What is Fact? ...And Knowledge of Facts?
To me, a fact is a record of events that actually happened. It is an experiential record. And, because of this, it is dependent on perspective for context.
From google, I get definitions such as:
Here, on TPF, I've occasionally seen the argument that science doesn't give facts because, perhaps, it does not give incontrovertible truth, or something to that tune. However, from such a perspective, we can say that nothing from humans can give incontrovertible truth on account of our fallibility.
However, science, good science, as well as good logic or reasoning, can give a record of events or generate information which is reproducible, functional and/or relatable within a stated context or perspective.
So, why do we sometimes have an issue with the use of the word 'fact'? Because most often we want to imply that a fact is truth. Or, that a fact is absolute. It is not. However, in the context or perspective of the human experiences usually quoted, the facts are exceedingly dependable and, sometimes, 'perfect' (very consistent), within a particular dynamic. For example, the action of gravity as we've worked out, is very consistent, in terms of the common experiences we engage in. However, there's more to gravity, even on earth's surface, than our experiences (check categories such as gravity anomalies).
So, of what use are facts?
Another pertinent consideration is the significance of facts with respect to knowledge. For me, fundamentally, knowledge is information given utility. So, it is more correct, especially for me, to think that most of us know of facts than we know facts. This just means that we have more of information about 'stuff' than what is useful about the 'stuff' or how best we can utilise that information.
This is just my perspective. What's yours?
From google, I get definitions such as:
- - a thing that is known or proved to be true.- information used as evidence or as part of a report or news article.- used to refer to a particular situation under discussion.
Here, on TPF, I've occasionally seen the argument that science doesn't give facts because, perhaps, it does not give incontrovertible truth, or something to that tune. However, from such a perspective, we can say that nothing from humans can give incontrovertible truth on account of our fallibility.
However, science, good science, as well as good logic or reasoning, can give a record of events or generate information which is reproducible, functional and/or relatable within a stated context or perspective.
So, why do we sometimes have an issue with the use of the word 'fact'? Because most often we want to imply that a fact is truth. Or, that a fact is absolute. It is not. However, in the context or perspective of the human experiences usually quoted, the facts are exceedingly dependable and, sometimes, 'perfect' (very consistent), within a particular dynamic. For example, the action of gravity as we've worked out, is very consistent, in terms of the common experiences we engage in. However, there's more to gravity, even on earth's surface, than our experiences (check categories such as gravity anomalies).
So, of what use are facts?
- 1. To give a dependable point of reference.2. To give functional information.3. Evidence (just a record of circumstances).etc, etc.
Another pertinent consideration is the significance of facts with respect to knowledge. For me, fundamentally, knowledge is information given utility. So, it is more correct, especially for me, to think that most of us know of facts than we know facts. This just means that we have more of information about 'stuff' than what is useful about the 'stuff' or how best we can utilise that information.
This is just my perspective. What's yours?
Comments (138)
I'll take it upon myself to cast the deciding vote then: A fact is a true proposition. Nothing more or less.
|>ouglas
This has become interesting. Can a proposition be true? I mean in the sense that, if it is true, is it still a proposition?
And what is your perspective of facts with respect to truth when the conditions which determine them change? That is, do facts change?
Thanks for this. I take it to mean something like, "truth is enduring, that is, it will always be relevant, while a fact is relative.
Quoting BrianW
I have no idea what you are talking about! I have a degree in Philosophy and propositions are usually considered to be the primary bearers of truth-value.
|>ouglas
I propose instead: A fact is the state of things that is signified by a true proposition.
Quoting BrianW
A proposition is traditionally defined as a sign that can be true or false, in contrast to a term or an argument.
I have an SB in Philosophy from MIT and this is what I was taught the word "fact" means.
Certainly I can and did go look at the Stanford Encylopedia and see for myself that there are a myriad of different opinions on how the word "fact" should be used. One of these opinions documented in the aforementioned encyclopedia is precisely what I have said I was taught.
If anyone thinks that a debate here is going to somehow be more enlightening than what they will find in that encyclopedia entry, they are sorely deluding themselves.
Personally, I prefer the meaning that I was taught. I find it clear, concise, and useful, and no one at MIT ever batted an eye when the word "fact" was used in this manner.
|>ouglas
P.S. As for the specific content of your offensive statement, you can go frak yourself, kind sir.
I would not object to that usage of the word "fact". Though I think that it can be used either way unproblematically.
|>ouglas
Understood, and people do routinely use "fact" as a synonym for "true proposition." I just find it helpful to maintain a careful distinction between a true proposition and the state of things that it represents for an interpreter thereof by reserving "fact" for the latter.
Fair enough!
|>ouglas
I've never thought of truths and facts in this way before. At first glance I seem to want to protest but there is a simplicity to the explanation that makes me think it might be right. I'll have to think on this for a long while before I can say anything pertinent about it. Thanks for the perspective.
2+3=5 is also a fact. Can you explain why it is not? This argument of yours seems superfluous.
Correct!
