, and put people in penitentiaries to save their souls, and go to war because that is the will of God, shouldn't we have really good grounds for what we believe?
I don't think many people, theists or non-theists, think we should put people in prison to save their souls. I also don't think theistic regime's are more likely to start wars than non-theistic ones. Please, let's not get into that foofaraw again.
Yes, yes, and yes. How can anyone today believe a god walked in a garden with a man and a woman and this is the beginning of our history? If that story is accepted as factual, isn't there a problem with our thinking? Like before scientific thinking why wouldn't everyone believe that story? There was not a method for thinking that would clarify the story as a myth, not a fact.
Gould said "in science." He was as big, if perhaps not as rabid, an atheist as you and @tim wood are. He, unlike you, was not anti-religion.
In 415, St. Augustine, one of the founders of the Christian church, stated that the bible should be interpreted metaphorically. Thanks to @Wayfarer for that information. Just because there are fundamentalists who haven't gotten the message, that doesn't give you leeway to let the straw dogs out.
And then how much of such evidence is enough to accept something as fact beyond a reasonable doubt?
You can accept that induction can't establish facts in the way we might have wanted, but stop somewhere short of "anything goes" or something. There's still a lot of ground between here and there.
The Gould quote is nice because "perverse" captures some standard of rationality, which can be comfortably expressed in terms of confidence or subjective probability. Sometimes people talk about "surprise" this way, giving it a somewhat rigorous definition -- we're talking Bayes here -- so you could treat as a fact something you'd be really surprised to find out was not the case.
We all know facts of an ideal sort are out of reach, and we've known it since Hume, but then what?
Science doesn't have a way of establishing fact. Rather than admit this, which I believe honest scientists do, some science advocates and probably actual scientists won't admit it, but will instead rearrange the goal posts so that a fact can mean something that is agreed upon by the majority of scientists.
I don't buy this. A scientific consensus doesn't make something a fact, it makes it suitable for use. How do we use knowledge - adequately justified beliefs? We use them to make decisions about possible actions.
I think its a problem because how do we determine what counts as sufficient reason to accept something as evidence. And then how much of such evidence is enough to accept something as fact beyond a reasonable doubt?
First off, we don't generally need to establish facts "beyond a reasonable doubt." Sometimes we do, but not usually. Choosing the level of allowable doubt is a matter of human of judgement. You have to take into account the amount of uncertainty and the consequences of being wrong. This is something people do all the time. It's nothing exotic or even particularly philosophical. Which is not to say they don't do it wrong lots of times.
Something is either proven to be a fact or it isn't. No amount of induction will ever establish a fact.
This is silly philosophicationismness. The only things we can know that aren't established by induction are those that come from deduction, which have nothing to do with the real world. Maybe no amount of induction will ever establish a fact, but it can establish a provisional fact, belief if you will, that is suitable for use in making decisions.
The only things we can know that aren't established by induction are those that come from deduction, which have nothing to do with the real world.
There is no singular "real world". Your world and my world are very different, even though we are both human males(I think?). Imagine how different is the world of the opposite sex, or other species even. But that is another realm of contemplation altogether.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 11, 2021 at 19:32#5925700 likes
what makes you think democracy has some sort of privileged access to reason?
I have a soft spot for this idea, and the companion conception of science. The idea is that "the scientific method" is not responsible for the success of science, broadly speaking, but the fact that it is communal and self-correcting. Once you've institutionalized such practices, you can even overcome failures like the replication crisis. The faith is that democracy can support similar incremental progress towards a just society, despite its failures.
There is no singular "real world". Your world and my world are very different, even though we are both human males(I think?). Imagine how different is the world of the opposite sex, or other species even.
I often say "There's only one world," so, clearly I disagree. There are, on the other hand, lots of ways to think, talk about it. I think humans, men and women, are much more alike than different. Ditto with people with different languages and cultures. It may take some work, but we can understand each other.
Once you've institutionalized such practices, you can even overcome failures like the replication crisis. The faith is that democracy can support similar incremental progress towards a just society, despite its failures.
Both science and democracy are important to me and I agree with you about both involving self-correction mechanisms. That's not the same as saying that democracies are more likely to make their decisions based on reason than other forms of government. Perhaps that's not what you were trying to say.
Deleted UserSeptember 11, 2021 at 20:44#5926160 likes
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Srap TasmanerSeptember 11, 2021 at 20:59#5926340 likes
Reply to T Clark Yeah that is what I'm saying, but only in the damnably long term.
No, our knowledge of facts is tentative. The true is always satisfiable. Else true doesn't mean true. This, or there is no difference between fact and true.
Knowledge, truth, belief, fact. All tied up in knots of language and meaning.
I often say "There's only one world," so, clearly I disagree. There are, on the other hand, lots of ways to think, talk about it. I think humans, men and women, are much more alike than different. Ditto with people with different languages and cultures. It may take some work, but we can understand each other.
In my world there are many worlds. In your world there is one.
Who is right.
Well, it depends. If we use the analogy of a house...I consider every room in the house a world. Perhaps you say only the whole house is a world. I would then argue that what you are calling the whole house is really just one room in the house.
bongo furySeptember 11, 2021 at 21:04#5926430 likes
The world is the totality of things, not of facts.
Not of true sentences: it doesn't need those.
Nor of obtaining states: those are linguistic too.
In my world there are many worlds. In your world there is one.
Who is right.
Neither of us. The idea of "world" as we are using it is a metaphysical term. As such, it is not right or wrong, only useful or not in a particular situation. It's just our different ways of looking at the same thing.
180 ProofSeptember 11, 2021 at 21:18#5926550 likes
The religious and non-religious, or faith-based believers and evidence-based naturalists, are playing different yet barely overlapping language-games (pace S.J. Gould), so intractable disagreements are inevitable regardless of the extant facts. An actuarial resolution to existential disputes: the discursive community which out-breeds AND is, on average, better educated than the other/s tends to prevail in the longer run ... Let us prey!
We can go further back to the Proto-Indo-European root *dhe-, "to set, put."
So arguably a fact is put in place; it's what we work from.
But of course that's not valid; that it had that meaning five thousand years ago is irrelevant to the meaning it has now.
The usage as an act is found in Jane Ausitn, "...gracious in fact if not in word"; and Milton, Paradise Lost, "He who most excels in fact of arms". But as something that really occurred, in Thirlwall, "...one fact destroys this fiction". 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 J. Hayward tr. Biondi's Eromena 21 They resolved that the Admirall should goe disguised?to assure himselfe of the fact." It seems the point is one of contention).
We find @Srap Tasmaner's sense in 1729, "the writer's facts are untrustworthy".
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. Choose whatever words you will, this distinction must remain, since without it there can be no error, and without error we cannot improve our understanding.
Neither of us. The idea of "world" as we are using it is a metaphysical term. As such, it is not right or wrong, only useful or not in a particular situation. It's just our different ways of looking at the same thing.
I don't see it as a metaphysical term. Metaphysics is reductive, leading to essence. The sensory experience is appearance, emergent, and relative to the experiencer. It's truths are inductive, and its here that we hope for effective maps.
An earth worms world is dirt. A bird's world is the sky. Dirt and sky are not the same thing thought about differently.
Jack CumminsSeptember 11, 2021 at 21:29#5926700 likes
Sometimes facts are arbitrary, with so many aspects of subjective testimony. Are there any 'true' facts which can stand above our own grasp and wishes to develop arguments? So much involves bias and, our own attempts to tell our own individual perspectives.
How do we use knowledge - adequately justified beliefs? We use them to make decisions about possible actions.
...
First off, we don't generally need to establish facts "beyond a reasonable doubt." Sometimes we do, but not usually. Choosing the level of allowable doubt is a matter of human of judgement. You have to take into account the amount of uncertainty and the consequences of being wrong. This is something people do all the time. It's nothing exotic or even particularly philosophical.
Actually, I've always thought that hanging would be a good way to commit suicide if I ever want to do so. When I picture it, I always just tie a slip knot. It is my understanding the fancy-schmancy hangman's noose was developed as a way to break the hangee's neck when they are dropped from a gallows.
I think pain pills and hypothermia might be interesting, a whole psychedelic death journey, with my last moments being perhaps the most exciting. If I did have to hang, I think I'd want to the broken neck. I'd prefer the guillotine though, if I had to offer my neck.
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.Choose whatever words you will, this distinction must remain, since without it there can be no error, and without error we cannot improve our understanding.
:up:
Yeah, this distinction is too important to go away. I'd expect it to be found in every language.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 11, 2021 at 21:46#5926890 likes
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.
What I find curious is that not only can we make the distinction, we can't avoid it. No matter how convinced we might be about reality eluding our beliefs about it, we have no choice but to talk in terms of facts and truth and what is the case. Apo would give us the metaphysical explanation about "sharp cuts" and whatnot. I tend to think in terms of commitment, wagers, that sort of thing.
180 ProofSeptember 11, 2021 at 21:49#5926930 likes
An earth worms world is dirt. A bird's world is the sky. Dirt and sky are not the same thing thought about differently.
We live on the surface of a planet surrounded by gaseous nitrogen with a temperature range between -10 C and 50C and able to perceive a limited range of sound waves and electromagnetic radiation yet the Andromeda Galaxy, x-rays, and quarks are part of our world.
This is problematic for those who want there only to be belief - perhaps that's @T Clark and @Olivier5; If all there is, is belief, then Kelly-Anne Conway wins, since her belief is as valid as theirs.
I think pain pills and hypothermia might be interesting, a whole psychedelic death journey, with my last moments being perhaps the most exciting. If I did have to hang, I think I'd want to the broken neck. I'd prefer the guillotine though, if I had to offer my neck.
Yes, well. We'll save this for another discussion.
What form do you imagine a satisfactory answer to that question to have? To me it's very different than: 'how do helicopters manage to fly?' An answer to helicopter question can help someone build their own. But knowing 'how facts obtain as true' would be useful in what way?
To me such questions are almost like grunts, screeches, chirps...which is to say expressions of mood.
It's a valid question once you read others about how does knowledge become pertinent to the status of fact-hood. Just wondering whether it's the case that only properties of things are facts.
No matter how convinced we might be about reality eluding our beliefs about it, we have no choice but to talk in terms of facts and truth and what is the case.
Perhaps it has something to do with animals being forced to move, forced to act. 'Reality' is something like the model an animal is most likely to act on. The 'total sceptic' could only be some fantasy animal that wasn't forced to act and manifest something like belief.
Apo would give us the metaphysical explanation about "sharp cuts" and whatnot. I tend to think in terms of commitment, wagers, that sort of thing.
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.
I'll go along partway with commitment; but I'd put it in terms of direction of fit. We put the world in order by the way we talk about it. There are apples and chairs because that is what we say there are. We might have spoken differently.
But that's not to invite relativism; the world still inflicts itself upon us; what is the case will be the case regardless of how we express ourselves. We have to divide the world up somehow, we commit to the divisions handed to us by our community because they are functional.
This is problematic for those who want there only to be belief - perhaps that's T Clark and @Olivier5; If all there is, is belief, then Kelly-Anne Conway wins, since her belief is as valid as theirs.
Throw out truth at your peril.
I think the thesis that there's only belief is more an expression of attitude. Because it's itself not offered as a mere belief but as a truth about facts or their absence. 'Call it what you will,' but we sometimes bring statements to the tribe that we want believed and acted upon.
Someone mentioned wagers. I think that's a good way to measure confidence/certainty. The practical world is central here, seems to me.
I think the thesis that there's only belief is more an expression of attitude.
Sure, scepticism has been the fashion for quite some time. If it were kept as an attitude, as a method, there might be no issue. But folk talk of it as if it were a metaphysics; as if Everest really did not have a height until it was measured.
Bayesian analysis works with belief, not with truth.
We had a long discussion years ago in which he insisted that Mount Everest did not have a height until it was actually measured.
I think one could make a case either way, and that it would be a clever game. A particular practical context would treat the issue differently. Perhaps a probability distribution would be used to model the height.
We put the world in order by the way we talk about it. There are apples and chairs because that is what we say there are. We might have spoken differently.
But that's not to invite relativism; the world still inflicts itself upon us; what is the case will be the case regardless of how we express ourselves. We have to divide the world up somehow, we commit to the divisions handed to us by our community because they work.
I basically agree with you, but the 'what will be the case' part doesn't fit well with the rest IMO. I guess you can imagine some proto-matter thing-in-itself stuff that chugs along in the same way under all of our naming, but I'd stress that we live largely in the significant noises and marks we make. Those are even physical differences, right? But that's a small quibble.
We use inherited divisions that have worked, and we tinker with them to make them better or just to entertain ourselves. The world does indeed inflict itself on us, and that seems to be the real foundation of meaning. It's not just a game, though it's cute and illuminating to call it a (language) game. Predators that use signs to coordinate their hunting so that their cubs don't starve aren't playing a game. I think language is just a basic for us, though philosophers operate on the more well-fed playful end for the most part.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 11, 2021 at 22:16#5927200 likes
Perhaps it has something to do with animals being forced to move, forced to act. 'Reality' is something like the model an animal is most likely to act on.
That's very close to how I look at it. Forced to choose, to act, to place our bets, to say one thing rather than another and then be accountable for what we say. All that.
I do still find it slightly curious that this shows up at the language level, but I probably just haven't thought about it hard enough.
Sure, scepticism has been the fashion for quite some time. If it were kept as an attitude, as a method, there might be no issue. But folk talk of it as if it were a metaphysics; as if Everest really did not have a height until it was measured.
I'm no expert on QM, but...strictly speaking, scientifically...does it have height? One could also mumble about how Everest is not the same from moment to moment. If it has a height, its height varies, etc. But climber wouldn't need to worry about all these niceties. They'd just need a trustworthy estimate that allows them to bring the right amount of food and oxygen, etc.
That's very close to how I look at it. Forced to choose, to act, to place our bets, to say one thing rather than another and then be accountable for what we say. All that.
I do still find it slightly curious that this shows up at the language level, but I probably just haven't thought about it hard enough.
I speculate that actual usage is just too complex for more than sketches. English runs on a brain with brains for neurons. Another example: how many bits are necessary to encode the skill of driving safely? Tesla might answer that for us, or at least give us an upper bound.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 11, 2021 at 22:32#5927290 likes
As I think about it, I think the language bit is mainstream pragmatism.
It does still feel a little funny having words like "truth" and "fact" around we've given definitions we can only aspire to use and never reach. I used to think a lot about the role of the ideal, as something that does have practical use. I'll have more time later tonight.
We live on the surface of a planet surrounded by gaseous nitrogen within a temperature range between -10 C and 50C and able to perceive a limited range of sound waves and electromagnetic radiation yet the Andromeda Galaxy, x-rays, and quarks are part of our world.
To me this sounds very clunky. Do you think all of reality is clunky? To me its like rocks and dirt. All these technical things. Part of being in the dirt. I'd rather be the bird.
It does still feel a little funny having words like "truth" and "fact" around we've given definitions we can only aspire to use and never reach. I used to think a lot about the role of the ideal, as something that does have practical use. I'll have more time later tonight.
I do think 'truth' and 'fact' do lots of solid work in the real world, tho. It's us philosophers who can't help trying to do math with them, 'clarify' them, find some hidden center, understand them to point at something unreachable. You mention the ideal having a practical use. That makes sense to me, though maybe it's fairly indirect. I think of birds decorating their nests, suggestions of status, sophistication, sensitivity.
Reply to Banno actually the height of Everest constantly changes, if only by millimeters, due to continental drift. Also major corrections have been made to its height estimates due to variances in measurement. I recall an early measurement came out at exactly 29,000 feet, so the surveyors added 27 - a random number - simply because a round number seemed wrong.
That's exactly the distinction marked by distinguishing belief from fact.
As I noted before, I'm not sure fact/belief/knowledge/truth distinctions are worth the trouble. When we get to the end, the only question that matters is "What do I do now?"
I'm not sure fact/belief/knowledge/truth distinctions are worth the trouble.
Well, I am. It might help Reply to 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tom StormSeptember 12, 2021 at 01:58#5928260 likes
Reply to T Clark 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.
OutlanderSeptember 12, 2021 at 02:12#5928330 likes
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.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 12, 2021 at 02:12#5928340 likes
I reject the notion that the height of the mount came into existence only when the observation was made.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Deleted UserSeptember 12, 2021 at 02:31#5928460 likes
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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?
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 [s]science[/s] 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.
Sure. But there's no point in pushing your solution unless it is the right one; unless it is true.
I think Trump has shown that it's not facts or truth that matter,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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.
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.
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.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 12, 2021 at 04:10#5929000 likes
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...)
: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.)
Srap TasmanerSeptember 12, 2021 at 04:33#5929100 likes
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.
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.)
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.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 12, 2021 at 05:54#5929370 likes
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
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.
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.
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.'
: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.
RobotictacSeptember 12, 2021 at 10:05#5929920 likes
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.
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.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 12, 2021 at 13:26#5930840 likes
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.
On the one hand, I see no reason to think we can separate observation and theory like this. Facts are theory-laden. That's the lesson of mid-century philosophy of science and that's the lesson of neuroscience today.
On the other hand, I do believe reality pushes back, and we need to capture that somehow. It's tempting to think we could take "what is invariant across all theories" as the observation, but I suspect that turns out to be nothing at all. It might turn out to be plenty if we could narrow the field of theories, and I think something like that is roughly what happens in practice. Competing theories are often very close kin, differing in some important local respect, but with an enormous amount in common.
But I don't know how to proceed from there. The only natural way I can think of to classify theories is backwards -- to just sort them by invariance, in essence to sort them by what counts as an observation for them. But that looks like a roundabout way of getting to your position: within a theory family, something will count as a "pure" observation, but only because that's how we defined the family!
I just don't know how to make these two ideas -- both of which I find compelling -- play nice together.
Ennui ElucidatorSeptember 12, 2021 at 14:46#5931150 likes
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.
What matters is up to us, no? Your critique smacks of aesthetics.
It would be nice if facts mattered, but they don’t. The wall pushes back until it doesn’t. Your assertion we can never walk through it is true until it isn’t. What was true is no longer true and what will be true has yet to be. Facts are not substance, but wispy things that evaporate the harder we look or the harder we try to hold them. (Go ahead, start with the block universe.)
Being wrong is like the happiness machine - a cry into the wind about how what is real should somehow carry some weight beyond what we believe or feel - that we have to get back to something that has inherent something regardless of us. A futile hand waving in the face of insurmountable intellectual absence.
Your insistence that being wrong matters does not elevate facts to things which people can be wrong about outside of belief/language, and isn’t just about idealism. We change the world (the facts) all of the time and as our knowledge expands the world stops reacting in the way that it did before. What was a “fact” before is merely the limitation of the utterer to achieve their purpose, not some feature of metaphysics. And even your use of ideas like “climate change is man-mad” are so theory laden that if you turn out to be “wrong” about the causal mechanism but right about the solution, so what? What was important was to save the world as you defined it, not that your theory is not subject to revision as different evidence becomes available.
The cat is on the mat. It has been for years just as you’ve typed about the cat being on the mat with your keyboard and I’ve read it with my eyes and we’ve performatively contradicted any assertion of skeptical doubt. None of that fixes a fact.
A fact is the sort of thing that true statements are about - what makes a truth bearer true. Why put more weight on the word than what it supports? And why insist that there is a territory for our map when all we can deal in is maps?
If something can be confirmed as fact, explain how.
It works like this- If someone says don't drink the water because it is polluted and if you drink it you will get sick and may die, and you observe that this is in fact what happens to the people who drink that water, you might agree the fact is true. Fortunately, nature is wise and kills the ignorant. We can see that with Covid. Our hospitals are so overwhelmed we have called in the National Gaurd to help and we have refrigerator trucks waiting to receive the dead bodies. Hopefully, this will also reduce the population who denies global warming and we can get on with the steps to respond to the reality of climate change.
It would be nice if facts mattered, but they don’t. The wall pushes back until it doesn’t. Your assertion we can never walk through it is true until it isn’t. What was true is no longer true and what will be true has yet to be. Facts are not substance, but wispy things that evaporate the harder we look or the harder we try to hold them. (Go ahead, start with the block universe.)
If we can not walk through a wall, there is a reason for that being true and that truth is very unlikely to change. Here is a cute video explaining why we can not walk through a wall.
And now of course it's neither what nor how, but what a great guy or girl you are. With exceptions: some people are just plain smart, and smart enough to recognize they'll have to row their own boat. And life itself, which can and does administer its own correctives.
A smart person puts a motor on that boat. :rofl:
Srap TasmanerSeptember 12, 2021 at 15:59#5931470 likes
What was a “fact” before is merely the limitation of the utterer to achieve their purpose, not some feature of metaphysics.
Fact as the limit of my will is very good. But we need to aggregate, and there are patterns.
If you have a set of organisms, each is part of the other's environment, but there are also non-organisms, or organisms not considered in the original set, that are part of every organism's environment (every organism in the set, that is). That's a simple starting point for something -- the limit of all of them aggregated by just taking the intersection (a set that's invariant across environments), and I think it's a version of that simple starting point people imagine as "reality", or "nature", or what's "out there". One sort of thing there are facts about.
But there are also patterns in the way we are each other's limits, and it's hard (okay, hard for me) not to reach immediately for game theory there. There is some predictability in the ways we compete with and cooperate with each other, patterns that inevitably arise within sets of organisms like this, and they have that weird double-status of being both something that feels sort of external to us, but that we are also part of and contribute to shaping. So there are things here that look a little like facts, but not the other kind of facts that are the limit of aggregate will, but facts that are aggregates of wills.
That's all terribly abstract, but I hope the point comes through that the limit of your will can be a thing, another person like you with their own will, or the way your will combines with the wills of others in a way you partially control, as everyone does, and partially don't, because no one does.
Ennui ElucidatorSeptember 12, 2021 at 16:02#5931490 likes
So some guy posts a video as to why and you suppose that is true for all eternity. Many a scientist was firmly convinced of many an error, why do you think your (or his) certainty creates facts where other people’s certainty failed to create facts before?
So some guy posts a video as to why and you suppose that is true for all eternity. Many a scientist was firmly convinced of many an error, why do you think your (or his) certainty creates facts where other people’s certainty failed to create facts before?
Because I have some understanding of scientific thinking.
Your post is not following the rules of a good argument. If you want to argue the man in the video is wrong, first you have to pay careful attention to what he said. Then you have to repeat what he said that you do not believe is true. Then you explain why you do not believe what he said is true. That I could be wrong or that mistakes have been made, is not a good argument against what the man in the video said.
A fact is everything. Everything that is is a fact. That's a fact. A fact of life. Every thing is a fact. Evey fact is a thing. Undeniably, Falsifiably, confirmably, liably. Factual knowledge is knowledge about these things. For example: Hannover is written with two n's.
Is a story about a god walking in a garden with a man and woman and that this god cursed them because they ate a forbidden fruit, a fact? Please explain why the story is or is not a fact.
I wasn't speaking about science when I gave my example about WWII, so I'm not sure I follow what you're saying in this part. It wasn't a scientific fact, but a historical one.
Faith is faith because it is based on belief alone, with little to no attention to facts. Science and religion in this sense are not compatible when describing the same situations. Sure, science is not sure proof, but nothing is. It's just that science is the best tool we have for ascertaining facts about the world.
Absent good evidence, we need good reasons to belief so and so. Philosophy can help us here. But if you want to speak about facts and how they relate to religion, I don't think one will get very far.
I very much like your explanation. If I understand you correctly apples are not oranges. Some of what we say is factual and not everything we say is factual. If it is factual, there are proves of that, but if it is fictional there are no proves of what is said.
?Athena I think facts are what true propositions assert. So if the proposition "It is raining" is true, then that it is raining is what's being asserted. That is, it is a fact that it's raining. Not married to that analysis, but it sounds about right to me.
That sounds good to me. However, if we want to be precise we might clarify the time and place it is raining. Unless we are talking with someone in the same place at the same time. However, if you are talking to a child who does not want to wear a coat, it doesn't matter what you say. Just as if someone doesn't want to wear of mask or get a vaccine, it doesn't matter what you say. :lol:
I don't see how the belief that reasoning is the way to resolve conflicts is somehow a democratic principle.
:gasp: You must be a citizen of the US or maybe a member of the Taliban in Afghanistan? What is your understanding of democracy if it is not understanding what reasoning has to do with democracy? Do you understand what freedom of speech has to do with democracy? Science gives us information that is essential to good moral judgment. The whole climate change discussion is about what has caused climate change and if we can and should do something to correct a manmade problem. There are political and economic and life and death ramifications, to understanding science and what behaviors will increase or decrease our shared problems.
We may, for example say factual claims about fictional works. For instance, Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984 is a male and a party member, even though there is no Winston Smith in the actual world.
I've come around to the understanding that the question "What is true?" is not the right one. The one that matters is "What do I do now?" Truth is just a tool we can use to make the decision.
'a fact is the kind of statement that all us reasonable people consider true, for now.'
Gould was one of the primary people who went out as an expert witness at trials involving creationism and intelligent design. This is something he was passionate about. One of the reasons I like his quote is that the passion shows. Your statement isn't strong enough for him, or for me. There is a bite in "perverse."
Let's talk about the Trump/Biden election situation. Truth no longer matters. Biden is president. That's not going to change. The people in power were convinced. What's important now is being able to work with those who don't believe. We can 1) Rant and rave and feel superior 2) Try to convince the disbelievers or 3) Work to reduce the level of animosity so we can work together going forward.
A lot of people who hate Trump want to drive the bus off a cliff as a matter of principle.
We may, for example say factual claims about fictional works. For instance, Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984 is a male and a party member, even though there is no Winston Smith in the actual world.
That is a scary thought. That means talk of the gods is factual and that does not sit well with me. I do not think that is good logic. I think it is pretty important we distinguish between what is real and what is not and that is why I started this thread.
On the one hand, I see no reason to think we can separate observation and theory like this. Facts are theory-laden. That's the lesson of mid-century philosophy of science and that's the lesson of neuroscience today.
On the other hand, I do believe reality pushes back, and we need to capture that somehow.
Okay, the Duhem–Quine thesis, good point. Data are always interpreted and even collected based on some theoretical framework. Yet in the end, when Ms. X observes that with apparatus Y and initial conditions Z, a certain thing happen to that needle in that quadrant, that observation remains a fact.
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 18:12#5932160 likes
A lot of people who hate Trump want to drive the bus off a cliff as a matter of principle.
Well, maybe we would be done with Covid if Trump had not dismantled the department that was about preventing or at least controlling pandemics, and maybe the economic pain would have been much less if the pandemic had been handled properly from the beginning instead of having a President who denied science and lied to everyone, and is still the king of ignorance flooding our hospitals and requiring refrigerator trucks long after everyone should have been vaccinated. Nothing is more important to this thread than understanding the importance of science, and citizens who understand what science has to do with our survival and democracy. But with a president like Trump who appeals to our emotions but not our brains and a mass that does not understand logic and the difference between nonfiction and fiction or what science has to do with democracy, the challenge seems overwhelming.
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 18:27#5932260 likes
But with a president like Trump who appeals to our emotions but not our brains and a mass that does not understand logic and the difference between nonfiction and fiction or what science has to do with democracy, the challenge seems overwhelming.
What's wrong with appealing to emotions? What's so important about the brain? Emotions need a brain to flourish too.
A librarian would put it on the fiction shelves, not the non-fiction shelves. Would you mind stating how older you are? I am betting you were educated after 1958, when we began educating for a technological society with unknown values and changing the organization of our institutions to take care everything for the people who can not be left to think for themselves because life is too complex. Don't worry dear, you do not need to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction because all you have to do is obey the authorities who handle everything for us.
You must be a citizen of the US or maybe a member of the Taliban in Afghanistan? What is your understanding of democracy if it is not understanding what reasoning has to do with democracy? Do you understand what freedom of speech has to do with democracy? Science gives us information that is essential to good moral judgment. The whole climate change discussion is about what has caused climate change and if we can and should do something to correct a manmade problem. There are political and economic and life and death ramifications, to understanding science and what behaviors will increase or decrease our shared problems.
I don't get your point. I value democracy. I value reason. I just don't see that they are necessarily strongly related.
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 18:35#5932310 likes
Don't worry dear, you do not need to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction because all you have to do is obey the authorities who handle everything for us.
But I do worry dear! Science is a story too, eventhough our universities make us believe that it's about facts. What to think of massless Goldstone ghosts eaten by massless gauge bosons to aquire mass? Feyerabend is one of the few who understands this. The fact that science is one story amongst many.
Well, maybe we would be done with Covid if Trump had not dismantled the department that was about preventing or at least controlling pandemics, and maybe the economic pain would have been much less if the pandemic had been handled properly from the beginning instead of having a President who denied science and lied to everyone, and is still the king of ignorance flooding our hospitals and requiring refrigerator trucks long after everyone should have been vaccinated.
Again, I don't get your point. I don't and never did support Donald Trump. I think he was a bad president. What does that have to do with this discussion?
Nothing is more important to this thread than understanding the importance of science, and citizens who understand what science has to do with our survival and democracy.
If that's the point you've been working toward, you set the OP up badly. This thread so far has not been about what you refer to. It's not what I've been talking about. It's a bit late to turn it in that direction.
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 18:40#5932350 likes
Again, I don't get your point. I don't and never did support Donald Trump. I think he was a bad president. What does that have to do with this discussion?
Nothing is more important to this thread than understanding the importance of science, and citizens who understand what science has to do with our survival and democracy.
— Athena
If that's the point you've been working toward, you set the OP up badly. This thread so far has not been about what you refer to. It's not what I've been talking about. It's a bit late to turn it in that direction.
Thank you. I am glad to learn. How should I have begun this discussion? Do you want to start a better thread for looking at the importance of being able to understand the difference between facts and fiction?
Perhaps I was wrong for saying why this subject is so important to me. But I do feel passionate about the importance of understanding logic and science and what that has to do with being a democracy.
The best one is theoretical high energy physics. That story is heavy and very enjoyable science fiction/fantasy. The really strange thing is that it's rooted in reality.
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 18:46#5932420 likes
The best one is theoretical high energy physics. That story is heavy and very enjoyable science fiction/fantasy. The really strange thing is that it's rooted in reality.
I take a longer range view. "Once upon a time there was an objective reality..." I can't remember the rest, but I do remember the ending - "And they lived in reality ever after."
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 18:55#5932520 likes
Not to look askance at a compliment, but are you implying my previous posts were not sane?
I did not mean to post before completing my thought. And the comment about sanity was a reaction to someone else's posts. Thinking emotionally driven thinking is equal to logical thinking is not the quality of post I have been enjoying until today. I think it is time for me to take a walk.
Again, I don't get your point. I don't and never did support Donald Trump. I think he was a bad president. What does that have to do with this discussion?
It is not just about Trump, but what has happened to our nation. A huge portion of our population is voting emotionally and is lead by people intentionally using emotion not reason, to lead them. If we do not realize the difference between emotional thinking verse logic and reasoning nor the difference between non-fiction and fiction, I don't think democracy and liberty have a chance.
I may be in the wrong, but I come to forums with a sense of purpose and hope to engage with those who might share my sense of purpose and are able to expand my knowledge.
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 19:15#5932630 likes
Don't worry dear, you do not need to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction because all you have to do is obey the authorities who handle everything for us.
That's all I don't have to do. I still have no answer why it's not good to base politics on emotion.
That's all I don't have to do. I still have no answer why it's not good to base politics on emotion.
I know there is far more I do not know than what I do think I know. I do not have a problem when a person does not know something, however, when someone asks for information and ignores that information, that tells me the person is not being honest about having a discussion but is playing a game I do not want to play.
There is a saying "do not argue with ignorance". I think that is good advice when someone asks for information and then ignores it.
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 19:31#5932720 likes
I don't get your point. I value democracy. I value reason. I just don't see that they are necessarily strongly related.
Do you think knowledge of logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe, is connected with moral thinking and democracy and liberty? As I understand things that is a very important connection.
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 19:37#5932750 likes
Do you mean I ignore you information and that I'm ignorant?
Let's see can we check the logic of what you said?
If you ignore information that you asked for, can you be well informed, or might it be necessary to pay attention to that information to be well informed? Like how can know something you know nothing about? There is a serious difference between basing our thinking on our feelings, or basing what we think on facts and reasoning. To base what we think on facts and reasoning, we need to learn the facts and the reasoning. To react emotionally requires nothing of us and it does not equal good judgment nor good arguments.
Is reason the controlling force of the universe? There are lots of reasons. Not only the scientific one.
Yes, there are reasons for things being the way they are and science helps us learn the reasons. The number of reasons is unimportant. There are many reasons for life on earth being in big trouble right now. Our only hope is to understand them and if there is anything we can do to make a difference. This is not an emotional response, although our feelings may motivate us to learn and take action, but it is a response that requires a lot and learning and a lot of reasoning, and a willingness to cooperate with others.
180 ProofSeptember 12, 2021 at 19:47#5932830 likes
There is a serious difference between basing our thinking on our feelings, or basing what we think on facts and reasoning. To base what we think on facts and reasoning, we need to learn the facts and the reasoning. To react emotionally requires nothing of us and it does not equal good judgment nor good arguments.
A "serious" difference. I see it all the time in arguments. References to "seriousness", "highly", "badly", etcetera.
To react emotionally rerequires nothing? It requires "serious" thinking! Thinking emotionally. Thinking based on a feeling of justice or love or compassion with fellow Earthlings who don't base their daily lives or politics on the Ratio of the Enlightnment.
InplainsightSeptember 12, 2021 at 19:52#5932880 likes
I don't think reason is the controlling force of the universe, if that's what you're asking. I don't really think there is a controlling force.
You do not think gravity is what holds things to the earth? You don't think we have day and night because the earth turns? You don't think plants and animals die when they do not get water? You think all the forces of nature could suddenly be completely different for no reason at all? Like I know quantum physics gives us portability and not certainty but to think there are no controlling forces opens the possibility that nothing is predictable and I don't think that is very scientific.
I think everyone's thinking is both intellectual and emotional. You clearly are emotional in your opinions.
Yes, but voting with our feelings instead of a deliberate attempt to understand the choices, does not lead to a healthy Republic and it puts our liberty in jeopardy.
You do not think gravity is what holds things to the earth? You don't think we have day and night because the earth turns? You don't think plants and animals die when they do not get water? You think all the forces of nature could suddenly be completely different for no reason at all?
Reason is a human mental process, a tool. Sometimes we use it to try to understand the world and how it works - gravity, planets, biology. You've turned that around to say that somehow that mental process actually controls the behavior of the world. I don't think that's really what you mean to say.
Yes, but voting with our feelings instead of a deliberate attempt to understand the choices, does not lead to a healthy Republic and it puts our liberty in jeopardy.
You seem to think that we can separate the part of us that feels from the part that thinks. Can't be done. At least by me.
If you want to argue the man in the video is wrong, first you have to pay careful attention to what he said.
We are having two different conversations - I am talking philosophy and you are talking something else. If you want to talk about philosophy, then you need to focus on the difference between the sounds/gestures/symbols we make with our bodies, what is capable of being symbolized, and things like “reality” or “what is” or the “state of affairs”. We can’t walk through walls because we can’t walk through walls. That is the “fact” that is being discussed. A person’s understanding of why they can’t walk through a wall (such as a theory of electrons, atoms, and exclusion principles) is about symbols, not about “facts.” Pointing to someone blathering on is not in the least bit responsive to why we can’t walk through a wall. Idiots and physicists alike bounce of a wall when they walk into it.
The question is, what does bouncing off of a wall have to do with “facts” as used in philosophy? The point @Banno is making is not inherently about the generalization that “we can’t walk through walls”, but that there are specific instances of us and walls and the ways in which they interact independent of how we talk about them and our talking is judged right or wrong by how well they fit the “facts.” I am not critiquing generalizations per se (which are clearly abstracted from facts and do not refer to facts themselves), but the idea that facts are assessed by the extent to which they impose themselves upon us independent of our talk.
Your understanding of science (or the video’s creator) simply does not address the conversation being had - it is an aside.
The simple case (to avoid getting wrapped up in abstractions, tenses, etc.) is Banno’s cat. When Banno says, “My cat is on the mat” he is making a factual claim that we assess as “True” or “False” based upon whether his cat is on the mat. The issue is the relationship between his cat, “facts”, and “truth.” Is there some way, independent of his cat being on the mat, that we might say “His cat is on the mat” and claim such is true besides his cat being there? And if we said it and believed it, would that mean we weren’t wrong to say it when his cat is not on the mat?
Banno’s claim is that someone can be wrong and that wrongness is assessable by something outside of language. Is he wrong?
P.S. Banno, though he can speak for himself, will be clear that he isn’t talking about our ability to assess based upon our epistemology (that is, whether our assessment of whether it is true or false meets our epistemic criteria), but rather that regardless of what we know or claim, his cat is on the mat when his cat is on the mat and is not on the mat when it isn’t. No more, no less - a “something out there” which is or isn’t, as the case may be.
Ennui ElucidatorSeptember 12, 2021 at 22:16#5933910 likes
Further to the point, @Athena, is that both materialism and idealism can account for us bouncing off of the wall in the same way.
Which is not say that I am either a materialist or an idealist, but merely that there is a context for a discussion of facts that has nothing to do with a theory of atoms or other claims of the natural sciences.
What matters is up to us, no? Your critique smacks of aesthetics.
It would be nice if facts mattered, but they don’t. The wall pushes back until it doesn’t. Your assertion we can never walk through it is true until it isn’t. What was true is no longer true and what will be true has yet to be. Facts are not substance, but wispy things that evaporate the harder we look or the harder we try to hold them. (Go ahead, start with the block universe.)
Being wrong is like the happiness machine - a cry into the wind about how what is real should somehow carry some weight beyond what we believe or feel - that we have to get back to something that has inherent something regardless of us. A futile hand waving in the face of insurmountable intellectual absence.
Your insistence that being wrong matters does not elevate facts to things which people can be wrong about outside of belief/language, and isn’t just about idealism. We change the world (the facts) all of the time and as our knowledge expands the world stops reacting in the way that it did before. What was a “fact” before is merely the limitation of the utterer to achieve their purpose, not some feature of metaphysics. And even your use of ideas like “climate change is man-mad” are so theory laden that if you turn out to be “wrong” about the causal mechanism but right about the solution, so what? What was important was to save the world as you defined it, not that your theory is not subject to revision as different evidence becomes available.
The cat is on the mat. It has been for years just as you’ve typed about the cat being on the mat with your keyboard and I’ve read it with my eyes and we’ve performatively contradicted any assertion of skeptical doubt. None of that fixes a fact.
A fact is the sort of thing that true statements are about - what makes a truth bearer true. Why put more weight on the word than what it supports? And why insist that there is a territory for our map when all we can deal in is maps?
Hmm. I'll invite @T Clark and @Olivier5 to respond to Ennui, given what they have claimed here.
I don't understand what EE has written well enough to figure out whether I agree or disagree.
I don’t understand what I have written well enough for me to know if I agree or disagree. I was hoping @Banno would tell me.
[quote=“SEP on Facts”]
1.4 Facts, Intentionality, Semantics and Truthmaking
We have mentioned the view that facts may explain actions and mental states and the view that facts are what we know. Facts are also invoked in the philosophy of mind by philosophers who claim that judgments or beliefs enjoy the property of intentionality, of being “directed towards” something, because they represent states of affairs or are psychological relations to states of affairs and that judgments and beliefs are correct or satisfied only if states of affairs obtain, that is, if facts exist. Versions of these claims are given by many philosophers from Meinong, the early Husserl and Russell to Searle (Searle 1983). Analogous claims in semantics are sometimes made about propositions or other truth-bearers: the proposition that Sam is sad represents the state of affairs that Sam is sad and is true only if this state of affairs obtains. Versions of this view are given by Husserl, Wittgenstein and Carnap. See the supplementary document on the History of Philosophies of Facts.
. . .
Does the proposition that Sam is sad represent the state of affairs that Sam is sad? It may be objected that the proposition does not refer to anything as a state of affairs. And once again the friend of states of affairs may retreat to the safer claims that the proposition that Sam is sad is true only if the state of affairs that Sam is sad obtains and that if the proposition that Sam is sad is true, it is true because the state of affairs obtains. Facts make propositions true.
Facts, then, are perhaps qualified to play the role of what makes judgments correct and propositions true. But the theory of correctness and of truth does not require us to accept that there are facts. Indeed it may be thought that the requirements of such a theory are satisfied by the observations that a judgment that p is correct only if p, and that the proposition that P is true only if p. If arguments in metaphysics or epistemology persuade us that there are facts, then we may perhaps appeal to facts in giving accounts of correctness and of truth. In the case of the theory of correctness conditions for judgment and belief the argument that knowledge is of facts together with the view that, contrary to a long and influential tradition, the theory of belief and of judgment presupposes a theory of knowledge (Williamson 2000) may persuade us that facts make judgments and beliefs correct.
The view that facts make propositions or other truth-bearers true is one theory among many of truthmaking. The theory of truthmaking deals with questions at the intersection between ontology, metaphysics and semantics. The view that facts are what make truth-bearers true is the oldest theory of truthmaking. [/quote]
Ennui Elucidator In the light of your comments, how do you contextualize a phenomenon like, say, climate change and what to do?
Philosophically or pragmatically?
Pragmatically I defer to the experts and rely on the system as constructed since it generally gives me stuff that I prefer (even if I find the circumstance distasteful). Radicalism does not actually advance social agenda so far as I know, but it may be a nice counter-point to help people remember there is another way.
Philosophically it depends on the issue (climate change policy, which always seems to be steeped in racism and colonialist profit taking/hoarding, is different than vaccine policy, which seems less steeped in racism and often driven by more immediate concerns of the individuals/communities effected), but in a meta sort of way, the metaphysics don’t matter. I am unconcerned with whether a state of affairs obtains or if I am wrong if my epistemology cannot account for such. I am much closer to using ideas as tools to help obtain my ends and those of people/things within my scope of moral regard (to whatever level they fall within it). Either acting as if is efficacious or it is not. The world imposes itself on me and I try to mold it to my desires using whatever contrivance available. All “facts” are understood contingently and abandoned/modified as necessary. Facts are understood in a political context (all speech is political speech) and assertions of fact which you insist other people acknowledge as being such is a ploy.
I doubt this answers your question, but I am happy to try again if you give me a bit more direction in what kind of an answer you are looking for.
I was concerned that I was straying out of the limits of philosophy but philosophy does draw on all fields of study. However, the discussion today has not been the fun I was I having until today, so I will leave.
Ennui ElucidatorSeptember 12, 2021 at 23:26#5934280 likes
The world imposes itself on me and I try to mold it to my desires using whatever contrivance available. All “facts” are understood contingently and abandoned/modified as necessary.
Fair point. So in the unlikely occasion that you could be having a debate with an Islamic fundamentalist about not allowing females to attend university, how might you go about providing a counter narrative?
I am unconcerned with whether a state of affairs obtains or if I am wrong if my epistemology cannot account for such. I am much closer to using ideas as tools to help obtain my ends and those of people/things within my scope of moral regard (to whatever level they fall within it). Either acting as if is efficacious or it is not. The world imposes itself on me and I try to mold it to my desires using whatever contrivance available. All “facts” are understood contingently and abandoned/modified as necessary. Facts are understood in a political context (all speech is political speech) and assertions of fact which you insist other people acknowledge as being such is a ploy.
I find myself agreeing with this, although differences in our language make that agreement tentative.
Deleted UserSeptember 13, 2021 at 01:42#5934710 likes
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Deleted UserSeptember 13, 2021 at 01:43#5934720 likes
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fact, belief, knowledge, and truth are all pretty much the same thing.
— T Clark
Hanged for one hanged for any, no difference to you?
I'm on the golf course. I look at my lie. I look at the flag. I turn to my caddy and say "What do you think?" He reaches in the bag, pulls out a club, and hands it to me. I turn to make the shot. Now... What do I care about? I don't care if he believes it's the right club. I don't care if he knows it's the right club. I don't care if it's a fact it's the right club. I don't care if it's the truth it's the right club. Just give me the fucking club.
I don't play golf. Everything in this scenario is based on my understanding of golf based on watching "Caddyshack."
I'm on the golf course. I look at my lie. I look at the flag. I turn to my caddy and say "What do you think?" He reaches in the bag, pulls out a club, and hands it to me. I turn to make the shot. Now... What do I care about? I don't care if he believes it's the right club. I don't care if he knows it's the right club. I don't care if it's a fact it's the right club. I don't care if it's the truth it's the right club. Just give me the fucking club.
Not trying to be a dick but how about this? My daughter has a one year old son. She has embraced an Evangelical form of Christianity and believes vaccination is a conspiracy and prayer will suffice to keep her and her boy safe. I believe in vaccination. Do I care and accept this situation as 'her version of truth/facts'? Do I care if it's the right decision? What would you do?
180 ProofSeptember 13, 2021 at 08:58#5936220 likes
Do I accept this as 'her version of truth/facts' or do I take issue with her decision?
Yes.
What would you do?
I'd talk it through with her as much as she's willing without badgering or taking issue with her "faith" directly in order to maintain a trusting open relationship (assuming that's what we have) which, I think, makes persuasion more likely than not.
And failing that I might kidnap my grandchild and disappear until I know either that she's gotten the jab or herd immunity throughout the country has been achieved.
I don't know why I dropped my two bitcoins on this question – I'm neither a father nor grandfather, but I have been gnawing on this very same bone with one of my nephews about his unvaccinated baby mama and his nine year old daughter all summer. It's not been good for my blood pressure trying to reason with this obstinate young fool (with whom, fortunately, I'm still on good terms). Wtf :mask:
Tom StormSeptember 13, 2021 at 09:04#5936260 likes
Reply to 180 Proof I hear you. It's a tough scenario. Sorry, by the way, I should have been clearer this is a hypothetical (like the golf example but more's at stake) my daughter's not in this situation... I do have people around me in similar positions.
And an accurate observation is... one that is true, perhaps?
Yes, and vice versa: a statement claiming to be true must be based on some observation or another. Otherwise you cannot know what is true and what isn't...
SoftEdgedWonderSeptember 13, 2021 at 09:42#5936400 likes
what is accuracy? What makes one measurement more accurate than another?
That's a technicality and will depend on the variables being estimated. The important point here, generically speaking, is that truth and accuracy are BASICALLY THE SAME CONCEPT, except that accuracy involves a more nuanced quantitative aspect in terms of precision. Whereas 'truth' is 1/0 (either you speak the truth or not), one can be more or less accurate.
Edit: in other words, accuracy is to truth what a fuzzy set is to a classic set: very much the same thing but blurred on the edge.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 13, 2021 at 12:20#5937140 likes
Not trying to be a dick but how about this? My daughter has a one year old son. She has embraced an Evangelical form of Christianity and believes vaccination is a conspiracy and prayer will suffice to keep her and her boy safe. I believe in vaccination. Do I care and accept this situation as 'her version of truth/facts'? Do I care if it's the right decision? What would you do?
We're talking about different things. My post was a cutesy and a bit too obscure statement that truth, knowledge, facts, and beliefs are not something we normally use directly in our day to day lives. Is "This is the right club for me to use," a true statement? A fact? A belief? Knowledge? Mostly it's a judgement.
My daughter has a one year old son. She has embraced an Evangelical form of Christianity and believes vaccination is a conspiracy and prayer will suffice to keep her and her boy safe. I believe in vaccination. Do I care and accept this situation as 'her version of truth/facts'? Do I care if it's the right decision? What would you do?
Getting a vaccination is a good and responsible thing in most cases, but not getting one is not normally life-threatening or especially dangerous. For better or worse, your daughter gets a lot of leeway in deciding how to raise her child. And that's a good thing. Do you accept her version of the truth? No. Do you accept her right to raise her child? Yes.
The child comes first. Normally that means the parents get to make the decisions. It's a bad, serious thing to take that away. There's a line - if her decision does put her child in serious, immediate, and avoidable danger, maybe something has to be done to force things.
Tom StormSeptember 13, 2021 at 20:55#5940340 likes
Reply to T Clark Got ya. If life is about anything at all it seems to be about versions of truth.
My post was a cutesy and a bit too obscure statement that truth, knowledge, facts, and beliefs are not something we normally use directly in our day to day lives.
Yep. Agree. Matter of fact, I tend to do everything by blundering through. For me one of the points of a site like this is to see what else is going and if some rigor is worth the effort.
Experience and intuition are not "blundering through." I was an engineer for 30 years. When I took a look at a new project, I could often tell how it would turn out at the very start. I'd seen so many. Later in the process I needed to look at project specific data and apply rigor - calculations, mapping, regulatory and permit evaluation...I wasn't always right in my intuition, but it gave me a framework on how to proceed.
LaguercinaSeptember 13, 2021 at 21:25#5940590 likes
Because it can't exist on its own. The string landscape (but with strings replaced by my own structures) is too beautifull for that. How can such beaurty exist without (a) creator(s)? Is it just eternal? I remember asking my mum where the gods are while staring out of the airplane window. In my teens I ridiculed god(s). My mom was wrong with her gods. After my physics study this continued a while. In my end twenties the gods are back.
I can't validate their existence. I just dreamed of them and knew unconsciously. But know I'm conscious. But I don't give a F..k about them. I'm just happy they created it all. How created them, I asked myself. They are eternal. They even know no time. Then what's the difference with an eternal universe? A big deal!
LaguercinaSeptember 13, 2021 at 22:00#5940870 likes
I'm trying to prompt Laguercina to get to his or her point or argument. But anyway in view of the seeming unlikelihood of satisfaction, I'm losing interest.
It's not that it's wrong so much as that it is so very hard to be clear as to what correspondence consists in.
I took it as necessarily vague. There's a limit to the precision a concept that addresses the everything of everything can reasonably achieve. Basically, this is some way because that is some way.