The problem is we are dealing with semantics. Like Douglas originally said we could be at this for another 10 pages. Feel free to message me on what the consensus is. Sometimes beating a dead horse actually does make sense and in other cases it does not make sense to beat a dead horse. Considering this an online forum where people come here so that they consume less alcohol instead of a 30 pack every night, beating a dead horse over and over again in this case would make complete sense.
I seem to have a problem with a proposition being characterized as true or false because, by my understanding, a proposition is not definitive. Its values of truth and falsity are potential. To me, if the potentiality is verified, then it becomes an axiom.
I understand a proposition to be an attempt to express meaning or value, but whether or not it is true or false is beyond the proposition itself. By this I mean that, the proposition has to be examined in relation to something like evidence (the object/subject, the significance of which, the proposition is attempting to express) so as to determine whether its value is true or false. And, whether the evidence is itself a fact or truth is again dependent on another degree of relation, viz, meaning.
Is my explanation sound?
No, that is not how "proposition" and "axiom" are typically defined in logic and philosophy. There are all kinds of true propositions, only a few of which are considered to be axioms. "My PF screen name is aletheist" is a true proposition, but it is certainly not an axiom.
The term "proposition", as conventionally used in Philosophy, just means a sentence that is attempting to assert something. This assertion might be true or it might be false, or it might not have a truth value.
E.g., here are some propositions:
(1) All horses are animals.
(2) All horses are brown.
(3) No three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation a^n + b^n = c^n for any integer value of n greater than 2.
(4) Chairs are good.
#1 is true by definition.
#2 is false, empirically.
#3 is true because it can be proved so mathematically.
#4 probably has no truth value, since it expresses a value judgement rather than a way the world might or might not be.
When I said that a proposition is a sentence above, that was a lie, however. Or rather an over-simplification. A proposition is an abstraction of such a sentence, such that the sentence can be rephrased or expressed in a different language and still express the same proposition as long as the rephrasing or translation maintains the same meaning.
|>ouglas
2 has a definition, 3 has a definition, 5 has a defintion, ..... Franklin Pierce has a concise (simplified) definition, born has a definition, New Hampshire has a simplified definition. To a large degree the two things are both mathematical and also at the same time lingual. Am i missing something?
The concise definition of 5 is 1+4. The defintion of 4 is 3 + 1. The definition of 2 is 1+1. 3 + 1 +1 = 5 by jumping to the conclusion just a little (just a little), 3 + 2 = 5
Thanks. It's illuminating.
The difference is that one of those is a necessary fact and the other is a contingent fact. They are, however, both facts.
|>ouglas
For someone who likes to rail so much about stupidity, you shouldn't act so stupidly.
You have quoted me out of context. In context, I provided the requisite caveats. I'll paste them here to refresh your addled memory:
|>ouglas
Lets say we have a fact or truth that is too hard for an idiot like me to understand, no matter how well you explain it, it still won't be a truth or a fact to me. Like you said stupidity atleast to some degree is prevalent in multiple societies, some more than others.
rigourous is the word we are all looking for. I'm sure you can prove to yourself what you ate for breakfast today and perhaps yesterday. The more complex or abstract a concept is, the harder it is to measure its attributes and paths, that i do agree with you. I'll say you won this one.
This seems prima faice inadequete. If you index facts to the past, one is hard pressed to make sense of straightforward statements like: "it is a fact that the heat death of the universe will occur"; similarly, if you index facts to experience ('experiential record'), what of "it is a fact that force is defined as mass multiplied by acceleration"? Or even analytic statements like "it is a fact that batchelors are unmarried men"?; Normativity is general wrecks all sorts of havok here, anything premised on some sort of commitment: "it is a fact that fraud is illegal under the law". Facts seem to have a wider scope than your definition allows for.
If you prefer to discuss what the word "fact" means to a lexicographer, perhaps you should go to The Lexicography Forum instead. Last time I checked, this is The Philosophy Forum.
|>ouglas
I already ceded aletheist's point in this regard. Though, as I mentioned, the word "fact" can be and is used both ways by even famous, tenured philosophers at prestigious universities.
Quoting tim wood
A proposition can, of course, be "in-itself true" even if it is not rigorously provable. A proposition, if it has a truth value, is either true for false. In and of itself. The world is either as the proposition describes or it is not.
I studied Philosophy for many years, and not a single philosopher that I studied with ever used the term "fact" the way that you seem to be using it. To a philosopher in Cambridge MA, a proposition being a fact has nothing to do with whether you can prove it. It is a fact if it truthfully represents the world, and it is not a fact if it doesn't.
It may be the case that some people do use the word the way that you do. If so, I scarcely care.
Though lawyers, of course, have their own technical usage of the word "fact", and if I'm talking to a lawyer, then I care about how they use it. Potential paramours usually have a different idea of the term "proposition" than philosophers do. Unless they are both paramours and philosophers, in which case, hopefully, they will be able to figure out what type of proposition one has in mind.
But when I walk across the street to go to a Philosophy talk or conference, no one there will be using the term "fact" in the manner that you do, and so I chose to use the term in the way it will be understood amongst the people I am likely to actually have a dialogue with.
If you wish to say that I aspire to be willfully ignorant, then so be it. People who speak as you do, do not enter my world frequently enough for me to worry about presently. If and when the day comes that they do, then I can easily adapt.
|>ouglas
I thought axiom was appropriate because it is composed of a premise which leads to a conclusion through a particular line of reasoning/logic. This, to me, seems to imply a level of definitiveness to the process thus enabling a clear judgement of whether it is right or wrong, true or false.
If not axiom, then what? Theory?
How about a fact is an expression of a state of affairs or circumstance. This can also fit in statements like "it is a fact that force is defined as mass multiplied by acceleration," and "it is a fact that fraud is illegal under the law."
If some event or purported event is not apprehensible to our senses then it may or my not be a fact; we could never know for sure, even if we think we might have very reliable evidence for believing it to be or not to be a fact.
Yeah in the case of the very complex mathematical proof, the variables typically are drastically less than if i try to tell you i had eggs and ham for breakfast. There are multiple ways to prove something like that but, they would cost so much money and resources for me to quickly prove thats what i had for breakfast this morning to you, that we both might say its not worth it. Then after proving to you that thats what i had for breakfast, i would have to convince notable historians that that is what is true. The amount of variables involved, to put it simply are astronomical.
As I mentioned previously, you can find a philosopher somewhere to support any position.
At least where I am, when philosophers discuss something that might be of interest to a layperson, philosophers want to use the same meanings of the words that the layperson would be using. Philosophers around here wish to capture as best they can what a normal speaker means when they ask a philosophical question using normal English.
I.e., when answering the question of what a fact is, you have to capture the meaning that a layperson is using by the word "fact" when they ponder on the mysteries of facts.
The reason for this, is that if you use a different meaning of the word than that of a normal speaker, you've answered a different question than the one that a normal speaker would want to know when they come to ask philosophers for their wisdom. One major point of philosophy is, in theory, to answer mysteries that perplex even normal people.
How you are using the word "fact" has nothing to do whatsoever with how a normal speaker of English uses the word. Judith Jarvis Thomson herself would berate me for trying to use normal English words in ways that were incompatible with normal English usage when I wrote papers for her in her Philosophy 101 class. E.g., when I argued that two people could exchange bodies because they could exchange minds, and a person is a mind, her reply was, "A person is not a mind. A person has a mind." I fell into the trap of using normal English words in a non-standard way.
Now I could have fixed my argument by saying, "The only essentional component of a person is their mind. And a mind can be relocated from one body to another. The person would follow the mind into the new body, since the mind is the only essential component of the person." Or something like that. But I wasn't quite savvy enough back then to use words with that kind of care.
In any case, to your average Joe a fact is just something that is true. To Joe, it is a fact that 1 + 1 = 2. It is a fact that not all horses are brown. And it is a fact that horses are all animals.
You might confuse Joe by asking him if a toy horse is an animal after he agreed that all horses are animals. Or how it can be true that Santa Claus wears a red suit if there is no Santa Claus. But this is why you need philosophers, I guess. Joe can't necessarily figure out everything on his own, even if he knows how to use the language.
As for natural science, I have worked for scientists my entire adult life. At MIT and Harvard. None of them use the word "fact" the way that Collingwood says that they do. To a scientist, just as it is for Joe, it is a fact that 1 + 1 = 2. It is also a fact that if I drop a pencil, it will fall down due to gravity. This is not a statement about history. It is a prediction about a future event, and we know what the outcome will be. It is a fact that eventually, our sun will become a red giant. These are facts about the future, not about history.
|>ouglas
P.S. Yes, Philosophers use tons of jargon. And this jargon may use English words that differ from normal English usage. But they don't do this when a lay-mystery to be solved is expressed using those words. E.g., no layperson asks questions about the nature of "propositions". Or at least not the kind that philosophers talk about. If there were philosophical mysteries about the type of proposition that you might present to a paramour, then philosophers would, of course, not confound the jargon usage of "proposition" with the type of proposition being proposed by the paramour.
You could do this (both sound odd to me, to be honest), but this seems like a stipulative definition, in which case it's not clear what the impetus for doing this is.
Exactly so!
|>ouglas
It's interesting to see the changes necessary to subsequent talk depending upon the way one uses "fact".
A popular notion is that facts must be true. So, facts must be truth-apt. What makes them true?
Another is that facts are something like states of affairs, events, what has happened and/or is happening. In that case facts are not truth apt at all.
How "facts", "truth", and "reality" intermingle in language use is interesting in and of itself, or at least it has been for me.
Facts are not truth-apt. Truth-aptness refers to that which is capable of being true or false. There are, however, no false facts. Facts are incapable of being false. At best, a 'false fact' is a manner of expression ('façon de parler') meant to indicate 'not a fact'.
But street, that all depends upon how we define/use the term "fact".
Right?
Yeah. I reject the notion of false facts. Facts must be true... You're also saying that they are not truth-apt though, and that is throwing me off...
So, it seems that the notion of "truth-apt" is what's at issue then. I suppose if facts cannot be false, but they can be true, then they must be true - by definition... on that use, or in that sense. Is that about right?
It just seems rather odd to say that something can be true but cannot be false. Facts, in this sense, are not equivalent to statements. Rather, they must be true statements as compared to just statements, which are truth-apt.
So, what makes statements true?