Tom StormSeptember 14, 2021 at 00:43#5941810 likes
Reply to BrotherB Ik hep niks to klagen - COVID is een probleem voor ons allemaal. :death:
Het is hier half elf - lunch in een uurtje. Let's talk English or we might get in trouble. I suspect you may be on borrowed time. :wink:
A T-sentence can be applied to any statement, and so is more general than correspondence. It has the advantage of being undeniable. Correspondence comes with its own difficulties. SO I'll go with T-sentences.
OutlanderSeptember 14, 2021 at 00:46#5941850 likes
You mean as in it is a fact that you made an accurate observation (or not)?
I mean that facts are accurate observations. This definition purposefully excludes theories, which aren't facts because they are always somewhat hypothetical.
I mean that facts are accurate observations. This definition purposefully excludes theories, which aren't facts because they are always somewhat hypothetical.
I'm not sure what you mean, Olivier. If I accurately observed that it was raining where I happened to be at some specific time, the fact that it was raining at that time and place does not depend on my having observed it. Of course it is also a fact that I observed it, but that is another matter it seems to me.
the fact that it was raining at that time and place does not depend on my having observed it. Of course it is also a fact that I observed it, but that is another matter it seems to me.
If you had not observed that rain, and nobody else did, would it still be a fact that it rained? A fact is not just supposed to be true, it is known to be true, accepted as truth by all reasonable people. And to be accepted as true it must be based on evidence.
It's not that it's wrong so much as that it is so very hard to be clear as to what correspondence consists in.
I think we all know what it consists in, and it is not so much a theory as it is an account or description of an understanding which is basic and ineliminable. As Aristotle put it: "To say of what is that it is not, and of what is not that it is, is falsehood, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not is truth".
The logic of this is also captured by the T-sentence: ''Snow is white' is true iff snow is white'. The logic in both of these formulations is the correspondence of statement with actuality.
If you had not observed that rain, and nobody else did, would it still be a fact that it rained? A fact is not just supposed to be true, it is known to be true, accepted as truth by all reasonable people. And to be accepted as true it must be based on evidence.
I guess we don't understand what facts consist in in the same way then. For me, for example, that there is another planet in our galaxy with humanoid creatures living on it is either a fact or it is not, regardless of whether we can discover the truth of the matter.
If we have different definitions of the term 'fact' what would determine who is right? I would say the only reasonable answer to that would be common usage, and from what I have observed common usage is on my side.
The other point here is that that which is accepted as truth by all people based on evidence may sometimes nonetheless turn out not to be true.
GobuddygoSeptember 14, 2021 at 08:19#5943140 likes
For me, for example, that there is another planet in our galaxy with humanoid creatures living on it is either a fact or it is not, regardless of whether we can discover the truth of the matter.
It's a fact. Somewhere in the Milky Way there are creatures with hands, arms, feet, legs, a digestion system, and a brain. Somewhere in spactime, on the worldline of our galaxy. Humanoid life is not bound to Earth. If we could travel to an average star (traveling at the speed of light we could get there in the wink of an eye though accelerating and decellerating would make our clocks lag behind the clocks on Earth). The chance of meeting otherworldly lifeforms would be high. Humanoids might not yet be present or not present anymore. They span a relatively very short time in creature evolution, an evolution which is inevitable on a rotating planet around a star at the right distance. The universe is full of life. To find the chance of finding life you just have to calculate the chance the planet has the right mass and distance to its star. There have been found Earth-like exoplanets. We have looked at life when observing them (transitions).
Reply to Janus I'm with you. A fact can be unknown and not believed by anyone.
This is the only way in which we can account for error. We thought it was a fact, but we turned out we were wrong. On Olivier5's account, a statements that is believed by all, accurately measured, incorporated into theory, used to generate novelty, would count as a fact.
But all that could occur, and yet the statement turn out to be wrong.
A statement is only ever a fact if it is true. And further, that's all there is to a statement's being a fact.
Reply to Banno It's like what Augustine purportedly said about time (roughly, from memory): " When I think about time I'm sure I understand what it is, but when asked to explain I find that I cannot". Something like that anyway.
It seems to me that the T-sentence is a "Claytons" definition; it's the definition you're having when you're not having a definition. It's well hidden beneath a ton of clay. :wink:
Reply to Janus I think the T-sentence is the best that can be done. Truth is so very fundamental to language that there is nothing that can be said about it, no capacity to set out what truth is in terms of other notions. This should not be at all surprising, since any such theory would have to be subject to itself. Presenting a true statement is what we do with language at a very basic level.
Right, this can be easily shown by word substitution. For any sentence "it is true that" we can substitute " it is a fact that" without any change of meaning, it seems.
The expression found in the T-sentence; "P is true" is the same as P. The "...is true" is redundant.
See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/
This looks like more intellectual masturbation from self-asserted 'analytical' jesters. E.g. from your link:
‘snow is white’ is true just in case snow is white
No shit, Sherlock! This is exactly the correspondence view of truth, not an alternative to it. A sentence is true iff it corresponds to some reality out there...
This is exactly the correspondence view of truth, not an alternative to it.
Yes, as explained above - it has the advantage that the correspondence is explicit: it's truth-functional.
The problem with correspondence is that it is hard to say what that correspondence is; and when you explain that correspondence, in terms of truth-function, it becomes... "intellectual masturbation".
So you can go with correspondence and be wrong, or deflation and be a wanker.
Reply to Olivier5 Well, what is the exact nature of the "correspondence" in your theory?
Folk who work with redundancy will also describe it as correspondence; but it is stricter than other versions of correspondence; those who might say that the correspondence is found in an observation, for instance.
what is the exact nature of the "correspondence" in your theory?
Simple: The sentence ‘snow is white’ is true iff there is such a thing out there called "snow" by people, and iff that thing, when shed solar light on, generally appears white to people.
Reply to Banno You are just trying to confuse yourself, as usual... And you're quite good at it, might I add.
The example "snow is white" speaks of the color of snow. Color is a type of appearance, so naturally the example speaks of how snow appears to us... Another example, e.g. "Snow is frozen water", would be about the nature of snow rather than its appearance. I am therefore not saying that things are like they appear, I am just taking an example which happened to be about how snow appears to us. It could have been about something else.
Reply to Banno The SEP is not a resource I use. It's written for students who need simple guidance on issues such as "How do we know that snow is white?". It is not a useful resource to assess philosophies. Also it cannot possibly be exhaustive, and tends to prioritize anglophone writers and traditions because of its origins - sometimes giving alot of room to super-obscure folks and none to some other much more famous philosopher who happened to write in Spanish, French or Portuguese. This is not a default but certainly it is a bias.
So just because one of my ideas is not given an entry in the SEP is not a concern for me. They cannot know everything. :-)
TheMadFoolSeptember 14, 2021 at 11:02#5943940 likes
Fact is usually contrasted with Fiction. It (fact) differs from truth in that the latter can be assumed in a fictonal world. So, for instance, Sherlock Holmes lives in Baker street isn't a fact but in Conan Doyle's detective sleuth world, it's true. Similarly, but inversely, dragons don't exist is a fact but in the fictional Tolkien's world of elves, hobbits, dwarves, and orcs, that they do is true.
It appears that facts are about the correspondence theory of truth as in propositions that speak of the real world as it is are facts but the correspondence theory of truth has a scope that encompasses fictional worlds too (as described above). Thus a fact corresponds to some quality or state of affairs in what we hold to be the real world but a truth can correspond to the same but in either the real world or a make-believe one.
In short,
1. If I utter a fact, it has to be about the real world.
2. If I utter a truth, it can be either about the real world or a fictional world.
OutlanderSeptember 14, 2021 at 11:19#5944000 likes
This was a great post to read. Not that I keep track of who posts what but from what I can recall and associate with your screen name, probably my favorite. Funny it may sound sarcastic but it's really not. I will admit I'm not a fan of your if X is Y then Z posts. Then again, perhaps logic and morality are more intertwined than we like to think..
So. The obvious questions/responses
You claim to define therefore (more or less absolutely) know a real world which so begets the existence of an alternative. What makes one more real than the other? Your mere interpretation from your (and these are other people's words not mine) barely evolved senses or even simple presence? Ha. Doesn't a charlatan create a world that is real to those who observe and believe?
But for all intents and purposes, let's call this interconnected experience we call life that we can interact and respond either positively or negatively with one another, as "the real world". Was all science and definitions or laws of reality defined 500 years ago? No. What on Earth would make you think, especially in this age of degeneracy and strife, they are now? There will always be more to learn. The only idea of a fact comes from a hypothesis that has yet to be confronted by an opposing truth.
The SEP is not a resource I use. It's written for students who need simple guidance on issues such as "How do we know that snow is white?". It is not a useful resource to assess philosophies. Also it cannot possibly be exhaustive, and tends to prioritize anglophone writers and traditions because of its origins - sometimes giving alot of room to super-obscure folks and none to some other much more famous philosopher who happened to write in Spanish, French or Portuguese. This is not a default but certainly it is a bias.
That's dreadfully inaccurate. Oh, well, I suppose it's down to background and education. Cheers and goodnight.
Reply to Banno Yes, it is probably linked to education and most importantly culture. I find the SEP parochial, but it's probably useful for some as a sort of Junior Woodchucks Guidebook on anglophone academic philosophy.
A T-sentence can be applied to any statement, and so is more general than correspondence. It has the advantage of being undeniable. Correspondence comes with its own difficulties. SO I'll go with T-sentences.
Correspondence seems to leave room for degrees of truth content. How much of a T-sentence has to actually be true versus how much correspondence to the facts a statement has to achieve to be informative and accurate.
But the point is: What is fact and what is fiction?
What counts as fiction for some cultures, like the ancient Greek gods are for scientific culture, or quarks for ancient Greek culture, is fact for others, like quarks for midern scientific culture or gods for ancient Greek culture.
TheMadFoolSeptember 14, 2021 at 12:45#5944230 likes
This was a great post to read. Not that I keep track of who posts what but from what I can recall and associate with your screen name, probably my favorite. Funny it may sound sarcastic but it's really not. I will admit I'm not a fan of your if X is Y then Z posts. Then again, perhaps logic and morality are more intertwined than we like to think..
So. The obvious questions/responses
You claim to define therefore (more or less absolutely) know a real world which so begets the existence of an alternative. What makes one more real than the other? Your mere interpretation from your (and these are other people's words not mine) barely evolved senses or even simple presence? Ha. Doesn't a charlatan create a world that is real to those who observe and believe?
But for all intents and purposes, let's call this interconnected experience we call life that we can interact and respond either positively or negatively with one another, as "the real world". Was all science and definitions or laws of reality defined 500 years ago? No. What on Earth would make you think, especially in this age of degeneracy and strife, they are now? There will always be more to learn. The only idea of a fact comes from a hypothesis that has yet to be confronted by an opposing truth.
Let's just say, facts are ontological entities, in a sense what is, really is and truth is epistemological, what we know or think we know.
TheMadFoolSeptember 14, 2021 at 12:46#5944240 likes
For me, for example, that there is another planet in our galaxy with humanoid creatures living on it is either a fact or it is not, regardless of whether we can discover the truth of the matter.
What if you can't even imagine being able to discover the truth of the matter? We can imagine an extraordinary spaceship that would allow us to visit every planet in the galaxy, one after another, in a couple days, and we're pretty sure we would be able to recognize humanoid critters as such when we arrived on each of them. Maybe that's all we need to talk of their existing or not as fact, even if it's not practically within our ability to establish it. We could even count them.
But then there's "How many blades of grass are there in my front yard?" Seems like a simple but terribly impractical counting problem, but is "my front yard" clearly circumscribed? If it's not, no matter how quickly and carefully we count, there's no fact of the matter here. Is what counts as "a blade" clearly defined? If not, same problem. Sometimes questions like this do have imaginable but not practical answers and sometimes they don't.
If we have different definitions of the term 'fact' what would determine who is right? I would say the only reasonable answer to that would be common usage, and from what I have observed common usage is on my side.
I don't think so. The common usage is rather: "a statement recognized as true by many folks, and beyond reasonable doubt". And for that to be the case, there needs to be evidence for the statement, therefore some accurate observation must be done.
Reply to Olivier5 I thought long ago it was agreed we can not trust what we think we see and our experience of the same thing may not agree. Just because we think it, it does not make it true. If Israel and Palestine taught the same history there would be less friction between them and the US is waking up to a different understanding of confederate statues.
My copy of the Democracy Series grade school textbooks begins each book with a list of democratic characteristics. One character of a democracy is the pursuit of truth. We can see from the examples I have given that agreeing on truth can lead to peace instead of war. That makes determining what a fact is very important.
If we have different definitions of the term 'fact' what would determine who is right? I would say the only reasonable answer to that would be common usage, and from what I have observed common usage is on my side.
— Janus
I don't think so. The common usage is rather: "a statement recognized as true by many folks, and beyond reasonable doubt". And for that to be the case, there needs to be evidence for the statement, therefore some accurate observation must be done.
Excellent comments and Olivier I want to highlight your use of the legal term, "beyond a reasonable dought". However, Janus, you immediately made a Black man's trail in the South flash to mind. Horrible things have happened in the South because prejudice can so interfere with our judgment.
As we shift from believing Darwinism to an understanding of the effect of poverty, our approach to social justice is changing. The democratic characteristic of equal opportunity requires things like free lunches because hunger interferes with the ability to learn and for sure we need to work on equal education because our children do not have an equal opportunity without equal education. Our understanding of facts makes a huge political difference.
So how do you propose determining what is a fact and what isn't, if you cannot trust what you see?
In a trial, this is done by calling in many witnesses and questioning each one of them, and a jury of peers listens to the arguments and then debates a person's innocence or guilt. This is not perfect and it would be a whole lot better if attorneys were wo/men of integrity who understood the importance of knowing the truth and trial by jury, and if they lived for these values instead of a quick easy buck. Sigh, I think my love of the principles of democracy colors my arguments. But let us move to science.
When Moa became the leader of China he had absolute power and made very bad farming decisions. This was called the Great Leap.
Wikipedia:The Great Leap resulted in tens of millions of deaths, with estimates ranging between 15 and 55 million deaths, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest famine in human history.
In modern countries today we have leaders who ignored the science of dealing with a pandemic and millions of people are dying. Something that could be avoided with leadership that relies on science. Truth in science is about observation and testing what is thought to be true with experiments and peer review. That is the best we can do to have some certainty about facts and our survival and liberty can depend on good science.
The actual referents of a belief are it's immediate physical causes; so whenever a speaker asserts a so-called "false" belief, any alleged epistemic error exists solely in the minds of the listeners, due to their misidentification of the causes of the speaker's assertion.
?Athena And good science depends on good observation.
No, we must NOT stop at observation. For so many reasons we can be totally wrong and the link I posted is an excellent explanation of that. Please, pay attention to the explanation of fast and slow thinking before making another argument.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 14, 2021 at 17:31#5945380 likes
Here's another stab at what I've been trying to get at: within a given framework, there will be questions that count as questions of fact and ones that don't. There's no super-general framework where everything is a question of fact. It's shockingly easy to misuse part of a framework and think you're entitled to facts when you're not (either because you haven't brought along enough of the framework for the fact-question to work, or because you're trying to shove a piece of one framework into another).
In my front-yard example, you get to ask exactly how many blades of grass there are if you've already settled what counts as being in the front yard and what counts as a blade of grass. That is, if you have in place a framework for which that's a factual question. That doesn't make it a factual question in every framework, and you don't get to assume that frameworks that generate facts where you want them trump other frameworks; all you can say is that this framework does what you want.
In my front-yard example, you get to ask exactly how many blades of grass there are if you've already settled what counts as being in the front yard and what counts as a blade of grass
These are actual botanical questions, and there are agronomic/ecologic methods to estimate via sampling the biomass per species in a given area or field. These methods can reliably estimate the population density (nb of plants per m2), and other important characteristics such the average number of stem per plant, the average number of grains per stem, and the average weight of one grain (say of wheat, or barley). This is useful in case of crop failure as it allows scientists (or farmers, as it's easy to do) to pinpoint the moment in the life of the crop when something wrong happened to the plants, and measure precisely the impact it had on yields. In forestry, cubing a forest helps you estimate its yield prior to harvest.
So you are right that there exist frameworks (agriculture, forestry, ecology as a science) where such facts matter and are measured.
It does not make them less factual. Just because all facts (observations) happen within a certain theoretical framework does not imply that they are not useful as facts, that you can't rely on when making decisions within this framework.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 14, 2021 at 19:10#5945970 likes
It does not make them less factual. Just because all facts (observations) happen within a certain theoretical framework does not imply that they are not useful as facts, that you can't rely on when making decisions within this framework.
Exactly what I was saying, yes. I was relativizing facts, I guess, but I think fact-within-framework is the only kind we have.
I can see an issue when the framework is chosen and or enforced purposefully to avoid certains facts to come out. Or more simply: certain frameworks leave certain facts out, and others tend to bring them up. I am thinking of race or gender or poverty, and how certain official statistical frameworks can be biased towards the positive, and hide some social ills more than reveal them. I guess this is a risk especially in social sciences.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics, they say.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 14, 2021 at 20:23#5946400 likes
Absolutely. And though the conflict is actually between frameworks, it might be waged as a contest between facts.
(Like the priest who says to the vicar, "Why are we fighting? We both work for the same Guy. So you go forth and teach His teachings in your way, and I'll go forth and teach His teachings in His.")
For the conflict between frameworks, I got nuthin'.
For the conflict between frameworks, I got nuthin'.
Methodological frameworks combining several methodological frameworks, e.g. quants and qual, in-depth interviews of a few informants and mass surveys. It actually exist in social sciences under the (confusing) name "theory-based approaches". Basically the idea is to approach an issue from several different angles.
Reply to Srap Tasmaner Are these "frameworks" background, taken as granted in order to state a fact, or are they conceptual frames, within which coherence is to be maintained?
I don't have a theory to offer, but I'd think we're looking for a battery of concepts with how those concepts are related and practices for applying those concepts. Anything from language-games to astrophysics.
For everyday life, there are candidates like Sellars's "manifest image" or folk psychology, but everything's muddled and open to debate. Sellars, for instance, talks about the manifest image updating itself selectively to keep up with the times, but it's still fundamentally different from the "scientific image".
I would hate to end up now in a discussion of incommensurability. Like I said, not offering a theory, just some thoughts and it seems plain to me that fact claims have to fit in with a whole battery of other concepts, beliefs, commitments, practices. If those are all presupposed, we get to argue about whether something's a fact; when those are not shared, or sufficiently shared, we talk past each other or get into conceptual muddles. (Like whether Everest has a height.)
Srap TasmanerSeptember 14, 2021 at 21:35#5946830 likes
Srap TasmanerSeptember 14, 2021 at 21:41#5946890 likes
Look at creationism. At some point they figured out they weren't making much progress just disagreeing with the top line claims of biologists and paleontologists, so they started attacking radio-carbon dating. Gotta take on the whole framework, and that's a step in that direction.
Reply to Srap Tasmaner I don't see a problem with us not being able to establish the truth of the matter. Maybe absolute precision, as you say, is not possible in some cases. So, maybe it is impossible to establish the exact boundary of your front yard (especially if it is not fenced), but nonetheless some allowance of error could be introduced; you could say it is a fact that the number of blades of grass in your front yard is between X and Y or it is not.
I think all we are discussing is the logic of our understanding of what constitutes a fact, and I don't see that that logic demands that we be able to determine the truth.I'll give you another example; I live on 15 acres with about 10 acres of forest and the rest pasture with a fair bit of long grass. The property is fenced. Now I have no hope of discovering how many snakes are within my fences right at this moment, but I can't help believing that there is a fact of the matter. Once you start thinking about it, the possible examples of facts which we have no hope of confirming or denying seems almost endless.
Tom StormSeptember 14, 2021 at 21:52#5947020 likes
It makes the question of a god's existence intelligible. Religious people will tell you that when they pray they can feel God's presence. So there's a practice that helps them answer a question that counts as factual for them.
Countering that with "no you didn't" isn't particularly effective. If you want to convince someone that their religious experience is not what they think it is, you have to offer them a different framework, and indeed people sometimes come to see their own experiences in a different light.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 14, 2021 at 22:00#5947060 likes
Countering that with "no you didn't" isn't particularly effective. If you want to convince someone that their religious experience is not what they think it is, you have to offer them a different framework, and indeed people sometimes come to see their own experiences in a different light.
Indeed, I came to the conclusion they exist, being a particle physicist and former atheist. But it's their creation that I like the best.
Reply to Srap Tasmaner It is only inaccessible as a practical matter, but if determination of the truth is not possible then that still rules out the definition that Olivier5 gave that a fact is an accurate observation it seems.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 14, 2021 at 22:10#5947160 likes
But I might drop a link here to an article that came up in an earlier thread in determinism.
Indeterminism, causality and information: Has physics ever been deterministic?
Physics has always been deterministic. The wavefunction evolves determined. It collapses non-unitarily but hidden variables can rescue determinism and even offer a way for God to interact with his creation.
Tom StormSeptember 14, 2021 at 22:25#5947250 likes
Need two criteria first, for "in the yard" and "blade". If it's bounded by sidewalks, maybe, that's your first one. Maybe length for the second, whatever. Without those, there's nothing to do. If you have those, the only tricky part is working through an irregularly arranged collection like this, and the usual trick is to just go by adjacency and mark what you've done so you don't get lost. (You could count the number of spaces on a paint-by-number this way.) Marking would also allow you to work in parallel with many others to speed up the task.
If I were smart I could come up with a design for a machine to do it, but the low-tech way should work. It'll just take a while.
Problem?
Tom StormSeptember 15, 2021 at 00:22#5947750 likes
I don't know. It's an odd thing, the physical limitation. The number of possible chess games, for instance, is clearly a large but finite number. I used to hear that the number was larger than the number of atoms in the known universe. (No idea how anyone figured that out.) But playing through every possible game -- and finally figuring out if chess is a draw or white wins! -- is something that, as they say in the theory of computation, Zeus could do. (Unlike counting the real numbers, say.)
I suppose one way to approach the simple question of whether there is an exact number of leaves in your state would be to take just one tree -- a nice small one! -- and count the leaves. You'll get a number. And then you argue that the total number is the sum of the numbers you would get for each tree by doing the same. You can't get them, there are just two many physical obstacles, but you can prove that a single tree does have an exact number of leaves at a given moment, and other trees are like this one in the respects that matter, therefore they will all have an exact number of leaves.
And as @Olivier5 pointed out, there are sound statistical techniques for estimating this sort of thing, if for some reason you need an actual number. My simple little argument only shows that there's nothing incoherent -- to me, anyway -- about talking about such a number we'll never be able to know.
Is there something I'm missing?
Insofar as the framework business is playing a role here, it's obviously in how we define tree, leaf, leaf of a tree (so not the leaves of vines climbing on the tree), state boundaries, how counting works, blah blah blah. There's a lot, but I think all of it together is consistent with treating "number of leaves on all the trees in my state" as theoretical quantity whose value we happen not to be able to determine.
if determination of the truth is not possible then that still rules out the definition that Olivier5 gave that a fact is an accurate observation it seems.
Once more, a fact is more than just something true. It is a statement known to be true, established, that only a madman or a liar would deny. That level of certainty can't be based on conjectures. It must be empirical.
And as Olivier5 pointed out, there are sound statistical techniques for estimating this sort of thing, if for some reason you need an actual number. My simple little argument only shows that there's nothing incoherent -- to me, anyway -- about talking about such a number we'll never be able to know.
A measurement is ALWAYS an estimation anyway. There is no way you can know the absolute exact length of your dinner table. But all you need, for any purpose, is an accurate enough estimation. The same applies to the number of trees in state X.
TheMadFoolSeptember 15, 2021 at 06:16#5949670 likes
Look at creationism. At some point they figured out they weren't making much progress just disagreeing with the top line claims of biologists and paleontologists, so they started attacking radio-carbon dating
At least they know science's weak spot! Kudos to them! Scientists should respect an opponent who's aware of their Achilles' heel.
Once more, a fact is more than just something true. It is a statement known to be true, established, that only a madman or a liar would deny. That level of certainty can't be based on conjectures. It must be empirical.
OK, we still don't agree. For me there are many facts which could be established as such, but never will, That they are not established doesn't change the fact that they are facts.
For example, imagine a murder trial where it is established beyond reasonable doubt that John Axeman murdered Miss Rabbit. Let's say he's innocent, but he goes to prison for life anyway, Only he knows he didn't murder Miss Rabbit. Then, being a diabetic with cardiovascular disease, he dies 2 years later. It remains a fact, I would say, that he didn't murder Miss Rabbit, even though it will never be established as such.
. It remains a fact, I would say, that he didn't murder Miss Rabbit, even though it will never be established as such.
The only reason you can say this is that, in your story, it IS established that the dude is innocent.
You are welcome to go for a personal meaning of the word 'fact'. Mine ?is simply the common use of the term in today's English. Don't take my word for it. Webster Merriam has these definitions:
2: a piece of information presented as having objective reality ("these are the hard facts of the case")
3: the quality of being actual ("a question of fact hinges on evidence")
4: a thing done ("accessory after the fact")
The only reason you can say this is that, in your story, it IS established that the dude is innocent.
No, it's not. In the story his innocence is never established. Most of us realize that it is likely that some of those in prison are actually innocent even if that fact may never be determined.
My experience tells me that this way of thinking of facts is in accordance with common usage. You apparently have a different understanding. There is a fact of the matter as to which of us is correct even though it may never be established.
Your second two definitions from Webster accord with my understanding. 'The quality of being actual does not depend on our establishing it, and nor does a thing being done rely on anyone knowing about it.
Both @Banno and I have acknowledged that there are two common usages regarding the term 'fact'. The first established facts are in accordance with the ordinary parlance of "the encyclopedia is full of facts" and the other common usage is facts as actualities or states of affairs. Obviously dictionaries are not full of worldly states of affairs.
Anyway, if you don't acknowledge these usages which are contra your definition, it's no skin off my nose.
TenderBarSeptember 15, 2021 at 08:59#5950430 likes
It's a fact that I lie
It's a lie if not
As a matter of fact
Matter is fact
Does it matter?
If it's a lie?
If it's true?
Are these words facts?
Who's the judge?
Judge fictionfact
Judging facts are guilty
Contaminated with fantasy
Fantasy with lies
All entangled to
Collapse to one
Of many actual
Actuality of facts
Superimposed
Ooooh you facts
With the power to
Set us free
Or imprison us
Imprison us in your
Tender factual cage
Free us from
Your eternal painful grip
As
A fact of matter
Yes it bloody is. You wrote: "Let's say he's innocent". This immediately establishes his innocence in your narrative. This is the only reason why you can write later on: "It remains a fact that he didn't murder Miss Rabbit".
Both Banno and I have acknowledged that there are two common usages regarding the term 'fact'. The first established facts are in accordance with the ordinary parlance of "the encyclopedia is full of facts" and the other common usage is facts as actualities or states of affairs. Obviously dictionaries are not full of worldly states of affairs..... if you don't acknowledge these usages which are contra your definition, it's no skin off my nose.
I am simply not aware that the word "fact" is used for things unknown, for things that may or may not be the case. But if you want to use if for "things we don't know of", it's no skin off my nose either. I just won't be able to understand you.
There has to be some hierarchy for beliefs. Perhaps we could define one here. I would say a scientific law would be the highest, if not equivalent with a 'fact', but then what is a factoid? And of course an opinion would be lower, with non-disproved hypothesis being higher than that but of course lower than the rest. But where would a discredited/disproved hypothesis be, on par with a lie or incorrect statement?
- Scientific law - The sun is a ball of gas.
- - Fact - The sun is real.
- - - Factoid - The sun is hot.
- - - - Non-disproved hypothesis (rational or plausible) - The sun might expand/explode or something and kill us all shortly.
- - - - - Opinion - The sun is good.
- - - - - - Discredited hypothesis (irrational or unrealistic) - The sun revolves around us.
- - - - - - - Lie - The sun is a death ray or gamma burst from so far away it appears the same for millennia. (or is it?)
Reply to Srap Tasmaner A term more fitted for an historian, I guess. Historical facts are well established in recent times, eg the 20th century. But when speaking of say antiquity, an historian tries to carefully ascertain facts. He will never totally establish them stricto sensu.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 15, 2021 at 19:35#5953090 likes
Reply to Olivier5
Sorry, what I was trying to ask was whether Collingwood is any help with this: some people use "fact" to mean a state of affairs that does or did obtain; others seem to mean our descriptions of such things. (It seems a little easier to convince people to use "true" only for propositions, but "the truth" is still out there (heh) in the wild, as a phrase.) I've been trying to go around the whole issue, or dissolve the issue, or something, so I was just curious.
PhilofileSeptember 15, 2021 at 20:55#5953360 likes
What's a fact? It's a fact that many suffer from some kind of psychosis here! Is that really a question in philosophy? What wrong road was taken on the philosophical paths?
Deleted UserSeptember 15, 2021 at 21:06#5953440 likes
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Deleted UserSeptember 15, 2021 at 21:11#5953490 likes
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Reply to Srap Tasmaner I long used as my moto: "Truth is in the well". It comes from an aphorism of Democritus, "Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well". The image suggest that truth was thrown into a well, in a sort of murderous act, by people who did not want it to come out. Which is true, more often then not.
So yes, truth is out there, but hidden. It is not obvious and easily accessible by all. In order to discover it, we need to search for it with care. And once we discover it, we often have to fight off those who threw it in the well.
Hence the need for strong empirical data (hard facts) to establish the truth, in my view.
Truth coming from the well armed with her whip to chastise mankind, by Jean-Léon Gérôme
(scary...)
PhilofileSeptember 15, 2021 at 21:19#5953580 likes
Yes it bloody is. You wrote: "Let's say he's innocent". This immediately establishes his innocence in your narrative. This is the only reason why you can write later on: "It remains a fact that he didn't murder Miss Rabbit".
It is stipulated that, in the story, he is innocent, but that his innocence is never established. Are you denying that there might be prison inmates who are innocent of their purported crimes?
Two definitions have been given which reflect two different common usages. One conceives of a fact as a proposition that states an actual state of affairs and the other conceives of a fact as an actual state of affairs. What more do you want?
PhilofileSeptember 15, 2021 at 21:21#5953600 likes
Two definitions have been given which reflect two different common usages. One conceives of a fact as a proposition that states an actual state of affairs and the other conceives of a fact as an actual state of affairs. What more do you want?
My definition: a fact is an accurate observation of a given state of affairs, independently verifiable and often verified by many, and thus attaining a high degree of certainty in public discourse.
Funny - I was going to ask the same question. We've had some strong hints here. I can imagine some arguing that a fact is an intersubjective agreement on a matter.
You do recognize your answer is actually a non sequitur, yes? And what, exactly, do you suppose "an actual state of affairs" is?
I have no idea why you would say my answer is a "non sequitur". An actual state of affairs is a situation or event which exists or has existed, as opposed to an imagined or fictional state of affairs. What else?
Tom StormSeptember 15, 2021 at 22:18#5954210 likes
...dismissive of what that is or how to account for it.
Well, no; I answered that too, explicitly, like so... Quoting Tom Storm
My preoccupation is how do we determine a fact is a true statement?
First, a fact is a true statement by definition. There are no facts that are not true. SO your preoccupation is ill-formed.
Second, the word "determine" is misplaced, since what you are asking, presumably, is when one ought believe; and that's not determinate. You can believe whatever you like. That doesn't make it true. That is, you are asking a normative question but looking for an epistemological answer.
Third, it would be very odd if there were a rule that set out when a statement ought be believed in every case. The closest we can get is a T-sentence.
This thread is so long because you and a few others havn't understood the answer.
First, a fact is a true statement by definition. There are no facts that are not true. SO your preoccupation is ill-formed.
Second, the word "determine" is misplaced, since what you are asking, presumably, is when one ought believe; and that's not determinate. You can believe whatever you like. That doesn't make it true. That is, you are asking a normative question but looking for an epistemological answer.
Third, it would be very odd if there were a rule that set out when a statement s true in every case.
This thread is so long because you and a few others havn't understood the answer.
Excellent. Thank you. I'm not good at this stuff.
Deleted UserSeptember 15, 2021 at 22:35#5954390 likes
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The usage as an act is found in Jane Ausitn, "...gracious in fact if not in word"; and Milton, Paradise Lost, "He who most excels in fact of arms". But as something that really occurred, in Thirlwall, "...one fact destroys this fiction". 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 J. Hayward tr. Biondi's Eromena 21 They resolved that the Admirall should goe disguised?to assure himselfe of the fact." It seems the point is one of contention).
Deleted UserSeptember 15, 2021 at 22:37#5954440 likes
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This from a man utterly dismissive of definition when it suits his purpose. Meh, indeed!
If there is an issue with what I have said, set it out.
You apparently want to ask when we should believe this or that statement. I don't see any reason there should be a general case here; but moreover, the examples presented turn out to have profound difficulties.
By changing the focus form truth to belief we are able to explain error and differences of opinion.
Further, I did not ask what the usages of "fact" were, instead I asked what a fact is - you can go back and see.
Usages are what tell you what a fact is (conceived to be).
In regard of this, you might have said that a fact appears to be a kind of descriptive proposition that says something about something that is generally accepted as accurate wrt to appropriate criteria, and that being accepted as a fact, was accorded value and currency non-facts neither get nor have. Or something like. This if you had thought about it at all.
You seem to be speaking about what is generally accepted as fact. What is generally accepted as fact need not be fact. What is generally accepted as fact may be reasonable to believe, but that is a different matter. I have thought about it, but obviously not in the strange way you seem to have.
Think on this: how do you know that the Bishop moves diagonally? What observation supports this?
Do you really think that the Bishop moves diagonally because that's the only movement you observe? Did you conclude that there is only a very high probability of the Bishop moving diagonally, and sometimes it moves otherwise?
Tom StormSeptember 15, 2021 at 22:47#5954550 likes
Reply to Tom Storm Indeed. It's not that the Bishop can only move diagonally, but that doing otherwise is not playing chess.
So many facts are not decided empirically.
Some twit will try to argue that one learns the rules by observation.
Learning to play Chess is learning to participate in an activity, it is choosing to follow a set of rules within a community. Here's an example of a fact that is not empirically determined.
Add this to the criticism discussed earlier, that all observations are theory-laden.
Our empiricist and pragmatist friends - @Tom Storm, @Olivier5 - have been misled by considering only a limited number of examples of the use of fact. They have the answer and look only to examples that support heir contentions.
A discussion along those lines might be more help to @Athena, too, in dealing with her faithful nephew. I'm confident it woudl be more productive than scientistic fairy-tails.
Tom StormSeptember 15, 2021 at 23:26#5954790 likes
Our empiricist and pragmatist friends have been misled by considering only a limited number of examples of the use of fact.
Yes. Part of the challenge with this word 'fact' is that 'facts' are often conceptualized as a kind of ammunition to be used against those who hold to different 'facts'. There are fact wars. Facts have totemic power. We've come to see facts in specific and perhaps limited terms as you are suggesting. The chess example being a good case.
Part of the challenge with this word 'fact' is that 'facts' are often conceptualized as a kind of ammunition to be used against those who hold to different 'facts'.
Yep; that's exactly why empiricism tries to militarise the term, as can be seen in this thread. @Athena may have. a desire to take advantage of that process in her discussions with her nephew. Denying a distinction between belief and truth might look like a good move, but it plays into the hands of those who would peddle bullshit; identifying bullshit relies on identifying a difference between what is true and what someone believes.
Tom StormSeptember 15, 2021 at 23:49#5954920 likes
Reply to Banno That's useful. On a tangent - is it your understanding of phenomenology that the notion of 'what is true' is understood as an intersubjective understanding or belief rather than 'true' in the way we have been exploring here?
Srap TasmanerSeptember 15, 2021 at 23:59#5955000 likes
is it your understanding of phenomenology that the notion of 'what is true' is understood as an intersubjective understanding...
I'm not the one to answer this - perhaps @Wayfarer? Interesting that he hasn't chimed in - or if he did I missed it.
I'm not in favour of the term "intersubjective". I get an image of two homunculi sitting watching screens that display the outside world, and sending messages to each other on a teletype, neither confident that there is anything outside their small cell.
That is, it's a misleading term, setting up or deriving from a false picture.
Rather what we say and do are embedded in the world and in a community, both of which provide limits. Those limits are shared, as opposed to intersubjective.
I'd lean toward taking bullshit as speaking without warrant, and I don't need truth to judge that.
I meant bullshit as in saying what suits one's purpose - not speaking without warrant so much as speaking without regard for the truth. After Frankfurt.
Tom StormSeptember 16, 2021 at 01:43#5955450 likes
I agree that a fact is a statement. You aver it's a true statement but you have no standard for truth.
So presumably you are happy to call untrue statements facts.
I don't see any progress being made in your reply. It doesn't address the very specific criticisms provided above. It doesn't set out identifiable issues with what I have said.
Deleted UserSeptember 16, 2021 at 03:56#5956530 likes
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...seeing the cat on the mat is an event, not a fact...
...so whatever the "event"you are asking for, you are both accusing me of having presented it instead of a fact, and then demanded I present what you say I already presented....
First, your question is ill-formed. Facts are always true.
Second, if what you are asking is when is a statement true, then perhaps you are asking when a statement ought be believed. There is no general answer to that question.
Oh, it's you. Fuck off, sockpuppet.
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 04:46#5956660 likes
Of course not. The Greek gods were once a fact. Not anymore!
Shitty shitty BANG BANG!
Of course Shitty shitty BANG BANG! Is that not the overarching ethos of the philosophy forum dot com?
But the Greek gods are in fact, still a fact. It is just that we know much less about them today. All knowledge about them, not belief but knowledge, which includes the negative into which us moderns categorize the Greek gods, is fact. We must have a criterion for knowledge, and criterion is what separates knowledge from belief and gives us fact.
For example Zeus is real to me, not as a bearded dude on the throne of mount Olympus, but as a really cool character in the Greek pantheon, and isva metaphor for many things in real life. But fuck metaphors ya know.
It gets tricky because criterion then becomes subject to belief. So it is very easy to dismiss certain categories of fact because we can always relegate a category of fact to a belief by referring to belief in its criterion.
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 05:10#5956810 likes
But then fact fights back by declaring all frames to be facts in themselves, and now we are discovering frames as facts. I think Nietzsche called this perspectivism...the M fer
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 05:15#5956860 likes
Not for me. My gods reside outside the universe. Maybe they can interact with us by means of hidden variables (a fact!), but I would be very disappointed if they did!
So then, do you consider facts, rather, is your critetion of strict fact that it be verifiable in the known universe, preferably via empirical means?
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 05:16#5956870 likes
It's prominent on my disordered shell. I used the book for my scription: "forms of realism". I was surprised to find it on the table at the professor's (Radder) office.
Yes, professor Radder. Genius man, gentle soul, loving husband. Too bad what happened, you heard he was poisoned by anthrax in his cocaine, right?
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 05:33#5956980 likes
Reply to Nosferatu if he contacts me, i will be the happiest lil fella on the globe
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 05:34#5957000 likes
I hope you used email. Its easier to trace, and you'll more than likely get credit where credit is due
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 05:44#5957050 likes
Reply to Nosferatu I heard about those students. Authorities found them dead with egg on their face, little did they know it was anthrax laced cocaina.
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 05:46#5957060 likes
I agree that a fact is a statement. You aver it's a true statement but you have no standard for truth.
@Janus and @Banno are arguing from the point of view of God, while you and I are arguing from a pragmatic human POV. Hence the disagreement. The moment they realize that they are not God, they will understand that facts can only be established by us humans via some evidence...
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 06:31#5957410 likes
Is that avatar of yours dr. Strangelove? "Wollt euch den totalen Krieg? Mhihihih..." Great movie! All of Kubrick.
Indeed! Merchwuerdigichliebe is Dr. Strangelove's german name. My greastest inspiration after Bugs Bunny. And Kubrick is definitely the greatest director ever, no competition
MerkwurdichliebeSeptember 16, 2021 at 06:44#5957460 likes
Reply to Nosferatu I'll have to check out that director, im unfamiliar with his work
Janus and Banno are arguing from the point of view of God, while you and I are arguing from a pragmatic human POV. Hence the disagreement. The moment they realize that they are not God, they will understand that facts can only be established by us humans via some evidence...
What does this bit of nonsense have to do with anything in this thread?
The moment they realize that they are not God, they will understand that facts can only be established by us humans via some evidence...
It has nothing to do with being God; it ironically is just the opposite; it has to do with being fallible. If you don't acknowledge that some of what are generally taken to be facts may in fact not be, then I don't know what else to say to you except "keep digging".
HeracloitusSeptember 16, 2021 at 08:55#5957790 likes
If you don't acknowledge that some of what are generally taken to be facts may in fact not be [facts], then I don't know what else to say to you except "keep digging".
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.
Yep; that's exactly why empiricism tries to militarise the term, as can be seen in this thread. Athena may have. a desire to take advantage of that process in her discussions with her nephew. Denying a distinction between belief and truth might look like a good move, but it plays into the hands of those who would peddle bullshit; identifying bullshit relies on identifying a difference between what is true and what someone believes.
To be clear, that is an opinion, not a fact. And in the good old days, we called talking about others gossip.
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.
state of affairs, fact, statement used, on the right.
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.
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:
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.
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.
bongo furySeptember 16, 2021 at 21:41#5960640 likes
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
In that case I have no idea what you are arguing about.
bongo furySeptember 16, 2021 at 22:35#5960780 likes
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.
Who do you get your ideas about philosophy and psychology from? Who do you read?
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...
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.
This is not an accurate characterization of my views.
Deleted UserSeptember 16, 2021 at 22:57#5960850 likes
This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.
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.
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,
...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.
I read that critique as a rejection of naive realism in favor of Kantianism.
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
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.
(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.)
That's what is going on here. Getting the distinction between belief and truth shines light on
In that case I have no idea what you are arguing about.
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.
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.
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!
Reply to Olivier5 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.
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.
I can also agree that "a fact is a true statement." And you are right that the term is sometimes used this way in English. My point is simply that this definition does not help identify what is a fact and what is not.
Suppose I've never seen a duck. I read something about ducks in the paper and ask here on TPF: What the hell is a DUCK? Someone answers: "Ducks are Anatidae." The answer is technically correct but it wouldn't help me much. Now if you say: "It's type of bird, living in and near water, with a flat beak" you are helping. Because I can then figure out a duck and maybe even spot one next time I walk along the Tibre.
So I am looking for a definition that would help one differentiate facts from non-facts. We are not omniscient. If facts are to feature in our conversations, then we need to ask ourselves how to spot them.
I can also agree that "a fact is a true statement." And you are right that the term is sometimes used this way in English.
I also have indicated, as has Banno, the other usage equating facts with actual (as opposed to imaginary or fictional) states of affairs or situations or events or whatever you want to call them.
So I am looking for a definition that would help one differentiate facts from non-facts.
The only thing that differentiates facts from non-facts is knowledge gained by observation. You still haven't attempted to deal with the example I gave of prisoners who are innocent; an example that shows that what is generally held to be fact may not be, even if that fact is never discovered. What kind of definition would be able to distinguish fact from fiction in such a case?
bongo furySeptember 17, 2021 at 09:06#5963400 likes
It can be used as a statement and as a fact.
— Banno
What can?
This is a request for quite ordinary clarification, of which you showed yourself capable for the remainder of that post after "duckrabbits". You know - which words are referring to which things.
Please clarify the reference of "it" in the sentence above, that I'm questioning.
You still haven't attempted to deal with the example I gave of prisoners who are innocent; an example that shows that what is generally held to be fact may not be, even if that fact is never discovered. What kind of definition would be able to distinguish fact from fiction in such a case?
I have attempted to deal with it by pointing out that in this example, you imagine a certain state of affairs and declare it such, as true. Eg a guy is sentenced guilty of a crime but he is actually innocent. In doing so, you take the POV of God and ask your reader to adopt it too. What I mean by that is that you KNOW he is innocent even though the court, the police, the media and the public don't know that. So you can safely conclude: "it is a fact that he is innocent" but none of the people inside your scenario could actually say that.
And that is because a fact is a statement known to be true, or accurate enough (ergo based on accurate, replicable or otherwise dependable evidence). It's not just a true statement. It's a well buttressed one.
I also have indicated, as has Banno, the other usage equating facts with actual (as opposed to imaginary or fictional) states of affairs or situations or events or whatever you want to call them.
That would seem to imply that there could exist facts that are yet unknown to us. Which is different from saying: "we will tomorrow discover (or observe) facts that we have no clue about yet", in the critical sense that it implies the existence of a world in itself, in which there exist facts.
I believe in the existence of a world in itself, can't even imagine how one couldn't. But are there "facts" in that world in itself? I find it hard to even understand the issue here... It seems to me that it is again the POV of God.
Another way to ask the question may be: Is there a useful way for us humans to speak about "facts in themselves"? Is that a useful concept, and if yes, in what sorts of questions?
I have attempted to deal with it by pointing out that in this example, you imagine a certain state of affairs and declare it such, as true.
I don't see how the stipulation that in this story no one knows that the convict is innocent, is relevant, since the intention was to mirror actual cases just like that. Are you denying there could be cases like that where convicts are innocent? If a convict is actually innocent of a crime is it not a fact that he didn't commit the crime even if no one knows it?
Or another example; take any supposed historical fact; imagine that it didn't actually happen; would it not then be a fact that it didn't happen, even if we have no way of determining that?
The only thing that differentiates facts from non-facts is knowledge gained by observation. — Janus
Voilà.
I'm not saying what I think you think I'm saying. I'm talking here about how we determine what we consider to be facts. I'm not saying that facts are dependent upon being determined.
So far, you haven't offered any counterexamples or counterarguments, you just keep repeating the same assertions. Well, I genuinely don't agree with your assertions; because I think there is a valid, an indispensable, distinction between what we take to be the facts and what the facts might actually be.
And that is because a fact is a statement known to be true, or accurate enough (ergo based on accurate, replicable or otherwise dependable evidence). It's not just a true statement. It's a well buttressed one.
I know what you're saying but I don't think it's right. I would say what we take to be a fact is a statement we take ourselves to know to be true; that we take to be well-buttressed; it might still turn out to be wrong. That said, there are general descriptive facts that within the context of human life are unquestionably true. For example that Paris is the capital of France and that humans are usually born with two arms and two legs are facts which cannot be coherently questioned. There are countless numbers of these kinds of facts, but they don't tell us anything that is not self-evident; so they are not particularly important.
So far, you haven't offered any counterexamples or counterarguments, you just keep repeating the same assertions.
Indeed.
The only thing that differentiates facts from non-facts is knowledge gained by observation.
The trouble here is of course that what counts as a suitable observation is already theoretical - already an interpretation. Observations thus cannot fulfil this role as a foundation to knowledge.
The only thing that differentiates facts from non-facts is knowledge gained by observation.
The trouble here is of course that what counts as a suitable observation is already theoretical - already an interpretation. Observations thus cannot fulfil this role as a foundation to knowledge.
I agree, what we take to be facts are always fallible. But the logic behind our understanding of factuality is not such that facts are fallible; it is that facts are facts and once a fact always a fact.
The trouble here is of course that what counts as a suitable observation is already theoretical - already an interpretation. Observations thus cannot fulfil this role as a foundation to knowledge.
The trouble here is that you separate theory and observation.
If a convict is actually innocent of a crime is it not a fact that he didn't commit the crime even if no one knows it?
For one thing, he knows it. For another, the real guilty party knows it. The police most of times would have planted the evidence and would know it. They are the people who could -- in proper English -- say "I know for a fact that he is innocent".
If you use the word 'fact' to speak of 'truth', there's no value added to the word 'fact' as compared to 'truth'. You might as well abandon it and use the word 'truth' instead.
The only thing that differentiates facts from non-facts is knowledge gained by observation. — Janus
Voilà.
— Olivier5
I'm not saying what I think you think I'm saying. I'm talking here about how we determine what we consider to be facts. I'm not saying that facts are dependent upon being determined.
You ARE saying what I am saying, you are just too stubborn to realize it.
The trouble here is of course that what counts as a suitable observation is already theoretical - already an interpretation. Observations thus cannot fulfil this role as a foundation to knowledge.
I'm not saying that facts are dependent upon being determined.
Reply to Olivier5 You haven't addressed the fact that when the innocent and the guilty persons are both dead no one knows the fact of the matter; which remain facts of the matter nonetheless. And you have addressed the problem with your view of what constitutes a fact as it relates to historical fact. On your view there can be no historical fact because there is no way of observing the events in question in order to determine what actually happened.
You ARE saying what I am saying, you are just too stubborn to realize it.
That's a ridiculous claim given your inability to address the difficulties I have raised with your position. I disagree with your view; get over it. If you agree with what I'm saying then repeat after me Quoting Janus
I'm not saying that facts are dependent upon being determined.
But the logic behind our understanding of factuality is not such that facts are fallible; it is that facts are facts and once a fact always a fact.
That doesn’t allow for the possibility of something that is thought by everyone to be a fact which subsequently turns out not to be. You’re appealing to a notion of ‘fact’ that transcends the possibility of being wrong, or saying that established facts are incontrovertible, when they often turn out not to be.
Everyone may know what a fact is but I am not sure what everyone thinks a fact is.
The word 'fact' is often used throughout the English speaking world. Some philosophers believe that nouns like 'fact' have an exact meaning. I'm not sure what could be the exact meaning of fact. :confused:
That doesn’t allow for the possibility of something that is thought by everyone to be a fact which subsequently turns out not to be. You’re appealing to a notion of ‘fact’ that transcends the possibility of being wrong, or saying that established facts are incontrovertible, when they often turn out not to be.
You have it exactly backwards; it is the position of Olivier5 that carries the burden of not being able to account for being wrong.. I have said that facts are not fallible, but that what we take to be facts is fallible; for Oliver5 there is no distinction between facts and what we take to be facts.. You need to read more closely
for Oliver5 there is no distinction between facts and what we take to be facts
@Olivier5 is right. A fact is a fact because our theories make them a fact. I'm not talking about lying, which can be done in every culture.