There are true lies however, as a result of a lie being a statement by a speaker who is deliberately misrepresenting his/her belief. Not really ugly, but quite nuanced. What makes a statement a lie, is that it is not believed by the speaker, not that it is false. Rather, it is believed to be false by the speaker. That's another thread topic though. Just wanted to comment.
Depends I guess. If one holds to the classic (simplified) conception in which truth can only be predicated of propositions while facts simply are states of affairs (words vs things, roughly), then even to speak of 'true facts' is a kind of category mistake, or, like false facts, simply a mode of expression which is simply speaking a tautology (a 'round circle'). In this scheme one might say truths express facts or somesuch (alternatively: truths are stated facts), whereas facts simply are or are not (or hold/obtain or not). Things are confusing because one constantly needs to keep an eye on what counts as surface and depth grammar in talking about this stuff.
I'm not committed to this way of putting things (although I think there's a degree of truth in it), but it's one way of cashing out the intuition that false facts ought to not be a thing. One corollary that would follow is that facts, being non-propositional, would not be said to belong - or not-belong - to statements.
I'm not sure about knowledge being about utility because while it seems instinctively desirable, tool-makers that we are, to put knowledge to some use, utility per se doesn't constitute an essential feature of the definition of knowledge. I mean that if ever we encounter a well-justified proposition it would still count as knowledge to know it even if it proved to be completely useless.
True propositions express facts.
I like it.
"Express" may be problematic.
It's just an attempt at finding a most comprehensive definition possible. Anyway, I think the word fact would be somewhat deficient if it were limited to only one definition when it's supposed to include propositions which express subjective statements. I think I'm looking for something I can find to be more comfortable, and possibly more personal, than accepting the whole range of meanings available in philosophy or semantics. I'm just being stubborn for no good reason.
I've tried to hold this sort of position before and I think my worry is it doesn't seem to give much of a difference between knowledge and information. I've been using utility to, primarily, differentiate between the two. Is there another way?
What do you mean? Information? Well, I don't know but I remember someone remark, "that's too much information". I quite forgot the context but it had to do with something disgusting I presume. Nobody talks about knowledge in that tone; I've never heard someone say "that's too much knowledge". I guess the difference then is that some types of information are undesirable but knowledge is always valuable to possess. Can you pick up the thread from there?
Agreed. It is backed by witness depositions vetted by means of the historical method.
Quoting tim wood
Somewhat agreed.
It is true in every model-universe-world that satisfies the number theory ("arithmetic") at hand, which is by default Dedekind-Peano (PA), including its standard model-universe-world, the natural numbers [math]\mathbb{N}[/math].
The arithmetic expression 2+3=5 is true because it is provable from PA.
It does not necessarily correspond, however, to anything in the physical universe.
For that purpose, you would still need to drag an empirical discipline into the fray. Furthermore, any empirical correspondence asserted will not be provable from any of the aforementioned number theories.
It is only provable to be a truth about a symbolic expression that lives in an abstract, Platonic world (constructed by a number theory).
Maybe we should dispense with their use for the moment and talk about states-of-affairs and aboutness instead.
Quoting tim wood
Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon was a state-of-affairs. You typing those words is another state-of-affairs that is about the prior state-of-affairs, and then there is the state-of-affairs that is the relationship between the prior and latter state-of-affairs - of how much the latter accurately signifies, or is about, the prior. I can say, "Tim Wood said "Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon."" and that would be another state-of-affairs about the latter state-of-affairs, and we can keep doing this forever - of talking about some other state-of-affairs, which can include the uttering or typing of statements.
Now, what terms do we use to refer to the prior state-of-affairs, the latter state-of-affairs (statements about the prior state-of-affairs) and the relationship between the two?
Yeah, thanks. I've learned quite a lot from that. It seems that there's an inherent idea that, at least, one of the differences between knowledge and information is based on some kind of judgement with respect to its significance to us, e.g. desirable/undesirable, valuable/useless, etc.
At any given moment you possess information/knowledge that is useful and not useful for some goal.
While you possess information/knowledge that...
Quoting tim wood
this information/knowledge is only useful when you need it - like when you're taking a history exam, and useless in all other instances. So, is your long term memory composed of information or knowledge?
So, for you, is there a difference between information and knowledge?
Or, perhaps, they're the kind of words (also, truth and fact) whose meanings and significance, as I seem to be learning, cannot be acquired through comparative thinking. That is, the differences have no real significance to our perspective. It's like illuminating one's home with white light or amber (yellow-ish), bottom-line is, they make it possible to see things.
I disagree with. In some systems it's fact something in the future is X. At least there is a present tense.
Why it's the nature of true statements, is a shortener to annoy a greater sense of realm of fact.
It is partially what I'm saying. The Sun will rise tomorrow if all remains stable. This is a fact and neither side, yes or no exists for it. Perhaps, a lesser fact.
Thus I produce 'levels of fact', and a deeper explanation required from OP.
The difference is thought and forethought and minus forethought.
I have great forethought, the rate at which I track the nature of man is enough to read your mind at the symbol level of yourself.
I can read your expression and make correct links, if you think of it logically.
The links I have made are, amongst them, you were in a bubble and every movement you made was the cause of another movement. I know you are going to think this next, or at least can influence it, because you are this jar in a bubble.
Problem is you think thinking is just worded thought, motion is thinking.
What is an undecided proposition?
Yes Tim, the question was somewhat rhetorical :wink: .
The short answer is that there are a multitude of propositions that go beyond simple true and false, yes or no, either/or. I just wanted to ask the MIT guy!
The word "proposition" to philosophers is technical jargon. Though we can actually find a decent definition for this jargon in the American Heritage Dictionary:
a. A statement that affirms or denies something.
b. The meaning expressed in such a statement, as opposed to the way it is expressed.
Such a statement can be true or false. "Horses are animals" is a true proposition. "Horses are all brown" is a false proposition. "Horses are good" is a proposition that fails to have a truth value.
I'm not sure what you mean by an "undecided" proposition. We might look at particular crayon that is orangey red and state, "This crayon is red." This statement is a proposition, but there may be no fact of the matter as to whether the crayon is red or not, and if there is no fact of the matter on that question, then the proposition fails to have a truth value.
|>ouglas
Just quickly, of course, any judgment or proposition that relates to causation, cosmology, natural science, phenomenology, consciousness, et al.
You know, human condition kinds of stuff.
Well, I'm not sure that I do know. But there are certainly a multitude of propositions that have truth values, but for which we'll never know for sure what that truth value is. (E.g., whether the Bohm or Everett interpretation of QM is the right one.) And there are a multitude of propositions which just fail to have truth values.
Many philosophers believe that any proposition that expresses whether some act is right or wrong, for instance, can never have a truth value, since moral judgements are not the sorts of things that are amenable to being factual. Other philosophers would disagree about this, however.
I guess the existence of moral propositions might cause us to ask what is their usefulness if they can never have a truth value. That's an interesting question for sure, but not a topic I have studied. The "term" proposition originated in logic, as I understand it, and logic would not concern itself much with propositions that have no truth value. Since then, the term "proposition" has been expanded widely. It is still used to convey the notion that an attempt is being made to assert that something is true via the proposition. But clearly things can get complicated outside of the tidy domain of logic.
|>ouglas
Hey Doug real quick don't have a lot of time this afternoon but wanted to get back to you. At the risk of redundancy it's worth repeating the infamous Kantian judgement that seems to baffle logicians:
All events must have a cause.
True, false , contingent, undecided...
I can think of many more but we'll have to wait till next week...
I'm not familiar with logicians being baffled by this assertion. Logicians, in my experience, are concerned mostly with propositions that carry a truth value. As I mentioned, some propositions, will not carry a truth value, and different logicians have different opinions about what to do about such propositions.
Some have asserted, I believe, that all such propositions are to be considered false. At least if you insert them into a logically deductive argument. Others might say that the entire argument then will just have a conclusion without a truth value.
There are also forms of logic that are multi-valued. I.e., they are more truth values than just true and false. I don't know much about these alternative forms of logic. I think they have been used more by computer scientists for implementing AI systems, for instance, than by philosophers.
As for the sentence "All events must have a cause", I can see that people may agree or disagree with this statement. Or they may feel that it doesn't have a truth value. But in terms of how logic is to deal with it, I don't see how it is different from any other proposition that might be contentious.
Logicians and philosophers of language have worried a lot about propositions such as "Santa Claus wears a red suit", which seems to be true, despite the fact that Santa Claus does not exist. How best to handle such propositions took up much of a semester, with no clear answer at the time.
|>ouglas
Is there any such thing as a future truth?
"It is true that..." and "It is a fact that..." seem to be semantically equivalent. They are grammatically different but the first can be changed to 'It is a truth that..." without seeming to semantically change anything or descending into incoherence.
And you are asserting that MIT carefully selects all of the reading material assigned so that it only confirms MIT's and Harvard's parochial view?
Considering that MIT's Philosophy department is ranked fourth in the world or so, they must be doing something right with respect to how philosophers in general view what comes out of MIT's Philosophy department. Likewise for the sciences at both Harvard and MIT.
Since "fact" is a word that can be defined however a group consensually decides to use it, it seems that you travel in philosophical circles that are different from mine. I wish you well on your journeys, but I do not wish to participate in them. Life is short and I do not have the time to also traipse down whatever path you are on.
As I mentioned already, philosophers around here like to use words in the same way that a layperson would when using words that are potentially of philosophical interest to the layperson.
This is what Wikipedia says that a fact is:
I.e., this is how the layperson uses the word "fact", and so philosophers in Cambridge go with that usage.
For reasons unfathomable to me, you wish to travel down a different path. I bid you safe travels.
|>ouglas
Apparently you don't know how to read plain English. The sentence, "This sentence contains words" is a tautology. It is true in all possible worlds. It is analytic a priori, not a posteriori, and requires knowing nothing about the external world.
Also you conveniently ignored, "they are either categorically necessary". A categorical necessity is a non-contingent fact of the sort, "Blue is a color". I.e., its truth just follows from the definitions of "blue" and "color".
If we scroll down a bit in the Wikipedia article, we'll find:
There's your 2+3=5. It's a mathematical fact.