How else can it be? Observations and theory can't be separated. Pure observation is an illusion. Even the perception of a pure color is problematic. There are no "bundles of perception" which we can arbitralily select in the creative process, as Einstein claims.
You haven't addressed the fact that when the innocent and the guilty persons are both dead no one knows the fact of the matter; which remain facts of the matter nonetheless. And you have addressed the problem with your view of what constitutes a fact as it relates to historical fact. On your view there can be no historical fact because there is no way of observing the events in question in order to determine what actually happened.
A point of form: that I haven't address points that you haven't made yet should come as ni surprise. Make your points first, and then I will try and address them.
Historical facts are accurate observations done and recorded in the past, that's all. There usually is a way to observe the record.
If the people in the known of a case are all dead and left no record whatsoever, it is improper or at any rate not useful to speak of the facts of the mater.
The word 'fact' is often used throughout the English speaking world. Some philosophers believe that nouns like 'fact' have an exact meaning. I'm not sure what could be the exact meaning of fact. :confused:
Words are a problem and that makes logic a problem and sometimes we have to just go with the flow. I will settle for the idea that a fact is about 3-dimensional reality and it is something that can be proven true. That means a lot of things we argue about are not factual but opinion and perspective and that everything goes better when we keep that in mind.
I hate riding in the car with two kids in the back seat intensely arguing about something that does not matter and how ridiculous this is when it is possible to get the facts and end the argument but no one really cares about the facts, they just want to win the argument. They are not even aware that there is no substance to their argument.
The public merely observes. Swallowing everything that is served swallow-ready, without chewing, unconsciously digesting only. Who serves?
That is a very interesting comment. Daniel Kahneman's explanation of fast and slow thinking. Slow thinking takes a lot of energy and our brains like to conserve energy so most of the time we follow our feelings and are not actually thinking. That is so true for politics! We vote for our team because it is our team.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 19, 2021 at 18:37#5975790 likes
The "provable true or false" definition seems to be widely used in "critical thinking" curricula, and it's what Pew used in a recent survey -- more as a definition of "factual" really -- but to a lot of philosophers the word "prove" there is going to mean the word "fact" might as well not exist.
You did not address my objection that if truth and fact mean exactly the same thing, why have two words instead of one?
There are multiple words for other concepts: justice and fairness for example. In any sentence in English of the form "It is true that", "it is a fact that" can be substituted. But in a wider context they don't mean exactly the same things just as justice and fairness don't.
"Truth" would be closer to 'factuality', and 'true' to 'factual'. But 'true' is a broader term; you cannot substitute 'fact' in the sentences 'his aim was true',or 'her love was true' or 'she is a true friend'. But to repeat, in propositional language as shown in 'it is true that' substitution makes sense.
A fact is a fact because our theories make them a fact. — Thunderballs
I think you're right. It's the public who decide what a "facts" is, not armchair philosophers.
Of course it is people (not the public) who decides what is fact and what is not. But that means they decide what they take to be fact and what they do not. Are you denying that they might be wrong and what they take to be fact might not be?
A question - is that the area of a circle is given by ? r² a fact?
Who says no?
How is this confirmed by observation?
Anyone who associates or defines different values or meaning to the symbols or nomenclature used. Not a particularly deep or profound answer, kind of like pointing out how one word means something else in another language, but it can be expanded on to the point of a curious conundrum, perhaps with a bit of thought.
Sure, a mathematical law, rather a sound equation would qualify as a fact, but to some the former terms describe it better and with more resoluteness. Math is indeed unique in this respect. Even science is constantly proving itself wrong then right again and back and forth. Though it's hardly the language of the gods some believe it to be.. you have one apple and I give you another, you have two. If it vanishes into thin air, you only have one. It's the one language both toddlers and professional mathematicians can understand.
As to what constitutes a 'fact' however, that is a bit less absolutely defined. We can have personal truths, but not personal facts. Therefore, it is a (successful?) attempt at placing a well-founded belief alongside the laws, nature, and truths of the gods (the absolute). Until proven wrong of course. Some are, some aren't. That's probably where the term "fun fact" comes from really :razz:
Edit: We have to understand, respect, and acknowledge the duality between the absolute and the relative. Facts, truths, reality even- as some myopically group the first two under- are all subject to change at a moment's notice, this is the absolute nature of reality. Simple example is stating "the door is closed" in reference to a door that is in fact, closed. Until I open it. It seems obvious and common sense but you'd be surprised how many seem to get caught off guard, and worse, when this fact (tee hee) confronts them in more.. personal aspects of ingrained, core belief.
Reply to Olivier5 I don't think so. Show me that they made this claim. Not that it is not a special case, but that it is not a fact.
And you claim facts are the result of observation. What observations shows Riemann and Lobachevsky that ? r² is not a fact?
From that, a subsidiary question: Is that the Bishop moves only diagonally a fact?
This by way of digging further into facts as issues of what we might as a start call convention. We can't have personal facts - is that because they are conventional?
Alekhine: No, because it is stipulated that this is how bishops move. Morphy: But if it's a case of "saying it's so makes it so", then it must make it so, and what are facts if not how things are? Alekhine: But facts aren't stipulated; they are discovered. Your saying the moon's made of green cheese doesn't make it so. Morphy: My saying it wouldn't physically change the moon, but your stipulating doesn't physically change the chess pieces either. Alekhine: It doesn't make it physically impossible to move a bishop any other way, no. But suppose it did, and suppose I "physically stipulated" that some bishop moves like a rook. Then you could study this set and discover that this particular piece had been "physically stipulated" to move like a rook. Then indeed it would be a fact that it does. That's not what we do; we say this is how the bishop is supposed to be moved. It's really nothing to do with the chess pieces; it's a rule people are supposed to follow when they're playing chess. Morphy: But isn't it a fact that the rules of chess, including how bishops move, are what they are? Alekhine: That things are what they are is the law of identity. Morphy: No, I mean, the laws of chess are what they happen to be, as a matter of history; they have been different in the past, and what we call "chess" today might have had different rules. Alekhine: Okay... Morphy: And the current state of the rules of chess is something we discover, something handed down to us, not something any of us stipulate. Alekhine: But they are stipulated by FIDE and by the USCF and many other official bodies! Morphy: The official rules for sanctioned competition have to be made explicit, of course, but they're only codifying the rules as they have been handed down, not stipulating them afresh. Alekhine: Agreed. Morphy: And if they were to make a little change, say capping a bishop's movement at four squares, we'd all say, "That's not chess, but a chess variant." Alekhine: Agreed. Morphy: Then the rules of chess are historical fact that we discover. Alekhine: They are handed down from generation to generation, and what is handed down can be discovered, yes; but what is handed down are rules for playing the game, not facts. That something is what people say is a fact, but what they say is not made a fact by their saying it.
Reply to Srap Tasmaner Witty. Given that Morphy died in 1884 and Alekhine was born in 1892, I take this as one of these "dialogues in hell" which philosophers of old have accustomed us to. :-)
Srap TasmanerSeptember 20, 2021 at 12:22#5978670 likes
The "provable true or false" definition seems to be widely used in "critical thinking" curricula, and it's what Pew used in a recent survey -- more as a definition of "factual" really -- but to a lot of philosophers the word "prove" there is going to mean the word "fact" might as well not exist.
Okay but I am pragmatic. I want empirical proof. And to me, the structure for a proof that can prove something that is totally ridiculous is true is not a fact, but a good reason to seek a better way to determine if something is true, because obviously, that logic structure is not doing the job.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 20, 2021 at 16:48#5979370 likes
From that, a subsidiary question: Is that the Bishop moves only diagonally a fact?
This by way of digging further into facts as issues of what we might as a start call convention. We can't have personal facts - is that because they are conventional?
It is a fact that convention forbids any other movement for said piece. So, Maybe. :grin:
Convention, tradition, rules (especially mutually agreed upon), social contract. Personal facts may be far from convention. Ie. if you happen to be a minority political party and "oh this guy sucks" may be a fact for you, rather a firmly held belief, it could be far from.. well it is convention for your particular party.. I suppose who's convention is the question, it doesn't need to be the majority. An unconventional convention, is still a convention, right?
Edit: But, you can craft your personal belief into something that resembles or at least sounds like a fact by prefacing it with a simple "I think" or "It is my belief" that...
It is a fact that you think or believe something. That's no longer an opinion. The subject is an opinion of course but the statement has now become fact.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 20, 2021 at 18:10#5979560 likes
It's true. I wouldn't call it a fact, but you can if you like. It's provable. It's also uninformative.
And sometimes dogs turn out to be coyotes.
Domestic dogs and coyotes, wolves, foxes etc. are dogs, or more scientifically precise, canines. The animal's characteristics determine the biological family to which it belongs. That is imperialistic and it works for organizing our thinking. Something Sumerians could not do because they did not have words for different biological groups such as trees and bushes. We have words for classifying plants and animals. A bush is not a tree and a tree is not a bush, but all trees share characteristics in common and all bushes share characteristics in common. All canines share characteristics in common and belong to one family called canines. They are distinctly different from cats or felidae. If that is not a fact please explain.
Of course it is people (not the public) who decides what is fact and what is not. But that means they decide what they take to be fact and what they do not. Are you denying that they might be wrong and what they take to be fact might not be?
Our brains are relatively useless without language and language without classifications would make scientific thinking impossible. In different regions of the earth, people will have different names for cats and dogs, water and air, etc. so the exact name may not matter, but the ability to classify what is being named does matter.
All canines share characteristics in common and belong to one family called canines. They are distinctly different from cats or felidae. If that is not a fact please explain.
Is what not a fact? That animals we've classified as canines are what we've classified them as? That they share certain characteristics we used to define the box we put them in?
Call it a fact if you like. I wouldn't. I'd agree that it's a fact this is how zoologists classify animals. It's a fact that I have to work today. It's a fact that men landed on the moon in 1969. It's a fact that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
Our brains are relatively useless without language and language without classifications would make scientific thinking impossible. In different regions of the earth, people will have different names for cats and dogs, water and air, etc. so the exact name may not matter, but the ability to classify what is being named does matter.
Yes, the same facts can be expressed in different languages. There are facts of conformation and characteristic that have been criteria for classification of animals, plants and other natural kinds; that seems to be what you are getting at, and I agree.
That something is what people say is a fact, but what they say is not made a fact by their saying it.
Looks like hedging your bets. It's the saying that gives a dollar its value, that makes a contract binding, that makes a promise an obligation. What is said exactly is made a fact by the saying. "I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth" can make it a fact that the ship has that name.
Unless names are not facts.
All of this by way of showing that using "fact" to talk only about observations is obtuse.
I'll bet you $5 that I can make something a fact just by saying it.
Guys, I know what speech acts are. I even nodded at the concept by describing stipulative rules as a case of "saying it's so makes it so".
Note that the act of christening a ship is exactly that: it is, by performing that act, in the correct way in the correct circumstances, of conferring a name upon a ship by speaking certain words. That's not even in the ballpark of the words spoken at such a ceremony being a statement of fact. Not even if the particular words required for the christening to count are, "The name of this ship is the USS Banno."
If there the ceremony has gone off as it was supposed to, is it now a statement of fact to say "The name of that ship is the Banno"? I guess, kinda. On the one hand, if you take names as a sort of capsule history that reaches back to the baptism, then to claim that an object has a particular name is an historical claim about who said what about that object when, and that's obviously a factual matter. On the other hand, names are dependent on usage just like other words we can't trace to a baptism, or presume that we could. A person's legal name may require particular procedures to change, but otherwise names can come and go. (Here, I've looked up one: the Flatiron Building was originally the Fuller Building and nicknamed "Eno's flatiron", then widely called "the Flatiron", and eventually officially (I don't know how) named "the Flatiron Building". Persons tend to have even more say in what their name is than buildings.)
So, there as well, insofar as we're talking about the facts of the moment, how people use some word as a name to refer to some object, sure, and nothing I said contradicts that. But those are facts that are very much in play and that we might even participate in changing, precisely because they are facts about how we use particular words. ("You always call him 'Butthead'." "Yeah, I used to but then I felt bad, so I haven't called him that in weeks.") I'd be reluctant to say that everything we express in words is just a statement about how we use words.
I suppose I'm okay with names counting as facts, for the reasons given above, but I'm not enthusiastic about it. Fact and stipulation -- baptism being a kind of stipulation, right? -- just shouldn't end up together. Talking classification with @Athena, I think I can distinguish everything I want to: that we call animals like this "dogs" is a fact; that that animal there is a dog, is a fact, given our criteria; that what we call "dogs" are dogs -- no, not a fact, just an explanation of what we mean by "dog"; that all dogs are dogs -- not a fact, just a tautology. Names are a little trickier to get around in the same way, aren't they?
Maybe you could persuade me that stipulations and tautologies should count as facts, but for now they feel way different to me. I suspect we talk about them differently too, but I'm not going to get into that unless we have to.
Maybe you could persuade me that stipulations and tautologies should count as facts
I'm positing that post facto, it is a fact that the bishop moves diagonally. The point being to show that facts are not solely the result of observation.
The act of naming brings about the fact of the name referring.
Fact and stipulation -- baptism being a kind of stipulation, right? -- just shouldn't end up together.
If a ship is christened, the name is a kind of stipulation. That the ship henceforward becomes known by the name it was christened with (if it does) is a fact. I see no problem here.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 21, 2021 at 02:25#5981950 likes
A question - is that the area of a circle is given by ? r² a fact? — Banno
So you'd rather not call this formula a fact?
I'm not much invested either way. Whether you throw mathematical theorems into the fact box or not, you're still going to end up talking about them differently. The procedure for verifying a "mathematical fact" bears no resemblance at all to the procedure for verifying any kind of empirical fact. If we use "fact" because it's handy and gets the point across, especially with children or the math-challenged, I won't squawk. But it would be nice to get them to the point where they can just say "theorem".
The act of naming brings about the fact of the name referring.
In which case, "name" is there used as a success verb, right? Otherwise, no reference. So what you're saying is that naming is naming. Yeah, I'm okay with that.
I'm positing that post facto, it is a fact that the bishop moves diagonally. The point being to show that facts are not solely the result of observation.
The act of naming brings about the fact of the name referring.
It is a fact that when people play chess the bishop is always moved diagonally, and this fact is not a result of observation (unless you mean 'observing the rule'). But this fact is determined by observation.
The act of naming does not bring about the fact of the name referring, but rather it is the fact that people use the name to refer that establishes the fact of its referring.
No, it's a formula. It's a fact that people use it to determine the circumference of circles, though. Does it represent a fact? If it is a fact that the circumference if any circle is equal to pi multiplied by the diameter then yes.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 21, 2021 at 02:35#5982040 likes
If a ship is christened, the name is a kind of stipulation. That the ship henceforward becomes known by the name it was christened with (if it does) is a fact. I see no problem here.
I really thought that's what I said, but said it acknowledging that names are a little weird.
Why does everyone go straight for names and math, areas that are notoriously odd, with generations-long debates over how to deal with them? Hard cases make bad law.
Reply to Srap Tasmaner That response was more for Banno's benefit than yours...in case stipulation and fact were ending up together in his mind. :wink:
Srap TasmanerSeptember 21, 2021 at 02:38#5982060 likes
No, it's a formula. It's a fact that people use it to determine the circumference of circles, though. Does it represent a fact? If it is a fact that the circumference is equal to pi multiplied by the diameter then yes.
I was thinking of it as the definition of [math]\pi[/math] most people learn first. They may learn other identities later, and thus other ways of deriving [math]\pi[/math], but something somewhere has to count as a definition of the symbol.
I'm fine with saying it's a fact that we use the symbol the way we do, but that doesn't make the definition itself a fact, does it?
I'm fine with saying it's a fact that we use the symbol the way we do, but that doesn't make the definition itself a fact, does it?
I guess it kind of does, but like all tautologies it's empty and doesn't seem to deserve the status of fact. Like saying it's a fact that all bachelors are unmarried, or that something is identical to itself.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 21, 2021 at 02:47#5982090 likes
Reply to Janus I share that intuition that tautologies shouldn't count. Either because they carry no information, or the information they carry is only the indirect sort that almost all statements carry, indicating something of how we use symbols.
If it's helpful to call them "facts" because it gets the point across, cool. It is also odd but a known fact that making a tautologous statement to someone can count as communication, even when it's not a matter of explaining our use of symbols. People also say, "It is what it is," and others nod in solemn agreement. Language is some weird shit.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 21, 2021 at 03:18#5982140 likes
All of this by way of showing that using "fact" to talk only about observations is obtuse.
Last day or so I've trying half-heartedly to form a thought about this, and maybe you have something to add.
Let's say we have reason to think disentangling theory from observation is a non-starter. (I was thinking this might be congenial to you for Davidsonian reasons, death to "conceptual schemes" and all that.)
We might, in addition, have reason to think that theories, even if we have some way of defining them -- which might happen in a moment, or might not -- aren't themselves bedrock, but are always embedded in a natural language. (I floated part of this idea in the discussion of Curry's paradox, when I was talking about the role of "Let P = the statement ...") Historically, this is just obviously true. But maybe it's also necessarily true, or necessary enough for our needs.
With those two points, I've been thinking maybe facts are exactly the right battle-line for theories, if we take "theory" to mean something like a set of statements you treat as factual (whether true or false) or simply as a set of facts (factual statements you count as true), though both looks the most promising. The idea is that maybe natural language is all you need to have such a fight, and you pass right by both incommensurability and the abyss of the Quine-Duhem thesis. We get to ignore the latter because if you count the same statements as factual and the same statements as facts, you're the same theory, end of story. Anything else would be, for us, a difference that makes no difference.
And as it happens, this gets us pretty close to the ground again, because ordinary people do fight over facts and over what's factual. Having tried for a while to have a theory of theories, we could give it up for a bad job and go back to fighting over facts like everyone else.
Maybe you could persuade me that stipulations and tautologies should count as facts, but for now they feel way different to me.
Might I suggest there are different "kinds" of facts, and they feel different because they're doing different things? But along those lines, "water molecules are composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom", "bishops always stay on their own color", and "Joe is married to Sue" all feel different to me... IOW, perhaps a taxonomy of facts would be preferred to a refinement of the concept?
A bit of a dramatic way to put it... Duhem-Quine is but a rehash of Francis Bacon's "we need to put nature to the question". As Collingwood observes, Bacon was a lawyer and knew that this meant: "we need to put nature to torture in order to get answers". Hence the modern form of scientific experiments, in highly artificialized settings. There never was a scientific experimentation without a theoretical framework underpinning the "question being put", at least since Bacon. All knowledge proceeds through questions and answers. You can't have answers if you don't ask questions first, and questions proceed from a "line of questioning", i.e. from some framework. I wouldn't worry about that too much.
Is what not a fact? That animals we've classified as canines are what we've classified them as? That they share certain characteristics we used to define the box we put them in?
Call it a fact if you like. I wouldn't. I'd agree that it's a fact this is how zoologists classify animals. It's a fact that I have to work today. It's a fact that men landed on the moon in 1969. It's a fact that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
Yeap, I think what you said is a fact. I think you are working really hard to have an argument. :lol: Isn't that a little uptight? Maybe the main cause of the violence in our society is people taking themselves way too seriously and believing they have something to fight about. You might try some peaceful music and chill out.
Yes, the same facts can be expressed in different languages. There are facts of conformation and characteristic that have been criteria for classification of animals, plants and other natural kinds; that seems to be what you are getting at, and I agree.
Well, it was not my intention to make that point, but it seems to come out of the discussion. I have not given the subject a lot of thought before but through the discussion, I am realizing an appreciation for why we have the word "spell" which means the letters we use for a word and also the power of the word to affect what is so. There is something magical about the word. Like there is something magical about math. This is beyond accepted materialistic thinking and I am not sure if anyone wants to go that far?
My reason for starting this thread is we argue so much about theoretical things that can not be validated and many of our arguments are opinions and not facts. Clear thinking seems to depend on our awareness of the category of our arguments. As I tell the kids arguing in the back seat of my car- stop arguing, we can check the facts, and then we will know who is correct. I love arguing points because you all open my mind and expand my consciousness, but I really hate it when the arguing gets unpleasant and has nothing to do with facts!
Oh my, as I just said about words and math, I am not sure of this metaphysical reality. It is not 3-dimensional physical reality. Pi is mind-blowing with some definite mystical qualities. We can not even think of it without a word to name it or a symbol to represent it, but as we have explored pi we have discovered it has profound consequences in our lives.
RstotallossSeptember 21, 2021 at 19:05#5984610 likes
We can not even think of it without a word to name it or a symbol to represent it, but as we have explored pi we have discovered it has profound consequences in our lives.
Which are these profound consequences? We can easily set pi to one. But what will be become of one in this case?
Everyone may know what a fact is but I am not sure what everyone thinks a fact is. I have a second question to ask when there is an answer to what a fact is.
It is also the state of affairs set out by a true statement.
These exemplify the two sorts of use of the term I'm most accustomed to encounter in philosophical conversations. I believe I tend to favor the second sort of use in my own speech, though it's often hard to tell the difference.
Was that really the second question? (Or how else might you express the "second question" you had in mind?)
It's a good question. I don't think it supports an objection to Banno's rather standard definitions, though I have the impression Tim may have intended it that way.
My reason for starting this thread is we argue so much about theoretical things that can not be validated and many of our arguments are opinions and not facts.
I strongly agree that too much time is squandered in philosophical disputes in which it seems there is no objective standard or criterion available to settle the matter. I suggest it's one of the more important tasks of the philosopher to identify such controversies and put them to rest.
RstotallossSeptember 21, 2021 at 19:16#5984680 likes
It is a fact. But we constructed it. In nature this does not exist. It's projected by means of a mathematical net. Thrown over the physical universe. There are no inherent areas of circles. After the orojection only.
InPitzotlSeptember 21, 2021 at 21:26#5985030 likes
Hum, what mystical power do you have that you can make something a fact? Any of us can state a fact but how can we make one?
Well for one, the power to make a bet by stating that I'm making one. It's a fact that I made that bet; a fact made true by the fact that I stated that I made it (is that not how bets are made?)
Srap TasmanerSeptember 22, 2021 at 11:50#5987550 likes
It's a fact that I made that bet; a fact made true by the fact that I stated that I made it (is that not how bets are made?)
For the record, no, that's not how bets are made. Like the christening of a ship or any other speech act, it requires specific circumstances and the cooperation of others. People also use the language of wagers to indicate firm belief ("I'll bet a million bucks Jerry's gonna be late today"). We use the same language to challenge each other to contests: "Bet I can beat you to the mailbox" might be met with "You're on!" and the kids race, or with "Loser takes out the trash?" in which case there's now an actual wager being offered, but it's still not a wager until the other says "Deal!"
The whole reason Austin developed the theory of performative utterance was to point out that not every utterance is a factual statement. "Bet I can beat you to the mailbox" might be a challenge, might be the first step in negotiating a wager, but it is still not itself a factual statement. Everytime you speak someone -- you included -- could make factual statements about you having spoken and what you said. Same here for issuing a challenge or making a wager.
Harry HinduSeptember 22, 2021 at 12:14#5987660 likes
Facts are like truths in that they come in degrees. The relationship between some statement and some state-of-affairs is a fact/fiction or a truth/falsehood. The more some statement accurately describes some state-of-affairs, the more factual/truthful it is, and vice versa for fictions and falsehoods. The boundary one decides on where some statement is more factual than fictional can depend on what is being talked about and how detailed you need to be.
InPitzotlSeptember 22, 2021 at 13:10#5988040 likes
"I'll bet a million bucks Jerry's gonna be late today"
You're over-interpreting here. A claim that x is how y happens (in this context) is a claim about means, not sufficiency. That the speaker can use the language of making a bet without really making one does not refute that this is how bets are made.
For example, we propel bicycles by pushing on their pedals, but that requires specific circumstances (wheels on the ground, you on the seat, chain hooked up, etc). Nevertheless, that is indeed how we propel bicycles. To say that this isn't how we propel bicycles because if the chain weren't there it wouldn't work would just be silly; there's nothing in the claim that this is how we propel bicycles that purports this to be sufficient.
Arguably, the speaker's probably (but not necessarily) making a bet anyway; they're just being satirical about the wager. (A case where the speaker might not be making a bet may be if the speaker is teasing; e.g., using that language to suggest Jerry may have had lots of fun last night). Quoting Srap Tasmaner
"Bet I can beat you to the mailbox" might be met with "You're on!" and the kids race,
Let's call the person who said "Bet I can beat you to the mailbox" Jack, and "You're on!" Joe.
In natural English, Joe may say "Jack bet me that he could beat me to the mailbox; naturally, I accepted".
Let's say, instead, that Joe said "No way!". In natural English, Joe may say "Jack bet me that he could beat me to the mailbox, but I didn't feel like a race so I refused the bet."
What you seem to be doing here is considering a bet only having been made when it is accepted. But this does not match the language usage above, where bets are made when they are offered.
or with "Loser takes out the trash?" in which case there's now an actual wager being offered, but it's still not a wager until the other says "Deal!"
...this is just negotiating a wager.
So to summarize, you're suggesting that I'm wrong by misinterpreting a claim of means as a claim of sufficiency. Next you're suggesting I'm wrong by misinterpreting "to make a bet" as applying to acceptance as opposed to offer. And finally, there's that wager negotiation part, but I'm not sure what to make of it because prior to the negotiation your example explicitly uses the term "bet" (I'm not sure you're even suggesting it's not a bet until it has a negotiated wager?)
Srap TasmanerSeptember 22, 2021 at 13:38#5988100 likes
To say that this isn't how we propel bicycles because if the chain weren't there it wouldn't work would just be silly; there's nothing in the claim that this is how we propel bicycles that purports this to be sufficient.
Perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you had claimed that because you had said something like "I bet $5 I can make a fact by saying something" you must have made a bet; I don't think that's true. Consider your example here: if I had just reassembled the crankset after repacking it with grease, and were now turning the crank to see if it spins smoothly, I would not be propelling a bicycle, I would not even intend to be propelling a bicycle. Fine, you say, it's necessary but not sufficient; but it's not necessary either, because you can also walk alongside it pushing the handlebars or run along behind someone pushing on the seat while they steer. Just so, given the right circumstances you can place a bet just by sliding some chips across a table or buying a ticket from some guy sitting behind a little window. The words "I bet ..." are neither necessary nor sufficient to create the fact of a bet having been made.
Well for one, the power to make a bet by stating that I'm making one. It's a fact that I made that bet; a fact made true by the fact that I stated that I made it (is that not how bets are made?)
That is a good one. I guess you would win that bet.
InPitzotlSeptember 22, 2021 at 13:54#5988190 likes
I thought you had claimed that because you had said something like "I bet $5 I can make a fact by saying something" you must have made a bet; I don't think that's true.
Yes, you misunderstood. I don't think that's true either, but that's not what's being claimed.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 22, 2021 at 13:59#5988220 likes
It is a fact. But we constructed it. In nature this does not exist. It's projected by means of a mathematical net. Thrown over the physical universe. There are no inherent areas of circles. After the orojection only.
Let me announce I do not know math. It is an awesome mystery to me. That said pi is about circles and it is important to the engineering of airplanes for connecting with a satellite that determines where the plane is at all times, and the mechanics of the tail flap. That makes me wonder if birds use pi to navigate?
I strongly agree that too much time is squandered in philosophical disputes in which it seems there is no objective standard or criterion available to settle the matter. I suggest it's one of the more important tasks of the philosopher to identify such controversies and put them to rest.
Maybe in the next hundred years, I will learn to think with the clarity many people here have. I love your words "objective standard or criterion available". Isn't the object to make you look like an ass so everyone thinks I won the argument? :lol: I definitely am not serious and I don't see that much here, but in political forums that seems to be the mentality. The point is a clear question and objective standard or criterion for answering it is true thinking. Just reacting to someone is not the process of thinking that reasoning requires. But I have so much to learn before I can achieve the goal of good reasoning. I only have a vague understanding of the terms you used. My brain is still like a wild horse that could bound off in any direction rather than conform to an objective standard or criterion.
InPitzotlSeptember 22, 2021 at 15:21#5988670 likes
I'll bet you $5 that I can make something a fact just by saying it.
...and by saying that, I made that bet. By making that bet using these means, it becomes a fact that I made that bet. That fact is described by what I said to make the bet.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 22, 2021 at 15:50#5988830 likes
No you really didn't. Suppose you and a buddy are drinking behind the 7-11. Your buddy finishes his beer and says "Ten bucks says I can make it." You say nothing as he arcs his empty bottle into the recycling bin across the alley. Do you owe him ten bucks?
You might, if it were custom among you two always to accept these small bets, but probably not.
Is it at least a fact that he offered a wager. Again, maybe. Maybe. Might just be the way he talks, an expression of confidence. Words are not magic spells. There is no necessary connection between the words spoken, in themselves alone, and any fact brought about in the world by speaking them.
That fact is described by what I said to make the bet.
And that's especially wrong. When a judge passes sentence, by speaking certain words, he brings about certain facts but is not stating a fact. That's the whole point of the category of performative utterance. That he said what he said, is a fact. That it counts as passing sentence, also fact, and more factual consequences flow from that. But he wasn't stating a fact, and what he said is not a factual statement but a judicial sentence.
InPitzotlSeptember 22, 2021 at 16:21#5988940 likes
No you really didn't. Suppose you and a buddy are drinking behind the 7-11. Your buddy finishes his beer and says "Ten bucks says I can make it." You say nothing as he arcs his empty bottle into the recycling bin across the aisle. (B) Do you owe him ten bucks?
Why did you bother with this example? I've already explained this to you. No, I don't (B) owe him ten bucks. But what's in dispute is (A) that my buddy made a bet. The reason I don't owe him ten bucks isn't because my buddy didn't make a bet; but because I did not accept the bet. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
There is no necessary connection between the words spoken, in themselves alone, and any fact brought about in the world by speaking them.
That's irrelevant. Bets tend to have an unspoken by demonstration rule. If I bet my buddy I can touch the ceiling, and I jump up and touch it, I win the bet. It doesn't matter whether or not I can necessarily touch the ceiling, or whether I can touch the ceiling regardless of circumstances. I demonstrate "can" by a successful attempt.
I'll bet you $5 that I can make something a fact just by saying it.
Let Y be that phrase. By my producing that statement, Y is said. By Y being said, a bet is made. By the bet being made, it becomes a fact. The thing that becomes a fact is Y. You might could quibble about distinctions between performatives and factual descriptions, but Y is both the thing being said to make the bet, and a fact brought about by saying it.
For example, we propel bicycles by pushing on their pedals, but that requires specific circumstances (wheels on the ground, you on the seat, chain hooked up, etc). Nevertheless, that is indeed how we propel bicycles. To say that this isn't how we propel bicycles because if the chain weren't there it wouldn't work would just be silly; there's nothing in the claim that this is how we propel bicycles that purports this to be sufficient.
Wonderful. Something I can quibble about. I love to quibble and nitpick. When they were first introduced, bicycles did not have pedals, chains, and gears. They were propelled by foot, much as a scooter or skateboard is.
That is a quibble, but it also says something about facts.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 22, 2021 at 16:45#5989070 likes
The reason I don't owe him ten bucks isn't because my buddy didn't make a bet; but because I did not accept the bet.
Or because he wasn't even offering a wager but expressing his confidence by saying "I'll bet I can ..." --- an alternative which you passed right over.
And no, it's not a bet if no one accepts.
Suppose he just hoists his empty and points at the bin saying, "Five bucks." You nod. Now there's a bet. What statement of fact did he make? What statement of fact did you make by nodding?
If I'm watching a baseball game, and it looks to me like a pitch went right over the heart of the plate waist-high, doesn't matter if I say "Strike!" It matters what the home-plate umpire says (these days it's just a gesture). He does not observe that the pitch is in the strike zone and report this fact. Whatever he decides becomes fact, even if PITCHf/x shows he was wrong. His speech act is of a different kind from mine; I report what I saw but he makes a call.
InPitzotlSeptember 22, 2021 at 17:14#5989160 likes
Or because he wasn't even offering a wager but expressing his confidence by saying "I'll bet I can ..." --- an alternative which you passed right over.
Arguably, the speaker's probably (but not necessarily) making a bet anyway; they're just being satirical about the wager. (A case where the speaker might not be making a bet may be if the speaker is teasing; e.g., using that language to suggest Jerry may have had lots of fun last night).
...unprompted even.
But you're conflating two distinct things: (a) the fact that I can make a bet by saying "I bet I can x", and (b) the fact that I can say "I bet I can x" without making a bet. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Suppose he just hoists his empty and points at the bin saying, "Five bucks." You nod. Now there's a bet. What statement of fact did he make? What statement of fact did you make by nodding?
Sure, it's possible to make bets without statements. But... (a).
I don't quite understand the point of this. Are you trying to earn your $5?
Srap TasmanerSeptember 22, 2021 at 17:38#5989240 likes
But you're conflating two distinct things: (a) the fact that I can make a bet by saying "I bet I can x", and (b) the fact that I can say "I bet I can x" without making a bet.
I don't understand in what sense you think I'm conflating them.
Who pays out if you win? Nobody? Then what were the stakes? Nothing? Then no wager.
The point I'm making, once again, is not that you cannot make a bet by saying certain words, of course you can. But your speech act is then "making a bet", not stating a fact. If I make a promise, I'm not stating a fact. If I express a wish, I'm not stating a fact. If I issue a command, I'm not stating a fact. If I make a bet, I'm not stating a fact.
All these things are related to other factual statements. If I promise to do the dishes, I promise to bring about the state of affairs that could be factually described as, that the dishes are done. But I'm making a promise, not stating a fact.
InPitzotlSeptember 22, 2021 at 19:05#5989520 likes
Who pays out if you win? Nobody? Then what were the stakes? Nothing? Then no wager.
You have already sung that song. And the answer was already given to you. In order for me to be obliged to pay, I must accept "it". But the "it" I must accept is called a bet; hence, it being natural to say "I accept that bet". If I reject "it", I am not obliged to pay out; but again, the "it" that I reject is called a bet; hence it being natural to say, "I reject that bet".
I'm appealing to natural use of the language as the standard by which we judge what "to bet" means... that would be the part of my quote that you left out. So I added it back in for you... just in case you want to actually reply to me.
...what they say is not made a fact by their saying it.
It is the saying that makes it a fact that the bishop moved diagonally. Adopting that fact sets up the complex iterative interactions that go into making Chess interesting. Searle called such things "institutional facts", characterising them as of the form "A counts as X"; moving diagonally counts as a move in chess. Doing otherwise is not playing chess.
Wittgenstein may have had something similar in toe with talk of Hinge propositions.
Searle contrasted institutional facts with brute facts; roughly speaking, brute facts are observations: the cup s on the table.
The unaddressed problem with this is that brute facts can only be presented by taking advantage of institutional facts. "The cup is on the table" uses the institutional facts of language.
Now this is Davidson's point, when he says that the world is always, already interpreted.
It is also the Quine-Durkheim thesis.
It's the reason that observations cannot be the foundation of our understanding.
We have to give up the distinction between fact and theory.
We have to give up the distinction between fat and theory.
This is one of the best things you ever said. Fat is intrinsic to good theory. Who wants lean and meagre theories?
As for the rules of chess as we know them, they stabilized around the 15th century in Europe. Before that at some point, the bishop did not exist yet. It was still called al fil, the elephant in Arabic, and the elephant did already move diagonally but I believe it could jump, like the knight and moved only by two squares.
So it is a historical fact, well established by the study of ancient Arabic and European chess books, that since the 15th century or so the bishop moves diagonally in the standard (or rather European) rules of chess.
... since the 15th century... in the standard (or rather European) rules...
See what I did here? I contextualized the fact within its theoretical, historical, and geographical milieux. In doing so, it was made more of a fact, not less of a fact. More precise, more informative.
Facts have this in common with objective reality, with empirical, stubborn reality, that they are always local. Facts are always somewhere, and some when. Even the formula for the area of the circle is only true within a certain context: that of Euclidian geometry.
You claim that facts are only ever the result of observation. That claim has been thoroughly critiqued and found wanting.
Only superficially so. It is a truism that any observation takes place within a certain theoretical framework. So what? The data is still collected, and useful.
Sure, it's an historical fact that the bishop moves diagonally. It is also an institutional fact. That it is true is not dependent on observation.
It is: people learn the rules of chess by observation and imitation. That is precisely how they know, and can verify anytime they want, how the bishop moves: by asking others, by reading books.
Well, it was not my intention to make that point, but it seems to come out of the discussion. I have not given the subject a lot of thought before but through the discussion, I am realizing an appreciation for why we have the word "spell" which means the letters we use for a word and also the power of the word to affect what is so. There is something magical about the word. Like there is something magical about math. This is beyond accepted materialistic thinking and I am not sure if anyone wants to go that far?
:up: Words may not directly affect the world itself, as they were thought to be able to do in traditional magick, but they certainly affect the ways we see the world. And insofar as human actions have affected the world, then words have affected the world.
Maths, on the other hand, does seem to reflect the deep structures of the world.
Well, I don't see a point in going over the arguments against your position yet again
You have made no argument against my position whatsoever. Maybe you think you did, but as always you only gesticulated in the general direction of Wittgenstein...
But maybe you can understand what I am saying if I take a very simple example: do you often drive a car with your eyes close? Does the driver of a car benefit (or not) from keeping his eyes open? Think about it for a day or two... No rush.
Did everyone decide that "fact" and "true" are two word that mean exactly the same thing? Or do they mean different things? And if different, would someone be good enough to tell me what, or point me to the post that has that?
My take is that two words never mean the exact same thing, otherwise there wouldn't exist two words. In this case, a fact is not just a true statement: it is a well established true statement, relatively easy to verify empirically by oneself.
1. Accurate is problematic. What is it that makes an observation accurate?
1a. One answer would be "being close to the truth", but then your your comment is just "being a true observation" and gets no further than mine.
1b. A second answer would be Aa measure that has a smaller error but then 1.5±0.001m would be a more accurate figure than 2±0.1m for something that is actually 2.0m.
2. An observation might be made that is erroneous. That is, not true. On your account such an observation would still count as a fact. Your account admits false facts.
3. Observations are embedded in theory. Facts on this account must be dependent on other facts. Not a killer, this, but still relevant.
4. Counter examples. That the area of a circle is given by r² is a fact but is not an observation. That the bishop always moved diagonally is a fact but not an observation. It will not do to claim that we learn these by observation, since learning something does not make each a fact
1. Accurate is problematic. What is it that makes an observation accurate?
This has been answered already. Accuracy is -- if you wish -- the quantitative version of truth. Truth is black or white, yes or no, but accuracy goes by degree; one can be more or less accurate but not more or less true (there's the concept of "true enough", which means "accurate enough"). The concept of accuracy is therefore apt for natural sciences, perhaps more so than the concept of truth, because in natural science facts are usually understood as quantitative measurements, always coming with a certain margin of imprecision.
2. An observation might be made that is erroneous. That is, not true.
In this case it is an inaccurate observation, ergo not a fact. Beside, the way to tell if a previous observation was accurate or not is to redo the observation (or a similar one) and compare the results. Therefore one corrects inaccurate observations via other, more accurate observations. Not via more theory or revelations from the gods.
3. Observations are embedded in theory. Facts on this account must be dependent on other facts. Not a killer, this, but still relevant.
I addressed this already. The Duhem-Quine thesis (nothing to see with Durkheim, and the correct order is with Duhem first because he stated it first, historically) is correct, if a bit trite. It is only stating the obvious, that one cannot test only one hypothesis in isolation from the whole theoretical framework underpinning it. So yes, there is no observation without some prior enquiry shaping and motivating that observation, and "pure observation" (so to speak, meaning observation not based on any theory) is simply impossible. And yet, astronomers still look through their telescopes, biologists still peer through their microscopes, and people still keep their eyes open when they drive, in spite of the Duhem-Quine thesis... As you conceded, it's not a killer at all.
4. Counter examples. That the area of a circle is given by r² is a fact but is not an observation. That the bishop always moved diagonally is a fact but not an observation. It will not do to claim that we learn these by observation, since learning something does not make each a fact
Again, addressed already. Perhaps you can explain how you know for a fact that the bishop always moved diagonally, rather than like the rook, or like the al fil piece that predated the bishop ? Was this knowledge handed over to you by a revelation from God? Or was it an instinct perhaps?
Reply to Olivier5 We derive what we take to be facts via, inter alia, observation, but it doesn't follow from that that there are no unobserved facts. I'm still not clear on whether you agree with that or not.
Reply to Olivier5 That's a silly question; if I were to give you an example it could not but be of an observed fact. We know there are facts yet to be discovered and facts that will never be discovered.
Accuracy is -- if you wish -- the quantitative version of truth. Truth is black or white, yes or no, but accuracy goes by degree; one can be more or less accurate but not more or less true (there's the concept of "true enough", which means "accurate enough"). The concept of accuracy is therefore apt for natural sciences, perhaps more so than the concept of truth, because in natural science facts are usually understood as quantitative measurements, always coming with a certain margin of imprecision.
This looks to be doublespeak. That the table is 3.0±0.1m is either true or false.
2. An observation might be made that is erroneous. That is, not true.
— Banno
In this case it is an inaccurate observation, ergo not a fact. Beside, the way to tell if a previous observation was accurate or not is to redo the observation (or a similar one) and compare the results. Therefore one corrects inaccurate observations via other, more accurate observations. Not via more theory or revelations from the gods.
Leaving begging the very question you rhetorically ask of me: how do you differentiate between the erroneous observations and the correct ones?
4. Counter examples. That the area of a circle is given by r² is a fact but is not an observation. That the bishop always moved diagonally is a fact but not an observation. It will not do to claim that we learn these by observation, since learning something does not make each a fact
— Banno
Again, addressed already.
As explained in detail, some facts are true in virtue of the institutions in which they occur. Such facts are not true in virtue of observations.
In order for me to be obliged to pay, I must accept "it". But the "it" I must accept is called a bet; hence, it being natural to say "I accept that bet". If I reject "it", I am not obliged to pay out; but again, the "it" that I reject is called a bet; hence it being natural to say, "I reject that bet".
I'm appealing to natural use of the language as the standard by which we judge what "to bet" means... that would be the part of my quote that you left out. So I added it back in for you... just in case you want to actually reply to me.
Let's use the nearby word "wager" to mean an agreement between two parties that one of them will pay the other some agreed upon amount depending on the outcome of some event. It's a kind of contract.
When you say "I bet you ...", you, as it were, write up a virtual contract. That there is such a thing could count as a fact, but it's only the fact that you said what you said.
It would be more interesting if, having written up this virtual contract, you had signed it, thereby creating a binding offer to enter into a wager. That would be a fact of more interest.
How is anyone to know whether you have signed this virtual contract? They could ask you, of course. Or they could accept your offer and then you'd have to agree or back out -- say you were just kidding, something like that. Neither is a great option.
It is precisely because of such uncertainties, and to avoid the necessity for one side to commit just to find out if the other has made a genuine offer, that behavior around all sorts of contracts, including wagers, tends to be formalized, to varying degrees.
Now you could say that the person who says "I bet you ..." knows whether the offer was genuine, but the rest of the world has no interest in such "private facts".
While I recognize the common usage of "I bet you ..." to mean "I am offering to enter into a wager with you such that ...", I don't consider that offer, absent a way of verifying your virtual signature, a fact.
There is a wager once the parties have a contract, and the word "bet" is also used in this sense. ("Do we have a bet?" is a member of the same family as "Do we have a deal?", "Do we have an agreement?", and "Do we have a contract?") Such a contract is certainly some kind of fact, but it is not a fact you can create entirely on your own, any more than you can make money gambling on your own game of solitaire.
Reply to Olivier5 Faith has nothing to do with it. There must have been uncountable commonplace historical events about which we know nothing. There must be vast numbers of facts about the stars and planets in this galaxy and other galaxies which have not, and may never be, discovered. I don't know how you could seriously deny any of that. So, I genuinely still don't understand your position.
Yes, I was thinking that if only observations are facts then anything in the human past which has not been documented cannot be a fact of history. What if Caesar didn't cross the Rubicon? Was Leonardo gay or not? On Olivier's view there can be no facts of the matter in such cases.
Reply to Janus What's philosophically interesting is why folk insist on such odd notions.
I gather it's something to do with wishing that every statement be dubitable. Not sure what @Olivier5's take on this is - Popper, Quine, pragmatism, post modern - probably not the latter, since there seems to be a strong scientism bent going on.
There must be vast numbers of facts about the stars and planets in this galaxy and other galaxies which have not, and may never be, discovered.
Not if one defines facts as statements or descriptions. What exists exists, but in order to get to a true statement describing some state of affairs accurately, you need an observer observing. That is my position, and it is commonplace.
What exists exists, but in order to get to a true statement describing some state of affairs accurately, you need an observer observing.
That's not true. You can make a true statement about whether or not Leonardo was really gay. You can say "Leonardo was gay" and " Leonardo was not gay" and one of those statements will be a true statement, a fact; no observation required. The fact that we don't know which is true is irrelevant, because the truth does not depend on our knowing it. Do you still claim that we agree on this?
Surely you must have some reason to believe in that formula. What are those reasons?
Reasons, sure. Not observations.
I like sushiSeptember 24, 2021 at 09:31#5997960 likes
@Olivier5 Are you viewing ‘observe’ as ‘experience’? I find it difficult to see your point (or if there is one).
Sure, the items of accuracy and truth are connected. That isn’t saying much though. I cannot ‘observe’ 1 yet I can say 1+1=2 is a specific fact of basic addition. A Concrete fact could be that the Sun rises everyday, yet from another perspective this could be regarded as silly because the Sun doesn’t ‘rise’ it merely appears to rise. Observed from a particular area of Venus the Sun it merely there in the Sky.
From here we can of course argue further that ALL such items are merely Abstractions. So, there you could push home a reductionist argument of what constitutes ‘fact’ in pure terms of ‘observation’. My only question would they be to what ends? What can/do you/we achieve by shifting our perspective thus? Or is it just ‘for the hell of it’ so-to-speak (fine by me).
I like sushiSeptember 24, 2021 at 09:34#5997980 likes
Reply to Banno I’m guessing he means ‘reasons’ based on ‘learnt observations’. Reductionist perspective of what a ‘fact’ can be or is.
@Janus You like monads I take it? You cling to ‘essences’? Some ‘pure form’? If not then explain your view regarding ‘truth’/‘fact’ please. I’m interested to hear.
You can say "Leonardo was gay" and " Leonardo was not gay" and one of those statements will be a true statement, a fact; no observation required.
But you still need someone stating the statement for a statement to exist. Without someone saying "Leonardo was gay", this statement is not in existence so it cannot be true or false. And once it has been stated by someone, its truth value can only be assessed by someone based on the available empirical evidence to someone. It is not a fact if it is not buttressed by any evidence.
I cannot ‘observe’ 1 yet I can say 1+1=2 is a specific fact of basic addition.
Let me start by agreeing that mathematical facts may present a problem for my definition.
1+1=2 can be seen as the definition of 2, and I am not sure that definitions count as facts. Yet there are many more mathematical statements not counting as definitions or tautologies, like the Pytagoras theorem.
My way of thinking of such 'facts' is as follows: "Using the tools of classical logic, it is possible to logically derive from a certain set of fundamental statements (axioms) a number of other statements (theorems). If the axioms are true, the theorems are true.
The fact is in the logical link between axioms and theorems. The axioms themselves are neither true nor false, they are never proven by definition. They are just ASSUMED true to derive a certain type of mathematics.
So the question of mathematical facts boils down to: Does there exist logical facts? Like: is the law of excluded middle a fact?
I think that may be stretching the concept of fact too far.
While I recognize the common usage of "I bet you ..." to mean "I am offering to enter into a wager with you such that ...",
So you acknowledge bet can have this meaning. Let's call this bet(1). Quoting Srap Tasmaner
There is a wager once the parties have a contract, and the word "bet" is also used in this sense.
Sure. "Bet" can also have this meaning. Let's call this bet(2). Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Such a contract is certainly some kind of fact,
Let's suppose your name is East, and my name is South. We are negotiating a contract. During the "bidding process" (that being the formalized negotiation mechanism for such bets), I say "two no-trump". Immediately afterwards, someone called West says "pass", followed by someone called North saying "pass", and then you, East, say "pass".
I claim that it is a fact that I bet(1) two no-trump. My bet(1) of two no-trump happened on my "turn" of the bidding. You claim that it's certainly some kind of fact that the four of us bet(2) something akin to that North and I would collect eight tricks if we played our current hands as a two no-trump hand; said bet(2) happening after you say "pass". But you are trying with several paragraphs of nonsense to argue that by contrast, it is not a fact that I bet(1) two no-trump.
But how does this work exactly? How can it possibly be a type of fact that the four of us collectively bet(2) on this contract if it's not a fact that I bet(1) two no-trump?
Srap TasmanerSeptember 24, 2021 at 12:57#5998550 likes
This is an excellent example (and I envy you your knowledge of bridge).
We are in complete agreement. As you noted, the reason what happens on your turn counts as a fact is precisely because bidding is highly formalized. This is exactly what I have been claiming.
Like the christening of a ship or any other speech act, it requires specific circumstances and the cooperation of others.
From there we ended up on the bet(1) vs bet(2) debate, but "cooperation" there was not intended as a stand-in for "accepting an offer" -- not all speech acts work that way. Most of the examples I gave don't.
In your bridge example, all of you have accepted a set of rules and conventions, and within that framework saying "two no-trump" absolutely counts as a bet(1). No one has to wonder whether you were kidding or musing or expressing your degree of confidence; in these circumstances, that is unambiguously a bet(1). That's the whole point of formalizing these things, so that everyone can know when a binding offer has been made. Your bid, in these circumstances, absolutely engenders a fact of some kind.
By the way, going back to see if I had mis-spoken, I noticed this:
Might I suggest there are different "kinds" of facts, and they feel different because they're doing different things? But along those lines, "water molecules are composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom", "bishops always stay on their own color", and "Joe is married to Sue" all feel different to me... IOW, perhaps a taxonomy of facts would be preferred to a refinement of the concept?