I am done with you. You started off as an ass (e.g. calling me stupid and ignorant in your first response to me), and you remain one. I will no longer feed this troll.
|>oug
You haven't responded to the point which was the lack of substantive semantic distinction between the two common phrases. If you think there is such a distinction then perhaps you could say what it consists in?
There is no single factual definition of fact. I mean, it's a very ambiguous concept. Like ambiguous concepts, it is easier to understand as opposed to clearer ones. Especially, facts vs. values, facts vs. theories, objective vs. subjective facts, etc.
In general, facts are associated with objectivity, something that exists outside our mind or is a reference in our language. Therefore, facts is not truth. Truth is a property of some sentences; facts are the weft of reality. Gnoseology / ontology.
What an absurd thing to say. I never claimed that philosophers in these parts wouldn't recognize the distinctions of which you speak. They would just not use the word "fact" in the manner that you claim is the one true meaning of the word. Unless, perhaps, they included an introduction stating that they were going to be using certain words in certain jargony ways, in which case they would either define their jargon explicitly or by referring to the usage of the term by some famous philosopher.
E.g., the meaning of the word "meaning" is fraught. Many a book and paper that I read back in the day, would, when introducing the word "meaning" into their argument, mention that they were taking, for instance, Kripke's meaning of the word "meaning" as a given. They were unlikely to just plow on and assume that this is the way that the reader would take the meaning of the word "meaning".
Chalmers, in his seminal book, however, does not accept Kripke's usage of "meaning" as complete, and so he spends many pages devoted to describing his "2D" theory of meaning. In many cases, nothing really hinges on such distinctions and so little is said. In other cases, the difference is of paramount importance, and then lines of distinction will be drawn.
This case of "meaning" is a bit different from our debate about facts, since the usages of the word "meaning" by both Kripke and Chalmers are meant to capture the layperson's notion of the word "meaning". There is just some disagreement on how to best do that.
In your case, you seem to have no concern for how a layperson would use the word "fact" and just seem to insist that there is really only one correct way to use the word "fact" in philosophical discussions. How you have come upon this one true meaning for a piece of jargon is left as something of a mystery, other than that you just assert it to be the case and that anyone who disagrees with you is ignorant and stupid.
In the circles, I've been in, when the word "fact" is used, an attempt is usually made to capture the lay meaning of the term, just with more precision than a dictionary or Wikipedia entry might. There might, of course, be disagreement on how to best do that.
I have seen the word "fact" used more or less in the way that you use it, but mostly in older philosophical writings that had not yet moved towards ordinary language philosophy. At least with respect to terms that are used by ordinary people.
For the record, I have never asserted that there is one correct usage of the term "fact". My only real assertion has been that your usage of the term "fact" is far afield from ordinary language usage, while the philosophers I have studied with have attempted to stick with ordinary language usage, as much as is possible.
This is not to say that they don't use plenty of jargon, but when they do so, it is usually clear when they are, and they don't usually try to substitute a jargon meaning for ordinary language usage when trying to answer a philosophical conundrum that is expressed in ordinary language. Though, of course, it being an imperfect world, sometimes they slip, or they believe that the jargon captures the lay meaning, and then much hilarity often ensues.
|>ouglas
The significant distinction between these two statements is that one relates to the real world and is ultimately founded on sense data, while the other is entirely abstract and relies solely on axioms, processes of inference and the generation of theorems.
I ask again, can you outline any difference in the semantic content of the two terms as they are commonly used?
My God, what a way to complicate your life! You guys seem in a mood of arguing!
Truth: property of a proposition.
Fact: what exists in the world.
It's two different kinds of things. For example, the theory of adequacy defines truth as the proposition adequacy to the facts.
In ordinary language it is sometimes said "the true thing", but it is a confusing way of speaking of those things that are designated by language and really exist.
You haven't told me anything yet.
A fact would be a description of what exists in the world (or actually what has ever existed, since we can have facts about the past.) IOW a chair isn't a fact (nor is it a truth, for that matter).
My car exists in the world. My car is a fact?
|>ouglas
Even preschoolers know that 1 + 1 = 2 is a fact:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cR_1Qi-tP4
|>ouglas
What do we do when we create or asess truth?
We use/sum up the fact.
In a way you are right - but fact is deriven from truth(it is non exclusive, it just is related).
When someone asks you produce fact, what do you also do?
Quoting Douglas Alan
One thing does not exist in abstract. This chair in its particular occurrence in relation to other things in its environment is the fact. What you say about the chair is a proposition which refers to a fact and which may be true or false. Or a pseudo-statement. Or a value judgment. To state a fact you have to establish its existence, without which there is not reference to a fact.
That a car exists and that this car is yours is a fact (or not, ça depend). "My car" doesn't say anything about facts. It is a concept not a proposition. "I have a car" does state a fact.
If you want to include numbers as ideal or abstract "facts", you can do so. But it's twisting the word out of the ordinary. In philosophy of science, a distinction is made between formal and factual sciences. Well understood, only the latter deal with facts.
(Sorry, I won't spend an hour watching the youtube you're proposing. Can you propose something more specific? Any particular time?)