This is also very much my feeling. These things strike me as quite different, so I have resisted using the word "fact" for all of them, but I'd be perfectly comfortable talking about kinds of facts. They do all have in common the experience of something that is "not up to me", and it could be worthwhile to use the word "fact" for that sense, even if we distinguish different ways, or different reasons why, something is not up to me.
You like monads I take it? You cling to ‘essences’? Some ‘pure form’? If not then explain your view regarding ‘truth’/‘fact’ please. I’m interested to hear.
I don't understand the thrust of your question. If you read over my posts in this thread you should be able to glean some insight into my fairly pedestrian view of what facts/ truths consist in; it has nothing to do with monads or essences.
in order to get to a true statement describing some state of affairs accurately, you need an observer observing. — Olivier5
You can say "Leonardo was gay" and " Leonardo was not gay" and one of those statements will be a true statement, a fact; no observation required. — Janus
But you still need someone stating the statement for a statement to exist. Without someone saying "Leonardo was gay", this statement is not in existence so it cannot be true or false. And once it has been stated by someone, its truth value can only be assessed by someone based on the available empirical evidence to someone. It is not a fact if it is not buttressed by any evidence.
Isn't that what I just said? You are not addressing the point; that you can state a fact without any observation to back it up. If Leonardo was gay, that is a fact. If Leonardo was not gay, that is a fact. We have no way of knowing which is the fact; and that is a fact.
If you confine the meaning of 'fact' to one of its common usages; i.e.true statements, then of course it will only be statements that are facts or not. If you allow for the fact that there is also a common usage that casts facts as actualities or states of affairs, then there can be facts that are never stated, let alone observed.
Reply to Srap Tasmaner I tried to read that article, but it makes no sense to me at all. Can you explain in plain English why it should follow from the fact that there are unknown truths that are, in principle at least, knowable, that all truths are known?
1+1=2 can be seen as the definition of 2, and I am not sure that definitions count as facts.
There are countless quantities that sum to 2, so '1+1=2' cannot be the definition of 2. You might say it is the primary instance of 2, or something like that, I suppose.
InPitzotlSeptember 24, 2021 at 22:28#6000350 likes
No one has to wonder whether you were kidding or musing or expressing your degree of confidence; in these circumstances, that is unambiguously a bet(1).
But nobody has to resolve this for there to be a fact of the matter regarding it. It's basic theory of mind that each of us knows things the other has no clue about, but it's kind of perverse to suppose that if you don't know a thing, there cannot be a fact about it. We often have to revise what we consider to be facts as we get new information. When we do so, it's a bit ridiculous to propose that it's the facts that are changing.
The magician tricked me into thinking the red ball was under the middle cup. But when he showed me it wasn't, I don't believe he created a red ball ex nihilo as he lifted the cup... I simply revise my beliefs to the point that I consider it a fact that there was no ball under the cup at the time at which I thought it was a fact that there was one under it. I have to believe facts and what I consider to be facts are distinct things, or I will never survive a magic show.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 25, 2021 at 04:04#6001330 likes
But nobody has to resolve this for there to be a fact of the matter regarding it. It's basic theory of mind that each of us knows things the other has no clue about, but it's kind of perverse to suppose that if you don't know a thing, there cannot be a fact about it. We often have to revise what we consider to be facts as we get new information. When we do so, it's a bit ridiculous to propose that it's the facts that are changing.
I'm first going to state your worry as I understand it, then answer -- if I've just misunderstood, then at least that will be clear.
My position, as you see it, is this:
(a) someone has to know you've made a bet(1) for there to be one;
(b) which means if no one knows it, then there isn't one, it's not a fact;
(c) and thus once they know about it, somehow their knowledge brings the fact about, which is crazy because it was the action of the bidder that brought about the fact of an offer having been made.
I hope I've understood you correctly.
Here's how I would explain what's going on here. We're not talking about just any sort of action, or just any sort of speech act, but specifically about the making of a binding offer, what we're calling a bet(1). So I'm only looking at what's needed for such an offer to have been made.
The simplest thing to say would be that you have not succeeded in making an offer if the person you want to accept the offer doesn't know you made one. (Only talking now about situations much like this one, an ephemeral offer made face-to-face -- no filing paperwork with a third party or something.)
That's the whole point of formalizing these things, so that everyone can know when a binding offer has been made.
And this is what you want. Your offer is genuine, meaning you want someone to accept, so you want them to know you've made an offer.
Of course, you're no more a mind reader than anyone else, so whether they know or not isn't a fact directly available to you. We could imagine a formal fix for this, say, having people repeat your bid back to you so you know they heard you and know what your bid is. But would we also need you to say what they said back to them to confirm that what they said agreed? Yuck. It would never stop.
Instead, just as the circumstances of playing bridge and following its conventions provide people guarantees about what you mean by what you say (that you're serious, using words in the standard way and so on), you are also entitled to an expectation that you will be understood and that everyone will know what you've bid.
What if someone doesn't hear? You could stand on your rights and refuse to repeat yourself, but remember that your goal is not just to say certain words but to make an offer. If they inform you, in so many words, that they do not know what offer you have made, you cannot consider your effort successful. Now it's no longer a matter of presuming they know, but of being informed that they definitely do not; under those circumstances you have to conclude that you have failed to make an offer, even though you said what you wanted to.
So in a sense you're right, the knowledge of the audience does come into it, but that's not a general point, it's only a point about an offer made by one person to another. Until both parties know about the offer, it has not been successfully made.
InPitzotlSeptember 25, 2021 at 06:06#6001610 likes
(N) No one has to wonder whether you were kidding or musing or expressing your degree of confidence;
So this isn't really what my assumptions of your position are: Quoting Srap Tasmaner
My position, as you see it, is this:
(a) someone has to know you've made a bet(1) for there to be one;
(b) which means if no one knows it, then there isn't one, it's not a fact;
(c) and thus once they know about it, somehow their knowledge brings the fact about, which is crazy because it was the action of the bidder that brought about the fact of an offer having been made.
It's not that "someone has to know [I've] made a bet(1)" so much as it is that you explicitly said you don't consider a bet(1) ("offer") to be a fact absent something you called "a way of verifying" something you called a"virtual signature".
Whatever "virtual signature" means to you, it's some mental state I have, per my reading of (N). What I'm presuming is that these two are connected... that you don't consider my bet(1) to be a fact because you cannot verify my "virtual signature" which is some mental state only I have access to (ala "kidding" or "musing" or "expressing ... degree of confidence"). The implication appears to be that a offer would be a bet if I "meant" it, but that can't be a fact even if I did because you can't verify that I meant it.
Incidentally, I'll bring this up now... it's been bugging me for a while. I think you're distracting yourself with the contract business... bets can be contracts, but bets are not fundamentally contracts... rather, they are fundamentally games. More precisely, bets are things you win or lose. The thing you bet on defines the win condition. The wager is simply an add-on to give a penalty and/or reward for winning or losing.
Hence, "if you cut my grass I'll pay you $20" is not a bet, despite being a type of contract, because there's no win/lose condition here. Likewise "I bet Jerry will be late to work today" is a bet but not a contract. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
but specifically about the making of a binding offer, what we're calling a bet(1)
No, a bet(2) is binding; a bet(1) need not be. When South bid two no-trump, that's a bet(1); South is offering to play a game of no-trump with a win condition of scoring 8 tricks. But it's not binding until after West, North, and East all pass.
Were West to say three clubs instead of passing, that bet(1)--the offered game... the offer to play the next hand as no trump with a win condition of scoring 8 tricks--would be off the table. If North, East, and South proceed to pass in this case, West would be bound to play a game with clubs as trumps, with a win condition of scoring 9 tricks.
that you can state a fact without any observation to back it up. If Leonardo was gay, that is a fact. If Leonardo was not gay, that is a fact. We have no way of knowing which is the fact; and that is a fact
We're going around in circles. The only real fact here -- the way I understand the word -- is about your ignorance of Leonardo's sexual orientation.
If you confine the meaning of 'fact' to one of its common usages; i.e.true statements, then of course it will only be statements that are facts or not. If you allow for ... facts as actualities...
I do indeed restrict the meaning of 'fact' to statements known to be true. I believe using it for pretty much anything out there ("actualities") is simply improper.
I do indeed restrict the meaning of 'fact' to statements known to be true. I believe using it for pretty much anything out there ("actualities") is simply improper.
Improper how? The difference between "known to be true" and "actuality" is that the former appeals to my mental states and the latter does not. The latter treatment is much more pragmatic precisely because it unbinds factuality from my mental states. For example, this allows me to talk about yesterday, when I mistakenly thought X was a fact and the idea of Y did not even occur to me, in such a manner that I consider (with hindsight) X to have not been a fact yesterday and Y to have been a fact yesterday.
The latter treatment is much more pragmatic precisely because it unbinds factuality from my mental states. For example, this allows me to talk about yesterday, when I mistakenly thought X was a fact and the idea of Y did not even occur to me, in such a manner that I consider (with hindsight) X to have not been a fact yesterday and Y to have been a fact yesterday.
That's one way to go about it. Another is to consider that Y was true yesterday, even though I didn't know it for a fact, i.e, use the concept of truth. I can envisage that it was always true that life on this planet was carbon-based. But to say it was a fact during the cambrian, when nobody knew what carbon was, rings improper to my ear. It was true but it was not yet a fact.
InPitzotlSeptember 25, 2021 at 15:52#6003230 likes
But to say it was a fact during the cambrian, when nobody knew what carbon was, rings improper to my ear.
I'm not sure why. My car won't start... I would like to be able to say there's some fact of the matter that explains why it won't start. It doesn't seem helpful at all to consider whether there exists a person who knows that or not.
I don't see any problem here. Nobody was around during the Cambrian era. But Carbon has always had 6 protons. So "Carbon had 6 protons in the Cambrian era" is true, and "In the Cambrian era, it was considered a fact that Carbon atoms have 6 protons" is false. The lack of people in the Cambrian era doesn't restrict people living in the year 2021 from talking about things; it just implies that people in the Cambrian era cannot talk about things (because there were no such people).
Srap TasmanerSeptember 25, 2021 at 15:53#6003240 likes
Incidentally, I'll bring this up now... it's been bugging me for a while. I think you're distracting yourself with the contract business... bets can be contracts, but bets are not fundamentally contracts... rather, they are fundamentally games. More precisely, bets are things you win or lose. The thing you bet on defines the win condition. The wager is simply an add-on to give a penalty and/or reward for winning or losing.
Suppose the Lakers and the Celtics are playing tonight. Now suppose I agree to pay you $5 if the Celtics win, and you agree to pay me $5 if the Lakers win.
Tonight, at the appointed time, the Lakers and the Celtics will be playing a game; that game will conclude at some point with one team having won and the other having lost. The Lakers and the Celtics will compete. You and I are not competing. We have simply agreed to take certain actions -- one paying the other what is owed -- based on the outcome of an event. That's my view.
You say we are playing a game of our own, that we are competing and that one of us will win the game and one will lose. How do we play? If I say, "I'll bet you five bucks the Lakers win," are we playing now? Was my saying that the first move of the game? If you say, "Fuck off," is the game over? Cancelled maybe.
Anyway, it's not that kind of game. We could continue to negotiate the wager, but that's just an add on, no more a part of the game itself than the medal you receive for winning a race. But how do we play? Where's the competition? After the Lakers-Celtics game has concluded, one of us will turn out to have been right and one of us wrong. --- Actually, our beliefs don't even enter into it. It doesn't matter what method I used to pick which team to bet on: I could do careful analysis, flip a coin, add up the number of letters in the names of the players, it doesn't matter. What matters is that I say, "The Lakers will win" and you say "The Celtics will win" and one of us will turn out to have said something true and the other something false; one of us will have stated a fact, and the other not.
So we compete by assigning differing truth values to a statement such as "The Lakers will win." You win if you assigned the correct truth value. This is my understanding of your view of betting. And on this view, other people aren't really necessary, and the circumstances are irrelevant. All of that is to do with rewards and penalties that we might add on. Betting is simply assigning a truth value to a statement of as-yet-unknown truth. Maybe you never even find out if you were right, never find out if you won. Doesn't matter. If you have assessed some statement as true or false before knowing whether it is, you have made a bet.
I won't argue that we don't use the word "bet" in ways awfully close to this -- I do -- and for very good reason, namely that what I've described here is indeed very closely related to betting. But it's not betting, it's predicting. Betting "proper" is making a prediction with stakes. You can sit at your desk wadding up failed proofs and betting that you sink them in the waste-paper basket -- but those aren't really bets; those are predictions.
One last point. To say that I win the game by my prediction being right is just to say that my prediction was right. Competing at "being right" doesn't add anything. It's like saying saying the Lakers and the Celtics compete at "winning a basketball game" and whoever wins the game, wins.
InPitzotlSeptember 25, 2021 at 17:58#6003740 likes
I think what you mean to say is that we're not playing basketball. But we are indeed competing. There's a winner of the bet and a loser of the bet. If I win, you lose; if you win, I lose. That's a competition. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
We have simply agreed to take certain actions -- one paying the other what is owed -- based on the outcome of an event.
I don't think this cuts to the idea of what a bet is. Suppose Joe needs $10 and offers to wash my dishes to earn it. I tell Joe, "sorry, I only have $5, and I just bet on the Celtics game with Srap. Tell you what, though. If the Celtics win, I'll let you wash my dishes for $10." Despite what Joe and I have being conditioned on the same actions and events our bet is conditioned on, Joe and I do not have a bet... it's simply a conditional contract. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
How do we play? If I say, "I'll bet you five bucks the Lakers win," are we playing now?
Actually, yes, we are. But in our discussion we just brought up two senses of the word bet... bet(1) and bet(2), and the game you're talking about here is neither a bet(1) nor a bet(2). Back to the bridge analogy, the entire bidding process is part of the game. When South says two no-trump, that's a bet(1). There's no bet(2) until bidding is complete. But the bidding process in itself is "betting", and that's a game. When you and I are deciding which team to bet on and what to wager, we are "betting" and that's a game in the same sense. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
But it's not betting, it's predicting. Betting "proper" is making a prediction with stakes.
So close! A prediction is not the same thing as a bet. A prediction is either true or false, but a bet is either won or lost. When you bet on a prediction, you're adding something personal. Suddenly it's not just a matter of some X being true or false; it's about you, winning if X is true; and you, losing if X is false. Even if it's just a token win, that's a stake, and it's precisely that that makes a bet and a prediction distinct.
We're going around in circles. The only real fact here -- the way I understand the word -- is about your ignorance of Leonardo's sexual orientation.
It's not my ignorance; no one knows what Leonardo's sexual orientation was. I believe there is a fact of the matter, though, whereas you don't; so we do disagree, and quite profoundly, despite your earlier denials.
I do indeed restrict the meaning of 'fact' to statements known to be true. I believe using it for pretty much anything out there ("actualities") is simply improper.
Yes, I was already aware that you don't acknowledge the synonymy of 'fact' with 'actuality' despite its being as common a usage as the other.
It doesn't bother me that you rule out that usage despite that I cannot see any good reason for it; but at least now it must have become clear to you that we disagree.
2 is what you arrive at when you add 1 and 1. It is the simplest definition of 2 that I know of.
It's also what you arrive at when you add -1 and 3, -2 and 4, half plus half plus half plus half and so on, but I agree it is the most basic and concrete, so
You might say it is the primary instance of 2, or something like that, I suppose.
I suppose I could have said that 1+1=2 is the empirical instance of 2, because if we have two objects in front us of we can easily see that, taken together, the single objects are two.
Reply to Janus The example of 1+1=2 is just that: an example of a supposed "mathematical fact". I have showed that such facts are assumed or derived from assumed axioms. Their truth value is therefore arbitrarily chosen. There are systems of numeration where 1+1=10.
What if he had no sexual orientation? What if he was asexual or pansexual or zoophile? In these cases Leonardo was neither gay nor straight.
You see? The problem with your attitude to facts is you tend to box them in your imagination before they even appear phenomenologically. Doing so is dangerous, it assumes a lot, that could turn out false. Your definition of facts gives you a false certainty.
Yes, I was already aware that you don't acknowledge the synonymy of 'fact' with 'actuality' despite its being as common a usage as the other.
If you have an example of a common usage of the word 'fact' as 'unknown actualities', I'm interested. I never saw it used this way.
I think it opens the door to abuse, to the word being used to describe pretty much anything. It is also confusing the concept of fact with the concept of objective truth, and generally I believe that words have distinct meanings and that one should not confuse them. What you are talking about is truth.
Reply to Olivier5 I don't understand why you have chosen to address something I haven't actually claimed; that it is a fact that 1+1=2, rather than admitting that we disagree about the common meaning(s) or usages of the word 'fact'.
We disagree, as per the example, about whether there is a fact of the matter as to whether Leonardo was gay; and that disagreement is precisely on account of the fact that you don't allow for the definition of a fact as a state of affairs.
The conceptual sameness of truth and fact is demonstrated in common usage. It can easily be shown by the fact that "it is true that" and "it is a fact that" mean exactly the same thing. You are free to reject that usage for yourself, of course, but you haven't presented any good reason for such a rejection.
What if he had no sexual orientation? What if he was asexual or pansexual or zoophile? In these cases Leonardo was neither gay nor straight.
That doesn't matter because even though we can't know (observe as you put it) the situation vis a vis Leonardo's sex life or lack of it, if he was neither gay nor straight, then it is a fact that he was so.
You see? The problem with your attitude to facts is you tend to box them in your imagination before they even appear phenomenologically. Doing so is dangerous, it assumes a lot, that could turn out false. Your definition of facts gives you a false certainty.
That is not correct, in fact it is backwards; rather my (and the common usage's) allowance for the existence of unknown facts allows for uncertainty; it allows that facts do not depend on our certainties. What we take to be facts may turn out not to be.
It is also confusing the concept of fact with the concept of objective truth, and generally I believe that words have distinct meanings and that one should not confuse them. What you are talking about is truth.
Truth and fact are synonymous, in both usages of the word fact. Actually if anything the idea of truth is more commonly applicable only to statements; truths are not so often equated to actualities, but to statements about actualities. It is the less common alethic idea of truth that equates with actuality, but even there only with actuality as it is revealed to us, not with "hidden" actualities..
So we can say both that the cat on the mat is a fact and that it is a fact that the cat is on the mat; the first showing the 'actuality' notion of fact and the latter the propositional notion. It is not so common to say that the cat on the mat is a truth or is true, but it is common to say that it is true that the cat is on the mat. But in any case, if someone said the cat on the mat is true, we would know what she meant. Also the situation may be quite different in other languages; and I am only addressing what I know to be common usages in English.
Language is sloppy and meanings are not always clearcut
My car won't start... I would like to be able to say there's some fact of the matter that explains why it won't start. It doesn't seem helpful at all to consider whether there exists a person who knows that or not.
What doesn't seem helpful to me is to shoehorn the word 'fact' in places where another word would work better. In this case: there ought to be a reason why your car won't start, a cause, some problem with it. That's what I would say to the mechanic, not "there ought to be some fact of the matter about it not starting".
InPitzotlSeptember 26, 2021 at 08:56#6006210 likes
What doesn't seem helpful to me is to shoehorn the word 'fact' in places where another word would work better.
That's weak. None of your alternatives is better in this scenario than "fact of the matter". "Reason why [my] car won't start" is definitely not what is being meant here; sure, there is a reason it doesn't start, but what's being referred to is the fact that that reason is a fact I don't know. "Cause" is the wrong idea... my car doesn't aka does not start. "Problem" is not what's being expressed... there certainly is a "problem", but the same idea applies for "reason"... what's being referred to is the fact that the problem is a fact that I do not know. Think of the term "counterfactual definiteness" as an alias for "fact of the matter" in this scenario... contrast this to something like Bell's Theorem. What's being conveyed is that there's a very specific thing that's wrong with my car... it's a thing that's true about the car's state at the time that I do not know it; it doesn't merely "become true" once we start looking for it. If I were to explain it I would convey this using a fact; a true statement that describes that state. I'm trying to find out what true statement describes that state that conveys why the car does not start. Hypothetically, someone else could know it; hypothetically, and possibly realistically, I could know it the future but it would still be true right now.
Avoiding using the precise word you mean just because you can use another word that is not what you mean is not using a better word; it is exactly the opposite of using the better word. Quoting Olivier5
That's what I would say to the mechanic, not "there ought to be some fact of the matter about it not starting".
I'm not talking to the mechanic; I'm talking with you. You dragged the mechanic in. See above for the idea being conveyed.
Might I suggest it would be better to explain what problem you're talking about here: Quoting Olivier5
But to say it was a fact during the cambrian, when nobody knew what carbon was, rings improper to my ear.
...than to convince me that I meant something I did not in fact mean?
We use the same language to challenge each other to contests: "Bet I can beat you to the mailbox" might be met with "You're on!" and the kids race, or with "Loser takes out the trash?" in which case there's now an actual wager being offered, but it's still not a wager until the other says "Deal!"
First of all, we can compare this to the Lakers-Celtics example:
The Lakers and the Celtics will compete. — Srap Tasmaner
Yes. They are playing a scheduled basketball game.
You and I are not competing. — Srap Tasmaner
I think what you mean to say is that we're not playing basketball. But we are indeed competing. There's a winner of the bet and a loser of the bet. If I win, you lose; if you win, I lose. That's a competition.
No, I really did mean to say we're not competing, because I don't think betting is competing.
When you're competing in a contest, you can make an effort to win (or lose) the contest. What you do while competing at least in part determines the outcome. It is one of the hallmarks of a bet that its outcome is entirely dependent on the outcome of another event, the one you're betting on.
There are two points here. First, you may have the ability to affect the outcome of the event you're betting on, but to do so is universally considered cheating: if I pay one of the players on the Celtics to throw the game, I am cheating. Second, having established a link between two outcomes -- the event we're betting on and who owes who money -- there is nothing I can do to modify that link. This is hard to see clearly, I think, but if this were a contest, I could make an effort to make it more likely that if the Lakers win, you'll owe me, or to make it less likely that if the Celtics win, I'll owe you. I should, if this is contest, be able in some sense to strengthen or weaken the link between the outcome of the event we're betting on and the outcome of our bet. I cannot. Just as I cannot influence the event we're betting on without being a cheat, I cannot upon losing shirk my obligation without being a welcher.
But what about the race to the mailbox? Now that's a curious thing, because there is definitely a contest here, and there is a prize for winning the contest, as there sometimes is. If some other kid had arranged the race and offered the prize -- winner gets to ride my new bike around the block -- we wouldn't have considered calling this a "betting" situation. What makes it feel like a bet, is precisely that the prize has the structure we expect of a bet: the loser acquires an obligation. The agreement reached as to who will acquire an obligation, based on the outcome of the race, is again not something either can influence by racing; it is, once agreed to, set in stone.
In making a bet, you put, by choice, something outside your control: you commit to taking on an obligation, a debt, if you lose. Typically, there is a reciprocal commitment on the other side.
This is the essence of the bet, and what makes it a speech act: it engenders something that counts as a fact, something that is not any longer "up to me", namely, the link between the outcome of an event and someone acquiring an obligation, a debt.
You can, I suppose, say something like this: "If the Lakers win tonight, then I win the bet; if I win the bet, then you owe me $5." For you, the step in the middle, "winning the bet" is the most important; for me, the step in the middle is redundant. The bet is the link between the outcome of the Lakers-Celtics game and the ensuing obligation, and most people just make that link directly: "If the Celtics win tonight, I owe Dave a hundred bucks." This is simply what it means to have a bet on the Lakers-Celtics game. The bet establishes that link, and in some sense is that link; the link between event and obligation exists because we agree that it does. We have, by speaking, added this fact to the world. (There's another curious way of putting this: "If the Lakers win, that means Dave owes me a hundred." Our future obligations are now an aspect of the Lakers-Celtics contest, a property it has only because we say it does.)
A prediction is not the same thing as a bet. A prediction is either true or false, but a bet is either won or lost. When you bet on a prediction, you're adding something personal. Suddenly it's not just a matter of some X being true or false; it's about you, winning if X is true; and you, losing if X is false. Even if it's just a token win, that's a stake, and it's precisely that that makes a bet and a prediction distinct.
If you know the outcome of an event you're betting on, that's not gambling at all, and most likely you're cheating someone. If the outcome of an event is unknown, then we can only talk about in terms of predictions. There's a funny back and forth here, because betting looks sometimes like an elaboration of predicting: I say I think (or "I bet") the Lakers are going to win tonight, making a prediction; you say, "You wanna put money on that?" offering to add on a wager. But it's also clear that gambling is sometimes itself the goal, and gamblers go looking for things to bet on. Gambling needs both predictability in one sense and unpredictability in another.
If I predict that the Lakers will win, what am I doing? I am not causing the Lakers to win, certainly. I am also not prophesying that the Lakers will win; I am not making a claim to knowledge of the future. A prediction, in the sense that matters here, is simply a truth-apt statement about the future, or a statement that will become truth-apt in the future. Some future events, while unknowable, are extremely predictable: if I watch a leaf falling from a tree, I cannot know that it will hit the ground, and indeed it freakishly might not, but it's behavior is still extremely predictable. These are not the sorts of things we bet on. To make this perfectly clear, gambling deliberately engineers events the outcome of which cannot be predicted. If I know that a leaf has finished falling, that this event is over, I can be almost certain, without looking, that it has hit the ground; if I know that a standard die has finished rolling, I cannot, without looking, even make an intelligent guess about which of its six faces is up.
Predicting is important here, but it's complicated, and betting is not just an elaboration of predicting, something like "predicting + actually caring about the outcome". To look at predicting to understand betting is looking in the wrong direction, inward, toward our beliefs; to understand betting you have to look outward, where an event we do not control will have an outcome that determines our future obligations.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 26, 2021 at 13:30#6006540 likes
Reply to Banno I find your explanation fascinating. Thank you. I never heard of institutional facts versus brute facts before. That language becomes an institutional fact is, for me, a very stimulating thought.
It is one of the hallmarks of a bet that its outcome is entirely dependent on the outcome of another event, the one you're betting on.
Yeah, but you can improve your chances if you study the riders and the horses before the bet, right? Then the competition can be who is the best at reading the facts and picking the winner. Have I understood correctly?
Srap TasmanerSeptember 26, 2021 at 14:36#6006670 likes
Yeah, but you can improve your chances if you study the riders and the horses before the bet, right? Then the competition can be who is the best at reading the facts and picking the winner. Have I understood correctly?
Of course, but all of that is before you place your bets. In a broad sense, you are competing as a handicapper against other handicappers to make the best prediction. But your analysis has no effect on the outcome of the race; your analysis has no effect on how much money you win or lose. If you continue to study the racing form while the horses are running, you don't improve your chances of winning. Once the bets are placed, everything is beyond your control, as any handicapper will ruefully tell you. Before you've placed your bet, you have accepted no risk and can receive no reward. There is no point at which you can make an effort to improve the chances of a bet you've placed paying off.
InPitzotlSeptember 26, 2021 at 15:17#6006730 likes
What work is the word "fact" doing in this sentence, that would be missing if it wasn't there?
Presuming you mean that one, I do the investigation myself. Turns out it's a curious one... there is a blown fuse. It is a fact that there was a blown fuse.
We have simply agreed to take certain actions -- one paying the other what is owed -- based on the outcome of an event. — Srap Tasmaner
I don't think this cuts to the idea of what a bet is. Suppose Joe needs $10 and offers to wash my dishes to earn it. I tell Joe, "sorry, I only have $5, and I just bet on the Celtics game with Srap. Tell you what, though. If the Celtics win, I'll let you wash my dishes for $10." Despite what Joe and I have being conditioned on the same actions and events our bet is conditioned on, Joe and I do not have a bet... it's simply a conditional contract.
That's a nice hard case, but I wanted to lay out my view more fully before tackling it.
I'm taking some time and mulling it over. If I can't come up with a good response, it's certainly trouble for my position. Just wanted you to know I didn't miss this argument, @InPitzotl.
InPitzotlSeptember 26, 2021 at 16:47#6007060 likes
No, I really did mean to say we're not competing, because I don't think betting is competing.
When you're competing in a contest
"Competing in a contest" and "competing" denote distinct things. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This is hard to see clearly, I think, but if this were a contest, I could make an effort to make it more likely that if the Lakers win, you'll owe me, or to make it less likely that if the Celtics win, I'll owe you.
But it's wrong (in the sense that it does not follow). We cannot interfere in the Lakers game, but that does not entail we're not in a contest. We're not playing basketball; we're playing a prediction game. You chose the basketball game we bet on. You chose to bet on the Lakers winning. You chose the $5 wager. I chose to accept the wager. These are the variables that went into the bet.
Once again, the bridge analogy is great here... it's pretty clear when you're bidding how you're playing a game in and of itself, and the distinction between and relationships to that game and the game you play with the hands, and the bidding is half the fun of the game.
InPitzotlSeptember 26, 2021 at 16:53#6007080 likes
Yes, it's an observable and verifiable fact, empirical, the kind I like.
Yes, if I open the fuse box, I might see the blown fuse. But it does not seem to matter whether I'm doing so to verify there's a blown fuse or figure out if there's a blown fuse. It might be quicker if I check the fuse box first, but both are observing and verifying, quite frankly, the same exact fact.
Reply to InPitzotl And then the hypothesis that this blown fuse was the reason your car was not starting occured to you and you changed the fuse and then the car started, proving that the blown fuse was at least in part responsible for the condition today.
So the facts of the matter are that you found a blown fuse and that the car started when you replaced it. The rest, ie the idea the your car didn't start yesterday because of that blown fuse, are theories, not facts.
InPitzotlSeptember 26, 2021 at 18:00#6007360 likes
And then the hypothesis that this blown fuse was the reason your car was not starting occured to you and you changed the fuse and then the car started, proving that the blown fuse was at least in part responsible for the condition.
So the facts of the matter are that you found a blown fuse and that the car started when you replaced it. The rest, ie the idea the your car didn't start yesterday because of that blown fuse, are theories, not facts.
Your distinction sounds completely arbitrary. If you're trying to clarify the difference between the totally disparate "fact" and "theory" concepts, you're doing a bad job illustrating the difference.
Is it really a fact of the matter that I found a blown fuse? Or is the fact of the matter that I came under the impression that I appeared to have found a blown fuse, and the notion that I did in fact appear to have found a blown fuse a theory, as is the notion that I found a blown fuse a theory? Are there any facts at all, or is everything a theory? If we're just drawing a line somewhere about what we get to presume, there had better be a good reason to draw the line here versus there. Where do you draw the line, and what is the good reason to draw it there?
If you're trying to clarify the difference between the totally disparate "fact" and "theory" concepts, you're doing a bad job illustrating the difference.
Why don't you try and do a better job than me? This is indeed an important distinction, which I am trying to uphold.
InPitzotlSeptember 26, 2021 at 18:14#6007460 likes
Why don't you try and do a better job than me? This is indeed an important distinction, which I am trying to uphold.
I don't think it's a matter of where you draw the line in the first place. You establish that something is the case to your own satisfaction, and that becomes a fact from which you can infer something else. Maybe you're wrong sometimes, but that's okay; this is a game you play with a pencil and an eraser, not a pen.
Reply to InPitzotl I still think there is an important distinction to make between empirical facts and theories. And since theories can (at least in theory!) be true, equating facts with truth erases that distinction.
InPitzotlSeptember 26, 2021 at 18:54#6007570 likes
And since theories can (at least in theory!) be true, equating facts with truth erases that distinction.
I'm not sure which concept of theory you're after, but it sounds like you just came up with a distinction on your own. A fact must be true. A theory may or may not be true. (I must explicitly point out that this is not the concept of a scientific theory, given this is a common misconception).
And it provides another reason to define facts as 'acurate 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.
InPitzotlSeptember 26, 2021 at 19:48#6007770 likes
Ah, in that case, as I understand it, a scientific theory will explain why a set of facts is the case. To contrast, and also to use in a moment, there are scientific laws... those do not explain a set of facts, but rather suggest there's a relationship between the facts. So for example Tycho Brahe's observations of the motion of the planets led to the development of Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion. Newton's Law of Gravity simplifies this law. General Relativity is a theory that explains and refines Newton's law.
So we have a theory of matter that describes matter as being made up of molecules, and molecules of atoms, and atoms of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Using this theoretical framework we build up theories of radiation that explain how spectra are produced that includes emission and absorption lines. Using all of these theoretical constructs and more, we can make observations of stars to measure the speed they are moving away from us (Doppler effects); similarly, we can use techniques such as standard candles to measure the distance that objects are away from us. This gives us a bunch of facts. Using these facts we observe that overall, the speed at which objects move away from us is proportional to the distance the objects are from us, and from those facts we infer Hubble's Law. Applying this and other laws of physics leads us to the Big Bang theory.
Note that the second paragraph flips your script on its head: Quoting Olivier5
Therefore our induced theories are provisional. But the observations that were done, remain done, factum, unless they were poorly done of course.
...because the stellar/galactic facts that lead to Hubble's Law themselves rely on theory.
because the stellar/galactic facts that lead to Hubble's Law themselves rely on theory.
Their interpretation relied on theory. Their collection, even, relied on theory but there is still such a thing as the brute picture taken of a distant galaxy, its spectrum analysis and the likes. Brute facts, the data, this data and not another. There is something here that goes beyond theory. Even if all the theories underlying the spectral analysis Hubbe relied on are false, these observations still happened and still gave the results they gave, and any new theory would have to explain them.
Reply to Olivier5 They are not totally synonymous except in a certain context as I already pointed out. They overlap when it comes to propositional claims.
You've pointlessly quoted me out of context, omitting the part in which I said I have not claimed that 1+1=2 is a fact, to make it seem that I have claimed that.
If I wanted to make that claim I could say that in the context of the decimal system it is a fact that 1+1=2 and in the context of the binary system it is a fact that 1+1=10. So what?
You've pointlessly quoted me out of context, omitting the part in which I said I have not claimed that 1+1=2 is a fact, to make it seem that I have claimed that.
Ah okay, apologies. Misunderstood you.
InPitzotlSeptember 26, 2021 at 22:21#6008340 likes
Yes, and scientifically speaking, they are facts. Quoting Olivier5
but there is still such a thing as the brute picture taken of a distant galaxy, its spectrum analysis and the likes. Brute facts, the data, this data and not another.
Back to drawing lines? Do the planets exist when you aren't looking at them, or is that just theory? Where does object permanence lie?
This just gets back to the lines you're drawing. Where do you draw the lines and what is your good reason to draw the lines there? We've explored, btw, my response.
Reply to Srap Tasmaner I said earlier I looked at that article and was not able to get it (my brain freezes when confronted with predicate calculus; I like to do my thinking in good ol' English). I came across an explanation in English on Wikipedia which I was able to understand:
Suppose p is a sentence that is an unknown truth; that is, the sentence p is true, but it is not known that p is true. In such a case, the sentence "the sentence p is an unknown truth" is true; and, if all truths are knowable, it should be possible to know that "p is an unknown truth". But this isn't possible, because as soon as we know "p is an unknown truth", we know that p is true, rendering p no longer an unknown truth, so the statement "p is an unknown truth" becomes a falsity. Hence, the statement "p is an unknown truth" cannot be both known and true at the same time. Therefore, if all truths are knowable, the set of "all truths" must not include any of the form "something is an unknown truth"; thus there must be no unknown truths, and thus all truths must be known.
The answer to this seems simple. We can stipulate that the sentence "p is an unknown truth" is true, just in case p denotes some undefined generic proposition, and that the truth of such propositions is in principle knowable. So the sentence "the sentence p is an unknown truth" is true, but it doesn't follow that we can know that p is true unless p becomes some concrete proposition, because otherwise knowing that p is true is meaningless. And that conflation between the generic indeterminate proposition p and any concrete proposition p is just what the apparent paradox depends upon. In other words "p is an unknown truth" is not itself an unknown truth, we know it is true if we take p to mean something like "there is some p"; it is unspecified p that is (stipulated to be) the unknown truth.
This can easily be seen if we substitute some concrete proposition for p. Taking the example I used earlier, we could speculate that 'Leonardo was gay' is an unknown truth that is in principle knowable (since someone at the time may have known that Leonardo was gay). Of course it might not be true, but that doesn't matter, because it could be. And if we could somehow come to know the truth about whether Leonardo was gay that would not present a paradox because it would cease to be an unknown truth and the sentence "p is an unknown truth" is not a timeless proposition; it would simply become "p was an unknown truth but is so no longer".
Srap TasmanerSeptember 27, 2021 at 01:04#6009090 likes
We're not playing basketball; we're playing a prediction game. You chose the basketball game we bet on. You chose to bet on the Lakers winning. You chose the $5 wager. I chose to accept the wager. These are the variables that went into the bet.
Prediction is interesting and there's a lot one could say about it. But the question for us, is how does betting engender facts in the world? I say that it creates obligations that we attach, arbitrarily, to the outcome of real events. Those obligations will be factual, once the event concludes, and they are determined by the event's outcome because we say they are. This, on my view, is the sense in which betting is a speech act. I say these are facts because once you've placed your bet, you are committed to acquiring an obligation, a debt, if that's how the event you were betting on turns out, and that connection is no longer up to you, but a fact. The one follows from the other as sure as the turning of the worlds.
How we decide what to bet on -- interesting though it may be, and important as it may be if you want to make a living doing this sort of thing -- doesn't matter in the least as far as the bets themselves are concerned. There are no points for style, no partial credit if you show your work. You can pick your horses using an ingenious system that needs a Cray to run it or you can close your eyes and jab the racing form with a pen. Your bets will pay off or not just the same. Being better at predicting is generally nice if you do it a lot, but you still don't get paid for making better predictions overall or for doing a better job of analysis than someone else; you get paid if and only if the horses finish as you said they would.
I don't think this cuts to the idea of what a bet is. Suppose Joe needs $10 and offers to wash my dishes to earn it. I tell Joe, "sorry, I only have $5, and I just bet on the Celtics game with Srap. Tell you what, though. If the Celtics win, I'll let you wash my dishes for $10." Despite what Joe and I have being conditioned on the same actions and events our bet is conditioned on, Joe and I do not have a bet... it's simply a conditional contract.
It's neither a bet nor some other kind of contract but a promise. You have promised Joe that if the Celtics win you'll give him the dishwashing job. If the Celtics won, and Joe came around, you could get away with all sorts of excuses: "Sorry, Joe, I totally forgot I had promised my sister she could borrow ten from me. You understand." You freely promised, and people expect you to keep your promises, and Joe might think a little less of you, but then again he might not, since he had no claim on you. He might be very understanding and appreciative that you wanted to help him out even if you didn't end up doing so. You made a promise, but the Celtics winning doesn't mean you're in debt to Joe; the Lakers winning would mean you're in debt to me.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 27, 2021 at 01:15#6009110 likes
Reply to Janus Honestly, I can't help you man. I think Fitch's paradox is crap, but TGW (of dear departed memory) thought it was a straight-up refutation of verificationism.
I only brought it up because you and @Olivier5 had essentially been debating verificationism -- I haven't followed the last couple pages of the exchange -- and I wanted to point you at prior art on that, but I thought it would be a little disingenuous to bring up a family of theories without noting that some people consider them already refuted.
So I decided just to point you at Fitch's as an entry point into the arguments around verificationism. I probably should have just said that.
InPitzotlSeptember 27, 2021 at 03:02#6009510 likes
How we decide what to bet on -- interesting though it may be, and important as it may be if you want to make a living doing this sort of thing -- doesn't matter in the least as far as the bets themselves are concerned.
Be more specific. The bet(1) is an offer; the bet(2) is a contract; betting is the act of negotiating a bet(2). Again in the bridge analogy, the bet(1) is a bid; the bet(2) is the result of bidding, and betting is bidding. "How we decide what to bet on" is equivalent to "how we bet(1) to arrive at a bet(2)" which is just betting. If we're betting on something we do not get to interfere with, then once we have a bet(2), we don't have any input. It sounds like that's what you're saying. Yes, that's true. However, we don't get to a bet(2) without betting, and when we are betting, we have inputs. We've been over this; you control your bet(1) as you negotiate the bet(2). Again with the bridge analogy, there's an entire skillset associated with betting; not only that, but there's a series of complex "signals" you give through bets (bidding systems) to communicate information critical to arriving at a bet(2). Quoting Srap Tasmaner
You can pick your horses using an ingenious system that needs a Cray to run it or you can close your eyes and jab the racing form with a pen
I have no idea what you're trying to convince me of, but you're very unconvincing. Relating this to bridge, I translate what you're saying as that it does not matter how you arrive at your bet(1)'s to select the bet(2) as far as the bet(2) is concerned. And that is quite plainly false. It does indeed matter. If you bet(1) by jabbing your pen onto a board of possible bets, your partner will be furious and your opposition will wipe the floor with you. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Being better at predicting is generally nice if you do it a lot, but you still don't get paid for making better predictions overall or for doing a better job of analysis than someone else; you get paid if and only if the horses finish as you said they would.
This makes no sense. Probability does matter, even for a single event; that's why it's useful in the first place. Even so, all you are doing if you bet "a lot" is changing the probability that you win (e.g., if there's a 60% chance you win a single symmetric $5 bet, there's a 81/125 chance you'll come out ahead in 3 such bets). Quoting Srap Tasmaner
You have promised Joe that if the Celtics win you'll give him the dishwashing job.
The dishwashing job is an agreement between myself and Joe for Joe to do something for me in exchange for the consideration of $20, which is a contract. The contract is agreed to based on a condition. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
since he had no claim on you.
IANAL, but you do realize that verbal contracts in the US where we both live can be legally binding, right?
FindLaw:Most contracts can be either written or oral and still be legally enforceable,
Where do you draw the lines and what is your good reason to draw the lines there?
That's easy, and already explained: data, empirical evidence, are facts. Theories are not.
If facts are theory, explain to me why we need facts (data, observations)? Why can't we just rely on theory? Why do you keep your eyes open when you drive your car? :-)
Being better at predicting is generally nice if you do it a lot, but you still don't get paid for making better predictions overall or for doing a better job of analysis than someone else; you get paid if and only if the horses finish as you said they would. — Srap Tasmaner
This makes no sense. Probability does matter, even for a single event; that's why it's useful in the first place. Even so, all you are doing if you bet "a lot" is changing the probability that you win
It's a simple point.
Suppose I have an urn with 75 red marbles in it and 25 blue marbles. You bet me $5 that without looking you can reach in the urn and draw a red marble. The odds are 3:1 in your favor, but you still might draw a blue marble, in which case you owe me $5. It doesn't matter that you made the smart bet, that the odds were in your favor, you owe me $5. If we made the same bet a great number of times, the odds would tell, and you would make money on the exercise.
InPitzotlSeptember 27, 2021 at 12:05#6011080 likes
That's easy, and already explained: data, empirical evidence, are facts. Theories are not.
You replied, but you did not answer the question. Quoting Olivier5
If facts are theory, explain to me why we need facts (data, observations)?
If you're talking about the use of the terms in science, there's a distinction, but it's what I described, not what you described. Quoting Olivier5
In my mind it's an absolute presupposition. I.e. it's part of metaphysics.
Again, you replied, but you did not answer the question. Is it a fact that planets exist when you aren't looking at them, or a theory that planets exist when you aren't looking at them?:
What a planet is doing when you're looking at it, let's say, is an "accurate observation". But when you look away, to posit that the planet is still there would be an induction: "induced theories tying the observations in a logical or mathematical net" (incidentally, this sounds more like a scientific law than a scientific theory). "Now, logicians tell us that induction never provides certainty," ...well, we can't be certain the planet is still there when you aren't looking at it. "Therefore our induced theories are provisional." ...so if we can't be certain objects aren't there when we aren't looking at them, it must be a theory. "But the observations that were done, remain done, factum," ...but that's a contradiction. You're using certainty as a criteria, and we can't be certain an object is there when we are looking at it either. "Any new theory would have to contend with past observations." ...we never observe the past. "So observations (and only they) are facts." ...but observations aren't certain.
Certainty eliminates the distinction from fact and theory that you suggest are distinct. So it's not really certainty you're after.
InPitzotlSeptember 27, 2021 at 12:14#6011090 likes
It doesn't matter that you made the smart bet, that the odds were in your favor, you owe me $5.
So what you're saying is because I might draw a blue marble, it does not matter what the probability is that I draw a red one. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
If we made the same bet a great number of times, the odds would tell, and you would make money on the exercise.
But that doesn't change anything. If we play 100 times (with replacement), I might pick 51, or 52, or 53, all the way up to 100 blue marbles. In all of those cases I would owe you money. If what might happen means probability doesn't matter, it wouldn't matter here either. There is no number of times we can play where it's not true that you "might" win.
Again, you replied, but you did not answer the question. Is it a fact that planets exist when you aren't looking at them, or a theory that planets exist when you aren't looking at them?:
Neither. It's an absolute presupposition for astronomy. Supposedly, if we thought that celestial objects disappear, we wouldn't try and track their path across the sky and astronomy would never had been founded.
You may not like the answer, but it is one nevertheless. I refer you to Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics.
"But the observations that were done, remain done, factum," ...but that's a contradiction. You're using certainty as a criteria, and we can't be certain an object is there when we are looking at it either.
As explained, it is an absolute presupposition that things remain 'there' even when you don't look at them. That's why we look for our keys when we misplace them.
Srap TasmanerSeptember 27, 2021 at 12:56#6011140 likes
So what you're saying is because I might draw a blue marble, it does not matter what the probability is that I draw a red one.
No, I'm saying that once you've drawn it doesn't matter if you were more likely to draw what you did or less likely. If the less likely outcome is what happened, on this single draw, you owe me money. That's all.
There is no number of times we can play where it's not true that you "might" win.
I meant that your accumulated net winnings would gradually increase.
A bet is usually a stake laid on the outcome of an individual event, as here, and sometimes the favorite loses. Gambling as an ongoing enterprise to make money can follow the odds and the winnings should more than make up for the losses in the long term.
InPitzotlSeptember 27, 2021 at 13:05#6011150 likes
Well let me phrase it another way. You observe some particular and derive some truth about the particular, where "truth" is simply something to your own satisfaction. That's a fact. You collect a bunch of facts and find some generalized explanation for it... that's a theory. Incidentally this isn't just a mathematical or logical net; a mathematical relationship between several facts isn't considered an explanation; that is just a law, not a theory. Quoting Olivier5
Neither. It's an absolute presupposition for astronomy.
I'm unconvinced that being a presupposition implies "neither". We learn object permanence at an incredibly young age. It has the hallmarks of a theory; we observe objects going out of view, and coming into view, but there's some consistency of the observations that appears to arise out of the data... objects going out of view still seem to "be out there", potentially to come back into view again. We infer then that objects stay there even if we don't see them. This would make it a theory.
The reason science shows little interest in it is because it's primitive and ubiquitous; approximately all humans learn it at an incredibly young age. The tools of science simply aren't necessary to use to get to the theory.
InPitzotlSeptember 27, 2021 at 13:10#6011170 likes
No, I'm saying that once you've drawn it doesn't matter if you were more likely to draw what you did or less likely.
Once I've drawn 100 marbles it wouldn't matter if I were more likely to draw what I did or less likely. Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I meant that your accumulated net winnings would gradually increase.
No, my accumulated net winnings would probably increase. There's a probability that it would. The contradiction here is that you're appealing to probability in the multiple case yet ignoring it in the single case. Either probability matters, in which case it matters on a single draw; or it doesn't, in which case it doesn't matter on multiple draws. The only thing multiple draws gives you is another probability.
Reply to InPitzotl So you think object permanence is a theory. A sort of theory about everything that we derive from experience.
To me, it seems difficult to verify or falsify from experience, because when you check that objects are still there, you must look at them objects. So you can't see what they do when you don't look at them.
InPitzotlSeptember 27, 2021 at 13:16#6011200 likes
Reply to InPitzotl Mmmokay. In a sense, a presupposition is 'theoretical'.
Still, there is such a thing as the brute picture taken of a planet, its spectrum analysis and the likes. Brute facts, the data, this data and not another.
A composite image of the south pole of Jupiter made from JunoCam images taken during the 1st, 3rd, & 4th orbits of NASA's Juno spacecraft, August 2019.
Reply to Banno I don't see what the supposition that there are truths we could not possibly know even in principle (a supposition I don't make) has to do with my criticism of Fitch's (supposed) Paradox.
A notable feature of facts as I defined them -- as empirical evidence, basically -- is that they often cost real money. The cost of the Juno spacecraft which took the 'Van Gogh marble' picture(s) above was projected to be US$1.46 billion for operations and data analysis through 2022.
Facts have also financial value: they can be sold. Eg you can sell commercial satellite imagery, or survey data.
Truth, however, is not so easy to commodify.
Ennui ElucidatorSeptember 28, 2021 at 17:48#6016110 likes
This is often the problem of facts, not just the counter-factual nature of how most people engage with them, but the way that they simple suppose because they imagine something in their head it means that it is possible. If only logical possibility had any demonstrable relationship to facts, they might be on to something, but so far it seems like we have precisely the facts we have, no more, no less, and that logic serves as an interpretive tool rather than an imposition on what they can be.
TheMadFoolSeptember 28, 2021 at 18:14#6016170 likes
The antonym of fact is not false, it's hypothetical/fiction.
In other words, facts are non-imaginary, true propositions (about this world we're denizens of).
Propositions can be:
1. True & imaginary (unicorns have a horn)
2. True & non-imaginary (facts)
3. False & imaginary (unicorns are dogs)
5. False & non-imaginary (NY is in Guatamela)
so far it seems like we have precisely the facts we have, no more, no less, and that logic serves as an interpretive tool rather than an imposition on what they can be
Exactly, except we can of course aquire more facts as we go along, and we do.
Ennui ElucidatorSeptember 28, 2021 at 19:17#6016530 likes
Exactly, except we can of course acquire more facts as we go along, and we do.
But to your point, facts come at a cost, so we are likely to obtain only those facts that have a cost that we (or others) are willing to bear in order to obtain them. Unsurprisingly, then, many facts support power and undermine the powerless. As @180 Proof has said, facts are ineluctable, but not for the reasons he supposes.
facts come at a cost, so we are likely to obtain only those facts that have a cost that we (or others) are willing to bear in order to obtain them. Unsurprisingly, then, many facts support power and undermine the powerless.
Yes, that's a key point. Knowledge is money or power, and all that jazz. So certain facts become more easily available than others. Like there tends to be more sociological data on poor people than on rich people. And I suspect not because rich people are not important but because they are too important for understanding society. They are not convinced that to be studied and understood is in their own interest.
There was an interesting case recently of the complexities involved in interpreting certain facts or documents. The US army released a few videos of phenomena they said they could not interpret or explain. You must have seen them. Here there are if you haven't:
The interesting bit is what followed: many pro-alien so to speak, others more sobber and rationalist interpretations were made of the same grainy footage. Among the skeptics is Mick West who analyses here the 'go fast' video. His explanation is technical, and in my view credible. And no it's not an alien spacecraft:
My point here is that the only undeniable facts are the grainy footages and their metadata (how and when they were collected). The rest is interpretation and therefore, highly technical.
Reply to Janus A consequence of realism is that there are things we don't know, but which are true. The world exitst independently of what we say about it.
Antirealism in its various forms holds that all truths are knowable. So for an antirealist truth may be just what is verified. @Olivier5 may hold to something like this, with observation instead of verification. Then there are no unknown truths. One response to this would be that there are statements with an unknown truth value; that is, the rejection of bivalent logic.
So the possibility exists for building a much stronger case for antirealism than has so far been presented in this thread, by adopting some paraconsistent logic.
It is also the state of affairs set out by a true statement.
I expected to be picked up for the obvious fumbling between two quite different approaches to knowledge, but instead the thread went down the garden path of observations.
"A fact is a statement that is true" is compatible with antirealism. An antirealist would just add a definition of truth that is restricted in some way, by verification, construction, pragmatics or whatever, and so avoid Fitch's paradox at the cost of rejecting the law of non-contradiction.
"A fact is what is set out by a true statement" sets up a realist agenda. The fact exists independently of the statement. Here one might avoid Fitch by pointing out that there are things we do not know, and moreover, there are things we cannot know.
This last view has been the one I defended here, along with @Janus and @Srap Tasmaner, if I've understood them correctly. Perhaps there is room for a more robust defence of antirealism.
How to reply to someone who insists that a fact is a statement that is true, but not the state of affairs so represented? That is, someone who insists that there is no reality that is independent of the statement? That would seem to be the stronger antirealist position.
"A fact is what is set out by a true statement" sets up a realist agenda. The fact exists independently of the statement. Here one might avoid Fitch by pointing out that there are things we do not know, and moreover, there are things we cannot know.
I agree with you that there are things we do not know, and things we cannot know. I think I've indicated that amply in my exchanges with @Olivier5. One example I've given is that there are countless details of history we cannot know simply because they are past. But there is a distinction between what we can actually know (due to our place in spacetime) and what is knowable in principle. I think you would agree that all facts or truths are knowable in principle.
So, it wasn't clear to me what Fitch has in mind. Do you take Fitch to be saying that there are unknown truths, but that all truths are knowable in principle, or that all truths are actually knowable?
So, it wasn't clear to me what Fitch has in mind. Do you take Fitch to be saying that there are unknown truths, but that all truths are knowable in principle, or that all truths are actually knowable?
I'm not wanting to put words into Fitch's mouth, so much as into @Olivier5's. Consider:
Taking this as a naive attempt at verificationism, I'm suggesting it might be defensible if truth, not fact or knowledge, is defined as what has been shown to be the case, together with a rejection of non-contradiction. I'm thinking of Kripke's definition of truth. We assign the truth value "unknown" to every statement, then assign "true" or "false" to those statements which can be verified (leaving aside, for the sake of the argument, how this is to be done) and their logical consequents.
A fact is then any statement that has been assigned the value "true".
The criticisms I levelled at Olivier target observation, not verification per se. It might be fun to consider a more sophisticated version of antirealism. It's something that's been a the back of my mind for a while. I've not understood the appeal of antirealism for Kripke, Dummett, Putnam and others. This by way of exploring what they have in common.
A fact is then any statement that has been assigned the value "true".
The criticisms I levelled at Olivier target observation, not verification per se.
It's not clear to me what distinction you are making between observation and verification. In the context of science and the everyday there are countless facts that have been observed or measured, and on the strength of those observations and/ or measurements they are verified. Theories are never verified though, beyond that their predictions have been observed to obtain.
And facts are always contextual, of course. The fact that water has been observed to consistently boil at 100 degrees Celsius is subject to some conditions. For example is the water distilled or does it contain minerals, are we boiling the water at sea level? And so on. That Paris is the capital of France is not so much an observable fact but is true by convention or definition.
So, the fact that water boils at 100 degrees remains true unless the laws of nature change, and the fact that Paris is the capital of France remains true unless some other new capital is declared. That water did reliably boil at 100 degrees in certain "normal" conditions, and that France was the capital remain facts in any case.
Reply to Janus Observations might be considered a sub-class of verifications, but not the whole. That was the unanswered problem with Oli's account. But what I am interested in is not the mechanics of verification so much as the logical structure of antirealism. Is there a way to make sense of it?
So drop truth, as such, from the lexicon, going straight to belief, with three values, true, false and undecided. Logic and mathematics are down as true. Add whatever institutional statements you like - bishops move only diagonally, making a promise counts as undertaking a commitment, whatever you need. Other statements are undecided. Then add observations and associated theory in some sort of holistic verification model as per Quine...
So drop truth, as such, from the lexicon, going straight to belief, with three values, true, false and undecided. Logic and mathematics are down as true. Add whatever institutional statements you like - bishops move only diagonally, making a promise counts as undertaking a commitment, whatever you need. Other statements are undecided. Then add observations and associated theory in some sort of holistic verification model as per Quine...
You might be able to find a way to make that consistent, I suppose, but would it follow that it is correct or maximally adequate to human experience and logic?
I mean, in one sense unknown truths can mean little to us, just because they are unknown, but the existence of unknown truths seems indispensable to the logic involved in understanding ourselves as knowers of things, particularly regarding the possibility that what we take to be known may not be.
InPitzotlSeptember 29, 2021 at 00:28#6017270 likes
My point here is that the only undeniable facts are the grainy footages and their metadata (how and when they were collected). The rest is interpretation and therefore, highly technical.
It sounds like you're saying that, for example, GOFAST is very likely some form of fowl. But it is possibly an alien craft. But whatever it is, it is definitely a genuine video with authentic metadata. Is that correct?
In other words, is the contrary position you're ruling out something akin to this?: "Most likely, GOFAST is some form of fowl. Not quite as likely, it is not an authentic video and has faked metadata. Even less likely, it's an alien craft."
180 ProofSeptember 29, 2021 at 00:31#6017280 likes
What's impossible is a fact - node of causal relations - which is 'impossible to negate', or change; factual existence presupposes contingency - possibility of negation - insofar as facts are - at least one fact is - causally relational, unlike abstract subsistents which are not causally relational.
It sounds like you're saying that, for example, GOFAST is very likely some form of fowl.
Not really. I am using the example to illustrate what is a fact.
Is it a fact that the US air forces have released these vids? Yes.
Is the footage genuine? Most probably yes.
So the vids are facts.
Is there any else that can be regarded as certain or almost certain, i.e. as factually established? No. Even Mick West does not conclude it is certainly a fowl. He just demonstrates that 'gofast' does not actually go that fast.
The criticisms I levelled at Olivier target observation, not verification per se.
You have not levelled any criticism at me. You gesticulated in my general direction, declared victory and then ran away from the battle, as you always do...
Reply to 180 Proof Thanks. It's pretty obvious to me that "verificationism" is simply a logical error. Just because you observe white swans doesn't verify that all swans are white...
180 ProofSeptember 29, 2021 at 06:55#6018120 likes
(A) Is it a fact that the US air forces have released these vids? Yes.
(B) Is the footage genuine? Most probably yes.
(C) So the vids are facts.
By including line (B), it sounds like you're suggesting the footage being genuine is a fact. By your prior statement it sounds like you're binding undeniability to factuality. By your prior statement and your current one (the one I'm replying to) it sounds like you're including the video's genuineness in what you're calling undeniability. I disagree that the video's being genuine qualifies as undeniable.
...and yet, you also sound like you're paying heed to this... in line (B), you call the video's footage "most probably" genuine. The whole question here is where you draw the line.
So to follow up... do you consider the notion that the videos are genuine a fact? If so, it sounds like you do not really consider undeniability to be a trait of facts ("Most probably" not "undeniable"?)
Roughly, here's what I'm getting at. We might could have a "pragmatic fudge"; certain and undeniability really mean "for all practical purposes". But suppose we put a number to it; let's say using some Bayesian analysis, anything more likely than p is certain; less likely than p is uncertain. Then I'm not sure there is such a number beyond which are only facts, and before which are only theories.
For example, I'd happily accept that the videos were faked way before I accept that someone built a perpetual motion machine.
I disagree that the video's being genuine qualifies as undeniable.
...and yet, you also sound like you're paying heed to this... in line (B), you call the video's footage "most probably" genuine. The whole question here is where you draw the line.
That is indeed important in that a document, understood broadly as a video, a photo, a text or a voice recording, or any cultural artifact can be accepted as genuine or rejected as fake. There is no power in this world that can force anyone to accept a source as valid. For someone who thinks the Holocaust never happened, all testimonies of the survivors, all the pictures, all the records of the Holocaust are fake. But here comes the rub: to reject a massive amount of evidence is unhealthy. It is indicative of a very strong bias bordering on insanity.
Facts are what a sane person in good faith cannot deny. Not what a fool can't deny.
So, coming back to the UFO vids, it is technically possible but it would surprise me very very much if the US Armed Forces had forged three or more fake videos of UFOs to then 'declassify' them... Like why would they do that? And how come the testimonies of service members fit?
We might could have a "pragmatic fudge"; certain and undeniability really mean "for all practical purposes".
Yes, and for all sane, bona fide folks.
But suppose we put a number to it; let's say using some Bayesian analysis, anything more likely than p is certain; less likely than p is uncertain. Then I'm not sure there is such a number beyond which are only facts, and before which are only theories.
In theory you are right but even imprecision can be measured or estimated. If you disclose openly the limitations of your data and its margin of error, it's part of what make facts good facts.
So you use verisimilitude as your measure of truth.
I'm not a Popperian but I plead guilty to elevating verisimilitude. As far as I can tell, I have no alternative but to assume the world I am in is real that other people exist and act accordingly. All matter may well really be discrete globs of energy bobbing about on quantum waves but it makes no sense to conduct life using this model of reality. Is there help?
Are there unknown truths? The approach inspired by Fitch post-dates Popper, so it's not obvious whether verisimilitude is realist, as he thought, or anti-realist, a notion that came into prominence after falsificationism lost purchase in epistemology.
Tom StormSeptember 30, 2021 at 00:42#6020300 likes
I'm looking into antirealism, to see if it is a viable alternative to realism.
Excellent. I've wondered about this. Verisimilitude not being realist is fascinating. I guess there's also the phenomenologist's perspective (of which I have limited understanding) wherein we co-create reality and share an intersubjective experience rather than an objective reality. But maybe I've got this wrong. Let us know what you find.
Reply to Tom Storm Verisimilitude gives an approximation to the truth, in that theories with a higher verisimilitude are "closer to the truth" than those without. Yes?
I suppose it remains an open question as to whether this leads to realism or antirealism. Presumably, given that Popper avowed realism, he thinks that a statement is either true or false, and verisimilitude becomes a measure of the degree to which we might believe, or perhaps know the truth of the statement.
But oddly @Olivier5 seemed to previously disavow the notion that a statement is either true or false, preferring a measure of the probability of it's being true... or something like that. An antirealist approach, from someone who claims to be a realist.
One might be able to drop binary truth for degrees of truth, at the cost of dropping realism for antirealism.
That's an interesting notion, that I would not have noticed were it not for @Olivier5's odd definition of "fact" as observation. While it's clear from the criticisms offered here of that notion that it won't cut the mustard, there might be space for someone to defend an anti-realist argument against the realist account.
It seems antirealism cannot be dismissed quite as quickly as I had thought.
So you use verisimilitude as your measure of truth.
If not, then it's not apparent how you might reconcile realism with Fitch's paradox.
I use observation as a measure of truth, as I thought I made clear, and as every body else does really. Or do you know anyone who drives his car with his eyes closed?
I don't believe there is such a thing as Fitch's paradox: it's a mere illusion of a paradox due to poor conceptual clarity. It's fake.
Comments (798)
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.
Thank you. I hope there are a few more definitions before I ask the next question.
There's a couple of uses for the word.
A fact is a statement that is true.
It is also the state of affairs set out by a true statement.
That's a different question. What I said about facts stands.
But introducing knowledge brings with it belief, and to the distinctions made in my bio.
But mostly, the answer to "how do you know that it's true' is "how do you know what is true?" That is, there need be no general answer to every case. How do I know that the cat is on the mat? I see it there. How do you know your address? Presumably you remember it. And so on.
That is, "How do you know that such-and-such is true" is just a long-winded way of asking "How do you know that such-and-such".
If I can offer a stubborn answer on a pet theme, it's hard to take this OP seriously. What is a fact? Could this be translated into "gimme some basic stuff about the word 'fact' for those learning English please"? Why not check the dictionary? Are anonymous strangers astride their hobbyhorses more reliable guides? I trust that writers of dictionaries are just reading and listening and distilling a highly complex phenomenon into a simple starter kit which is no replacement for immersion but in fact depends on it (since simple words are defined in terms of other simple words.)
I think of a magic trick. What will we pull from our hats?
But seeing the cat on the mat may well be enough to lead one to believe that the cat is on the mat...
Quoting tim wood
How would that play out? It's a fact that tomorrow will be Sunday- what's the point of calling that an historical fact?
Given that her alternate facts are not true, they are not facts. She's misusing the term - that seems apparent. But doubtless she would claim that her alternate facts are themselves "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent", in which case @T Clark's definition is not much help.
Evidence comes in to play when we talk about belief, not truth.
You seem to be riding on your own pompous hobbyhorse.
Damn right, sir. But I'm aware of it. Are you enjoying yours? Isn't it a bit absurd to define 'fact' anonymously ?
You can do what you like, but it seems odd to me that it might be true that 2+2=4, if it's not a fact; or that it's a fact that it snowed, but it's not true.
Not what we other folk might suppose.
A fact is (often, not always) a proposition in which what is stated adheres to the situation the statement is aimed at elucidating.
Thus, that World War II ended in 1945 is a statement that corresponds to what actually happened in that period of time.
But it can soon become quite complex, as when new evidence renders the proposition obsolete. Maybe a new fact comes about in which we'd have to conclude that the WWII ended in 1946 because of some technicality concerning some document arises.
Thx.
As you note, a fact is a statement that is true. Any definition of "fact" has to take into account that what we believe is a fact may turn out not to be true when we have more information. That's what I like best about the Gould quote.
The Kelly-Anne Conway problem has nothing to do with facts. It has to do with convincing people of what the facts are. That's rhetoric, not philosophy.
Yep. That's the difference between facts and beliefs. Facts cannot turn out the be false. Beliefs can.
You haven't been here long. How many of my and other people's posts have you read? If you haven't read them, then you have no basis for judging the quality of my, or any other forum member's, work. If, in general, you don't respect the quality of the thinking or writing on the forum, what are you doing here?
It doesn't make sense.
Maybe that answers Athena's question - Facts don't exist. There are only beliefs.
That seems like a plausible description of usage. It's a difference that makes a difference. A 'fact' is more settled. 'Belief' suggests a distance from the claim. A philosopher might be tempted to say, however, that therefore we only have beliefs and never facts. That to me would be an example of a rule-of-thumb being stretched into something less useful.
My hobbyhorse at the moment is the idea that words/meanings are like animals in the wild. We can play zoology and sketch these animals in broad strokes, but it's an empirical-interpretive activity. Since (as I think we agree) meaning is out there, it's a descriptive enterprise. (Creativity comes into play when parodying metaphysics, I guess.) On the other hand, the metaphysician will take this or that aspect of a word and make it absolute, so that a new kind of quasi-mathematical game is possible...but much more profound than math, since it scratches the religious/literary itch (somehow at no sacrifice of precision and certainty.)
You posted that a moment before I made a similar point. I think it's a reason to not take such a definition of 'fact' too seriously, despite what it gets right. Definitions are a questionable enterprise anyhow.
Hey, T. I was just joking with you. You jumped on me, remember? Yeah, I'm ambivalent about philosophy, but so is much of philosophy itself.
Which I think brings us back to the Gould quote. Here it is again for reference:
In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.
Facts are always provisional.
We seem to be having a fruitful exchange now.
But that's not right. There are facts. Tomorrow will be Sunday. This post is in English.
I do like that definition as definitions go.
I'd remove 'can only be' to allow for uses of 'fact' to also be provisional. Is Gould's claim a fact? Also provisional then?
In a sense. In another sense a belief is just a statement that is held to be true. BOth are fine so long as we keep one eye on which we are using.
The wild animal metaphor is apt; for the rest, I'll await the details.
I'm retired. I sometimes forget what day it is. Also, in Hawaii it's 7:30 pm on Friday now. There, tomorrow will be Saturday.
Is that a fact?
Obvious retort. My apologies. But it is also apparent that there are facts that are not provisional.
:up:
Good point. It's like we start with a sketch, see something missing, and add to it. I'd say that no sketch will ever master/capture the complexity of the use of 'belief.' It changes as we study it (our study is part of that change.)
Quoting Banno
I think discussing the meaning of fact is a great path for us getting to understand one another on this theme.
Nor I. Assenting to a statement makes it a belief, not a fact. Being true is what makes a statement a fact, assented to or not.
Sure, sometimes we are mistaken, but never as to the facts, only in our beliefs. And some facts are different elsewhere. None of that changes the fact that there are facts.
Probably not. It may be a metaphysical statement which, as I've said many times, are not true or false, only useful or not.
Quoting Banno
Are there any facts determined by induction, as opposed to those determined by deduction, that might not be wrong.
Determined to be true? Or determining one's belief as to it's truth?
It occurs to me that with a deductive argument we are talking about truth, but since induction is invalid, with a deductive argument we are talking about belief.
Might think on that a bit. Cheers.
OK, I grant that. But I'd frame this as a statement about usage as opposed to a science of truth, fact, and assent. "You can safely substitute 'true statement' for 'fact' most of the time." I think of humans in the world interacting, barking and scrawling tokens. A definition is like teaching someone to put a worm on the hook. It's that practical, finally.
Maybe the difference is only attitude. We can express advice about usage successfully in the register of describing entities like facts.
One can of course propose an ideal or proper or authentic or official use of 'fact.' And that can be worthwhile.
I like that. You almost save the word 'metaphysics' from oblivion.
That's not an answer to the question. That's a false statement about when a proposition expresses a fact. Even if it were true, it would not tell us what a fact itself 'is'. It's akin to answering the philosophical question "what is yellow" with "bananas".
That's another zinger. There's an anti-metaphysician within you, clawing its way out.
Quoting Bartricks
But you'll have to fix the sentence above. As I asked elsewhere, what is the form of the answer that could tell you what a fact is? What more can you ask for than a definition...a context-relevant description of usage? What's a shovel? Well, we use it to dig, see. No, I mean what is a shovel, really? It's as if there's an ultra-vague Beyond that haunts metaphysics.
So, statements can be true. But statements aren't facts. That's nonsense. The propositional content of a true statement expresses a fact. But it - the statement - is not itself a fact, but a statement - a true one. That's why if it is true that p, then it is a fact that p. The fact that p is what the proposition "it is true that p" asserts to be the case.
You think? I find it a bit sad that those hereabouts are so ready to dispatch truth to the backroom.
Quoting Zugzwang
...but pragmatism would have us throw out the sketch and draw something else. Failing to see the distinction between truth and belief they see belief can change and decide nothing is true.
I have no idea what that means.
Quoting Zugzwang
That too.
There's an ambiguity to the word 'is' that makes questions such as "what is a fact?" ambiguous. But clearly the questioner is not asking to be provided with a list of facts, or told when we have facts on our hands, but with insight into what a fact is made of, so to speak.
And that's what I'm addressing. A fact is the asserted content of a true proposition. To get more by way of an answer would require answering the question "what is truth?" For until one answers that question one can't gain further insight into what, precisely, being the asserted content of a true proposition amounts to.
Sure it is. It's just put in everyday language. People understand what it means. You understand what it means, even if you think it's not true.
Quoting Bartricks
I think it's a very good description of what a fact is. It captures the uncertainty associated with all our knowledge while still enforcing a rigorous standard. Most philosophical discussions dick around with that.
Quoting Bartricks
@Zugzwang, I don't know if you've come across @Bartricks in your wandering through the forum yet. He likes to insult people rather than engage in a collegial discussion.
Are you making empirical claims? Inferences from assumptions?? What case do you make ? My big point is that none of us control the use of these tokens. They are like the furniture of the social world. In that sense, we are in meaning, navigating signs that indicate promise and danger.
To my ears, talk about 'facts' and 'propositions' that isn't about usage is like talk about knights, bishops, and queens in chess. How are facts studied examined directly, as opposed to analyzing actual usage?
Yes, ambiguity. I agree. I suspect it's only practical concern that keeps us from floating away in the fog of our language. A beaver builds dams. We write novels, sure that there's some extra dimension of 'meaning' involved. But what if we view our tokens (words) like sticks that a monkey might use to fish out a grub? What if some final clarity was itself the vaguest of projects?
Quoting Bartricks
So to speak, figurative language. A metaphor. What are little [s]boys[/s] facts made of? Statements and truth. That's what facts are made of. Does that satisfy? Facts are strings of iterable tokens, spoken or written or telepathically transmitted in their pure transparent non-linguistic form.
No.
Quoting Zugzwang
I have said that a fact is what's asserted by a true proposition. Now, if you disagree then kindly tell me what you'd call what's asserted by a true proposition.
I find his insults amusing, to tell the truth. He's the straight man in his philosophical earnestness, and yet he'll shift into Tony Clifton when annoyed or frustrated. Fascinating combination.
I don't dislike that definition in particular. The point is how you came up with it. Instead of talking about how a token tends to be exchanged, it's as if you are pronouncing truths about the supposed referents of these tokens. On what authority? In the real world, I have to worry about the many, many ways that 'fact' might be used by all kinds of people...and very little about the views of 'specialists' in such matters. (The idea of a 'specialist' in such a basic competence is a little absurd, like a professional chewer or walker.)
This is science apologetics.
If something can be confirmed as fact, explain how.
This definition is like saying 'something is confirmed if its been so confirmed that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent'.
Not only that, but there is an ambiguity to the word 'fact'. There is a common usage shown in the sentence 'The encyclopaedia is a compendium of facts' that does not accord with the other common usage which equates facts with states of affairs or actualities.
To me the everyday uses of 'truth' are safe and sound. It's one of those primary words. You just gotta know how to use and react to it. I guess the issue is whether the study of truth (and/or 'truth') should belong to philosophers or linguists.
Quoting Banno
Pragmatism is a big tent though. And I relate more to empiricism anyway, in the broad sense of look and see. I think we humans can't help but care about truth, call it what we will. Even the suicidal want to tie a good noose.
Are philosophers experts on some strange entity known as 'truth'? Or are they experts on a particular conversation ? Do they use 'truth' more effectively than others in the world outside this specialized conversation ? I don't know. But it doesn't seem like the same skill.
:grin:
I'm stealing that.
Thx. :party: :death:
So if it can't be observed it isn't a fact? Are you an empiricist?
Quoting Olivier5
And an accurate observation is... one that is true, perhaps?
Hence a fact is a true observation?
Quoting Tom Storm
Indeed; but that's not right. There are unobserved facts.
Indeed, I am an empiricist.
The general use of the term 'fact' today is '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.
E.g. "It's a fact that Canada and the US share a rather long border". This example is purposely phrased a bit vaguely ("a rather long border"), because all human statements are ambiguous (to a smaller or larger degree), but note that it is still quite difficult to reject in good faith. So facts do not need to be super super precise to be facts.
My thesis is as follows: for a 'statement to be proved to be true' about some state of affairs, if empiricism is true and assuming the correspondance theory of truth, some accurate observations must have occured. Some dude must have seen something for a fact to be a fact.
To come back to our example, if you look at a map of North America, assuming the map is an accurate compilation of accurate geographical observations (eg satellite observation today) by well-trained and dutyful geographers, you can observe that the border between the US and Canada is indeed rather long.
Therefore, a fact is an accurate observation of some state of affairs.
Additionally, a time-honored method to explore the meaning of a word is to look at its etymology, and figure out how the word in question came to mean what it means today, via a historical evolution. It's like trying to trace the trajectory of a word's usage over time. Meaning being use, that method makes some sense.
Fact comes from Latin factum, neuter past participle of facere ‘do’. The original sense was ‘an act’, something done. Something you can't change, by implication, because it belongs to the past.
So originally, a fact is an act. How did it come to mean 'a true statement' or 'an accurate observation'? This semantic transition happened in the 17th century, precisely when empiricism established itself as one of the pillars of modern science. (The other pillar being rationalism)
I propose that in the work of scientists, a lot of observations get done, that observations are precisely an 'act’, something done. Something you can't change, by implication. If Galileo and others saw the moons of Jupiter in a correct or accurate observation, then it is a fact that Jupiter has moons.
Such as?
No idea. I have no religious beliefs. But you do. So I am wondering on what basis you hold these. Or do you run two sets of books?
Okay so we agree that a fact is an accurate observation, then?
I don't know. I'm not a philosopher.
If you have a stomach ache, I can't observe that but it is still a fact. A person's emotional state is not always observable.
That cockroach under your floorboards is pregnant.
It's a fact for me, because I can feel my pain, but it's not a fact for you, because for all you know, I could be pretending.
Indeed. And therein lies the problem. It's experiential not observational.
What's an observation, if not an experience?
But point taken: a fact has to be accurate and in order to be widely accepted as such, to be 'a statement that is known or proved to be true,' it needs to be objectively or intersubjectively verifiable ie observable by several people.
I get that this is a sort of dictionary meaning, but there is an alternative usage that's roughly "to the best of our knowledge and with very high confidence". It's what Samuel Arbesman writes about in The Half-Life of Facts.
For instance, humans have 46 chromosomes, but it used to be widely believed that we have 48. "Widely believed" is the way most of us would say it, I guess, but it doesn't quite convey how firmly established this belief was. It's what all the textbooks said. It was considered settled science. Researchers who found only 46, while doing something else, assumed without question that they had screwed up somewhere. Doubting that humans have 48 chromosomes was akin to doubting the periodic table.
Now of course we know there are 46, so now we say it's a fact that there are 46. But is it impossible that we're wrong? Honestly hard for me to say. I'd like to think so because now we know a mistake is possible in this area, so perhaps we upped our game in 1955 when we finally got it right. But the point remains that scientists before 1955 had a similar level of confidence about 48.
And it turns out you can measure the turnover of facts, as Arbesman has done, along the lines of how many years does it take for half of what's published in a field to be overturned? He's found some pretty stable patterns there, that out on the high end, with medicine, it may be less than 10 years, while on the low end, with fundamental physics, it might be more like 40 or 50.
His book, by the way, was only okay. Not philosophically sophisticated, but some pretty interesting case studies, and an interesting way of looking at progress in science.
aaha, you asked the second question. :grin:
:lol: No I don't remember it. I look for an envelope that has my address on it.
But isn't that a bad way to use the word fact?
Oh no, that could not be because I was born a little over 9 months after the end of the war and my birth certificate says that year was 1946. However, I read something about when we figured out the year of Jesus's birth and the beginning of our calendar, that was 4 years off the actual date. So when we were figuring with the Mayan calendar the beginning of the new age we could not be sure of the correct date for that moment of transition. For reasons like this, I don't think we should say science is truth and assume there is no doubt that what believe is true. My very old logic book, explains we should never be too sure of what we think we know, and in fact. Unlike religious beliefs, in science, there are rules for determining facts and a belief can be changed with new information. The difference is religion is mythology and science is validated facts.
I like to address everyone who addresses me, but I might look like an egomaniac if I do that with so many replies so I am condensing. Some of you got, I am getting at the problem of religious conflicts, and the democratic belief that reasoning is the way to resolve conflicts. We do not want religious wars and we do not want people treated badly for religious reasons, so when it comes to knowing God's truth, shouldn't we pay attention to what is a fact and what is not a fact?
My preacher nephew is glad when archeologists prove an event in the bible did happen, but he was not at all happy when a terribly bad time was revealed as a climate-caused event. I thought he would be happy about that proof, but no, he was mad because his belief system demands such things be the act of God, not nature. Okay, but he is glad when the ruins of a building prove an event in the bible happened. However, then I must point out, even though archeologists have evidence of Troy that does not prove the gods are real.
Help me on this. If we are going to make laws that affect everyone, and put people in penitentiaries to save their souls, and go to war because that is the will of God, shouldn't we have really good grounds for what we believe?
Quoting T Clark
Yes, yes, and yes. How can anyone today believe a god walked in a garden with a man and a woman and this is the beginning of our history? If that story is accepted as factual, isn't there a problem with our thinking? Like before scientific thinking why wouldn't everyone believe that story? There was not a method for thinking that would clarify the story as a myth, not a fact. Democracy is about reasoning and that is only possible when our minds are prepared to think independently and scientifically, right?
Determinism
But quantum physics has proven uncertainty. I think that is a fact that makes a previously accepted fact wrong.
What we believe here has social, religious, legal, and political ramifications. Those nations that centered on determinism were conservative and that hindered all forms of progress. I think the science and the results of the different beliefs prove we can determine our own future. However, all our decisions need to be based on the best reasoning possible because the human will has created a man-made reality and not all this is good.
I have to stress- the word ignorance means to ignore something. I do not think people intentionally ignore facts that mean we will survive or we won't. We will go to war, or we will not. We will allow scientific exploration of cells and ending birth defects or we will not. However, they may not have the thinking skills to do the required thinking. Learning how to think scientifically is a learned thinking ability not one that comes naturally just because we have a brain.
We can not change the way people in Afghanistan live without changing how they are taught to think. Let us be very clear about this- Our concern needs to be with[b]how people learn to think, not what they learn to think.[/b]
THAT IS EXACTLY WHY I STARTED THIS THREAD. THANK YOU :love:
The sentiment is nice, but thinking along these lines is muddled. All we have is extent stuff - the eternally present now. What we have is theories about how things were and how things will be based upon what is now. Some people are OK with patterns not holding and some people insist that there are “laws” out there that make things in the past behave like things in the present or such that things in the present give an indication of what happened in the past or will in the future. Asking why/how people believe what they believe (if it is true that the world revolves around the sun, why wouldn’t everyone 10,000 years ago have believed that?) sounds a bit like a reasonable challenge to the “truth” of some claim, but people can be (and are) wrong about big and little things.
The religious folk you are likely talking about are not engaged in arguments about religious belief from extent stuff as interpreted through their paradigm, but about personal revelation that made them believe some lot of stuff is/was “true.” Different groups have some modifications to this general line of thinking, but ultimately what is grounding their paradigm is of a different sort than the stuff that grounds a good theory about the fate of the mammoth.
Descriptions of the world and how it functions (the sorts of things that presumably make up the corpus of what you call scientific thinking) do not address the existential questions that people seem to be discussing when talking about why things should be done (like living or dying). Imagination (whether based in current states of affairs or otherwise) is what permits people to envision the past and work towards the future, both of which are counterfactuals.
A functioning democracy is about functioning, not about adherence to some ideology or another. If a functioning democracy is one that allows for relatively peaceful (i.e. not subject to group violence) existence, then the measure is the extent to which it does that, not how that peace is achieved.
Both a boat and goose float, yet one is not the other. Democracy is not the only form of government that can lead to peace.
Also, I was not claiming that peace is the measure of the functioning government, but that it is an example of a measure that one can use to make a judgment. This has philosophical implications, but was made in a political context - participants in a democracy need not make everyone agree about everything unless that is one of the goals of democracy.
It isn't obviously something you have a choice about. Right now, you and I both believe some things are Facts, with a capital F, that will turn out to have been facts, with a small F.
Just consider the insistence of neuroscientists that your memories are reconstructions, practically confabulations. There are things you believe about your own life, your own experiences, that are not true. You remember lending Banno a book he never returned, but it was actually me you lent it to. You remember your mom wearing a blue dress at your graduation, but it was green, you're thinking of the blue dress she bought for your brother's wedding. You don't know which of your own memories are facts. How many times have you gotten a quote from a book or a movie just slightly, or a lot more than slightly, wrong?
In that very paragraph, I use "true", "actually", "know" and even "was" to make the point. We have no other vocabulary for saying that we cannot know our beliefs to be true.
And no, we cannot use "It used to be a fact that ..." to mean "We all used to believe with high confidence that ..." (On the implicature accompanying "used to", there's Mitch Hedberg: "I used to do drugs. I still do but I used to too.")
There are a lot of quirks to "fact" and "fact that" I guess we could get into.
I wasn't speaking about science when I gave my example about WWII, so I'm not sure I follow what you're saying in this part. It wasn't a scientific fact, but a historical one.
Faith is faith because it is based on belief alone, with little to no attention to facts. Science and religion in this sense are not compatible when describing the same situations. Sure, science is not sure proof, but nothing is. It's just that science is the best tool we have for ascertaining facts about the world.
Absent good evidence, we need good reasons to belief so and so. Philosophy can help us here. But if you want to speak about facts and how they relate to religion, I don't think one will get very far.
For me, what is important is if the person can perceive the necessary information or not. That is different from having the capability to perceive information and choosing to ignore it. I have checked dictionary definitions and they do not clarify that point. It is like everyone takes for granted our ability to receive knowledge.
Most of the time, I read what you all are saying, and it is over my head. I am a gifted idiot. I have a terrible time understanding what people are saying. I have college lectures produced by the Great Course company and I listen to them again and again and still do not receive the information that is given. I am not ignoring the information. I just can not understand it. It bounces off my brain like a rubber ball bounces off a wall. I know it would help if I were more intent on learning and wrote notes while listening to the lecture. It takes a lot of effort and energy to learn something, and often comprehending what you all are talking about seems totally beyond what I am capable of. You use the word "unawareness", we have to know something before we can learn more. But that is not intentionally ignoring the available information. That is the point I want to make. Along with the points I want to make about education in other threads.
Believing a holy book and not the science that is vital to the health of our nation, is an educational failure that comes with replacing liberal education (how to think) with education for technology (what to think) and leaving moral training (the ability to think) to the church.
Explain please.
Quoting Yohan
It says "confirm to a degree" and "provisional assent." I don't see any problem, just follow the scientific method, i.e. provide evidence.
Quoting Yohan
I think you're playing around with language. Do you really not know what Gould is saying?
Quoting Banno
Actually, I've always thought that hanging would be a good way to commit suicide if I ever want to do so. When I picture it, I always just tie a slip knot. It is my understanding the fancy-schmancy hangman's noose was developed as a way to break the hangee's neck when they are dropped from a gallows.
Our knowledge of what is true is always tentative, or as Gould writes, "provisional." any definition of truth that doesn't take that into account is missing the point. Truth that can't be known is meaningless.
Science doesn't have a way of establishing fact. Rather than admit this, which I believe honest scientists do, some science advocates and probably actual scientists won't admit it, but will instead rearrange the goal posts so that a fact can mean something that is agreed upon by the majority of scientists.
That's a quick theory, though I could be wrong.
Quoting T Clark
I think its a problem because how do we determine what counts as sufficient reason to accept something as evidence. And then how much of such evidence is enough to accept something as fact beyond a reasonable doubt? It reminds me of the heap paradox. How much could be considered a big enough heap of evidence?
Quoting T Clark
I don't think I am.
Something is either proven to be a fact or it isn't. No amount of induction will ever establish a fact. At least, I don't see how it could.
That question is what I wonder about facts...
If this is what you wanted, you should have said so in the OP.
I don't see how the belief that reasoning is the way to resolve conflicts is somehow a democratic principle.
Quoting Athena
I don't think many people, theists or non-theists, think we should put people in prison to save their souls. I also don't think theistic regime's are more likely to start wars than non-theistic ones. Please, let's not get into that foofaraw again.
Quoting Athena
Gould said "in science." He was as big, if perhaps not as rabid, an atheist as you and @tim wood are. He, unlike you, was not anti-religion.
In 415, St. Augustine, one of the founders of the Christian church, stated that the bible should be interpreted metaphorically. Thanks to @Wayfarer for that information. Just because there are fundamentalists who haven't gotten the message, that doesn't give you leeway to let the straw dogs out.
And again, what makes you think democracy has some sort of privileged access to reason?
You can accept that induction can't establish facts in the way we might have wanted, but stop somewhere short of "anything goes" or something. There's still a lot of ground between here and there.
The Gould quote is nice because "perverse" captures some standard of rationality, which can be comfortably expressed in terms of confidence or subjective probability. Sometimes people talk about "surprise" this way, giving it a somewhat rigorous definition -- we're talking Bayes here -- so you could treat as a fact something you'd be really surprised to find out was not the case.
We all know facts of an ideal sort are out of reach, and we've known it since Hume, but then what?
I don't buy this. A scientific consensus doesn't make something a fact, it makes it suitable for use. How do we use knowledge - adequately justified beliefs? We use them to make decisions about possible actions.
Quoting Yohan
First off, we don't generally need to establish facts "beyond a reasonable doubt." Sometimes we do, but not usually. Choosing the level of allowable doubt is a matter of human of judgement. You have to take into account the amount of uncertainty and the consequences of being wrong. This is something people do all the time. It's nothing exotic or even particularly philosophical. Which is not to say they don't do it wrong lots of times.
Quoting Yohan
This is silly philosophicationismness. The only things we can know that aren't established by induction are those that come from deduction, which have nothing to do with the real world. Maybe no amount of induction will ever establish a fact, but it can establish a provisional fact, belief if you will, that is suitable for use in making decisions.
We just do the best we can.
There is no singular "real world". Your world and my world are very different, even though we are both human males(I think?). Imagine how different is the world of the opposite sex, or other species even. But that is another realm of contemplation altogether.
I have a soft spot for this idea, and the companion conception of science. The idea is that "the scientific method" is not responsible for the success of science, broadly speaking, but the fact that it is communal and self-correcting. Once you've institutionalized such practices, you can even overcome failures like the replication crisis. The faith is that democracy can support similar incremental progress towards a just society, despite its failures.
I often say "There's only one world," so, clearly I disagree. There are, on the other hand, lots of ways to think, talk about it. I think humans, men and women, are much more alike than different. Ditto with people with different languages and cultures. It may take some work, but we can understand each other.
As for non-human animals? I don't know.
Yes, I am a human male.
Both science and democracy are important to me and I agree with you about both involving self-correction mechanisms. That's not the same as saying that democracies are more likely to make their decisions based on reason than other forms of government. Perhaps that's not what you were trying to say.
Knowledge, truth, belief, fact. All tied up in knots of language and meaning.
Perhaps.
In my world there are many worlds. In your world there is one.
Who is right.
Well, it depends. If we use the analogy of a house...I consider every room in the house a world. Perhaps you say only the whole house is a world. I would then argue that what you are calling the whole house is really just one room in the house.
Not of true sentences: it doesn't need those.
Nor of obtaining states: those are linguistic too.
Neither of us. The idea of "world" as we are using it is a metaphysical term. As such, it is not right or wrong, only useful or not in a particular situation. It's just our different ways of looking at the same thing.
'Facts' be damned. :pray:
Claims of "original sense" are somewhat fraught.
We can go further back to the Proto-Indo-European root *dhe-, "to set, put."
So arguably a fact is put in place; it's what we work from.
But of course that's not valid; that it had that meaning five thousand years ago is irrelevant to the meaning it has now.
The usage as an act is found in Jane Ausitn, "...gracious in fact if not in word"; and Milton, Paradise Lost, "He who most excels in fact of arms". But as something that really occurred, in Thirlwall, "...one fact destroys this fiction". 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 J. Hayward tr. Biondi's Eromena 21 They resolved that the Admirall should goe disguised?to assure himselfe of the fact." It seems the point is one of contention).
We find @Srap Tasmaner's sense in 1729, "the writer's facts are untrustworthy".
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. Choose whatever words you will, this distinction must remain, since without it there can be no error, and without error we cannot improve our understanding.
I don't see it as a metaphysical term. Metaphysics is reductive, leading to essence. The sensory experience is appearance, emergent, and relative to the experiencer. It's truths are inductive, and its here that we hope for effective maps.
An earth worms world is dirt. A bird's world is the sky. Dirt and sky are not the same thing thought about differently.
:up: :up: :up:
Well, no. It's just that if some statement turns out to be false, then it is not a fact.
A fact is a true statement.
I think pain pills and hypothermia might be interesting, a whole psychedelic death journey, with my last moments being perhaps the most exciting. If I did have to hang, I think I'd want to the broken neck. I'd prefer the guillotine though, if I had to offer my neck.
:up:
Yeah, this distinction is too important to go away. I'd expect it to be found in every language.
What I find curious is that not only can we make the distinction, we can't avoid it. No matter how convinced we might be about reality eluding our beliefs about it, we have no choice but to talk in terms of facts and truth and what is the case. Apo would give us the metaphysical explanation about "sharp cuts" and whatnot. I tend to think in terms of commitment, wagers, that sort of thing.
We live on the surface of a planet surrounded by gaseous nitrogen with a temperature range between -10 C and 50C and able to perceive a limited range of sound waves and electromagnetic radiation yet the Andromeda Galaxy, x-rays, and quarks are part of our world.
This is problematic for those who want there only to be belief - perhaps that's @T Clark and @Olivier5; If all there is, is belief, then Kelly-Anne Conway wins, since her belief is as valid as theirs.
Throw out truth at your peril.
Yes, well. We'll save this for another discussion.
What form do you imagine a satisfactory answer to that question to have? To me it's very different than: 'how do helicopters manage to fly?' An answer to helicopter question can help someone build their own. But knowing 'how facts obtain as true' would be useful in what way?
To me such questions are almost like grunts, screeches, chirps...which is to say expressions of mood.
Fun digression tho.
The green knight awaits.
It's a valid question once you read others about how does knowledge become pertinent to the status of fact-hood. Just wondering whether it's the case that only properties of things are facts.
I can imagine a valid sociological question in there somewhere. Perhaps that's what you have in mind.
Perhaps it has something to do with animals being forced to move, forced to act. 'Reality' is something like the model an animal is most likely to act on. The 'total sceptic' could only be some fantasy animal that wasn't forced to act and manifest something like belief.
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.
I'll go along partway with commitment; but I'd put it in terms of direction of fit. We put the world in order by the way we talk about it. There are apples and chairs because that is what we say there are. We might have spoken differently.
But that's not to invite relativism; the world still inflicts itself upon us; what is the case will be the case regardless of how we express ourselves. We have to divide the world up somehow, we commit to the divisions handed to us by our community because they are functional.
Nah, I'm not talking about intersubjectivity or how objective facts are.
As of late it seems to me that the world is the totality of properties at work.
I think the thesis that there's only belief is more an expression of attitude. Because it's itself not offered as a mere belief but as a truth about facts or their absence. 'Call it what you will,' but we sometimes bring statements to the tribe that we want believed and acted upon.
Someone mentioned wagers. I think that's a good way to measure confidence/certainty. The practical world is central here, seems to me.
Sure, scepticism has been the fashion for quite some time. If it were kept as an attitude, as a method, there might be no issue. But folk talk of it as if it were a metaphysics; as if Everest really did not have a height until it was measured.
Bayesian analysis works with belief, not with truth.
I think one could make a case either way, and that it would be a clever game. A particular practical context would treat the issue differently. Perhaps a probability distribution would be used to model the height.
Quoting Banno
I basically agree with you, but the 'what will be the case' part doesn't fit well with the rest IMO. I guess you can imagine some proto-matter thing-in-itself stuff that chugs along in the same way under all of our naming, but I'd stress that we live largely in the significant noises and marks we make. Those are even physical differences, right? But that's a small quibble.
We use inherited divisions that have worked, and we tinker with them to make them better or just to entertain ourselves. The world does indeed inflict itself on us, and that seems to be the real foundation of meaning. It's not just a game, though it's cute and illuminating to call it a (language) game. Predators that use signs to coordinate their hunting so that their cubs don't starve aren't playing a game. I think language is just a basic for us, though philosophers operate on the more well-fed playful end for the most part.
That's very close to how I look at it. Forced to choose, to act, to place our bets, to say one thing rather than another and then be accountable for what we say. All that.
I do still find it slightly curious that this shows up at the language level, but I probably just haven't thought about it hard enough.
We won't be able to walk through the wall, no matter what we call it. That's all.
I'm no expert on QM, but...strictly speaking, scientifically...does it have height? One could also mumble about how Everest is not the same from moment to moment. If it has a height, its height varies, etc. But climber wouldn't need to worry about all these niceties. They'd just need a trustworthy estimate that allows them to bring the right amount of food and oxygen, etc.
Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying.
I speculate that actual usage is just too complex for more than sketches. English runs on a brain with brains for neurons. Another example: how many bits are necessary to encode the skill of driving safely? Tesla might answer that for us, or at least give us an upper bound.
As I think about it, I think the language bit is mainstream pragmatism.
It does still feel a little funny having words like "truth" and "fact" around we've given definitions we can only aspire to use and never reach. I used to think a lot about the role of the ideal, as something that does have practical use. I'll have more time later tonight.
To me this sounds very clunky. Do you think all of reality is clunky? To me its like rocks and dirt. All these technical things. Part of being in the dirt. I'd rather be the bird.
I do think 'truth' and 'fact' do lots of solid work in the real world, tho. It's us philosophers who can't help trying to do math with them, 'clarify' them, find some hidden center, understand them to point at something unreachable. You mention the ideal having a practical use. That makes sense to me, though maybe it's fairly indirect. I think of birds decorating their nests, suggestions of status, sophistication, sensitivity.
Mount Everest is 8,849 m heigh, give or take a metre or so.
Introducing QM to a thread is a surefire way to ensure it goes for another twenty pages without being at all helpful.
The contention here is that I reject the notion that the height of the mount came into existence only when the observation was made.
Yeah, dude. Hence the give or take.
And yep, the height changes over time. Therefore it has a height.
And yep, sometimes they measure the height incorrectly. Therefore it has a correct height.
So...?
Reality isn't clunky. Human thought is clunky.
That's exactly the distinction marked by distinguishing belief from fact.
As I noted before, I'm not sure fact/belief/knowledge/truth distinctions are worth the trouble. When we get to the end, the only question that matters is "What do I do now?"
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.
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).
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 ?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I agree, but I know if we treat people we disagree with with contempt and derision, it just won't work.
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.
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 [s]science[/s] decision making, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.'
Sure. But there's no point in pushing your solution unless it is the right one; unless it is true.
You came in with:
Quoting 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.
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.
And then there's yanking Everest out of its background, etc.
Quoting 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.)
Quoting 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.
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.
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.'
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.
Quoting Zugzwang
And let what we do be based on the facts; then it will be worth doing.
That's my pompous hobbyhorse.
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.
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.
: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.)
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.
Quoting 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.)
Ok, so you haven't disproven my hypothesis that early empiricists had something to do with the word's most modern meaning. Good.
Quoting 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").
Quoting Banno
Until it was measured, the height of Mount Everest was simply unknown, and that was a fact.
: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.
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.
On the one hand, I see no reason to think we can separate observation and theory like this. Facts are theory-laden. That's the lesson of mid-century philosophy of science and that's the lesson of neuroscience today.
On the other hand, I do believe reality pushes back, and we need to capture that somehow. It's tempting to think we could take "what is invariant across all theories" as the observation, but I suspect that turns out to be nothing at all. It might turn out to be plenty if we could narrow the field of theories, and I think something like that is roughly what happens in practice. Competing theories are often very close kin, differing in some important local respect, but with an enormous amount in common.
But I don't know how to proceed from there. The only natural way I can think of to classify theories is backwards -- to just sort them by invariance, in essence to sort them by what counts as an observation for them. But that looks like a roundabout way of getting to your position: within a theory family, something will count as a "pure" observation, but only because that's how we defined the family!
I just don't know how to make these two ideas -- both of which I find compelling -- play nice together.
What matters is up to us, no? Your critique smacks of aesthetics.
It would be nice if facts mattered, but they don’t. The wall pushes back until it doesn’t. Your assertion we can never walk through it is true until it isn’t. What was true is no longer true and what will be true has yet to be. Facts are not substance, but wispy things that evaporate the harder we look or the harder we try to hold them. (Go ahead, start with the block universe.)
Being wrong is like the happiness machine - a cry into the wind about how what is real should somehow carry some weight beyond what we believe or feel - that we have to get back to something that has inherent something regardless of us. A futile hand waving in the face of insurmountable intellectual absence.
Your insistence that being wrong matters does not elevate facts to things which people can be wrong about outside of belief/language, and isn’t just about idealism. We change the world (the facts) all of the time and as our knowledge expands the world stops reacting in the way that it did before. What was a “fact” before is merely the limitation of the utterer to achieve their purpose, not some feature of metaphysics. And even your use of ideas like “climate change is man-mad” are so theory laden that if you turn out to be “wrong” about the causal mechanism but right about the solution, so what? What was important was to save the world as you defined it, not that your theory is not subject to revision as different evidence becomes available.
The cat is on the mat. It has been for years just as you’ve typed about the cat being on the mat with your keyboard and I’ve read it with my eyes and we’ve performatively contradicted any assertion of skeptical doubt. None of that fixes a fact.
A fact is the sort of thing that true statements are about - what makes a truth bearer true. Why put more weight on the word than what it supports? And why insist that there is a territory for our map when all we can deal in is maps?