I'm sorry, but I'm all messed. I wouldn't say that when I put a proposition I "create" a truth. I would say that truth is a quality of my proposition according to the definition of truth that we accept, which includes the criteria for knowing whether my proposition is true or false. What I create is a proposition.
It's the same as if I say my yacht is better than yours. We establish a criterion and verify whether or not my boat meets the qualities of a good yacht and yours not... or vice versa.
I wouldn't say I use facts either. Not in the sense that I use a hammer or a hat. Facts are not an instrument, but the reference for my propositions. I use words to refer to facts. Words are instruments.
Aren't facts truth qualititive phenomena?
If you look at, collection of facts about the world and no fact. In a competition of two the collection of facts is more likely to know the truth about the world. They're at least truth-pro.
I've worked with scientists my entire adult life. As far as I'm aware, they would all agree that 1 + 1 = 2 is a fact. I work with scientists right now, in fact. I could take a poll if you are interested.
Quoting David Mo
It would have taken you less time to have verified my assertion than to have typed the above sentence. The first sixty seconds.
|>ouglas
Hey Doug!
Okay. I was a bit confused, because I thought you said earlier that propositions were either true or false.
And other examples I alluded to earlier were relative to propositions of self reference and logical necessity, respectively:
1. This statement is false.
2. There is at least one true proposition.
And then there are statements, like Tim Wood alluded to, that are incomplete viz Godel;
1. Socrates: What Plato is about to say is false
Plato: Socrates has just spoken truly
1. Tom cannot prove this statement to be true.
Quoting Douglas Alan
In Metaphysics, that's known as a Kantian synthetic a priori proposition. Something beyond pure reason or logic. Both an innate sense of wonderment, and something that can be tested a posteriori; a synthesis of both.
Synthetic propositions are the basis of scientific hypothesizing.
Enjoy!
From the above, I've also been able to develop other definitions for information and knowledge which I think are pertinent, somewhat differentiating and still correlated. That is,
Of course, there's the obvious common usage of information and knowledge, e.g. if you have information, then you know; or if you know, then you have information, etc. But, even with common usage, the test/limiting factor which, more often than not, differentiates between the two is application. Right application qualifies one as possessing knowledge in favour of those who may just possess information without the capacity to apply it. (These are just my ideas and nothing is definitive.)
To all who've participated, I would like to give my thanks. This is a very illuminating discussion.
My boss has a PhD in Linguistics from the aforementioned Linguistics department, and I just asked him if 1 + 1 = 2 is a fact. He replied that yes it is.
|>ouglas
P.S. My SB is also from the aforementioned Linguistics (and Philosophy) dept.
Quoting David Mo
I just went and polled four scientists, one of whom is the Director of R&D of the lab where I work, which is part of a world-famous research institute. They all said that yes, 1 + 1 = 2 is a fact when I asked them whether it is or not.
In case they were confused in some way, after asking them this question and getting their answers, I told them that the question I was really interested in is whether or not this is proper usage of the word "fact". They said that it is.
I did not lead them in any way to the answer, and I informed them that this wasn't intended to be a trick question. Just one of interest to someone who has a Philosophy degree, as I do.
|>ouglas
I will refer you again to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
I have already pointed you at this, and at Wikipedia. I have told you of my education. I have talked to someone with a PhD in Linguistics and with scientists with whom I work. They all agree that 1 + 1 = 2 is a fact.
You, instead, are committed only to the echo chamber that resonates in your own empty head, while I have actually supplied real evidence.
Quoting tim wood
I was one step ahead of you here, and I did in fact ask them this. Or, rather I asked them why 1 + 1 = 2 isn't a "truth" rather than a "fact". They replied that these are just synonyms, as are so many other words in English.
Personally, I find saying that a proposition is a "truth" to sound a bit unidiomatic to my ears. I would typically use "true" as an adjective when talking about a proposition, or refer to it as a "fact" if I wished to use a noun.
But hey, I looked up "truth" in the dictionary, just for you, and this is what it said:
But it appears that in Tim Wood's echo chamber head, there are no synonyms. In fact, only those who are stupid and ignorant believe that synonyms exist.
If I had asked the scientists, literally, "Just how is it that 1+1=2 is a fact?" they would have no doubt replied something along the lines of, "It's a mathematical fact. Math tells us that it is true." Or somesuch. They aren't philosophers; they are scientists. They aren't going to provide us with a philosophical answer to this question. They are only going to affirm that they consider 1 + 1 = 2 to be a fact because anyone who knows any math knows that it is true.
|>ouglas
P.S. As I have said many times so far, I am not committed to there being only one correct usage of the word "fact". As with many English words, it can mean different things in different contexts, and different people can use the same word differently.
My only claim has been that identifying facts with true propositions is a common usage of the word "fact". Sure there are other uses. Feel free to use an alternate meaning, so long as you are clear as to which sense of "fact" you are using in your exposition and why.
Well, it's complicated. In some accounts they are. In others, they aren't. I'm no expert on the history, but my understanding is that the contemporary concept of propositions didn't really come into heavy use until Frege and Russell. Since they were logicians, they wanted propositions to always have truth values. Or at least one of them did. It's been a long time. I spent half a semester in a Philosophy of Language class going over Russel's theory about how to turn all propositions into formal logic. (I.e., predicate calculus.) In predicate calculus, every expression has a definite truth value.