It works like this- If someone says don't drink the water because it is polluted and if you drink it you will get sick and may die, and you observe that this is in fact what happens to the people who drink that water, you might agree the fact is true. Fortunately, nature is wise and kills the ignorant. We can see that with Covid. Our hospitals are so overwhelmed we have called in the National Gaurd to help and we have refrigerator trucks waiting to receive the dead bodies. Hopefully, this will also reduce the population who denies global warming and we can get on with the steps to respond to the reality of climate change.
If we can not walk through a wall, there is a reason for that being true and that truth is very unlikely to change. Here is a cute video explaining why we can not walk through a wall.
https://scienceswitch.com/2018/04/24/cannot-walk-through-walls/
A smart person puts a motor on that boat. :rofl:
Fact as the limit of my will is very good. But we need to aggregate, and there are patterns.
If you have a set of organisms, each is part of the other's environment, but there are also non-organisms, or organisms not considered in the original set, that are part of every organism's environment (every organism in the set, that is). That's a simple starting point for something -- the limit of all of them aggregated by just taking the intersection (a set that's invariant across environments), and I think it's a version of that simple starting point people imagine as "reality", or "nature", or what's "out there". One sort of thing there are facts about.
But there are also patterns in the way we are each other's limits, and it's hard (okay, hard for me) not to reach immediately for game theory there. There is some predictability in the ways we compete with and cooperate with each other, patterns that inevitably arise within sets of organisms like this, and they have that weird double-status of being both something that feels sort of external to us, but that we are also part of and contribute to shaping. So there are things here that look a little like facts, but not the other kind of facts that are the limit of aggregate will, but facts that are aggregates of wills.
That's all terribly abstract, but I hope the point comes through that the limit of your will can be a thing, another person like you with their own will, or the way your will combines with the wills of others in a way you partially control, as everyone does, and partially don't, because no one does.
So some guy posts a video as to why and you suppose that is true for all eternity. Many a scientist was firmly convinced of many an error, why do you think your (or his) certainty creates facts where other people’s certainty failed to create facts before?
Because I have some understanding of scientific thinking.
Your post is not following the rules of a good argument. If you want to argue the man in the video is wrong, first you have to pay careful attention to what he said. Then you have to repeat what he said that you do not believe is true. Then you explain why you do not believe what he said is true. That I could be wrong or that mistakes have been made, is not a good argument against what the man in the video said.
Is a story about a god walking in a garden with a man and woman and that this god cursed them because they ate a forbidden fruit, a fact? Please explain why the story is or is not a fact.
I very much like your explanation. If I understand you correctly apples are not oranges. Some of what we say is factual and not everything we say is factual. If it is factual, there are proves of that, but if it is fictional there are no proves of what is said.
That sounds good to me. However, if we want to be precise we might clarify the time and place it is raining. Unless we are talking with someone in the same place at the same time. However, if you are talking to a child who does not want to wear a coat, it doesn't matter what you say. Just as if someone doesn't want to wear of mask or get a vaccine, it doesn't matter what you say. :lol:
:gasp: You must be a citizen of the US or maybe a member of the Taliban in Afghanistan? What is your understanding of democracy if it is not understanding what reasoning has to do with democracy? Do you understand what freedom of speech has to do with democracy? Science gives us information that is essential to good moral judgment. The whole climate change discussion is about what has caused climate change and if we can and should do something to correct a manmade problem. There are political and economic and life and death ramifications, to understanding science and what behaviors will increase or decrease our shared problems.
Oh no, this is a thread about democracy and the survival of humanity.
Yes.
We may, for example say factual claims about fictional works. For instance, Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984 is a male and a party member, even though there is no Winston Smith in the actual world.
I've come around to the understanding that the question "What is true?" is not the right one. The one that matters is "What do I do now?" Truth is just a tool we can use to make the decision.
Quoting Zugzwang
Gould was one of the primary people who went out as an expert witness at trials involving creationism and intelligent design. This is something he was passionate about. One of the reasons I like his quote is that the passion shows. Your statement isn't strong enough for him, or for me. There is a bite in "perverse."
Yes, Mr. Snoot.
Quoting Banno
Let's talk about the Trump/Biden election situation. Truth no longer matters. Biden is president. That's not going to change. The people in power were convinced. What's important now is being able to work with those who don't believe. We can 1) Rant and rave and feel superior 2) Try to convince the disbelievers or 3) Work to reduce the level of animosity so we can work together going forward.
A lot of people who hate Trump want to drive the bus off a cliff as a matter of principle.
That is a scary thought. That means talk of the gods is factual and that does not sit well with me. I do not think that is good logic. I think it is pretty important we distinguish between what is real and what is not and that is why I started this thread.
Okay, the Duhem–Quine thesis, good point. Data are always interpreted and even collected based on some theoretical framework. Yet in the end, when Ms. X observes that with apparatus Y and initial conditions Z, a certain thing happen to that needle in that quadrant, that observation remains a fact.
The story is a fact.
Well, maybe we would be done with Covid if Trump had not dismantled the department that was about preventing or at least controlling pandemics, and maybe the economic pain would have been much less if the pandemic had been handled properly from the beginning instead of having a President who denied science and lied to everyone, and is still the king of ignorance flooding our hospitals and requiring refrigerator trucks long after everyone should have been vaccinated. Nothing is more important to this thread than understanding the importance of science, and citizens who understand what science has to do with our survival and democracy. But with a president like Trump who appeals to our emotions but not our brains and a mass that does not understand logic and the difference between nonfiction and fiction or what science has to do with democracy, the challenge seems overwhelming.
What's wrong with appealing to emotions? What's so important about the brain? Emotions need a brain to flourish too.
A librarian would put it on the fiction shelves, not the non-fiction shelves. Would you mind stating how older you are? I am betting you were educated after 1958, when we began educating for a technological society with unknown values and changing the organization of our institutions to take care everything for the people who can not be left to think for themselves because life is too complex. Don't worry dear, you do not need to know the difference between fiction and non-fiction because all you have to do is obey the authorities who handle everything for us.
I don't get your point. I value democracy. I value reason. I just don't see that they are necessarily strongly related.
But I do worry dear! Science is a story too, eventhough our universities make us believe that it's about facts. What to think of massless Goldstone ghosts eaten by massless gauge bosons to aquire mass? Feyerabend is one of the few who understands this. The fact that science is one story amongst many.
Here is the answer to your question.
Again, I don't get your point. I don't and never did support Donald Trump. I think he was a bad president. What does that have to do with this discussion?
Quoting Athena
If that's the point you've been working toward, you set the OP up badly. This thread so far has not been about what you refer to. It's not what I've been talking about. It's a bit late to turn it in that direction.
I'm asking your answer. Not that of others.
Thank you. I am glad to learn. How should I have begun this discussion? Do you want to start a better thread for looking at the importance of being able to understand the difference between facts and fiction?
Perhaps I was wrong for saying why this subject is so important to me. But I do feel passionate about the importance of understanding logic and science and what that has to do with being a democracy.
I agree with this, but it's a really good story.
Not to look askance at a compliment, but are you implying my previous posts were not sane?
The best one is theoretical high energy physics. That story is heavy and very enjoyable science fiction/fantasy. The really strange thing is that it's rooted in reality.
I don't give in to authority and blackmail.
I take a longer range view. "Once upon a time there was an objective reality..." I can't remember the rest, but I do remember the ending - "And they lived in reality ever after."
...and the poor objective one rested peacefully below their dancing trail.
I did not mean to post before completing my thought. And the comment about sanity was a reaction to someone else's posts. Thinking emotionally driven thinking is equal to logical thinking is not the quality of post I have been enjoying until today. I think it is time for me to take a walk.
It is not just about Trump, but what has happened to our nation. A huge portion of our population is voting emotionally and is lead by people intentionally using emotion not reason, to lead them. If we do not realize the difference between emotional thinking verse logic and reasoning nor the difference between non-fiction and fiction, I don't think democracy and liberty have a chance.
I may be in the wrong, but I come to forums with a sense of purpose and hope to engage with those who might share my sense of purpose and are able to expand my knowledge.
That's all I don't have to do. I still have no answer why it's not good to base politics on emotion.
I know there is far more I do not know than what I do think I know. I do not have a problem when a person does not know something, however, when someone asks for information and ignores that information, that tells me the person is not being honest about having a discussion but is playing a game I do not want to play.
There is a saying "do not argue with ignorance". I think that is good advice when someone asks for information and then ignores it.
Do you mean I ignore you information and that I'm ignorant? I know damned well what Trump was doing. As an outsider maybe even better than Americans.
Do you think knowledge of logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe, is connected with moral thinking and democracy and liberty? As I understand things that is a very important connection.
Is reason the controlling force of the universe? There are lots of reasons. Not only the scientific one.
Let's see can we check the logic of what you said?
If you ignore information that you asked for, can you be well informed, or might it be necessary to pay attention to that information to be well informed? Like how can know something you know nothing about? There is a serious difference between basing our thinking on our feelings, or basing what we think on facts and reasoning. To base what we think on facts and reasoning, we need to learn the facts and the reasoning. To react emotionally requires nothing of us and it does not equal good judgment nor good arguments.
Yes, there are reasons for things being the way they are and science helps us learn the reasons. The number of reasons is unimportant. There are many reasons for life on earth being in big trouble right now. Our only hope is to understand them and if there is anything we can do to make a difference. This is not an emotional response, although our feelings may motivate us to learn and take action, but it is a response that requires a lot and learning and a lot of reasoning, and a willingness to cooperate with others.
:up:
Quoting Athena
:100:
A "serious" difference. I see it all the time in arguments. References to "seriousness", "highly", "badly", etcetera.
To react emotionally rerequires nothing? It requires "serious" thinking! Thinking emotionally. Thinking based on a feeling of justice or love or compassion with fellow Earthlings who don't base their daily lives or politics on the Ratio of the Enlightnment.
By reasons I mean ratios. Science is not the only ratio game in town.
I think everyone's thinking is both intellectual and emotional. You clearly are emotional in your opinions.
I don't see my opinions as non-fiction vs. the opinions of people I disagree with as fiction.
I don't think reason is the controlling force of the universe, if that's what you're asking. I don't really think there is a controlling force.
:grin:
Ok, pay that.
You do not think gravity is what holds things to the earth? You don't think we have day and night because the earth turns? You don't think plants and animals die when they do not get water? You think all the forces of nature could suddenly be completely different for no reason at all? Like I know quantum physics gives us portability and not certainty but to think there are no controlling forces opens the possibility that nothing is predictable and I don't think that is very scientific.
And if you don't like it, I hope you stay out of it instead of continuing to make it unpleasant..
Yes, but voting with our feelings instead of a deliberate attempt to understand the choices, does not lead to a healthy Republic and it puts our liberty in jeopardy.
Reason is a human mental process, a tool. Sometimes we use it to try to understand the world and how it works - gravity, planets, biology. You've turned that around to say that somehow that mental process actually controls the behavior of the world. I don't think that's really what you mean to say.
You seem to think that we can separate the part of us that feels from the part that thinks. Can't be done. At least by me.
An appeal to falsification? The facts do not support your contention. The quotes given are not from empirical philosophers.
Fact is, your definition of fact still relies on truth; just dishonestly.
We are having two different conversations - I am talking philosophy and you are talking something else. If you want to talk about philosophy, then you need to focus on the difference between the sounds/gestures/symbols we make with our bodies, what is capable of being symbolized, and things like “reality” or “what is” or the “state of affairs”. We can’t walk through walls because we can’t walk through walls. That is the “fact” that is being discussed. A person’s understanding of why they can’t walk through a wall (such as a theory of electrons, atoms, and exclusion principles) is about symbols, not about “facts.” Pointing to someone blathering on is not in the least bit responsive to why we can’t walk through a wall. Idiots and physicists alike bounce of a wall when they walk into it.
The question is, what does bouncing off of a wall have to do with “facts” as used in philosophy? The point @Banno is making is not inherently about the generalization that “we can’t walk through walls”, but that there are specific instances of us and walls and the ways in which they interact independent of how we talk about them and our talking is judged right or wrong by how well they fit the “facts.” I am not critiquing generalizations per se (which are clearly abstracted from facts and do not refer to facts themselves), but the idea that facts are assessed by the extent to which they impose themselves upon us independent of our talk.
Your understanding of science (or the video’s creator) simply does not address the conversation being had - it is an aside.
The simple case (to avoid getting wrapped up in abstractions, tenses, etc.) is Banno’s cat. When Banno says, “My cat is on the mat” he is making a factual claim that we assess as “True” or “False” based upon whether his cat is on the mat. The issue is the relationship between his cat, “facts”, and “truth.” Is there some way, independent of his cat being on the mat, that we might say “His cat is on the mat” and claim such is true besides his cat being there? And if we said it and believed it, would that mean we weren’t wrong to say it when his cat is not on the mat?
Banno’s claim is that someone can be wrong and that wrongness is assessable by something outside of language. Is he wrong?
P.S. Banno, though he can speak for himself, will be clear that he isn’t talking about our ability to assess based upon our epistemology (that is, whether our assessment of whether it is true or false meets our epistemic criteria), but rather that regardless of what we know or claim, his cat is on the mat when his cat is on the mat and is not on the mat when it isn’t. No more, no less - a “something out there” which is or isn’t, as the case may be.
I refer you to idealism, materialism/physicalism, and facts.
Which is not say that I am either a materialist or an idealist, but merely that there is a context for a discussion of facts that has nothing to do with a theory of atoms or other claims of the natural sciences.
Hmm. I'll invite @T Clark and @Olivier5 to respond to Ennui, given what they have claimed here.
That's not my claim. The world is always and already interpreted.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Yeah, but I can beat up two more folk at the same time.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
I don't understand what EE has written well enough to figure out whether I agree or disagree.
I don’t understand what I have written well enough for me to know if I agree or disagree. I was hoping @Banno would tell me.
[quote=“SEP on Facts”]
1.4 Facts, Intentionality, Semantics and Truthmaking
We have mentioned the view that facts may explain actions and mental states and the view that facts are what we know. Facts are also invoked in the philosophy of mind by philosophers who claim that judgments or beliefs enjoy the property of intentionality, of being “directed towards” something, because they represent states of affairs or are psychological relations to states of affairs and that judgments and beliefs are correct or satisfied only if states of affairs obtain, that is, if facts exist. Versions of these claims are given by many philosophers from Meinong, the early Husserl and Russell to Searle (Searle 1983). Analogous claims in semantics are sometimes made about propositions or other truth-bearers: the proposition that Sam is sad represents the state of affairs that Sam is sad and is true only if this state of affairs obtains. Versions of this view are given by Husserl, Wittgenstein and Carnap. See the supplementary document on the History of Philosophies of Facts.
. . .
Does the proposition that Sam is sad represent the state of affairs that Sam is sad? It may be objected that the proposition does not refer to anything as a state of affairs. And once again the friend of states of affairs may retreat to the safer claims that the proposition that Sam is sad is true only if the state of affairs that Sam is sad obtains and that if the proposition that Sam is sad is true, it is true because the state of affairs obtains. Facts make propositions true.
Facts, then, are perhaps qualified to play the role of what makes judgments correct and propositions true. But the theory of correctness and of truth does not require us to accept that there are facts. Indeed it may be thought that the requirements of such a theory are satisfied by the observations that a judgment that p is correct only if p, and that the proposition that P is true only if p. If arguments in metaphysics or epistemology persuade us that there are facts, then we may perhaps appeal to facts in giving accounts of correctness and of truth. In the case of the theory of correctness conditions for judgment and belief the argument that knowledge is of facts together with the view that, contrary to a long and influential tradition, the theory of belief and of judgment presupposes a theory of knowledge (Williamson 2000) may persuade us that facts make judgments and beliefs correct.
The view that facts make propositions or other truth-bearers true is one theory among many of truthmaking. The theory of truthmaking deals with questions at the intersection between ontology, metaphysics and semantics. The view that facts are what make truth-bearers true is the oldest theory of truthmaking. [/quote]
SEP on Facts and Truthmaking
That @Banno, he knows everything. What would we ever do without him?
Philosophically or pragmatically?
Pragmatically I defer to the experts and rely on the system as constructed since it generally gives me stuff that I prefer (even if I find the circumstance distasteful). Radicalism does not actually advance social agenda so far as I know, but it may be a nice counter-point to help people remember there is another way.
Philosophically it depends on the issue (climate change policy, which always seems to be steeped in racism and colonialist profit taking/hoarding, is different than vaccine policy, which seems less steeped in racism and often driven by more immediate concerns of the individuals/communities effected), but in a meta sort of way, the metaphysics don’t matter. I am unconcerned with whether a state of affairs obtains or if I am wrong if my epistemology cannot account for such. I am much closer to using ideas as tools to help obtain my ends and those of people/things within my scope of moral regard (to whatever level they fall within it). Either acting as if is efficacious or it is not. The world imposes itself on me and I try to mold it to my desires using whatever contrivance available. All “facts” are understood contingently and abandoned/modified as necessary. Facts are understood in a political context (all speech is political speech) and assertions of fact which you insist other people acknowledge as being such is a ploy.
I doubt this answers your question, but I am happy to try again if you give me a bit more direction in what kind of an answer you are looking for.
I was concerned that I was straying out of the limits of philosophy but philosophy does draw on all fields of study. However, the discussion today has not been the fun I was I having until today, so I will leave.
Nah. Your topic. I will leave. If people want to know my thoughts, we can start a new topic.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
I'm assuming you mean the geopolitics of oligarchical capitalism?
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Fair point. So in the unlikely occasion that you could be having a debate with an Islamic fundamentalist about not allowing females to attend university, how might you go about providing a counter narrative?
I find myself agreeing with this, although differences in our language make that agreement tentative.
I'm on the golf course. I look at my lie. I look at the flag. I turn to my caddy and say "What do you think?" He reaches in the bag, pulls out a club, and hands it to me. I turn to make the shot. Now... What do I care about? I don't care if he believes it's the right club. I don't care if he knows it's the right club. I don't care if it's a fact it's the right club. I don't care if it's the truth it's the right club. Just give me the fucking club.
I don't play golf. Everything in this scenario is based on my understanding of golf based on watching "Caddyshack."
Of course, and so does yours. And there no dishonesty about it. You should try and relax a bit.
Why, he got you into a twist?
Maps without territories are simply not maps; they are drawings.
Or an actual state of affairs.
Like the creation of the world by the gods.
Or an accurate observation.
Not trying to be a dick but how about this? My daughter has a one year old son. She has embraced an Evangelical form of Christianity and believes vaccination is a conspiracy and prayer will suffice to keep her and her boy safe. I believe in vaccination. Do I care and accept this situation as 'her version of truth/facts'? Do I care if it's the right decision? What would you do?
Yes.
I'd talk it through with her as much as she's willing without badgering or taking issue with her "faith" directly in order to maintain a trusting open relationship (assuming that's what we have) which, I think, makes persuasion more likely than not.
And failing that I might kidnap my grandchild and disappear until I know either that she's gotten the jab or herd immunity throughout the country has been achieved.
I don't know why I dropped my two bitcoins on this question – I'm neither a father nor grandfather, but I have been gnawing on this very same bone with one of my nephews about his unvaccinated baby mama and his nine year old daughter all summer. It's not been good for my blood pressure trying to reason with this obstinate young fool (with whom, fortunately, I'm still on good terms). Wtf :mask:
Yep: Quoting Banno
Who determines if the statement is true? Don't say: "reality"....
[s]Well, no. You can decide for yourself.
But what you decide is not what makes it true.
It's a point of grammar.[/s]
Actually, scratch that. You mean the other sense of "determine".
"the cat is in a hat" is true iff the cat is in a hat.
That's the whole of it.
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Banno
Did you reply to this? If you did I missed it.
Yes, and vice versa: a statement claiming to be true must be based on some observation or another. Otherwise you cannot know what is true and what isn't...
That's a fact. But what if the cat finds herself in Schrödingers box?
So being accurate is just being true?
Then an accurate observation is just a true observation.
How do you tell the observation is true?
THis by way of asking, what progress has been made?
Rather, being true is being accurate.
Quoting Olivier5
SO, what is accuracy? What makes one measurement more accurate than another?
The more exact the numbers measured are, the more accurate.
That's a technicality and will depend on the variables being estimated. The important point here, generically speaking, is that truth and accuracy are BASICALLY THE SAME CONCEPT, except that accuracy involves a more nuanced quantitative aspect in terms of precision. Whereas 'truth' is 1/0 (either you speak the truth or not), one can be more or less accurate.
Edit: in other words, accuracy is to truth what a fuzzy set is to a classic set: very much the same thing but blurred on the edge.
Which cat?
We're talking about different things. My post was a cutesy and a bit too obscure statement that truth, knowledge, facts, and beliefs are not something we normally use directly in our day to day lives. Is "This is the right club for me to use," a true statement? A fact? A belief? Knowledge? Mostly it's a judgement.
As for your situation...
Quoting Tom Storm
Getting a vaccination is a good and responsible thing in most cases, but not getting one is not normally life-threatening or especially dangerous. For better or worse, your daughter gets a lot of leeway in deciding how to raise her child. And that's a good thing. Do you accept her version of the truth? No. Do you accept her right to raise her child? Yes.
The child comes first. Normally that means the parents get to make the decisions. It's a bad, serious thing to take that away. There's a line - if her decision does put her child in serious, immediate, and avoidable danger, maybe something has to be done to force things.
Quoting T Clark
Yep. Agree. Matter of fact, I tend to do everything by blundering through. For me one of the points of a site like this is to see what else is going and if some rigor is worth the effort.
You mean as in it is a fact that you made an accurate observation (or not)?
The creation of the world by the gods would be a fact if the gods actually created the world.
Obviously they did.
Quoting Tom Storm
Experience and intuition are not "blundering through." I was an engineer for 30 years. When I took a look at a new project, I could often tell how it would turn out at the very start. I'd seen so many. Later in the process I needed to look at project specific data and apply rigor - calculations, mapping, regulatory and permit evaluation...I wasn't always right in my intuition, but it gave me a framework on how to proceed.
The very fact that it's there.
What is it about its being there that makes it obvious it was created by gods?
The universe can't be there (even if eternal and infinite) if not created by gods.
Is there a revised T-sentence to go along with -- what? Are you pointing at it?
Why not?
If it can not be validated how can it be an accepted fact?
How do you validate the existence of gods?
Because it can't exist on its own. The string landscape (but with strings replaced by my own structures) is too beautifull for that. How can such beaurty exist without (a) creator(s)? Is it just eternal? I remember asking my mum where the gods are while staring out of the airplane window. In my teens I ridiculed god(s). My mom was wrong with her gods. After my physics study this continued a while. In my end twenties the gods are back.
Well, as they say, progress is not inevitable... :wink:
I can't validate their existence. I just dreamed of them and knew unconsciously. But know I'm conscious. But I don't give a F..k about them. I'm just happy they created it all. How created them, I asked myself. They are eternal. They even know no time. Then what's the difference with an eternal universe? A big deal!
:razz:
?
I'm trying to prompt Laguercina to get to his or her point or argument. But anyway in view of the seeming unlikelihood of satisfaction, I'm losing interest.
Goddamn!
I wasn't notified. What's your point? Godsdamned!
The point of no further interest.
@Laguercina has just joined, and at this rate will be leaving us soon.
SO 3.1 is not as accurate a value of pie as 4.56324, because the latter is five orders of magnitude more exact.
He's banned.
A statement that corresponds to the state of affairs would be a fact?
That word doesn't just carry baggage; it comes with its own shipping container.
So it's not a phrasing I would choose.
It's not that it's wrong so much as that it is so very hard to be clear as to what correspondence consists in.
Hoe gaat het? Tijd niet gezien. Alles goed?
I took it as necessarily vague. There's a limit to the precision a concept that addresses the everything of everything can reasonably achieve. Basically, this is some way because that is some way.
Het is hier half elf - lunch in een uurtje. Let's talk English or we might get in trouble. I suspect you may be on borrowed time. :wink:
A T-sentence can be applied to any statement, and so is more general than correspondence. It has the advantage of being undeniable. Correspondence comes with its own difficulties. SO I'll go with T-sentences.
Time is money. Is this not correct? And both are no object. Only those who treat them as such are in said predicament.
Is that a fact?
Is that a question?
Just kidding. As everything, beyond repeatable and consistent observation, which even then is mere circumstance, suggests.. perhaps.
One observation can be validated by another.
There is simply no alternative.
I mean that facts are accurate observations. This definition purposefully excludes theories, which aren't facts because they are always somewhat hypothetical.
I'm not sure what you mean, Olivier. If I accurately observed that it was raining where I happened to be at some specific time, the fact that it was raining at that time and place does not depend on my having observed it. Of course it is also a fact that I observed it, but that is another matter it seems to me.
If you had not observed that rain, and nobody else did, would it still be a fact that it rained? A fact is not just supposed to be true, it is known to be true, accepted as truth by all reasonable people. And to be accepted as true it must be based on evidence.
No problem Banno, it's easy to do.
Quoting Banno
I think we all know what it consists in, and it is not so much a theory as it is an account or description of an understanding which is basic and ineliminable. As Aristotle put it: "To say of what is that it is not, and of what is not that it is, is falsehood, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not is truth".
The logic of this is also captured by the T-sentence: ''Snow is white' is true iff snow is white'. The logic in both of these formulations is the correspondence of statement with actuality.
I guess we don't understand what facts consist in in the same way then. For me, for example, that there is another planet in our galaxy with humanoid creatures living on it is either a fact or it is not, regardless of whether we can discover the truth of the matter.
If we have different definitions of the term 'fact' what would determine who is right? I would say the only reasonable answer to that would be common usage, and from what I have observed common usage is on my side.
The other point here is that that which is accepted as truth by all people based on evidence may sometimes nonetheless turn out not to be true.
It's a fact. Somewhere in the Milky Way there are creatures with hands, arms, feet, legs, a digestion system, and a brain. Somewhere in spactime, on the worldline of our galaxy. Humanoid life is not bound to Earth. If we could travel to an average star (traveling at the speed of light we could get there in the wink of an eye though accelerating and decellerating would make our clocks lag behind the clocks on Earth). The chance of meeting otherworldly lifeforms would be high. Humanoids might not yet be present or not present anymore. They span a relatively very short time in creature evolution, an evolution which is inevitable on a rotating planet around a star at the right distance. The universe is full of life. To find the chance of finding life you just have to calculate the chance the planet has the right mass and distance to its star. There have been found Earth-like exoplanets. We have looked at life when observing them (transitions).
This is the only way in which we can account for error. We thought it was a fact, but we turned out we were wrong. On Olivier5's account, a statements that is believed by all, accurately measured, incorporated into theory, used to generate novelty, would count as a fact.
But all that could occur, and yet the statement turn out to be wrong.
A statement is only ever a fact if it is true. And further, that's all there is to a statement's being a fact.
It seems to me that the T-sentence is a "Claytons" definition; it's the definition you're having when you're not having a definition. It's well hidden beneath a ton of clay. :wink:
Feels circular. When is something a fact? When it's true. When is something true? When it's a fact.
You're perhaps beginning to see it. Being a fact is the same as being true.
But when it's true?
Yeah, there is - redundancy.
Quoting Banno
Right, this can be easily shown by word substitution. For any sentence "it is true that" we can substitute " it is a fact that" without any change of meaning, it seems.
What?
A fact.
So for example, saying that such-and-such is a fact can be a way of exercising authority.
One of the difficulties here is that language will not sit still.
The question is simple! When is a fact a fact?
I knew you would answer that! For a fact! I'm not telling you a lie...
Give up already?
The expression found in the T-sentence; "P is true" is the same as P. The "...is true" is redundant.
See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-deflationary/
Abracadabra...Simsalabim...HocusPocus...PilatusPas...
This looks like more intellectual masturbation from self-asserted 'analytical' jesters. E.g. from your link:
No shit, Sherlock! This is exactly the correspondence view of truth, not an alternative to it. A sentence is true iff it corresponds to some reality out there...
Yes, as explained above - it has the advantage that the correspondence is explicit: it's truth-functional.
The problem with correspondence is that it is hard to say what that correspondence is; and when you explain that correspondence, in terms of truth-function, it becomes... "intellectual masturbation".
So you can go with correspondence and be wrong, or deflation and be a wanker.
Folk who work with redundancy will also describe it as correspondence; but it is stricter than other versions of correspondence; those who might say that the correspondence is found in an observation, for instance.
Simple: The sentence ‘snow is white’ is true iff there is such a thing out there called "snow" by people, and iff that thing, when shed solar light on, generally appears white to people.
Can you see that this is not a correspondence theory of truth? It's an observation theory of truth.
Your hypothesis is that things are as they appear. We know this to be problematic.
The example "snow is white" speaks of the color of snow. Color is a type of appearance, so naturally the example speaks of how snow appears to us... Another example, e.g. "Snow is frozen water", would be about the nature of snow rather than its appearance. I am therefore not saying that things are like they appear, I am just taking an example which happened to be about how snow appears to us. It could have been about something else.
:wink:
If you must. I think there is a reason that the SEP does not have an entry called "the observation theory of truth". How's that cockroach?
So just because one of my ideas is not given an entry in the SEP is not a concern for me. They cannot know everything. :-)
It appears that facts are about the correspondence theory of truth as in propositions that speak of the real world as it is are facts but the correspondence theory of truth has a scope that encompasses fictional worlds too (as described above). Thus a fact corresponds to some quality or state of affairs in what we hold to be the real world but a truth can correspond to the same but in either the real world or a make-believe one.
In short,
1. If I utter a fact, it has to be about the real world.
2. If I utter a truth, it can be either about the real world or a fictional world.
This was a great post to read. Not that I keep track of who posts what but from what I can recall and associate with your screen name, probably my favorite. Funny it may sound sarcastic but it's really not. I will admit I'm not a fan of your if X is Y then Z posts. Then again, perhaps logic and morality are more intertwined than we like to think..
So. The obvious questions/responses
You claim to define therefore (more or less absolutely) know a real world which so begets the existence of an alternative. What makes one more real than the other? Your mere interpretation from your (and these are other people's words not mine) barely evolved senses or even simple presence? Ha. Doesn't a charlatan create a world that is real to those who observe and believe?
But for all intents and purposes, let's call this interconnected experience we call life that we can interact and respond either positively or negatively with one another, as "the real world". Was all science and definitions or laws of reality defined 500 years ago? No. What on Earth would make you think, especially in this age of degeneracy and strife, they are now? There will always be more to learn. The only idea of a fact comes from a hypothesis that has yet to be confronted by an opposing truth.
That's dreadfully inaccurate. Oh, well, I suppose it's down to background and education. Cheers and goodnight.
Did I slay a holy cockroach of yours or what?
Correspondence seems to leave room for degrees of truth content. How much of a T-sentence has to actually be true versus how much correspondence to the facts a statement has to achieve to be informative and accurate.
"It's 99% possible that's a cockroach" is true IFF it's 99% possible that's a cockroach
But the point is: What is fact and what is fiction?
What counts as fiction for some cultures, like the ancient Greek gods are for scientific culture, or quarks for ancient Greek culture, is fact for others, like quarks for midern scientific culture or gods for ancient Greek culture.
Let's just say, facts are ontological entities, in a sense what is, really is and truth is epistemological, what we know or think we know.
The plain and simple answer seems to be fiction is that which has no physical form or that which can't be verified. Fact, the exact opposite.
What if you can't even imagine being able to discover the truth of the matter? We can imagine an extraordinary spaceship that would allow us to visit every planet in the galaxy, one after another, in a couple days, and we're pretty sure we would be able to recognize humanoid critters as such when we arrived on each of them. Maybe that's all we need to talk of their existing or not as fact, even if it's not practically within our ability to establish it. We could even count them.
But then there's "How many blades of grass are there in my front yard?" Seems like a simple but terribly impractical counting problem, but is "my front yard" clearly circumscribed? If it's not, no matter how quickly and carefully we count, there's no fact of the matter here. Is what counts as "a blade" clearly defined? If not, same problem. Sometimes questions like this do have imaginable but not practical answers and sometimes they don't.
I don't think so. The common usage is rather: "a statement recognized as true by many folks, and beyond reasonable doubt". And for that to be the case, there needs to be evidence for the statement, therefore some accurate observation must be done.
My copy of the Democracy Series grade school textbooks begins each book with a list of democratic characteristics. One character of a democracy is the pursuit of truth. We can see from the examples I have given that agreeing on truth can lead to peace instead of war. That makes determining what a fact is very important.
Quoting Athena
So how do you propose determining what is a fact and what isn't, if you cannot trust what you see?
Excellent comments and Olivier I want to highlight your use of the legal term, "beyond a reasonable dought". However, Janus, you immediately made a Black man's trail in the South flash to mind. Horrible things have happened in the South because prejudice can so interfere with our judgment.
As we shift from believing Darwinism to an understanding of the effect of poverty, our approach to social justice is changing. The democratic characteristic of equal opportunity requires things like free lunches because hunger interferes with the ability to learn and for sure we need to work on equal education because our children do not have an equal opportunity without equal education. Our understanding of facts makes a huge political difference.
In a trial, this is done by calling in many witnesses and questioning each one of them, and a jury of peers listens to the arguments and then debates a person's innocence or guilt. This is not perfect and it would be a whole lot better if attorneys were wo/men of integrity who understood the importance of knowing the truth and trial by jury, and if they lived for these values instead of a quick easy buck. Sigh, I think my love of the principles of democracy colors my arguments. But let us move to science.
When Moa became the leader of China he had absolute power and made very bad farming decisions. This was called the Great Leap. In modern countries today we have leaders who ignored the science of dealing with a pandemic and millions of people are dying. Something that could be avoided with leadership that relies on science. Truth in science is about observation and testing what is thought to be true with experiments and peer review. That is the best we can do to have some certainty about facts and our survival and liberty can depend on good science.
No, we must NOT stop at observation. For so many reasons we can be totally wrong and the link I posted is an excellent explanation of that. Please, pay attention to the explanation of fast and slow thinking before making another argument.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqXVAo7dVRU
Good one! ?
Who said anything about stopping there?
In my front-yard example, you get to ask exactly how many blades of grass there are if you've already settled what counts as being in the front yard and what counts as a blade of grass. That is, if you have in place a framework for which that's a factual question. That doesn't make it a factual question in every framework, and you don't get to assume that frameworks that generate facts where you want them trump other frameworks; all you can say is that this framework does what you want.
These are actual botanical questions, and there are agronomic/ecologic methods to estimate via sampling the biomass per species in a given area or field. These methods can reliably estimate the population density (nb of plants per m2), and other important characteristics such the average number of stem per plant, the average number of grains per stem, and the average weight of one grain (say of wheat, or barley). This is useful in case of crop failure as it allows scientists (or farmers, as it's easy to do) to pinpoint the moment in the life of the crop when something wrong happened to the plants, and measure precisely the impact it had on yields. In forestry, cubing a forest helps you estimate its yield prior to harvest.
So you are right that there exist frameworks (agriculture, forestry, ecology as a science) where such facts matter and are measured.
It does not make them less factual. Just because all facts (observations) happen within a certain theoretical framework does not imply that they are not useful as facts, that you can't rely on when making decisions within this framework.
Exactly what I was saying, yes. I was relativizing facts, I guess, but I think fact-within-framework is the only kind we have.
I can see an issue when the framework is chosen and or enforced purposefully to avoid certains facts to come out. Or more simply: certain frameworks leave certain facts out, and others tend to bring them up. I am thinking of race or gender or poverty, and how certain official statistical frameworks can be biased towards the positive, and hide some social ills more than reveal them. I guess this is a risk especially in social sciences.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics, they say.
Absolutely. And though the conflict is actually between frameworks, it might be waged as a contest between facts.
(Like the priest who says to the vicar, "Why are we fighting? We both work for the same Guy. So you go forth and teach His teachings in your way, and I'll go forth and teach His teachings in His.")
For the conflict between frameworks, I got nuthin'.
See the goalposts move.
The plain fact is that being true and being known to be true are two different things.
Methodological frameworks combining several methodological frameworks, e.g. quants and qual, in-depth interviews of a few informants and mass surveys. It actually exist in social sciences under the (confusing) name "theory-based approaches". Basically the idea is to approach an issue from several different angles.
I don't think a 'framework' is the appropriate way to specify this. It seems much more to do with models, rather, no?
What do they do?
Frameworks make facts. A religious framework makes gods appear, a quantum field framework makes quantum fields appear. In reality.
But a fact is not just something true, it is something known to be true.
I don't have a theory to offer, but I'd think we're looking for a battery of concepts with how those concepts are related and practices for applying those concepts. Anything from language-games to astrophysics.
For everyday life, there are candidates like Sellars's "manifest image" or folk psychology, but everything's muddled and open to debate. Sellars, for instance, talks about the manifest image updating itself selectively to keep up with the times, but it's still fundamentally different from the "scientific image".
I would hate to end up now in a discussion of incommensurability. Like I said, not offering a theory, just some thoughts and it seems plain to me that fact claims have to fit in with a whole battery of other concepts, beliefs, commitments, practices. If those are all presupposed, we get to argue about whether something's a fact; when those are not shared, or sufficiently shared, we talk past each other or get into conceptual muddles. (Like whether Everest has a height.)
@Olivier5 gave a solid example.
I think all we are discussing is the logic of our understanding of what constitutes a fact, and I don't see that that logic demands that we be able to determine the truth.I'll give you another example; I live on 15 acres with about 10 acres of forest and the rest pasture with a fair bit of long grass. The property is fenced. Now I have no hope of discovering how many snakes are within my fences right at this moment, but I can't help believing that there is a fact of the matter. Once you start thinking about it, the possible examples of facts which we have no hope of confirming or denying seems almost endless.
This has always struck me. How many leaves are there on the trees in my state right now? There is an exact figure but we cannot access this.
It makes the question of a god's existence intelligible. Religious people will tell you that when they pray they can feel God's presence. So there's a practice that helps them answer a question that counts as factual for them.
Countering that with "no you didn't" isn't particularly effective. If you want to convince someone that their religious experience is not what they think it is, you have to offer them a different framework, and indeed people sometimes come to see their own experiences in a different light.
The front garden grass count?
Indeed, I came to the conclusion they exist, being a particle physicist and former atheist. But it's their creation that I like the best.
And one way of treating it as a factual question, not necessarily the only one, or the way a philosopher might.
But I might drop a link here to an article that came up in an earlier thread in determinism.
Indeterminism, causality and information: Has physics ever been deterministic?
Quoting Tom Storm
...maybe not.
That's his problem. I think we can talk coherently about things we have no hope of knowing. (How tall was Socrates?)
Good example. The whole of history, both natural and human, seems to fall into this category too.
Physics has always been deterministic. The wavefunction evolves determined. It collapses non-unitarily but hidden variables can rescue determinism and even offer a way for God to interact with his creation.
It's physically impossible.
How come?
Do you think God interacts with his creation?
I hope not! Their creation alone suffices for me. But hidden variables could offer a means.
Quoting Banno
Intuitively I agree with you Tom; but I'll be interested to see a counter-argument. I'll read Banno's linked article when I have time.
Need two criteria first, for "in the yard" and "blade". If it's bounded by sidewalks, maybe, that's your first one. Maybe length for the second, whatever. Without those, there's nothing to do. If you have those, the only tricky part is working through an irregularly arranged collection like this, and the usual trick is to just go by adjacency and mark what you've done so you don't get lost. (You could count the number of spaces on a paint-by-number this way.) Marking would also allow you to work in parallel with many others to speed up the task.
If I were smart I could come up with a design for a machine to do it, but the low-tech way should work. It'll just take a while.
Problem?
Well, yes, probably my clarity - I was talking about every tree leaf in my home state - this is an area of 141327.149 square miles.
We're not even able to locate every tree, let alone leaf.
Solution?
That is appreciably more work!
I don't know. It's an odd thing, the physical limitation. The number of possible chess games, for instance, is clearly a large but finite number. I used to hear that the number was larger than the number of atoms in the known universe. (No idea how anyone figured that out.) But playing through every possible game -- and finally figuring out if chess is a draw or white wins! -- is something that, as they say in the theory of computation, Zeus could do. (Unlike counting the real numbers, say.)
I suppose one way to approach the simple question of whether there is an exact number of leaves in your state would be to take just one tree -- a nice small one! -- and count the leaves. You'll get a number. And then you argue that the total number is the sum of the numbers you would get for each tree by doing the same. You can't get them, there are just two many physical obstacles, but you can prove that a single tree does have an exact number of leaves at a given moment, and other trees are like this one in the respects that matter, therefore they will all have an exact number of leaves.
And as @Olivier5 pointed out, there are sound statistical techniques for estimating this sort of thing, if for some reason you need an actual number. My simple little argument only shows that there's nothing incoherent -- to me, anyway -- about talking about such a number we'll never be able to know.
Is there something I'm missing?
Insofar as the framework business is playing a role here, it's obviously in how we define tree, leaf, leaf of a tree (so not the leaves of vines climbing on the tree), state boundaries, how counting works, blah blah blah. There's a lot, but I think all of it together is consistent with treating "number of leaves on all the trees in my state" as theoretical quantity whose value we happen not to be able to determine.
Once more, a fact is more than just something true. It is a statement known to be true, established, that only a madman or a liar would deny. That level of certainty can't be based on conjectures. It must be empirical.
A measurement is ALWAYS an estimation anyway. There is no way you can know the absolute exact length of your dinner table. But all you need, for any purpose, is an accurate enough estimation. The same applies to the number of trees in state X.
At least they know science's weak spot! Kudos to them! Scientists should respect an opponent who's aware of their Achilles' heel.
OK, we still don't agree. For me there are many facts which could be established as such, but never will, That they are not established doesn't change the fact that they are facts.
For example, imagine a murder trial where it is established beyond reasonable doubt that John Axeman murdered Miss Rabbit. Let's say he's innocent, but he goes to prison for life anyway, Only he knows he didn't murder Miss Rabbit. Then, being a diabetic with cardiovascular disease, he dies 2 years later. It remains a fact, I would say, that he didn't murder Miss Rabbit, even though it will never be established as such.
The only reason you can say this is that, in your story, it IS established that the dude is innocent.
You are welcome to go for a personal meaning of the word 'fact'. Mine ?is simply the common use of the term in today's English. Don't take my word for it. Webster Merriam has these definitions:
2: a piece of information presented as having objective reality ("these are the hard facts of the case")
3: the quality of being actual ("a question of fact hinges on evidence")
4: a thing done ("accessory after the fact")
No, it's not. In the story his innocence is never established. Most of us realize that it is likely that some of those in prison are actually innocent even if that fact may never be determined.
My experience tells me that this way of thinking of facts is in accordance with common usage. You apparently have a different understanding. There is a fact of the matter as to which of us is correct even though it may never be established.
Your second two definitions from Webster accord with my understanding. 'The quality of being actual does not depend on our establishing it, and nor does a thing being done rely on anyone knowing about it.
Both @Banno and I have acknowledged that there are two common usages regarding the term 'fact'. The first established facts are in accordance with the ordinary parlance of "the encyclopedia is full of facts" and the other common usage is facts as actualities or states of affairs. Obviously dictionaries are not full of worldly states of affairs.
Anyway, if you don't acknowledge these usages which are contra your definition, it's no skin off my nose.
It's a lie if not
As a matter of fact
Matter is fact
Does it matter?
If it's a lie?
If it's true?
Are these words facts?
Who's the judge?
Judge fictionfact
Judging facts are guilty
Contaminated with fantasy
Fantasy with lies
All entangled to
Collapse to one
Of many actual
Actuality of facts
Superimposed
Ooooh you facts
With the power to
Set us free
Or imprison us
Imprison us in your
Tender factual cage
Free us from
Your eternal painful grip
As
A fact of matter
Yes it bloody is. You wrote: "Let's say he's innocent". This immediately establishes his innocence in your narrative. This is the only reason why you can write later on: "It remains a fact that he didn't murder Miss Rabbit".
Quoting Janus
I am simply not aware that the word "fact" is used for things unknown, for things that may or may not be the case. But if you want to use if for "things we don't know of", it's no skin off my nose either. I just won't be able to understand you.
:heart:
I love it! Don't feel sorry! ?
There has to be some hierarchy for beliefs. Perhaps we could define one here. I would say a scientific law would be the highest, if not equivalent with a 'fact', but then what is a factoid? And of course an opinion would be lower, with non-disproved hypothesis being higher than that but of course lower than the rest. But where would a discredited/disproved hypothesis be, on par with a lie or incorrect statement?
- Scientific law - The sun is a ball of gas.
- - Fact - The sun is real.
- - - Factoid - The sun is hot.
- - - - Non-disproved hypothesis (rational or plausible) - The sun might expand/explode or something and kill us all shortly.
- - - - - Opinion - The sun is good.
- - - - - - Discredited hypothesis (irrational or unrealistic) - The sun revolves around us.
- - - - - - - Lie - The sun is a death ray or gamma burst from so far away it appears the same for millennia. (or is it?)
Yes, my point entirely. A fact is always in the past. Your quote was from Collingwood, right?
What do we make of Collingwood here saying "ascertain" rather than, say, "establish"?
Sorry, what I was trying to ask was whether Collingwood is any help with this: some people use "fact" to mean a state of affairs that does or did obtain; others seem to mean our descriptions of such things. (It seems a little easier to convince people to use "true" only for propositions, but "the truth" is still out there (heh) in the wild, as a phrase.) I've been trying to go around the whole issue, or dissolve the issue, or something, so I was just curious.
So yes, truth is out there, but hidden. It is not obvious and easily accessible by all. In order to discover it, we need to search for it with care. And once we discover it, we often have to fight off those who threw it in the well.
Hence the need for strong empirical data (hard facts) to establish the truth, in my view.
Truth coming from the well armed with her whip to chastise mankind, by Jean-Léon Gérôme
(scary...)
Wow! What a painting!
It is stipulated that, in the story, he is innocent, but that his innocence is never established. Are you denying that there might be prison inmates who are innocent of their purported crimes?
Quoting tim wood
Two definitions have been given which reflect two different common usages. One conceives of a fact as a proposition that states an actual state of affairs and the other conceives of a fact as an actual state of affairs. What more do you want?
Dunno. How will you establish quantum fields and the beginning of the big bang (inflation)?
I'm not a specialist of this. Maybe it can, maybe it can't.
My definition: a fact is an accurate observation of a given state of affairs, independently verifiable and often verified by many, and thus attaining a high degree of certainty in public discourse.
Funny - I was going to ask the same question. We've had some strong hints here. I can imagine some arguing that a fact is an intersubjective agreement on a matter.
This. :wink:
Let me tell you, it can't. But they are facts.
I have no idea why you would say my answer is a "non sequitur". An actual state of affairs is a situation or event which exists or has existed, as opposed to an imagined or fictional state of affairs. What else?
Don't know.
My preoccupation is how do we determine a fact is a true statement?
It still seems to be about correspondence, but I take the point that correspondence is probably the wrong noun. It's a relationship or an equivalence.
Evidently your answer isn't as much help as you think it is.
Quoting tim wood
Well, no; I answered that too, explicitly, like so...
Quoting Tom Storm
First, a fact is a true statement by definition. There are no facts that are not true. SO your preoccupation is ill-formed.
Second, the word "determine" is misplaced, since what you are asking, presumably, is when one ought believe; and that's not determinate. You can believe whatever you like. That doesn't make it true. That is, you are asking a normative question but looking for an epistemological answer.
Third, it would be very odd if there were a rule that set out when a statement ought be believed in every case. The closest we can get is a T-sentence.
This thread is so long because you and a few others havn't understood the answer.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
There's nought queer as folk.
That's indeed all there is to it.
Excellent. Thank you. I'm not good at this stuff.
Quoting Banno
If there is an issue with what I have said, set it out.
You apparently want to ask when we should believe this or that statement. I don't see any reason there should be a general case here; but moreover, the examples presented turn out to have profound difficulties.
By changing the focus form truth to belief we are able to explain error and differences of opinion.
There have been actual events in the past. They are not actual now, obviously. So what?
Quoting tim wood
Usages are what tell you what a fact is (conceived to be).
You seem to be speaking about what is generally accepted as fact. What is generally accepted as fact need not be fact. What is generally accepted as fact may be reasonable to believe, but that is a different matter. I have thought about it, but obviously not in the strange way you seem to have.
Do you really think that the Bishop moves diagonally because that's the only movement you observe? Did you conclude that there is only a very high probability of the Bishop moving diagonally, and sometimes it moves otherwise?
Yes!
So many facts are not decided empirically.
Some twit will try to argue that one learns the rules by observation.
Learning to play Chess is learning to participate in an activity, it is choosing to follow a set of rules within a community. Here's an example of a fact that is not empirically determined.
Add this to the criticism discussed earlier, that all observations are theory-laden.
It would be more interesting to consider the outliers, as @Srap Tasmaner, @Janus and a few others started to do in the thread on A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs ages ago.
A discussion along those lines might be more help to @Athena, too, in dealing with her faithful nephew. I'm confident it woudl be more productive than scientistic fairy-tails.
Yes. Part of the challenge with this word 'fact' is that 'facts' are often conceptualized as a kind of ammunition to be used against those who hold to different 'facts'. There are fact wars. Facts have totemic power. We've come to see facts in specific and perhaps limited terms as you are suggesting. The chess example being a good case.
Yep; that's exactly why empiricism tries to militarise the term, as can be seen in this thread. @Athena may have. a desire to take advantage of that process in her discussions with her nephew. Denying a distinction between belief and truth might look like a good move, but it plays into the hands of those who would peddle bullshit; identifying bullshit relies on identifying a difference between what is true and what someone believes.
That's identifying falsehood.
I'd lean toward taking bullshit as speaking without warrant, and I don't need truth to judge that.
I'm not the one to answer this - perhaps @Wayfarer? Interesting that he hasn't chimed in - or if he did I missed it.
I'm not in favour of the term "intersubjective". I get an image of two homunculi sitting watching screens that display the outside world, and sending messages to each other on a teletype, neither confident that there is anything outside their small cell.
That is, it's a misleading term, setting up or deriving from a false picture.
Rather what we say and do are embedded in the world and in a community, both of which provide limits. Those limits are shared, as opposed to intersubjective.
I doubt that helps much.
I meant bullshit as in saying what suits one's purpose - not speaking without warrant so much as speaking without regard for the truth. After Frankfurt.
That did help. I'm trying to navigate these tricky or is that pesky (?) realms of philosophy.
Cheers - TS
Yeah I do. The T-sentence. Statement mentioned on the left, state of affairs, fact, statement used, on the right.
You are pretending there is more, when there isn't.
Quoting tim wood
So presumably you are happy to call untrue statements facts.
I don't see any progress being made in your reply. It doesn't address the very specific criticisms provided above. It doesn't set out identifiable issues with what I have said.
What to do with it? Consider:
Quoting tim wood
...so whatever the "event"you are asking for, you are both accusing me of having presented it instead of a fact, and then demanded I present what you say I already presented....
Quoting tim wood
That's so obtuse. I and others have show you that facts may not be known. Can you provide an example of a fact that is not true?
It's weird. By all means, try again to articulate whatever it is you are saying, but until then there's nothing to be done.
Yes, I have. Several times.
First, your question is ill-formed. Facts are always true.
Second, if what you are asking is when is a statement true, then perhaps you are asking when a statement ought be believed. There is no general answer to that question.
Oh, it's you. Fuck off, sockpuppet.
This is a fact
I love fucking off my sock puppets
I think being under the threat of great violence is the best time to believe something
Strangelove to the rescue!
Of course Shitty shitty BANG BANG! Is that not the overarching ethos of the philosophy forum dot com?
But the Greek gods are in fact, still a fact. It is just that we know much less about them today. All knowledge about them, not belief but knowledge, which includes the negative into which us moderns categorize the Greek gods, is fact. We must have a criterion for knowledge, and criterion is what separates knowledge from belief and gives us fact.
For example Zeus is real to me, not as a bearded dude on the throne of mount Olympus, but as a really cool character in the Greek pantheon, and isva metaphor for many things in real life. But fuck metaphors ya know.
It gets tricky because criterion then becomes subject to belief. So it is very easy to dismiss certain categories of fact because we can always relegate a category of fact to a belief by referring to belief in its criterion.
Ok, you said it better
But then fact fights back by declaring all frames to be facts in themselves, and now we are discovering frames as facts. I think Nietzsche called this perspectivism...the M fer
So then, do you consider facts, rather, is your critetion of strict fact that it be verifiable in the known universe, preferably via empirical means?
Thanks :blush: ill take that as a compliment
That one GOD should create a pantheon and a bunch of imbiciles to believe in it, that way SHE wont get blamed for all the bullshit
Yes, professor Radder. Genius man, gentle soul, loving husband. Too bad what happened, you heard he was poisoned by anthrax in his cocaine, right?
I hope you used email. Its easier to trace, and you'll more than likely get credit where credit is due
But not his final trip
Give me a link to Radder and I will check it out. I am only joking about the anthrax. I wasn't being disrespectful about any personal issues.
Its internet slang that the kids use to mean goodnight, no disrespect meant
We generally have a decent constitution in the states, but too many of us are lactose intolerant.
Can't wait to see more of your shitty shitty BANGBANG here
Thanks for that link, im all over it, ill let you know what i think
@Janus and @Banno are arguing from the point of view of God, while you and I are arguing from a pragmatic human POV. Hence the disagreement. The moment they realize that they are not God, they will understand that facts can only be established by us humans via some evidence...
Indeed! Merchwuerdigichliebe is Dr. Strangelove's german name. My greastest inspiration after Bugs Bunny. And Kubrick is definitely the greatest director ever, no competition
I read it in the chess rules.
I think the question is: when should a statement be taken as fact, and when should it not? In other words, how does one determine a fact?
When cops work on a case, they are supposed to come up with facts. Do you think they write T-sentences in their notebook in order to do that?
Belief in facts is not determinate. Mentioned before. You can believe whatever you like.
Quoting Olivier5
What does this bit of nonsense have to do with anything in this thread?
Cheers. Bye.
What does that mean?
Quoting Banno
That you define "fact" in a static, unusable manner, as if the determination of what counts as fact and what doesn't was obvious or irrelevant.
It has nothing to do with being God; it ironically is just the opposite; it has to do with being fallible. If you don't acknowledge that some of what are generally taken to be facts may in fact not be, then I don't know what else to say to you except "keep digging".
I dare you to try and actually engage in philosophical discussion with your next account. Pathetic troll.
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.
To be clear, that is an opinion, not a fact. And in the good old days, we called talking about others gossip.
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.
Philosophers....
Agreed.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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:
Quoting Banno
Or would you take this correction?
Quoting Banno
Come to think of it,
Quoting 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?
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.
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.
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.
What is? The string of four words opening your post? Sure.
Quoting Banno
It's also a fact, then, because it's not only a sentence but true. Fine.
Quoting 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?
I don't understand what you are asking. Your point remains obscure.
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
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.
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:
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.
In that case I have no idea what you are arguing about.
Quoting bongo fury
Who do you get your ideas about philosophy and psychology from? Who do you read?
I think for myself.
But I engage with bakhtin,lacan,dostoevsky,nietzsche,plato and Julia kristeva.
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.
This is not an accurate characterization of my views.
That'll be 'cause they are right.
Quoting 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.
Quoting 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.
Doubtless.
That's great!
Nice to hear!
Peace to you!
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.)
Quoting 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.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
That's what is going on here. Getting the distinction between belief and truth shines light on
...and much more.
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.
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).
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!
It's bad form to criticize authors you haven't actually read.
Wouldn't it be jolly good fun if you addressed the topic?
I can also agree that "a fact is a true statement." And you are right that the term is sometimes used this way in English. My point is simply that this definition does not help identify what is a fact and what is not.
Suppose I've never seen a duck. I read something about ducks in the paper and ask here on TPF: What the hell is a DUCK? Someone answers: "Ducks are Anatidae." The answer is technically correct but it wouldn't help me much. Now if you say: "It's type of bird, living in and near water, with a flat beak" you are helping. Because I can then figure out a duck and maybe even spot one next time I walk along the Tibre.
So I am looking for a definition that would help one differentiate facts from non-facts. We are not omniscient. If facts are to feature in our conversations, then we need to ask ourselves how to spot them.
That was soooo poetic!
I also have indicated, as has Banno, the other usage equating facts with actual (as opposed to imaginary or fictional) states of affairs or situations or events or whatever you want to call them.
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Olivier5
The only thing that differentiates facts from non-facts is knowledge gained by observation. You still haven't attempted to deal with the example I gave of prisoners who are innocent; an example that shows that what is generally held to be fact may not be, even if that fact is never discovered. What kind of definition would be able to distinguish fact from fiction in such a case?
How is that an answer to my question?
Quoting bongo fury
This is a request for quite ordinary clarification, of which you showed yourself capable for the remainder of that post after "duckrabbits". You know - which words are referring to which things.
Please clarify the reference of "it" in the sentence above, that I'm questioning.
Voilà.
Quoting Janus
I have attempted to deal with it by pointing out that in this example, you imagine a certain state of affairs and declare it such, as true. Eg a guy is sentenced guilty of a crime but he is actually innocent. In doing so, you take the POV of God and ask your reader to adopt it too. What I mean by that is that you KNOW he is innocent even though the court, the police, the media and the public don't know that. So you can safely conclude: "it is a fact that he is innocent" but none of the people inside your scenario could actually say that.
And that is because a fact is a statement known to be true, or accurate enough (ergo based on accurate, replicable or otherwise dependable evidence). It's not just a true statement. It's a well buttressed one.
Quoting Janus
That would seem to imply that there could exist facts that are yet unknown to us. Which is different from saying: "we will tomorrow discover (or observe) facts that we have no clue about yet", in the critical sense that it implies the existence of a world in itself, in which there exist facts.
I believe in the existence of a world in itself, can't even imagine how one couldn't. But are there "facts" in that world in itself? I find it hard to even understand the issue here... It seems to me that it is again the POV of God.
Another way to ask the question may be: Is there a useful way for us humans to speak about "facts in themselves"? Is that a useful concept, and if yes, in what sorts of questions?
I observed God speaking to me. I could hear them. Now I know they must be behind all this. God is a fact. "Naaaahh", says atheist, "an illusion". ???
Quoting Olivier5
I don't see how the stipulation that in this story no one knows that the convict is innocent, is relevant, since the intention was to mirror actual cases just like that. Are you denying there could be cases like that where convicts are innocent? If a convict is actually innocent of a crime is it not a fact that he didn't commit the crime even if no one knows it?
Or another example; take any supposed historical fact; imagine that it didn't actually happen; would it not then be a fact that it didn't happen, even if we have no way of determining that?
Quoting Olivier5
I'm not saying what I think you think I'm saying. I'm talking here about how we determine what we consider to be facts. I'm not saying that facts are dependent upon being determined.
So far, you haven't offered any counterexamples or counterarguments, you just keep repeating the same assertions. Well, I genuinely don't agree with your assertions; because I think there is a valid, an indispensable, distinction between what we take to be the facts and what the facts might actually be.
Quoting Olivier5
I know what you're saying but I don't think it's right. I would say what we take to be a fact is a statement we take ourselves to know to be true; that we take to be well-buttressed; it might still turn out to be wrong. That said, there are general descriptive facts that within the context of human life are unquestionably true. For example that Paris is the capital of France and that humans are usually born with two arms and two legs are facts which cannot be coherently questioned. There are countless numbers of these kinds of facts, but they don't tell us anything that is not self-evident; so they are not particularly important.
Indeed.
The trouble here is of course that what counts as a suitable observation is already theoretical - already an interpretation. Observations thus cannot fulfil this role as a foundation to knowledge.
I agree, what we take to be facts are always fallible. But the logic behind our understanding of factuality is not such that facts are fallible; it is that facts are facts and once a fact always a fact.
No is to what one believes. The best we can do is an ought.
And that's were the empiricists and pragmatists fall down.
The trouble here is that you separate theory and observation.
For one thing, he knows it. For another, the real guilty party knows it. The police most of times would have planted the evidence and would know it. They are the people who could -- in proper English -- say "I know for a fact that he is innocent".
If you use the word 'fact' to speak of 'truth', there's no value added to the word 'fact' as compared to 'truth'. You might as well abandon it and use the word 'truth' instead.
Quoting Janus
You ARE saying what I am saying, you are just too stubborn to realize it.
And thus, science cannot possibly succeed...
What a joke!
You haven't addressed the fact that when the innocent and the guilty persons are both dead no one knows the fact of the matter; which remain facts of the matter nonetheless. And you have addressed the problem with your view of what constitutes a fact as it relates to historical fact. On your view there can be no historical fact because there is no way of observing the events in question in order to determine what actually happened.
Quoting Olivier5
That's a ridiculous claim given your inability to address the difficulties I have raised with your position. I disagree with your view; get over it. If you agree with what I'm saying then repeat after me
Quoting Janus
That doesn't follow.
That doesn’t allow for the possibility of something that is thought by everyone to be a fact which subsequently turns out not to be. You’re appealing to a notion of ‘fact’ that transcends the possibility of being wrong, or saying that established facts are incontrovertible, when they often turn out not to be.
The word 'fact' is often used throughout the English speaking world. Some philosophers believe that nouns like 'fact' have an exact meaning. I'm not sure what could be the exact meaning of fact. :confused:
You have it exactly backwards; it is the position of Olivier5 that carries the burden of not being able to account for being wrong.. I have said that facts are not fallible, but that what we take to be facts is fallible; for Oliver5 there is no distinction between facts and what we take to be facts.. You need to read more closely
Spot on.
Differentiating between beliefs and truths is pivotal to acknowledging and correcting error. You'd have to agree with that,
@Olivier5 is right. A fact is a fact because our theories make them a fact. I'm not talking about lying, which can be done in every culture.
How else can it be? Observations and theory can't be separated. Pure observation is an illusion. Even the perception of a pure color is problematic. There are no "bundles of perception" which we can arbitralily select in the creative process, as Einstein claims.
I think you're right. It's the public who decide what a "facts" is, not armchair philosophers.
A point of form: that I haven't address points that you haven't made yet should come as ni surprise. Make your points first, and then I will try and address them.
Historical facts are accurate observations done and recorded in the past, that's all. There usually is a way to observe the record.
If the people in the known of a case are all dead and left no record whatsoever, it is improper or at any rate not useful to speak of the facts of the mater.
Quoting Janus
Rather, you agree with my view; get over it. :-)
You did not address my objection that if truth and fact mean exactly the same thing, why have two words instead of one?
The public merely observes. Swallowing everything that is served swallow-ready, without chewing, unconsciously digesting only. Who serves?
Some even participate.
That's how true theatre should be.
I would say docile, compliant, or easily influenced. Sheeple is an insult to sheep.
Not me! :cool:
I had the impression already! :smile:
Words are a problem and that makes logic a problem and sometimes we have to just go with the flow. I will settle for the idea that a fact is about 3-dimensional reality and it is something that can be proven true. That means a lot of things we argue about are not factual but opinion and perspective and that everything goes better when we keep that in mind.
I hate riding in the car with two kids in the back seat intensely arguing about something that does not matter and how ridiculous this is when it is possible to get the facts and end the argument but no one really cares about the facts, they just want to win the argument. They are not even aware that there is no substance to their argument.
That is a very interesting comment. Daniel Kahneman's explanation of fast and slow thinking. Slow thinking takes a lot of energy and our brains like to conserve energy so most of the time we follow our feelings and are not actually thinking. That is so true for politics! We vote for our team because it is our team.
But Hume.
The "provable true or false" definition seems to be widely used in "critical thinking" curricula, and it's what Pew used in a recent survey -- more as a definition of "factual" really -- but to a lot of philosophers the word "prove" there is going to mean the word "fact" might as well not exist.
There are multiple words for other concepts: justice and fairness for example. In any sentence in English of the form "It is true that", "it is a fact that" can be substituted. But in a wider context they don't mean exactly the same things just as justice and fairness don't.
"Truth" would be closer to 'factuality', and 'true' to 'factual'. But 'true' is a broader term; you cannot substitute 'fact' in the sentences 'his aim was true',or 'her love was true' or 'she is a true friend'. But to repeat, in propositional language as shown in 'it is true that' substitution makes sense.
Quoting Olivier5
OK, this is getting too weird. If you want to believe that I agree with you, go ahead, you will be wrong, but it's no skin off my nose.
Of course it is people (not the public) who decides what is fact and what is not. But that means they decide what they take to be fact and what they do not. Are you denying that they might be wrong and what they take to be fact might not be?
Quoting Olivier5
And what if the record is not correct when everyone thinks it is? Did Caesar really cross the Rubicon? Who really knows for sure?
What is really weird is to debate a dude who would rather die than be seen agreeing with you... It is also a waste of time.
Who says no?
How is this confirmed by observation?
Looking it up in a maths textbook?
Anyone who associates or defines different values or meaning to the symbols or nomenclature used. Not a particularly deep or profound answer, kind of like pointing out how one word means something else in another language, but it can be expanded on to the point of a curious conundrum, perhaps with a bit of thought.
Sure, a mathematical law, rather a sound equation would qualify as a fact, but to some the former terms describe it better and with more resoluteness. Math is indeed unique in this respect. Even science is constantly proving itself wrong then right again and back and forth. Though it's hardly the language of the gods some believe it to be.. you have one apple and I give you another, you have two. If it vanishes into thin air, you only have one. It's the one language both toddlers and professional mathematicians can understand.
As to what constitutes a 'fact' however, that is a bit less absolutely defined. We can have personal truths, but not personal facts. Therefore, it is a (successful?) attempt at placing a well-founded belief alongside the laws, nature, and truths of the gods (the absolute). Until proven wrong of course. Some are, some aren't. That's probably where the term "fun fact" comes from really :razz:
Edit: We have to understand, respect, and acknowledge the duality between the absolute and the relative. Facts, truths, reality even- as some myopically group the first two under- are all subject to change at a moment's notice, this is the absolute nature of reality. Simple example is stating "the door is closed" in reference to a door that is in fact, closed. Until I open it. It seems obvious and common sense but you'd be surprised how many seem to get caught off guard, and worse, when this fact (tee hee) confronts them in more.. personal aspects of ingrained, core belief.
Riemann and Lobachevsky.
And you claim facts are the result of observation. What observations shows Riemann and Lobachevsky that ? r² is not a fact?
Oh shoot, Banno does not think so, and he knows best.
SO present your case.
Thanks.
Quoting Outlander
From that, a subsidiary question: Is that the Bishop moves only diagonally a fact?
This by way of digging further into facts as issues of what we might as a start call convention. We can't have personal facts - is that because they are conventional?
You won't pay attention.
Alekhine: No, because it is stipulated that this is how bishops move.
Morphy: But if it's a case of "saying it's so makes it so", then it must make it so, and what are facts if not how things are?
Alekhine: But facts aren't stipulated; they are discovered. Your saying the moon's made of green cheese doesn't make it so.
Morphy: My saying it wouldn't physically change the moon, but your stipulating doesn't physically change the chess pieces either.
Alekhine: It doesn't make it physically impossible to move a bishop any other way, no. But suppose it did, and suppose I "physically stipulated" that some bishop moves like a rook. Then you could study this set and discover that this particular piece had been "physically stipulated" to move like a rook. Then indeed it would be a fact that it does. That's not what we do; we say this is how the bishop is supposed to be moved. It's really nothing to do with the chess pieces; it's a rule people are supposed to follow when they're playing chess.
Morphy: But isn't it a fact that the rules of chess, including how bishops move, are what they are?
Alekhine: That things are what they are is the law of identity.
Morphy: No, I mean, the laws of chess are what they happen to be, as a matter of history; they have been different in the past, and what we call "chess" today might have had different rules.
Alekhine: Okay...
Morphy: And the current state of the rules of chess is something we discover, something handed down to us, not something any of us stipulate.
Alekhine: But they are stipulated by FIDE and by the USCF and many other official bodies!
Morphy: The official rules for sanctioned competition have to be made explicit, of course, but they're only codifying the rules as they have been handed down, not stipulating them afresh.
Alekhine: Agreed.
Morphy: And if they were to make a little change, say capping a bishop's movement at four squares, we'd all say, "That's not chess, but a chess variant."
Alekhine: Agreed.
Morphy: Then the rules of chess are historical fact that we discover.
Alekhine: They are handed down from generation to generation, and what is handed down can be discovered, yes; but what is handed down are rules for playing the game, not facts. That something is what people say is a fact, but what they say is not made a fact by their saying it.
Okay but I am pragmatic. I want empirical proof. And to me, the structure for a proof that can prove something that is totally ridiculous is true is not a fact, but a good reason to seek a better way to determine if something is true, because obviously, that logic structure is not doing the job.
No can do. Evidence is all you're ever going to get.
Anyway, that's the party line. I don't have a solid alternative to offer.
So if a dog is a dog, that is not a fact? How many things can exist and not be factual?
It is a fact that convention forbids any other movement for said piece. So, Maybe. :grin:
Convention, tradition, rules (especially mutually agreed upon), social contract. Personal facts may be far from convention. Ie. if you happen to be a minority political party and "oh this guy sucks" may be a fact for you, rather a firmly held belief, it could be far from.. well it is convention for your particular party.. I suppose who's convention is the question, it doesn't need to be the majority. An unconventional convention, is still a convention, right?
Edit: But, you can craft your personal belief into something that resembles or at least sounds like a fact by prefacing it with a simple "I think" or "It is my belief" that...
It is a fact that you think or believe something. That's no longer an opinion. The subject is an opinion of course but the statement has now become fact.
It's true. I wouldn't call it a fact, but you can if you like. It's provable. It's also uninformative.
And sometimes dogs turn out to be coyotes.
Domestic dogs and coyotes, wolves, foxes etc. are dogs, or more scientifically precise, canines. The animal's characteristics determine the biological family to which it belongs. That is imperialistic and it works for organizing our thinking. Something Sumerians could not do because they did not have words for different biological groups such as trees and bushes. We have words for classifying plants and animals. A bush is not a tree and a tree is not a bush, but all trees share characteristics in common and all bushes share characteristics in common. All canines share characteristics in common and belong to one family called canines. They are distinctly different from cats or felidae. If that is not a fact please explain.
Our brains are relatively useless without language and language without classifications would make scientific thinking impossible. In different regions of the earth, people will have different names for cats and dogs, water and air, etc. so the exact name may not matter, but the ability to classify what is being named does matter.
Interesting question. If we had no mathematical symbols could we have mathematical facts?
Is what not a fact? That animals we've classified as canines are what we've classified them as? That they share certain characteristics we used to define the box we put them in?
Call it a fact if you like. I wouldn't. I'd agree that it's a fact this is how zoologists classify animals. It's a fact that I have to work today. It's a fact that men landed on the moon in 1969. It's a fact that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
Yes, the same facts can be expressed in different languages. There are facts of conformation and characteristic that have been criteria for classification of animals, plants and other natural kinds; that seems to be what you are getting at, and I agree.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Looks like hedging your bets. It's the saying that gives a dollar its value, that makes a contract binding, that makes a promise an obligation. What is said exactly is made a fact by the saying. "I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth" can make it a fact that the ship has that name.
Unless names are not facts.
All of this by way of showing that using "fact" to talk only about observations is obtuse.
I'd like to hear what you think.
I'll bet you $5 that I can make something a fact just by saying it.
Quoting InPitzotl
Guys, I know what speech acts are. I even nodded at the concept by describing stipulative rules as a case of "saying it's so makes it so".
Note that the act of christening a ship is exactly that: it is, by performing that act, in the correct way in the correct circumstances, of conferring a name upon a ship by speaking certain words. That's not even in the ballpark of the words spoken at such a ceremony being a statement of fact. Not even if the particular words required for the christening to count are, "The name of this ship is the USS Banno."
If there the ceremony has gone off as it was supposed to, is it now a statement of fact to say "The name of that ship is the Banno"? I guess, kinda. On the one hand, if you take names as a sort of capsule history that reaches back to the baptism, then to claim that an object has a particular name is an historical claim about who said what about that object when, and that's obviously a factual matter. On the other hand, names are dependent on usage just like other words we can't trace to a baptism, or presume that we could. A person's legal name may require particular procedures to change, but otherwise names can come and go. (Here, I've looked up one: the Flatiron Building was originally the Fuller Building and nicknamed "Eno's flatiron", then widely called "the Flatiron", and eventually officially (I don't know how) named "the Flatiron Building". Persons tend to have even more say in what their name is than buildings.)
So, there as well, insofar as we're talking about the facts of the moment, how people use some word as a name to refer to some object, sure, and nothing I said contradicts that. But those are facts that are very much in play and that we might even participate in changing, precisely because they are facts about how we use particular words. ("You always call him 'Butthead'." "Yeah, I used to but then I felt bad, so I haven't called him that in weeks.") I'd be reluctant to say that everything we express in words is just a statement about how we use words.
Quoting Banno
I suppose I'm okay with names counting as facts, for the reasons given above, but I'm not enthusiastic about it. Fact and stipulation -- baptism being a kind of stipulation, right? -- just shouldn't end up together. Talking classification with @Athena, I think I can distinguish everything I want to: that we call animals like this "dogs" is a fact; that that animal there is a dog, is a fact, given our criteria; that what we call "dogs" are dogs -- no, not a fact, just an explanation of what we mean by "dog"; that all dogs are dogs -- not a fact, just a tautology. Names are a little trickier to get around in the same way, aren't they?
Maybe you could persuade me that stipulations and tautologies should count as facts, but for now they feel way different to me. I suspect we talk about them differently too, but I'm not going to get into that unless we have to.
Quoting Banno
So you'd rather not call this formula a fact?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I'm positing that post facto, it is a fact that the bishop moves diagonally. The point being to show that facts are not solely the result of observation.
The act of naming brings about the fact of the name referring.
If a ship is christened, the name is a kind of stipulation. That the ship henceforward becomes known by the name it was christened with (if it does) is a fact. I see no problem here.
I'm not much invested either way. Whether you throw mathematical theorems into the fact box or not, you're still going to end up talking about them differently. The procedure for verifying a "mathematical fact" bears no resemblance at all to the procedure for verifying any kind of empirical fact. If we use "fact" because it's handy and gets the point across, especially with children or the math-challenged, I won't squawk. But it would be nice to get them to the point where they can just say "theorem".
How do you feel about this formula?
[math]C = \pi d [/math]
Is that a fact?
Quoting Banno
In which case, "name" is there used as a success verb, right? Otherwise, no reference. So what you're saying is that naming is naming. Yeah, I'm okay with that.
It is a fact that when people play chess the bishop is always moved diagonally, and this fact is not a result of observation (unless you mean 'observing the rule'). But this fact is determined by observation.
The act of naming does not bring about the fact of the name referring, but rather it is the fact that people use the name to refer that establishes the fact of its referring.
No, it's a formula. It's a fact that people use it to determine the circumference of circles, though. Does it represent a fact? If it is a fact that the circumference if any circle is equal to pi multiplied by the diameter then yes.
I really thought that's what I said, but said it acknowledging that names are a little weird.
Why does everyone go straight for names and math, areas that are notoriously odd, with generations-long debates over how to deal with them? Hard cases make bad law.
I was thinking of it as the definition of [math]\pi[/math] most people learn first. They may learn other identities later, and thus other ways of deriving [math]\pi[/math], but something somewhere has to count as a definition of the symbol.
I'm fine with saying it's a fact that we use the symbol the way we do, but that doesn't make the definition itself a fact, does it?
Not "a statement of fact", if that's any clearer.
I guess it kind of does, but like all tautologies it's empty and doesn't seem to deserve the status of fact. Like saying it's a fact that all bachelors are unmarried, or that something is identical to itself.
If it's helpful to call them "facts" because it gets the point across, cool. It is also odd but a known fact that making a tautologous statement to someone can count as communication, even when it's not a matter of explaining our use of symbols. People also say, "It is what it is," and others nod in solemn agreement. Language is some weird shit.
Last day or so I've trying half-heartedly to form a thought about this, and maybe you have something to add.
Let's say we have reason to think disentangling theory from observation is a non-starter. (I was thinking this might be congenial to you for Davidsonian reasons, death to "conceptual schemes" and all that.)
We might, in addition, have reason to think that theories, even if we have some way of defining them -- which might happen in a moment, or might not -- aren't themselves bedrock, but are always embedded in a natural language. (I floated part of this idea in the discussion of Curry's paradox, when I was talking about the role of "Let P = the statement ...") Historically, this is just obviously true. But maybe it's also necessarily true, or necessary enough for our needs.
With those two points, I've been thinking maybe facts are exactly the right battle-line for theories, if we take "theory" to mean something like a set of statements you treat as factual (whether true or false) or simply as a set of facts (factual statements you count as true), though both looks the most promising. The idea is that maybe natural language is all you need to have such a fight, and you pass right by both incommensurability and the abyss of the Quine-Duhem thesis. We get to ignore the latter because if you count the same statements as factual and the same statements as facts, you're the same theory, end of story. Anything else would be, for us, a difference that makes no difference.
And as it happens, this gets us pretty close to the ground again, because ordinary people do fight over facts and over what's factual. Having tried for a while to have a theory of theories, we could give it up for a bad job and go back to fighting over facts like everyone else.
Translation: "Shit happens". :wink:
You didn't really discuss my bet at all. I didn't name anything; I "made a bet".
ETA:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Might I suggest there are different "kinds" of facts, and they feel different because they're doing different things? But along those lines, "water molecules are composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom", "bishops always stay on their own color", and "Joe is married to Sue" all feel different to me... IOW, perhaps a taxonomy of facts would be preferred to a refinement of the concept?
A bit of a dramatic way to put it... Duhem-Quine is but a rehash of Francis Bacon's "we need to put nature to the question". As Collingwood observes, Bacon was a lawyer and knew that this meant: "we need to put nature to torture in order to get answers". Hence the modern form of scientific experiments, in highly artificialized settings. There never was a scientific experimentation without a theoretical framework underpinning the "question being put", at least since Bacon. All knowledge proceeds through questions and answers. You can't have answers if you don't ask questions first, and questions proceed from a "line of questioning", i.e. from some framework. I wouldn't worry about that too much.
Yeap, I think what you said is a fact. I think you are working really hard to have an argument. :lol: Isn't that a little uptight? Maybe the main cause of the violence in our society is people taking themselves way too seriously and believing they have something to fight about. You might try some peaceful music and chill out.
Well, it was not my intention to make that point, but it seems to come out of the discussion. I have not given the subject a lot of thought before but through the discussion, I am realizing an appreciation for why we have the word "spell" which means the letters we use for a word and also the power of the word to affect what is so. There is something magical about the word. Like there is something magical about math. This is beyond accepted materialistic thinking and I am not sure if anyone wants to go that far?
My reason for starting this thread is we argue so much about theoretical things that can not be validated and many of our arguments are opinions and not facts. Clear thinking seems to depend on our awareness of the category of our arguments. As I tell the kids arguing in the back seat of my car- stop arguing, we can check the facts, and then we will know who is correct. I love arguing points because you all open my mind and expand my consciousness, but I really hate it when the arguing gets unpleasant and has nothing to do with facts!
Oh my, as I just said about words and math, I am not sure of this metaphysical reality. It is not 3-dimensional physical reality. Pi is mind-blowing with some definite mystical qualities. We can not even think of it without a word to name it or a symbol to represent it, but as we have explored pi we have discovered it has profound consequences in our lives.
Which are these profound consequences? We can easily set pi to one. But what will be become of one in this case?
Hum, what mystical power do you have that you can make something a fact? Any of us can state a fact but how can we make one?
I'm not so sure everyone knows what a fact is.
I like Banno's reply for starters.
Quoting Banno
These exemplify the two sorts of use of the term I'm most accustomed to encounter in philosophical conversations. I believe I tend to favor the second sort of use in my own speech, though it's often hard to tell the difference.
Quoting tim wood
Quoting Athena
Was that really the second question? (Or how else might you express the "second question" you had in mind?)
It's a good question. I don't think it supports an objection to Banno's rather standard definitions, though I have the impression Tim may have intended it that way.
Quoting Athena
I strongly agree that too much time is squandered in philosophical disputes in which it seems there is no objective standard or criterion available to settle the matter. I suggest it's one of the more important tasks of the philosopher to identify such controversies and put them to rest.
It is a fact. But we constructed it. In nature this does not exist. It's projected by means of a mathematical net. Thrown over the physical universe. There are no inherent areas of circles. After the orojection only.
Well for one, the power to make a bet by stating that I'm making one. It's a fact that I made that bet; a fact made true by the fact that I stated that I made it (is that not how bets are made?)
For the record, no, that's not how bets are made. Like the christening of a ship or any other speech act, it requires specific circumstances and the cooperation of others. People also use the language of wagers to indicate firm belief ("I'll bet a million bucks Jerry's gonna be late today"). We use the same language to challenge each other to contests: "Bet I can beat you to the mailbox" might be met with "You're on!" and the kids race, or with "Loser takes out the trash?" in which case there's now an actual wager being offered, but it's still not a wager until the other says "Deal!"
The whole reason Austin developed the theory of performative utterance was to point out that not every utterance is a factual statement. "Bet I can beat you to the mailbox" might be a challenge, might be the first step in negotiating a wager, but it is still not itself a factual statement. Everytime you speak someone -- you included -- could make factual statements about you having spoken and what you said. Same here for issuing a challenge or making a wager.
You have failed to make your case.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
You're over-interpreting here. A claim that x is how y happens (in this context) is a claim about means, not sufficiency. That the speaker can use the language of making a bet without really making one does not refute that this is how bets are made.
For example, we propel bicycles by pushing on their pedals, but that requires specific circumstances (wheels on the ground, you on the seat, chain hooked up, etc). Nevertheless, that is indeed how we propel bicycles. To say that this isn't how we propel bicycles because if the chain weren't there it wouldn't work would just be silly; there's nothing in the claim that this is how we propel bicycles that purports this to be sufficient.
Arguably, the speaker's probably (but not necessarily) making a bet anyway; they're just being satirical about the wager. (A case where the speaker might not be making a bet may be if the speaker is teasing; e.g., using that language to suggest Jerry may have had lots of fun last night).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Let's call the person who said "Bet I can beat you to the mailbox" Jack, and "You're on!" Joe.
In natural English, Joe may say "Jack bet me that he could beat me to the mailbox; naturally, I accepted".
Let's say, instead, that Joe said "No way!". In natural English, Joe may say "Jack bet me that he could beat me to the mailbox, but I didn't feel like a race so I refused the bet."
What you seem to be doing here is considering a bet only having been made when it is accepted. But this does not match the language usage above, where bets are made when they are offered.
...this is just negotiating a wager.
So to summarize, you're suggesting that I'm wrong by misinterpreting a claim of means as a claim of sufficiency. Next you're suggesting I'm wrong by misinterpreting "to make a bet" as applying to acceptance as opposed to offer. And finally, there's that wager negotiation part, but I'm not sure what to make of it because prior to the negotiation your example explicitly uses the term "bet" (I'm not sure you're even suggesting it's not a bet until it has a negotiated wager?)
Perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you had claimed that because you had said something like "I bet $5 I can make a fact by saying something" you must have made a bet; I don't think that's true. Consider your example here: if I had just reassembled the crankset after repacking it with grease, and were now turning the crank to see if it spins smoothly, I would not be propelling a bicycle, I would not even intend to be propelling a bicycle. Fine, you say, it's necessary but not sufficient; but it's not necessary either, because you can also walk alongside it pushing the handlebars or run along behind someone pushing on the seat while they steer. Just so, given the right circumstances you can place a bet just by sliding some chips across a table or buying a ticket from some guy sitting behind a little window. The words "I bet ..." are neither necessary nor sufficient to create the fact of a bet having been made.
That is a good one. I guess you would win that bet.
Yes, you misunderstood. I don't think that's true either, but that's not what's being claimed.
Cool. Then what were you claiming, and what does it have to do with whether what we say is factual?
Let me announce I do not know math. It is an awesome mystery to me. That said pi is about circles and it is important to the engineering of airplanes for connecting with a satellite that determines where the plane is at all times, and the mechanics of the tail flap. That makes me wonder if birds use pi to navigate?
Maybe in the next hundred years, I will learn to think with the clarity many people here have. I love your words "objective standard or criterion available". Isn't the object to make you look like an ass so everyone thinks I won the argument? :lol: I definitely am not serious and I don't see that much here, but in political forums that seems to be the mentality. The point is a clear question and objective standard or criterion for answering it is true thinking. Just reacting to someone is not the process of thinking that reasoning requires. But I have so much to learn before I can achieve the goal of good reasoning. I only have a vague understanding of the terms you used. My brain is still like a wild horse that could bound off in any direction rather than conform to an objective standard or criterion.
I'm not sure what's so complicated about this. If I am riding a bike, I would propel the bike by pushing on the peddles.
In like fashion, I said this:
Quoting InPitzotl
...and by saying that, I made that bet. By making that bet using these means, it becomes a fact that I made that bet. That fact is described by what I said to make the bet.
No you really didn't. Suppose you and a buddy are drinking behind the 7-11. Your buddy finishes his beer and says "Ten bucks says I can make it." You say nothing as he arcs his empty bottle into the recycling bin across the alley. Do you owe him ten bucks?
You might, if it were custom among you two always to accept these small bets, but probably not.
Is it at least a fact that he offered a wager. Again, maybe. Maybe. Might just be the way he talks, an expression of confidence. Words are not magic spells. There is no necessary connection between the words spoken, in themselves alone, and any fact brought about in the world by speaking them.
Quoting InPitzotl
And that's especially wrong. When a judge passes sentence, by speaking certain words, he brings about certain facts but is not stating a fact. That's the whole point of the category of performative utterance. That he said what he said, is a fact. That it counts as passing sentence, also fact, and more factual consequences flow from that. But he wasn't stating a fact, and what he said is not a factual statement but a judicial sentence.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Why did you bother with this example? I've already explained this to you. No, I don't (B) owe him ten bucks. But what's in dispute is (A) that my buddy made a bet. The reason I don't owe him ten bucks isn't because my buddy didn't make a bet; but because I did not accept the bet.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
That's irrelevant. Bets tend to have an unspoken by demonstration rule. If I bet my buddy I can touch the ceiling, and I jump up and touch it, I win the bet. It doesn't matter whether or not I can necessarily touch the ceiling, or whether I can touch the ceiling regardless of circumstances. I demonstrate "can" by a successful attempt.
You're arguing for irrelevancies not on the table.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Quoting InPitzotl
Let Y be that phrase. By my producing that statement, Y is said. By Y being said, a bet is made. By the bet being made, it becomes a fact. The thing that becomes a fact is Y. You might could quibble about distinctions between performatives and factual descriptions, but Y is both the thing being said to make the bet, and a fact brought about by saying it.
Wonderful. Something I can quibble about. I love to quibble and nitpick. When they were first introduced, bicycles did not have pedals, chains, and gears. They were propelled by foot, much as a scooter or skateboard is.
That is a quibble, but it also says something about facts.
Or because he wasn't even offering a wager but expressing his confidence by saying "I'll bet I can ..." --- an alternative which you passed right over.
And no, it's not a bet if no one accepts.
Suppose he just hoists his empty and points at the bin saying, "Five bucks." You nod. Now there's a bet. What statement of fact did he make? What statement of fact did you make by nodding?
If I'm watching a baseball game, and it looks to me like a pitch went right over the heart of the plate waist-high, doesn't matter if I say "Strike!" It matters what the home-plate umpire says (these days it's just a gesture). He does not observe that the pitch is in the strike zone and report this fact. Whatever he decides becomes fact, even if PITCHf/x shows he was wrong. His speech act is of a different kind from mine; I report what I saw but he makes a call.
I discussed that too, right here:
Quoting InPitzotl
...unprompted even.
But you're conflating two distinct things: (a) the fact that I can make a bet by saying "I bet I can x", and (b) the fact that I can say "I bet I can x" without making a bet.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Why not? It's natural to say "I do not accept that bet".
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Sure, it's possible to make bets without statements. But... (a).
I don't quite understand the point of this. Are you trying to earn your $5?
I don't understand in what sense you think I'm conflating them.
Quoting InPitzotl
Who pays out if you win? Nobody? Then what were the stakes? Nothing? Then no wager.
The point I'm making, once again, is not that you cannot make a bet by saying certain words, of course you can. But your speech act is then "making a bet", not stating a fact. If I make a promise, I'm not stating a fact. If I express a wish, I'm not stating a fact. If I issue a command, I'm not stating a fact. If I make a bet, I'm not stating a fact.
All these things are related to other factual statements. If I promise to do the dishes, I promise to bring about the state of affairs that could be factually described as, that the dishes are done. But I'm making a promise, not stating a fact.
This is what you quoted. Here's what you left out:
Quoting InPitzotl
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
You have already sung that song. And the answer was already given to you. In order for me to be obliged to pay, I must accept "it". But the "it" I must accept is called a bet; hence, it being natural to say "I accept that bet". If I reject "it", I am not obliged to pay out; but again, the "it" that I reject is called a bet; hence it being natural to say, "I reject that bet".
I'm appealing to natural use of the language as the standard by which we judge what "to bet" means... that would be the part of my quote that you left out. So I added it back in for you... just in case you want to actually reply to me.
Yep; It's a true statement. Being a definition of ? does not change this.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
It is the saying that makes it a fact that the bishop moved diagonally. Adopting that fact sets up the complex iterative interactions that go into making Chess interesting. Searle called such things "institutional facts", characterising them as of the form "A counts as X"; moving diagonally counts as a move in chess. Doing otherwise is not playing chess.
Wittgenstein may have had something similar in toe with talk of Hinge propositions.
Searle contrasted institutional facts with brute facts; roughly speaking, brute facts are observations: the cup s on the table.
The unaddressed problem with this is that brute facts can only be presented by taking advantage of institutional facts. "The cup is on the table" uses the institutional facts of language.
Now this is Davidson's point, when he says that the world is always, already interpreted.
It is also the Quine-Durkheim thesis.
It's the reason that observations cannot be the foundation of our understanding.
We have to give up the distinction between fact and theory.
This is one of the best things you ever said. Fat is intrinsic to good theory. Who wants lean and meagre theories?
As for the rules of chess as we know them, they stabilized around the 15th century in Europe. Before that at some point, the bishop did not exist yet. It was still called al fil, the elephant in Arabic, and the elephant did already move diagonally but I believe it could jump, like the knight and moved only by two squares.
So it is a historical fact, well established by the study of ancient Arabic and European chess books, that since the 15th century or so the bishop moves diagonally in the standard (or rather European) rules of chess.
You claim that facts are only ever the result of observation. That claim has been thoroughly critiqued and found wanting.
Sure, it's an historical fact that the bishop moves diagonally. It is also an institutional fact. That it is true is not dependent on observation.
Your move. See if you can address the actual issue at hand.
See what I did here? I contextualized the fact within its theoretical, historical, and geographical milieux. In doing so, it was made more of a fact, not less of a fact. More precise, more informative.
Facts have this in common with objective reality, with empirical, stubborn reality, that they are always local. Facts are always somewhere, and some when. Even the formula for the area of the circle is only true within a certain context: that of Euclidian geometry.
Only superficially so. It is a truism that any observation takes place within a certain theoretical framework. So what? The data is still collected, and useful.
It is: people learn the rules of chess by observation and imitation. That is precisely how they know, and can verify anytime they want, how the bishop moves: by asking others, by reading books.
Sure, facts are contextual. On this we agree. In particular, what counts as an observation is dependent on the context.
Quoting Olivier5
Do you now rescind this?
:up: Words may not directly affect the world itself, as they were thought to be able to do in traditional magick, but they certainly affect the ways we see the world. And insofar as human actions have affected the world, then words have affected the world.
Maths, on the other hand, does seem to reflect the deep structures of the world.
Of course not...
Well, I don't see a point in going over the arguments against your position yet again, so I guess that's the end of the chat.
You have made no argument against my position whatsoever. Maybe you think you did, but as always you only gesticulated in the general direction of Wittgenstein...
But maybe you can understand what I am saying if I take a very simple example: do you often drive a car with your eyes close? Does the driver of a car benefit (or not) from keeping his eyes open? Think about it for a day or two... No rush.
My take is that two words never mean the exact same thing, otherwise there wouldn't exist two words. In this case, a fact is not just a true statement: it is a well established true statement, relatively easy to verify empirically by oneself.
Sure.
So let's list 'em.
Quoting Olivier5
1. Accurate is problematic. What is it that makes an observation accurate?
1a. One answer would be "being close to the truth", but then your your comment is just "being a true observation" and gets no further than mine.
1b. A second answer would be Aa measure that has a smaller error but then 1.5±0.001m would be a more accurate figure than 2±0.1m for something that is actually 2.0m.
2. An observation might be made that is erroneous. That is, not true. On your account such an observation would still count as a fact. Your account admits false facts.
3. Observations are embedded in theory. Facts on this account must be dependent on other facts. Not a killer, this, but still relevant.
4. Counter examples. That the area of a circle is given by r² is a fact but is not an observation. That the bishop always moved diagonally is a fact but not an observation. It will not do to claim that we learn these by observation, since learning something does not make each a fact
There were a couple of others, but these will do.
See above.
This has been answered already. Accuracy is -- if you wish -- the quantitative version of truth. Truth is black or white, yes or no, but accuracy goes by degree; one can be more or less accurate but not more or less true (there's the concept of "true enough", which means "accurate enough"). The concept of accuracy is therefore apt for natural sciences, perhaps more so than the concept of truth, because in natural science facts are usually understood as quantitative measurements, always coming with a certain margin of imprecision.
Quoting Banno
In this case it is an inaccurate observation, ergo not a fact. Beside, the way to tell if a previous observation was accurate or not is to redo the observation (or a similar one) and compare the results. Therefore one corrects inaccurate observations via other, more accurate observations. Not via more theory or revelations from the gods.
Quoting Banno
I addressed this already. The Duhem-Quine thesis (nothing to see with Durkheim, and the correct order is with Duhem first because he stated it first, historically) is correct, if a bit trite. It is only stating the obvious, that one cannot test only one hypothesis in isolation from the whole theoretical framework underpinning it. So yes, there is no observation without some prior enquiry shaping and motivating that observation, and "pure observation" (so to speak, meaning observation not based on any theory) is simply impossible. And yet, astronomers still look through their telescopes, biologists still peer through their microscopes, and people still keep their eyes open when they drive, in spite of the Duhem-Quine thesis... As you conceded, it's not a killer at all.
Quoting Banno
Again, addressed already. Perhaps you can explain how you know for a fact that the bishop always moved diagonally, rather than like the rook, or like the al fil piece that predated the bishop ? Was this knowledge handed over to you by a revelation from God? Or was it an instinct perhaps?
You have examples of unobserved facts?
This looks to be doublespeak. That the table is 3.0±0.1m is either true or false.
Quoting Olivier5
Leaving begging the very question you rhetorically ask of me: how do you differentiate between the erroneous observations and the correct ones?
Quoting Olivier5
As explained in detail, some facts are true in virtue of the institutions in which they occur. Such facts are not true in virtue of observations.
Let's use the nearby word "wager" to mean an agreement between two parties that one of them will pay the other some agreed upon amount depending on the outcome of some event. It's a kind of contract.
When you say "I bet you ...", you, as it were, write up a virtual contract. That there is such a thing could count as a fact, but it's only the fact that you said what you said.
It would be more interesting if, having written up this virtual contract, you had signed it, thereby creating a binding offer to enter into a wager. That would be a fact of more interest.
How is anyone to know whether you have signed this virtual contract? They could ask you, of course. Or they could accept your offer and then you'd have to agree or back out -- say you were just kidding, something like that. Neither is a great option.
It is precisely because of such uncertainties, and to avoid the necessity for one side to commit just to find out if the other has made a genuine offer, that behavior around all sorts of contracts, including wagers, tends to be formalized, to varying degrees.
Now you could say that the person who says "I bet you ..." knows whether the offer was genuine, but the rest of the world has no interest in such "private facts".
While I recognize the common usage of "I bet you ..." to mean "I am offering to enter into a wager with you such that ...", I don't consider that offer, absent a way of verifying your virtual signature, a fact.
There is a wager once the parties have a contract, and the word "bet" is also used in this sense. ("Do we have a bet?" is a member of the same family as "Do we have a deal?", "Do we have an agreement?", and "Do we have a contract?") Such a contract is certainly some kind of fact, but it is not a fact you can create entirely on your own, any more than you can make money gambling on your own game of solitaire.
My point entirely. The two concepts of accuracy and truth are tightly connected.
Quoting Banno
By doing more observations, usually.
Quoting Banno
Right, and if you say so two thousand times, maybe it will turn true.
And you know that how? It looks like a silly profession of faith to me.
Yep; accuracy is just camouflaged truth.
So your account is that a fact is a true observation.
Now, about those pesky facts that are not observations...
What observation leads to the conclusion that the area of a circle is given by ? r² ?
None. So is it not a fact, or are there facts that are not dependent on observation?
Delicately nuanced stuff.
Yes, I was thinking that if only observations are facts then anything in the human past which has not been documented cannot be a fact of history. What if Caesar didn't cross the Rubicon? Was Leonardo gay or not? On Olivier's view there can be no facts of the matter in such cases.
I gather it's something to do with wishing that every statement be dubitable. Not sure what @Olivier5's take on this is - Popper, Quine, pragmatism, post modern - probably not the latter, since there seems to be a strong scientism bent going on.
Why insist that only observations are facts?
Not if one defines facts as statements or descriptions. What exists exists, but in order to get to a true statement describing some state of affairs accurately, you need an observer observing. That is my position, and it is commonplace.
That's interesting. Where?
Or vice versa: truth is better defined as accuracy, at least in science.
Quoting Banno
Don't ask me. Ask yourself: "how did I (Banno) get to this conclusion? How do I know it for a fact?"
Surely you must have some reason to believe in that formula. What are those reasons?
That's not true. You can make a true statement about whether or not Leonardo was really gay. You can say "Leonardo was gay" and " Leonardo was not gay" and one of those statements will be a true statement, a fact; no observation required. The fact that we don't know which is true is irrelevant, because the truth does not depend on our knowing it. Do you still claim that we agree on this?
Reasons, sure. Not observations.
Sure, the items of accuracy and truth are connected. That isn’t saying much though. I cannot ‘observe’ 1 yet I can say 1+1=2 is a specific fact of basic addition. A Concrete fact could be that the Sun rises everyday, yet from another perspective this could be regarded as silly because the Sun doesn’t ‘rise’ it merely appears to rise. Observed from a particular area of Venus the Sun it merely there in the Sky.
From here we can of course argue further that ALL such items are merely Abstractions. So, there you could push home a reductionist argument of what constitutes ‘fact’ in pure terms of ‘observation’. My only question would they be to what ends? What can/do you/we achieve by shifting our perspective thus? Or is it just ‘for the hell of it’ so-to-speak (fine by me).
@Janus You like monads I take it? You cling to ‘essences’? Some ‘pure form’? If not then explain your view regarding ‘truth’/‘fact’ please. I’m interested to hear.
And what reasons are those?
----
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Janus
But you still need someone stating the statement for a statement to exist. Without someone saying "Leonardo was gay", this statement is not in existence so it cannot be true or false. And once it has been stated by someone, its truth value can only be assessed by someone based on the available empirical evidence to someone. It is not a fact if it is not buttressed by any evidence.
DO you have a point?
I am talking about the collection of data via human, conscious, careful perception and documentation of a phenomenon.
Quoting I like sushi
Let me start by agreeing that mathematical facts may present a problem for my definition.
1+1=2 can be seen as the definition of 2, and I am not sure that definitions count as facts. Yet there are many more mathematical statements not counting as definitions or tautologies, like the Pytagoras theorem.
My way of thinking of such 'facts' is as follows: "Using the tools of classical logic, it is possible to logically derive from a certain set of fundamental statements (axioms) a number of other statements (theorems). If the axioms are true, the theorems are true.
The fact is in the logical link between axioms and theorems. The axioms themselves are neither true nor false, they are never proven by definition. They are just ASSUMED true to derive a certain type of mathematics.
So the question of mathematical facts boils down to: Does there exist logical facts? Like: is the law of excluded middle a fact?
I think that may be stretching the concept of fact too far.
Quoting I like sushi
Mine is the classic distinction between facts and theories. It is mainstream. The SEP entry on 'Facts' starts thus:
Quoting Olivier5
Indeed.
Quoting Olivier5
No, it isn't.
I think I've finished. I don't want to kick the puppy.
Thanks for your mercy.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So you acknowledge bet can have this meaning. Let's call this bet(1).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Sure. "Bet" can also have this meaning. Let's call this bet(2).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Let's suppose your name is East, and my name is South. We are negotiating a contract. During the "bidding process" (that being the formalized negotiation mechanism for such bets), I say "two no-trump". Immediately afterwards, someone called West says "pass", followed by someone called North saying "pass", and then you, East, say "pass".
I claim that it is a fact that I bet(1) two no-trump. My bet(1) of two no-trump happened on my "turn" of the bidding. You claim that it's certainly some kind of fact that the four of us bet(2) something akin to that North and I would collect eight tricks if we played our current hands as a two no-trump hand; said bet(2) happening after you say "pass". But you are trying with several paragraphs of nonsense to argue that by contrast, it is not a fact that I bet(1) two no-trump.
But how does this work exactly? How can it possibly be a type of fact that the four of us collectively bet(2) on this contract if it's not a fact that I bet(1) two no-trump?
Y'all might want to look at Fitch's paradox, which has been discussed on this site before.
This is an excellent example (and I envy you your knowledge of bridge).
We are in complete agreement. As you noted, the reason what happens on your turn counts as a fact is precisely because bidding is highly formalized. This is exactly what I have been claiming.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
From there we ended up on the bet(1) vs bet(2) debate, but "cooperation" there was not intended as a stand-in for "accepting an offer" -- not all speech acts work that way. Most of the examples I gave don't.
In your bridge example, all of you have accepted a set of rules and conventions, and within that framework saying "two no-trump" absolutely counts as a bet(1). No one has to wonder whether you were kidding or musing or expressing your degree of confidence; in these circumstances, that is unambiguously a bet(1). That's the whole point of formalizing these things, so that everyone can know when a binding offer has been made. Your bid, in these circumstances, absolutely engenders a fact of some kind.
By the way, going back to see if I had mis-spoken, I noticed this:
Quoting InPitzotl
This is also very much my feeling. These things strike me as quite different, so I have resisted using the word "fact" for all of them, but I'd be perfectly comfortable talking about kinds of facts. They do all have in common the experience of something that is "not up to me", and it could be worthwhile to use the word "fact" for that sense, even if we distinguish different ways, or different reasons why, something is not up to me.
I don't understand the thrust of your question. If you read over my posts in this thread you should be able to glean some insight into my fairly pedestrian view of what facts/ truths consist in; it has nothing to do with monads or essences.
Isn't that what I just said? You are not addressing the point; that you can state a fact without any observation to back it up. If Leonardo was gay, that is a fact. If Leonardo was not gay, that is a fact. We have no way of knowing which is the fact; and that is a fact.
If you confine the meaning of 'fact' to one of its common usages; i.e.true statements, then of course it will only be statements that are facts or not. If you allow for the fact that there is also a common usage that casts facts as actualities or states of affairs, then there can be facts that are never stated, let alone observed.
There are countless quantities that sum to 2, so '1+1=2' cannot be the definition of 2. You might say it is the primary instance of 2, or something like that, I suppose.
But nobody has to resolve this for there to be a fact of the matter regarding it. It's basic theory of mind that each of us knows things the other has no clue about, but it's kind of perverse to suppose that if you don't know a thing, there cannot be a fact about it. We often have to revise what we consider to be facts as we get new information. When we do so, it's a bit ridiculous to propose that it's the facts that are changing.
The magician tricked me into thinking the red ball was under the middle cup. But when he showed me it wasn't, I don't believe he created a red ball ex nihilo as he lifted the cup... I simply revise my beliefs to the point that I consider it a fact that there was no ball under the cup at the time at which I thought it was a fact that there was one under it. I have to believe facts and what I consider to be facts are distinct things, or I will never survive a magic show.
I'm first going to state your worry as I understand it, then answer -- if I've just misunderstood, then at least that will be clear.
My position, as you see it, is this:
(a) someone has to know you've made a bet(1) for there to be one;
(b) which means if no one knows it, then there isn't one, it's not a fact;
(c) and thus once they know about it, somehow their knowledge brings the fact about, which is crazy because it was the action of the bidder that brought about the fact of an offer having been made.
I hope I've understood you correctly.
Here's how I would explain what's going on here. We're not talking about just any sort of action, or just any sort of speech act, but specifically about the making of a binding offer, what we're calling a bet(1). So I'm only looking at what's needed for such an offer to have been made.
The simplest thing to say would be that you have not succeeded in making an offer if the person you want to accept the offer doesn't know you made one. (Only talking now about situations much like this one, an ephemeral offer made face-to-face -- no filing paperwork with a third party or something.)
That's all I had in mind here:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
And this is what you want. Your offer is genuine, meaning you want someone to accept, so you want them to know you've made an offer.
Of course, you're no more a mind reader than anyone else, so whether they know or not isn't a fact directly available to you. We could imagine a formal fix for this, say, having people repeat your bid back to you so you know they heard you and know what your bid is. But would we also need you to say what they said back to them to confirm that what they said agreed? Yuck. It would never stop.
Instead, just as the circumstances of playing bridge and following its conventions provide people guarantees about what you mean by what you say (that you're serious, using words in the standard way and so on), you are also entitled to an expectation that you will be understood and that everyone will know what you've bid.
What if someone doesn't hear? You could stand on your rights and refuse to repeat yourself, but remember that your goal is not just to say certain words but to make an offer. If they inform you, in so many words, that they do not know what offer you have made, you cannot consider your effort successful. Now it's no longer a matter of presuming they know, but of being informed that they definitely do not; under those circumstances you have to conclude that you have failed to make an offer, even though you said what you wanted to.
So in a sense you're right, the knowledge of the audience does come into it, but that's not a general point, it's only a point about an offer made by one person to another. Until both parties know about the offer, it has not been successfully made.
No, that's wrong. I don't know your exact position. But I do know you said this:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
...and this:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So this isn't really what my assumptions of your position are:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
It's not that "someone has to know [I've] made a bet(1)" so much as it is that you explicitly said you don't consider a bet(1) ("offer") to be a fact absent something you called "a way of verifying" something you called a"virtual signature".
Whatever "virtual signature" means to you, it's some mental state I have, per my reading of (N). What I'm presuming is that these two are connected... that you don't consider my bet(1) to be a fact because you cannot verify my "virtual signature" which is some mental state only I have access to (ala "kidding" or "musing" or "expressing ... degree of confidence"). The implication appears to be that a offer would be a bet if I "meant" it, but that can't be a fact even if I did because you can't verify that I meant it.
Incidentally, I'll bring this up now... it's been bugging me for a while. I think you're distracting yourself with the contract business... bets can be contracts, but bets are not fundamentally contracts... rather, they are fundamentally games. More precisely, bets are things you win or lose. The thing you bet on defines the win condition. The wager is simply an add-on to give a penalty and/or reward for winning or losing.
Hence, "if you cut my grass I'll pay you $20" is not a bet, despite being a type of contract, because there's no win/lose condition here. Likewise "I bet Jerry will be late to work today" is a bet but not a contract.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No, a bet(2) is binding; a bet(1) need not be. When South bid two no-trump, that's a bet(1); South is offering to play a game of no-trump with a win condition of scoring 8 tricks. But it's not binding until after West, North, and East all pass.
Were West to say three clubs instead of passing, that bet(1)--the offered game... the offer to play the next hand as no trump with a win condition of scoring 8 tricks--would be off the table. If North, East, and South proceed to pass in this case, West would be bound to play a game with clubs as trumps, with a win condition of scoring 9 tricks.
We're going around in circles. The only real fact here -- the way I understand the word -- is about your ignorance of Leonardo's sexual orientation.
Quoting Janus
I do indeed restrict the meaning of 'fact' to statements known to be true. I believe using it for pretty much anything out there ("actualities") is simply improper.
Improper how? The difference between "known to be true" and "actuality" is that the former appeals to my mental states and the latter does not. The latter treatment is much more pragmatic precisely because it unbinds factuality from my mental states. For example, this allows me to talk about yesterday, when I mistakenly thought X was a fact and the idea of Y did not even occur to me, in such a manner that I consider (with hindsight) X to have not been a fact yesterday and Y to have been a fact yesterday.
That's one way to go about it. Another is to consider that Y was true yesterday, even though I didn't know it for a fact, i.e, use the concept of truth. I can envisage that it was always true that life on this planet was carbon-based. But to say it was a fact during the cambrian, when nobody knew what carbon was, rings improper to my ear. It was true but it was not yet a fact.
I'm not sure why. My car won't start... I would like to be able to say there's some fact of the matter that explains why it won't start. It doesn't seem helpful at all to consider whether there exists a person who knows that or not.
I don't see any problem here. Nobody was around during the Cambrian era. But Carbon has always had 6 protons. So "Carbon had 6 protons in the Cambrian era" is true, and "In the Cambrian era, it was considered a fact that Carbon atoms have 6 protons" is false. The lack of people in the Cambrian era doesn't restrict people living in the year 2021 from talking about things; it just implies that people in the Cambrian era cannot talk about things (because there were no such people).
Suppose the Lakers and the Celtics are playing tonight. Now suppose I agree to pay you $5 if the Celtics win, and you agree to pay me $5 if the Lakers win.
Tonight, at the appointed time, the Lakers and the Celtics will be playing a game; that game will conclude at some point with one team having won and the other having lost. The Lakers and the Celtics will compete. You and I are not competing. We have simply agreed to take certain actions -- one paying the other what is owed -- based on the outcome of an event. That's my view.
You say we are playing a game of our own, that we are competing and that one of us will win the game and one will lose. How do we play? If I say, "I'll bet you five bucks the Lakers win," are we playing now? Was my saying that the first move of the game? If you say, "Fuck off," is the game over? Cancelled maybe.
Anyway, it's not that kind of game. We could continue to negotiate the wager, but that's just an add on, no more a part of the game itself than the medal you receive for winning a race. But how do we play? Where's the competition? After the Lakers-Celtics game has concluded, one of us will turn out to have been right and one of us wrong. --- Actually, our beliefs don't even enter into it. It doesn't matter what method I used to pick which team to bet on: I could do careful analysis, flip a coin, add up the number of letters in the names of the players, it doesn't matter. What matters is that I say, "The Lakers will win" and you say "The Celtics will win" and one of us will turn out to have said something true and the other something false; one of us will have stated a fact, and the other not.
So we compete by assigning differing truth values to a statement such as "The Lakers will win." You win if you assigned the correct truth value. This is my understanding of your view of betting. And on this view, other people aren't really necessary, and the circumstances are irrelevant. All of that is to do with rewards and penalties that we might add on. Betting is simply assigning a truth value to a statement of as-yet-unknown truth. Maybe you never even find out if you were right, never find out if you won. Doesn't matter. If you have assessed some statement as true or false before knowing whether it is, you have made a bet.
I won't argue that we don't use the word "bet" in ways awfully close to this -- I do -- and for very good reason, namely that what I've described here is indeed very closely related to betting. But it's not betting, it's predicting. Betting "proper" is making a prediction with stakes. You can sit at your desk wadding up failed proofs and betting that you sink them in the waste-paper basket -- but those aren't really bets; those are predictions.
One last point. To say that I win the game by my prediction being right is just to say that my prediction was right. Competing at "being right" doesn't add anything. It's like saying saying the Lakers and the Celtics compete at "winning a basketball game" and whoever wins the game, wins.
Yes, that's the general idea. But again, it's a game that you win or lose.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes. They are playing a scheduled basketball game.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I think what you mean to say is that we're not playing basketball. But we are indeed competing. There's a winner of the bet and a loser of the bet. If I win, you lose; if you win, I lose. That's a competition.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't think this cuts to the idea of what a bet is. Suppose Joe needs $10 and offers to wash my dishes to earn it. I tell Joe, "sorry, I only have $5, and I just bet on the Celtics game with Srap. Tell you what, though. If the Celtics win, I'll let you wash my dishes for $10." Despite what Joe and I have being conditioned on the same actions and events our bet is conditioned on, Joe and I do not have a bet... it's simply a conditional contract.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Actually, yes, we are. But in our discussion we just brought up two senses of the word bet... bet(1) and bet(2), and the game you're talking about here is neither a bet(1) nor a bet(2). Back to the bridge analogy, the entire bidding process is part of the game. When South says two no-trump, that's a bet(1). There's no bet(2) until bidding is complete. But the bidding process in itself is "betting", and that's a game. When you and I are deciding which team to bet on and what to wager, we are "betting" and that's a game in the same sense.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Correct.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So close! A prediction is not the same thing as a bet. A prediction is either true or false, but a bet is either won or lost. When you bet on a prediction, you're adding something personal. Suddenly it's not just a matter of some X being true or false; it's about you, winning if X is true; and you, losing if X is false. Even if it's just a token win, that's a stake, and it's precisely that that makes a bet and a prediction distinct.
It's not my ignorance; no one knows what Leonardo's sexual orientation was. I believe there is a fact of the matter, though, whereas you don't; so we do disagree, and quite profoundly, despite your earlier denials.
Quoting Olivier5
Yes, I was already aware that you don't acknowledge the synonymy of 'fact' with 'actuality' despite its being as common a usage as the other.
It doesn't bother me that you rule out that usage despite that I cannot see any good reason for it; but at least now it must have become clear to you that we disagree.
It's also what you arrive at when you add -1 and 3, -2 and 4, half plus half plus half plus half and so on, but I agree it is the most basic and concrete, so
Quoting Janus
I suppose I could have said that 1+1=2 is the empirical instance of 2, because if we have two objects in front us of we can easily see that, taken together, the single objects are two.
What if he had no sexual orientation? What if he was asexual or pansexual or zoophile? In these cases Leonardo was neither gay nor straight.
You see? The problem with your attitude to facts is you tend to box them in your imagination before they even appear phenomenologically. Doing so is dangerous, it assumes a lot, that could turn out false. Your definition of facts gives you a false certainty.
Quoting Janus
If you have an example of a common usage of the word 'fact' as 'unknown actualities', I'm interested. I never saw it used this way.
I think it opens the door to abuse, to the word being used to describe pretty much anything. It is also confusing the concept of fact with the concept of objective truth, and generally I believe that words have distinct meanings and that one should not confuse them. What you are talking about is truth.
We disagree, as per the example, about whether there is a fact of the matter as to whether Leonardo was gay; and that disagreement is precisely on account of the fact that you don't allow for the definition of a fact as a state of affairs.
The conceptual sameness of truth and fact is demonstrated in common usage. It can easily be shown by the fact that "it is true that" and "it is a fact that" mean exactly the same thing. You are free to reject that usage for yourself, of course, but you haven't presented any good reason for such a rejection.
That doesn't matter because even though we can't know (observe as you put it) the situation vis a vis Leonardo's sex life or lack of it, if he was neither gay nor straight, then it is a fact that he was so.
Quoting Olivier5
There is an example right above. It is a fact that Leonardo was either gay, straight, or asexual, even though it is unknown which.
Quoting Olivier5
That is not correct, in fact it is backwards; rather my (and the common usage's) allowance for the existence of unknown facts allows for uncertainty; it allows that facts do not depend on our certainties. What we take to be facts may turn out not to be.
Quoting Olivier5
Truth and fact are synonymous, in both usages of the word fact. Actually if anything the idea of truth is more commonly applicable only to statements; truths are not so often equated to actualities, but to statements about actualities. It is the less common alethic idea of truth that equates with actuality, but even there only with actuality as it is revealed to us, not with "hidden" actualities..
So we can say both that the cat on the mat is a fact and that it is a fact that the cat is on the mat; the first showing the 'actuality' notion of fact and the latter the propositional notion. It is not so common to say that the cat on the mat is a truth or is true, but it is common to say that it is true that the cat is on the mat. But in any case, if someone said the cat on the mat is true, we would know what she meant. Also the situation may be quite different in other languages; and I am only addressing what I know to be common usages in English.
Language is sloppy and meanings are not always clearcut
What doesn't seem helpful to me is to shoehorn the word 'fact' in places where another word would work better. In this case: there ought to be a reason why your car won't start, a cause, some problem with it. That's what I would say to the mechanic, not "there ought to be some fact of the matter about it not starting".
That's weak. None of your alternatives is better in this scenario than "fact of the matter". "Reason why [my] car won't start" is definitely not what is being meant here; sure, there is a reason it doesn't start, but what's being referred to is the fact that that reason is a fact I don't know. "Cause" is the wrong idea... my car doesn't aka does not start. "Problem" is not what's being expressed... there certainly is a "problem", but the same idea applies for "reason"... what's being referred to is the fact that the problem is a fact that I do not know. Think of the term "counterfactual definiteness" as an alias for "fact of the matter" in this scenario... contrast this to something like Bell's Theorem. What's being conveyed is that there's a very specific thing that's wrong with my car... it's a thing that's true about the car's state at the time that I do not know it; it doesn't merely "become true" once we start looking for it. If I were to explain it I would convey this using a fact; a true statement that describes that state. I'm trying to find out what true statement describes that state that conveys why the car does not start. Hypothetically, someone else could know it; hypothetically, and possibly realistically, I could know it the future but it would still be true right now.
Avoiding using the precise word you mean just because you can use another word that is not what you mean is not using a better word; it is exactly the opposite of using the better word.
Quoting Olivier5
I'm not talking to the mechanic; I'm talking with you. You dragged the mechanic in. See above for the idea being conveyed.
Might I suggest it would be better to explain what problem you're talking about here:
Quoting Olivier5
...than to convince me that I meant something I did not in fact mean?
What work is the word "fact" doing in this sentence, that would be missing if it wasn't there?
Well then, if there is no difference between them, one of these words is redundant and can be disposed of.
In base 2 numeration, 1+1=10.
I want to revisit quickly one of the examples I gave earlier, because there's something odd about it:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
First of all, we can compare this to the Lakers-Celtics example:
Quoting InPitzotl
No, I really did mean to say we're not competing, because I don't think betting is competing.
When you're competing in a contest, you can make an effort to win (or lose) the contest. What you do while competing at least in part determines the outcome. It is one of the hallmarks of a bet that its outcome is entirely dependent on the outcome of another event, the one you're betting on.
There are two points here. First, you may have the ability to affect the outcome of the event you're betting on, but to do so is universally considered cheating: if I pay one of the players on the Celtics to throw the game, I am cheating. Second, having established a link between two outcomes -- the event we're betting on and who owes who money -- there is nothing I can do to modify that link. This is hard to see clearly, I think, but if this were a contest, I could make an effort to make it more likely that if the Lakers win, you'll owe me, or to make it less likely that if the Celtics win, I'll owe you. I should, if this is contest, be able in some sense to strengthen or weaken the link between the outcome of the event we're betting on and the outcome of our bet. I cannot. Just as I cannot influence the event we're betting on without being a cheat, I cannot upon losing shirk my obligation without being a welcher.
But what about the race to the mailbox? Now that's a curious thing, because there is definitely a contest here, and there is a prize for winning the contest, as there sometimes is. If some other kid had arranged the race and offered the prize -- winner gets to ride my new bike around the block -- we wouldn't have considered calling this a "betting" situation. What makes it feel like a bet, is precisely that the prize has the structure we expect of a bet: the loser acquires an obligation. The agreement reached as to who will acquire an obligation, based on the outcome of the race, is again not something either can influence by racing; it is, once agreed to, set in stone.
In making a bet, you put, by choice, something outside your control: you commit to taking on an obligation, a debt, if you lose. Typically, there is a reciprocal commitment on the other side.
This is the essence of the bet, and what makes it a speech act: it engenders something that counts as a fact, something that is not any longer "up to me", namely, the link between the outcome of an event and someone acquiring an obligation, a debt.
You can, I suppose, say something like this: "If the Lakers win tonight, then I win the bet; if I win the bet, then you owe me $5." For you, the step in the middle, "winning the bet" is the most important; for me, the step in the middle is redundant. The bet is the link between the outcome of the Lakers-Celtics game and the ensuing obligation, and most people just make that link directly: "If the Celtics win tonight, I owe Dave a hundred bucks." This is simply what it means to have a bet on the Lakers-Celtics game. The bet establishes that link, and in some sense is that link; the link between event and obligation exists because we agree that it does. We have, by speaking, added this fact to the world. (There's another curious way of putting this: "If the Lakers win, that means Dave owes me a hundred." Our future obligations are now an aspect of the Lakers-Celtics contest, a property it has only because we say it does.)
Quoting InPitzotl
If you know the outcome of an event you're betting on, that's not gambling at all, and most likely you're cheating someone. If the outcome of an event is unknown, then we can only talk about in terms of predictions. There's a funny back and forth here, because betting looks sometimes like an elaboration of predicting: I say I think (or "I bet") the Lakers are going to win tonight, making a prediction; you say, "You wanna put money on that?" offering to add on a wager. But it's also clear that gambling is sometimes itself the goal, and gamblers go looking for things to bet on. Gambling needs both predictability in one sense and unpredictability in another.
If I predict that the Lakers will win, what am I doing? I am not causing the Lakers to win, certainly. I am also not prophesying that the Lakers will win; I am not making a claim to knowledge of the future. A prediction, in the sense that matters here, is simply a truth-apt statement about the future, or a statement that will become truth-apt in the future. Some future events, while unknowable, are extremely predictable: if I watch a leaf falling from a tree, I cannot know that it will hit the ground, and indeed it freakishly might not, but it's behavior is still extremely predictable. These are not the sorts of things we bet on. To make this perfectly clear, gambling deliberately engineers events the outcome of which cannot be predicted. If I know that a leaf has finished falling, that this event is over, I can be almost certain, without looking, that it has hit the ground; if I know that a standard die has finished rolling, I cannot, without looking, even make an intelligent guess about which of its six faces is up.
Predicting is important here, but it's complicated, and betting is not just an elaboration of predicting, something like "predicting + actually caring about the outcome". To look at predicting to understand betting is looking in the wrong direction, inward, toward our beliefs; to understand betting you have to look outward, where an event we do not control will have an outcome that determines our future obligations.
Like the t-shirt says:
(Another nerd favorite: "There are two kinds of people, those who can extrapolate from incomplete data and ...")
:lol: both are quite good but I prefer this one.
Yeah, but you can improve your chances if you study the riders and the horses before the bet, right? Then the competition can be who is the best at reading the facts and picking the winner. Have I understood correctly?
Of course, but all of that is before you place your bets. In a broad sense, you are competing as a handicapper against other handicappers to make the best prediction. But your analysis has no effect on the outcome of the race; your analysis has no effect on how much money you win or lose. If you continue to study the racing form while the horses are running, you don't improve your chances of winning. Once the bets are placed, everything is beyond your control, as any handicapper will ruefully tell you. Before you've placed your bet, you have accepted no risk and can receive no reward. There is no point at which you can make an effort to improve the chances of a bet you've placed paying off.
Quoting Olivier5
Presuming you mean that one, I do the investigation myself. Turns out it's a curious one... there is a blown fuse. It is a fact that there was a blown fuse.
Yes, it's an observable and verifiable fact, empirical, the kind I like. The kind that "turns out".
Quoting InPitzotl
That's a nice hard case, but I wanted to lay out my view more fully before tackling it.
I'm taking some time and mulling it over. If I can't come up with a good response, it's certainly trouble for my position. Just wanted you to know I didn't miss this argument, @InPitzotl.
"Competing in a contest" and "competing" denote distinct things.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
But it's wrong (in the sense that it does not follow). We cannot interfere in the Lakers game, but that does not entail we're not in a contest. We're not playing basketball; we're playing a prediction game. You chose the basketball game we bet on. You chose to bet on the Lakers winning. You chose the $5 wager. I chose to accept the wager. These are the variables that went into the bet.
Once again, the bridge analogy is great here... it's pretty clear when you're bidding how you're playing a game in and of itself, and the distinction between and relationships to that game and the game you play with the hands, and the bidding is half the fun of the game.
Yes, if I open the fuse box, I might see the blown fuse. But it does not seem to matter whether I'm doing so to verify there's a blown fuse or figure out if there's a blown fuse. It might be quicker if I check the fuse box first, but both are observing and verifying, quite frankly, the same exact fact.
So the facts of the matter are that you found a blown fuse and that the car started when you replaced it. The rest, ie the idea the your car didn't start yesterday because of that blown fuse, are theories, not facts.
You're clearly not talking about this:
Quoting InPitzotl
Quoting Olivier5
Your distinction sounds completely arbitrary. If you're trying to clarify the difference between the totally disparate "fact" and "theory" concepts, you're doing a bad job illustrating the difference.
Is it really a fact of the matter that I found a blown fuse? Or is the fact of the matter that I came under the impression that I appeared to have found a blown fuse, and the notion that I did in fact appear to have found a blown fuse a theory, as is the notion that I found a blown fuse a theory? Are there any facts at all, or is everything a theory? If we're just drawing a line somewhere about what we get to presume, there had better be a good reason to draw the line here versus there. Where do you draw the line, and what is the good reason to draw it there?
Why don't you try and do a better job than me? This is indeed an important distinction, which I am trying to uphold.
I don't think it's a matter of where you draw the line in the first place. You establish that something is the case to your own satisfaction, and that becomes a fact from which you can infer something else. Maybe you're wrong sometimes, but that's okay; this is a game you play with a pencil and an eraser, not a pen.
I'm not sure which concept of theory you're after, but it sounds like you just came up with a distinction on your own. A fact must be true. A theory may or may not be true. (I must explicitly point out that this is not the concept of a scientific theory, given this is a common misconception).
I've brought it up before on the thread:
Quoting Olivier5
Ah, in that case, as I understand it, a scientific theory will explain why a set of facts is the case. To contrast, and also to use in a moment, there are scientific laws... those do not explain a set of facts, but rather suggest there's a relationship between the facts. So for example Tycho Brahe's observations of the motion of the planets led to the development of Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion. Newton's Law of Gravity simplifies this law. General Relativity is a theory that explains and refines Newton's law.
So we have a theory of matter that describes matter as being made up of molecules, and molecules of atoms, and atoms of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Using this theoretical framework we build up theories of radiation that explain how spectra are produced that includes emission and absorption lines. Using all of these theoretical constructs and more, we can make observations of stars to measure the speed they are moving away from us (Doppler effects); similarly, we can use techniques such as standard candles to measure the distance that objects are away from us. This gives us a bunch of facts. Using these facts we observe that overall, the speed at which objects move away from us is proportional to the distance the objects are from us, and from those facts we infer Hubble's Law. Applying this and other laws of physics leads us to the Big Bang theory.
Note that the second paragraph flips your script on its head:
Quoting Olivier5
...because the stellar/galactic facts that lead to Hubble's Law themselves rely on theory.
Their interpretation relied on theory. Their collection, even, relied on theory but there is still such a thing as the brute picture taken of a distant galaxy, its spectrum analysis and the likes. Brute facts, the data, this data and not another. There is something here that goes beyond theory. Even if all the theories underlying the spectral analysis Hubbe relied on are false, these observations still happened and still gave the results they gave, and any new theory would have to explain them.
Quoting Olivier5
You've pointlessly quoted me out of context, omitting the part in which I said I have not claimed that 1+1=2 is a fact, to make it seem that I have claimed that.
If I wanted to make that claim I could say that in the context of the decimal system it is a fact that 1+1=2 and in the context of the binary system it is a fact that 1+1=10. So what?
Ah okay, apologies. Misunderstood you.
Yes, and scientifically speaking, they are facts.
Quoting Olivier5
Back to drawing lines? Do the planets exist when you aren't looking at them, or is that just theory? Where does object permanence lie?
This just gets back to the lines you're drawing. Where do you draw the lines and what is your good reason to draw the lines there? We've explored, btw, my response.
Suppose p is a sentence that is an unknown truth; that is, the sentence p is true, but it is not known that p is true. In such a case, the sentence "the sentence p is an unknown truth" is true; and, if all truths are knowable, it should be possible to know that "p is an unknown truth". But this isn't possible, because as soon as we know "p is an unknown truth", we know that p is true, rendering p no longer an unknown truth, so the statement "p is an unknown truth" becomes a falsity. Hence, the statement "p is an unknown truth" cannot be both known and true at the same time. Therefore, if all truths are knowable, the set of "all truths" must not include any of the form "something is an unknown truth"; thus there must be no unknown truths, and thus all truths must be known.
The answer to this seems simple. We can stipulate that the sentence "p is an unknown truth" is true, just in case p denotes some undefined generic proposition, and that the truth of such propositions is in principle knowable. So the sentence "the sentence p is an unknown truth" is true, but it doesn't follow that we can know that p is true unless p becomes some concrete proposition, because otherwise knowing that p is true is meaningless. And that conflation between the generic indeterminate proposition p and any concrete proposition p is just what the apparent paradox depends upon. In other words "p is an unknown truth" is not itself an unknown truth, we know it is true if we take p to mean something like "there is some p"; it is unspecified p that is (stipulated to be) the unknown truth.
This can easily be seen if we substitute some concrete proposition for p. Taking the example I used earlier, we could speculate that 'Leonardo was gay' is an unknown truth that is in principle knowable (since someone at the time may have known that Leonardo was gay). Of course it might not be true, but that doesn't matter, because it could be. And if we could somehow come to know the truth about whether Leonardo was gay that would not present a paradox because it would cease to be an unknown truth and the sentence "p is an unknown truth" is not a timeless proposition; it would simply become "p was an unknown truth but is so no longer".
Prediction is interesting and there's a lot one could say about it. But the question for us, is how does betting engender facts in the world? I say that it creates obligations that we attach, arbitrarily, to the outcome of real events. Those obligations will be factual, once the event concludes, and they are determined by the event's outcome because we say they are. This, on my view, is the sense in which betting is a speech act. I say these are facts because once you've placed your bet, you are committed to acquiring an obligation, a debt, if that's how the event you were betting on turns out, and that connection is no longer up to you, but a fact. The one follows from the other as sure as the turning of the worlds.
How we decide what to bet on -- interesting though it may be, and important as it may be if you want to make a living doing this sort of thing -- doesn't matter in the least as far as the bets themselves are concerned. There are no points for style, no partial credit if you show your work. You can pick your horses using an ingenious system that needs a Cray to run it or you can close your eyes and jab the racing form with a pen. Your bets will pay off or not just the same. Being better at predicting is generally nice if you do it a lot, but you still don't get paid for making better predictions overall or for doing a better job of analysis than someone else; you get paid if and only if the horses finish as you said they would.
Quoting InPitzotl
It's neither a bet nor some other kind of contract but a promise. You have promised Joe that if the Celtics win you'll give him the dishwashing job. If the Celtics won, and Joe came around, you could get away with all sorts of excuses: "Sorry, Joe, I totally forgot I had promised my sister she could borrow ten from me. You understand." You freely promised, and people expect you to keep your promises, and Joe might think a little less of you, but then again he might not, since he had no claim on you. He might be very understanding and appreciative that you wanted to help him out even if you didn't end up doing so. You made a promise, but the Celtics winning doesn't mean you're in debt to Joe; the Lakers winning would mean you're in debt to me.
I only brought it up because you and @Olivier5 had essentially been debating verificationism -- I haven't followed the last couple pages of the exchange -- and I wanted to point you at prior art on that, but I thought it would be a little disingenuous to bring up a family of theories without noting that some people consider them already refuted.
So I decided just to point you at Fitch's as an entry point into the arguments around verificationism. I probably should have just said that.
Be more specific. The bet(1) is an offer; the bet(2) is a contract; betting is the act of negotiating a bet(2). Again in the bridge analogy, the bet(1) is a bid; the bet(2) is the result of bidding, and betting is bidding. "How we decide what to bet on" is equivalent to "how we bet(1) to arrive at a bet(2)" which is just betting. If we're betting on something we do not get to interfere with, then once we have a bet(2), we don't have any input. It sounds like that's what you're saying. Yes, that's true. However, we don't get to a bet(2) without betting, and when we are betting, we have inputs. We've been over this; you control your bet(1) as you negotiate the bet(2). Again with the bridge analogy, there's an entire skillset associated with betting; not only that, but there's a series of complex "signals" you give through bets (bidding systems) to communicate information critical to arriving at a bet(2).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I have no idea what you're trying to convince me of, but you're very unconvincing. Relating this to bridge, I translate what you're saying as that it does not matter how you arrive at your bet(1)'s to select the bet(2) as far as the bet(2) is concerned. And that is quite plainly false. It does indeed matter. If you bet(1) by jabbing your pen onto a board of possible bets, your partner will be furious and your opposition will wipe the floor with you.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This makes no sense. Probability does matter, even for a single event; that's why it's useful in the first place. Even so, all you are doing if you bet "a lot" is changing the probability that you win (e.g., if there's a 60% chance you win a single symmetric $5 bet, there's a 81/125 chance you'll come out ahead in 3 such bets).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The dishwashing job is an agreement between myself and Joe for Joe to do something for me in exchange for the consideration of $20, which is a contract. The contract is agreed to based on a condition.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
IANAL, but you do realize that verbal contracts in the US where we both live can be legally binding, right?
What Contracts are Required to Be in Writing? (FindLaw)
That's easy, and already explained: data, empirical evidence, are facts. Theories are not.
If facts are theory, explain to me why we need facts (data, observations)? Why can't we just rely on theory? Why do you keep your eyes open when you drive your car? :-)
Quoting InPitzotl
In my mind it's an absolute presupposition. I.e. it's part of metaphysics.
Banno is always on his own orbit, everywhere. That is why we all love and hate him so much.
Agreed here as well.
It's a simple point.
Suppose I have an urn with 75 red marbles in it and 25 blue marbles. You bet me $5 that without looking you can reach in the urn and draw a red marble. The odds are 3:1 in your favor, but you still might draw a blue marble, in which case you owe me $5. It doesn't matter that you made the smart bet, that the odds were in your favor, you owe me $5. If we made the same bet a great number of times, the odds would tell, and you would make money on the exercise.
You replied, but you did not answer the question.
Quoting Olivier5
If you're talking about the use of the terms in science, there's a distinction, but it's what I described, not what you described.
Quoting Olivier5
Again, you replied, but you did not answer the question. Is it a fact that planets exist when you aren't looking at them, or a theory that planets exist when you aren't looking at them?:
What a planet is doing when you're looking at it, let's say, is an "accurate observation". But when you look away, to posit that the planet is still there would be an induction: "induced theories tying the observations in a logical or mathematical net" (incidentally, this sounds more like a scientific law than a scientific theory). "Now, logicians tell us that induction never provides certainty," ...well, we can't be certain the planet is still there when you aren't looking at it. "Therefore our induced theories are provisional." ...so if we can't be certain objects aren't there when we aren't looking at them, it must be a theory. "But the observations that were done, remain done, factum," ...but that's a contradiction. You're using certainty as a criteria, and we can't be certain an object is there when we are looking at it either. "Any new theory would have to contend with past observations." ...we never observe the past. "So observations (and only they) are facts." ...but observations aren't certain.
Certainty eliminates the distinction from fact and theory that you suggest are distinct. So it's not really certainty you're after.
It's contradictory.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So what you're saying is because I might draw a blue marble, it does not matter what the probability is that I draw a red one.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
But that doesn't change anything. If we play 100 times (with replacement), I might pick 51, or 52, or 53, all the way up to 100 blue marbles. In all of those cases I would owe you money. If what might happen means probability doesn't matter, it wouldn't matter here either. There is no number of times we can play where it's not true that you "might" win.
What distinction did you describe, exactly? Short version please.
Quoting InPitzotl
Neither. It's an absolute presupposition for astronomy. Supposedly, if we thought that celestial objects disappear, we wouldn't try and track their path across the sky and astronomy would never had been founded.
You may not like the answer, but it is one nevertheless. I refer you to Collingwood's Essay on Metaphysics.
Quoting InPitzotl
As explained, it is an absolute presupposition that things remain 'there' even when you don't look at them. That's why we look for our keys when we misplace them.
No, I'm saying that once you've drawn it doesn't matter if you were more likely to draw what you did or less likely. If the less likely outcome is what happened, on this single draw, you owe me money. That's all.
Quoting InPitzotl
I meant that your accumulated net winnings would gradually increase.
A bet is usually a stake laid on the outcome of an individual event, as here, and sometimes the favorite loses. Gambling as an ongoing enterprise to make money can follow the odds and the winnings should more than make up for the losses in the long term.
Well let me phrase it another way. You observe some particular and derive some truth about the particular, where "truth" is simply something to your own satisfaction. That's a fact. You collect a bunch of facts and find some generalized explanation for it... that's a theory. Incidentally this isn't just a mathematical or logical net; a mathematical relationship between several facts isn't considered an explanation; that is just a law, not a theory.
Quoting Olivier5
As requested, kept it very short.
Quoting Olivier5
I'm unconvinced that being a presupposition implies "neither". We learn object permanence at an incredibly young age. It has the hallmarks of a theory; we observe objects going out of view, and coming into view, but there's some consistency of the observations that appears to arise out of the data... objects going out of view still seem to "be out there", potentially to come back into view again. We infer then that objects stay there even if we don't see them. This would make it a theory.
The reason science shows little interest in it is because it's primitive and ubiquitous; approximately all humans learn it at an incredibly young age. The tools of science simply aren't necessary to use to get to the theory.
Once I've drawn 100 marbles it wouldn't matter if I were more likely to draw what I did or less likely.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No, my accumulated net winnings would probably increase. There's a probability that it would. The contradiction here is that you're appealing to probability in the multiple case yet ignoring it in the single case. Either probability matters, in which case it matters on a single draw; or it doesn't, in which case it doesn't matter on multiple draws. The only thing multiple draws gives you is another probability.
To me, it seems difficult to verify or falsify from experience, because when you check that objects are still there, you must look at them objects. So you can't see what they do when you don't look at them.
Correct.
Still, there is such a thing as the brute picture taken of a planet, its spectrum analysis and the likes. Brute facts, the data, this data and not another.
The brute picture of a planet
A composite image of the south pole of Jupiter made from JunoCam images taken during the 1st, 3rd, & 4th orbits of NASA's Juno spacecraft, August 2019.
A fairly quick dismissal.
So are you committing to realism? Are there truths that we could not possibly know?
Facts have also financial value: they can be sold. Eg you can sell commercial satellite imagery, or survey data.
Truth, however, is not so easy to commodify.
This is often the problem of facts, not just the counter-factual nature of how most people engage with them, but the way that they simple suppose because they imagine something in their head it means that it is possible. If only logical possibility had any demonstrable relationship to facts, they might be on to something, but so far it seems like we have precisely the facts we have, no more, no less, and that logic serves as an interpretive tool rather than an imposition on what they can be.
In other words, facts are non-imaginary, true propositions (about this world we're denizens of).
Propositions can be:
1. True & imaginary (unicorns have a horn)
2. True & non-imaginary (facts)
3. False & imaginary (unicorns are dogs)
5. False & non-imaginary (NY is in Guatamela)
Exactly, except we can of course aquire more facts as we go along, and we do.
But to your point, facts come at a cost, so we are likely to obtain only those facts that have a cost that we (or others) are willing to bear in order to obtain them. Unsurprisingly, then, many facts support power and undermine the powerless. As @180 Proof has said, facts are ineluctable, but not for the reasons he supposes.
Yes, that's a key point. Knowledge is money or power, and all that jazz. So certain facts become more easily available than others. Like there tends to be more sociological data on poor people than on rich people. And I suspect not because rich people are not important but because they are too important for understanding society. They are not convinced that to be studied and understood is in their own interest.
The interesting bit is what followed: many pro-alien so to speak, others more sobber and rationalist interpretations were made of the same grainy footage. Among the skeptics is Mick West who analyses here the 'go fast' video. His explanation is technical, and in my view credible. And no it's not an alien spacecraft:
My point here is that the only undeniable facts are the grainy footages and their metadata (how and when they were collected). The rest is interpretation and therefore, highly technical.
Antirealism in its various forms holds that all truths are knowable. So for an antirealist truth may be just what is verified. @Olivier5 may hold to something like this, with observation instead of verification. Then there are no unknown truths. One response to this would be that there are statements with an unknown truth value; that is, the rejection of bivalent logic.
So the possibility exists for building a much stronger case for antirealism than has so far been presented in this thread, by adopting some paraconsistent logic.
My first comment in this thread was
Quoting Banno
I expected to be picked up for the obvious fumbling between two quite different approaches to knowledge, but instead the thread went down the garden path of observations.
"A fact is a statement that is true" is compatible with antirealism. An antirealist would just add a definition of truth that is restricted in some way, by verification, construction, pragmatics or whatever, and so avoid Fitch's paradox at the cost of rejecting the law of non-contradiction.
"A fact is what is set out by a true statement" sets up a realist agenda. The fact exists independently of the statement. Here one might avoid Fitch by pointing out that there are things we do not know, and moreover, there are things we cannot know.
This last view has been the one I defended here, along with @Janus and @Srap Tasmaner, if I've understood them correctly. Perhaps there is room for a more robust defence of antirealism.
How to reply to someone who insists that a fact is a statement that is true, but not the state of affairs so represented? That is, someone who insists that there is no reality that is independent of the statement? That would seem to be the stronger antirealist position.
I agree with you that there are things we do not know, and things we cannot know. I think I've indicated that amply in my exchanges with @Olivier5. One example I've given is that there are countless details of history we cannot know simply because they are past. But there is a distinction between what we can actually know (due to our place in spacetime) and what is knowable in principle. I think you would agree that all facts or truths are knowable in principle.
So, it wasn't clear to me what Fitch has in mind. Do you take Fitch to be saying that there are unknown truths, but that all truths are knowable in principle, or that all truths are actually knowable?
Quoting Janus
I'm not wanting to put words into Fitch's mouth, so much as into @Olivier5's. Consider:
Quoting Olivier5
Taking this as a naive attempt at verificationism, I'm suggesting it might be defensible if truth, not fact or knowledge, is defined as what has been shown to be the case, together with a rejection of non-contradiction. I'm thinking of Kripke's definition of truth. We assign the truth value "unknown" to every statement, then assign "true" or "false" to those statements which can be verified (leaving aside, for the sake of the argument, how this is to be done) and their logical consequents.
A fact is then any statement that has been assigned the value "true".
The criticisms I levelled at Olivier target observation, not verification per se. It might be fun to consider a more sophisticated version of antirealism. It's something that's been a the back of my mind for a while. I've not understood the appeal of antirealism for Kripke, Dummett, Putnam and others. This by way of exploring what they have in common.
It's not clear to me what distinction you are making between observation and verification. In the context of science and the everyday there are countless facts that have been observed or measured, and on the strength of those observations and/ or measurements they are verified. Theories are never verified though, beyond that their predictions have been observed to obtain.
And facts are always contextual, of course. The fact that water has been observed to consistently boil at 100 degrees Celsius is subject to some conditions. For example is the water distilled or does it contain minerals, are we boiling the water at sea level? And so on. That Paris is the capital of France is not so much an observable fact but is true by convention or definition.
So, the fact that water boils at 100 degrees remains true unless the laws of nature change, and the fact that Paris is the capital of France remains true unless some other new capital is declared. That water did reliably boil at 100 degrees in certain "normal" conditions, and that France was the capital remain facts in any case.
So drop truth, as such, from the lexicon, going straight to belief, with three values, true, false and undecided. Logic and mathematics are down as true. Add whatever institutional statements you like - bishops move only diagonally, making a promise counts as undertaking a commitment, whatever you need. Other statements are undecided. Then add observations and associated theory in some sort of holistic verification model as per Quine...
You might be able to find a way to make that consistent, I suppose, but would it follow that it is correct or maximally adequate to human experience and logic?
I mean, in one sense unknown truths can mean little to us, just because they are unknown, but the existence of unknown truths seems indispensable to the logic involved in understanding ourselves as knowers of things, particularly regarding the possibility that what we take to be known may not be.
It sounds like you're saying that, for example, GOFAST is very likely some form of fowl. But it is possibly an alien craft. But whatever it is, it is definitely a genuine video with authentic metadata. Is that correct?
In other words, is the contrary position you're ruling out something akin to this?: "Most likely, GOFAST is some form of fowl. Not quite as likely, it is not an authentic video and has faked metadata. Even less likely, it's an alien craft."
:up:
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
I think you have confused me with someone else. From this thread:
Quoting 180 Proof
And also discussing 'ontology' :
Quoting 180 Proof
Not necessary, not "ineluctable".
You mean the unknowns have been listed? Are you sure of that?
I don’t have you confused, but that doesn’t mean I am not confused.
[quote=“Tom Storm”]Reality is the word we use when we go hunting for [s]certainty[/s].
[/quote]
Quoting 180 Proof
Though I will certainly grant that the change from “reality” to “fact” was mine and not yours.
Not really. I am using the example to illustrate what is a fact.
Is it a fact that the US air forces have released these vids? Yes.
Is the footage genuine? Most probably yes.
So the vids are facts.
Is there any else that can be regarded as certain or almost certain, i.e. as factually established? No. Even Mick West does not conclude it is certainly a fowl. He just demonstrates that 'gofast' does not actually go that fast.
That's your mistake right there. I'm a Popperian. Falsification is the thing, not verification. And of course I am a realist like Popper.
Quoting Banno
You have not levelled any criticism at me. You gesticulated in my general direction, declared victory and then ran away from the battle, as you always do...
:100:
But it sounds a bit confusing:
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting Olivier5
By including line (B), it sounds like you're suggesting the footage being genuine is a fact. By your prior statement it sounds like you're binding undeniability to factuality. By your prior statement and your current one (the one I'm replying to) it sounds like you're including the video's genuineness in what you're calling undeniability. I disagree that the video's being genuine qualifies as undeniable.
...and yet, you also sound like you're paying heed to this... in line (B), you call the video's footage "most probably" genuine. The whole question here is where you draw the line.
So to follow up... do you consider the notion that the videos are genuine a fact? If so, it sounds like you do not really consider undeniability to be a trait of facts ("Most probably" not "undeniable"?)
Roughly, here's what I'm getting at. We might could have a "pragmatic fudge"; certain and undeniability really mean "for all practical purposes". But suppose we put a number to it; let's say using some Bayesian analysis, anything more likely than p is certain; less likely than p is uncertain. Then I'm not sure there is such a number beyond which are only facts, and before which are only theories.
For example, I'd happily accept that the videos were faked way before I accept that someone built a perpetual motion machine.
That is indeed important in that a document, understood broadly as a video, a photo, a text or a voice recording, or any cultural artifact can be accepted as genuine or rejected as fake. There is no power in this world that can force anyone to accept a source as valid. For someone who thinks the Holocaust never happened, all testimonies of the survivors, all the pictures, all the records of the Holocaust are fake. But here comes the rub: to reject a massive amount of evidence is unhealthy. It is indicative of a very strong bias bordering on insanity.
Facts are what a sane person in good faith cannot deny. Not what a fool can't deny.
So, coming back to the UFO vids, it is technically possible but it would surprise me very very much if the US Armed Forces had forged three or more fake videos of UFOs to then 'declassify' them... Like why would they do that? And how come the testimonies of service members fit?
Quoting InPitzotl
Yes, and for all sane, bona fide folks.
In theory you are right but even imprecision can be measured or estimated. If you disclose openly the limitations of your data and its margin of error, it's part of what make facts good facts.
In practice, a 5% alpha risk is recommended.
So you use verisimilitude as your measure of truth.
If not, then it's not apparent how you might reconcile realism with Fitch's paradox.
I'm not a Popperian but I plead guilty to elevating verisimilitude. As far as I can tell, I have no alternative but to assume the world I am in is real that other people exist and act accordingly. All matter may well really be discrete globs of energy bobbing about on quantum waves but it makes no sense to conduct life using this model of reality. Is there help?
I don't know, Tom.
I'm looking into antirealism, to see if it is a viable alternative to realism.
See here.
Are there unknown truths? The approach inspired by Fitch post-dates Popper, so it's not obvious whether verisimilitude is realist, as he thought, or anti-realist, a notion that came into prominence after falsificationism lost purchase in epistemology.
Excellent. I've wondered about this. Verisimilitude not being realist is fascinating. I guess there's also the phenomenologist's perspective (of which I have limited understanding) wherein we co-create reality and share an intersubjective experience rather than an objective reality. But maybe I've got this wrong. Let us know what you find.
I suppose it remains an open question as to whether this leads to realism or antirealism. Presumably, given that Popper avowed realism, he thinks that a statement is either true or false, and verisimilitude becomes a measure of the degree to which we might believe, or perhaps know the truth of the statement.
But oddly @Olivier5 seemed to previously disavow the notion that a statement is either true or false, preferring a measure of the probability of it's being true... or something like that. An antirealist approach, from someone who claims to be a realist.
One might be able to drop binary truth for degrees of truth, at the cost of dropping realism for antirealism.
That's an interesting notion, that I would not have noticed were it not for @Olivier5's odd definition of "fact" as observation. While it's clear from the criticisms offered here of that notion that it won't cut the mustard, there might be space for someone to defend an anti-realist argument against the realist account.
It seems antirealism cannot be dismissed quite as quickly as I had thought.
Maybe a new thread.
I use observation as a measure of truth, as I thought I made clear, and as every body else does really. Or do you know anyone who drives his car with his eyes closed?
I don't believe there is such a thing as Fitch's paradox: it's a mere illusion of a paradox due to poor conceptual clarity. It's fake.
You may wish to define these terms the way you understand them. Perhaps a new thread: What is realism?
Well, write it up and get a doctorate.
:lol: Would feel like getting a doctorate for changing a light bulb...