This program of trying to transform all propositions into formal logic was quite problematic, and I'm pretty sure that this goal has largely been abandoned by philosophers. (Though I don't know for sure, since that was the end of my studies in Philosophy of Language.)
But in my philosophical education, even in moral theory, we were encouraged to practice converting every philosophical argument that we might find into a logically deductive argument. In the process of doing so, I might end up writing down something like
Premise 1: Boiling live babies to death is very bad.
Premise 2: People who wish to do very bad things are bad people.
Premise 3: Cannibals wish to boil live babies to death.
Conclusion 1 (from Premises 1 & 3): Cannibals wish to do things that are very bad.
Conclusion 2 (from Conclusion 1 and Premise 2): Cannibals are bad people.
Note that even if we believe that moral propositions have no truth values, we can kind of pretend that they do for the sake of evaluating this argument. E.g., even if we think that moral propositions fail to have truth values, this logically deductive argument shows us that if we agree with the premises, then we are forced to agree with the conclusions.
As for logical paradoxes, such as "This sentence is false", Tarski tried to resolve these sorts of things. IIRC, he argued that "This sentence is false" fails to be a proposition and hence the fact that it can't have a truth value doesn't allow us to conclude that there are propositions without truth values.
But forgive me if I am butchering Tarski. Or I am just completely wrong. This was a long time ago, and his argument gave me a huge migraine.
Quoting 3017amen
Such propositions would have truth values, though, would they not? So they are not problematic for those who hold that propositions always have truth values.
|>ouglas
Feel free to use "fact" however you want. As Humpty Dumpty said, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
But Mr. Humpty Dumpty, I haven't seen many, if any, contemporary philosophers–or scientists, or linguists, or average Joe's–using the word as you are.
That being said, I've read plenty of philosophical arguments where jargon is introduced, explained, and then used, and I have had no problem with this. As long as the jargon is introduced to elucidate rather than obfuscate.
As for your putative proof that being a fact and being true cannot be synonymous, your proof doesn't fly with me. Furthermore, you make a grievous error when you say that things that are true must be provable. Have you never heard of Kurt Gödel?
I agree that if I use your definitions of "fact" and "true", then "fact" and true" are not synonyms. But that was obvious before you even provided your proof, so what's the point of your proof? You've just conducted a somewhat long and textbook exercise of begging the question!
If I use my preferred definitions for "true" and "fact", then your proof does not work at all. I.e., I will agree that a, b, and d are probably true, but I will assert that c and e are false.
And now we are back where we started, with me preferring the definitions that I am used to, and you preferring the ones that you are apparently used to. Though where you conduct philosophy in which the words are used in this manner, I can't quite imagine, since I was made to read quite a lot of philosophy, and most of it with not published in Cambridge, MA. If philosophers in all of these books and papers were using the words "fact" and "true" in the manner in which you prefer, I somehow failed to notice and yet still managed to get straight A's.
Well, I guess that just goes to show that any ol' ignorant and stupid person can get straight A's at even the fourth best Philosophy department in the world. What a sorry state of affairs for the world that we find ourselves in! I think that you have proved Leibnitz wrong since clearly this is far from the best of all possible worlds!
|>ouglas
I observe Mars with a telescope. Mars is the reality, the object. The telescope is the instrument. And "Mars is a red planet" is a statement of facts. And the fact that I have enunciated is true. To speak of facts only has sense in the context of a proposition that refers reality. But fact is not an instrument of truth. It is the reference of a proposition and truth is a property of this proposition.
"Go to facts in order to find the truth" is an abbreviated way to say the same.
And I have lived and worked with scientists and philosophers all my life (since my first day of life). In addition I have read some books on the subject written by scientists or philosophers. Now that we've strutted around a bit, we can talk about things. Don't you think so?
In the first sixteen seconds of the YouTube you linked there is no more that a child choir that shout about "math facts". It is not too much to begin.
Do you have something less childish that this?
Ask him for the difference between applied and pure maths and what is the fact behind the irrational numbers and Riemann axioms.
My point is that in "ordinary language" mathematical truths are typically considered to be facts. Nothing more. I have shown this by talking to someone with a PhD in Linguistics, to a small room full of scientists, and by evidence of how we train our children about math.
I have never claimed that there are no philosophers who use the word "fact" in a jargony manner that differs from this. But, as I have proven by citing the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the issue, there are philosophers who use the word "fact" just to mean "true proposition".
|>ouglas
If you want to, I can ask my friend who has a PhD in number theory and is a professor at UPenn if he thinks that mathematical truths are facts or not. Would you like to wager on what his answer will be?
|>ouglas
I think basically you're referring to Logical Positivism. And as such, it denies propositions that relate to sentient Beings (Ontology, Metaphysics, Cosmology).
Examples that LP's or analytical philosopher's , for whatever reason (psychologically that is), find no truth value in:
1. All events must have a cause (synthetic a priori)
2. All bachelors are happy (Ontological proposition)
3. The color red is an exciting color
4. Truth is beautiful; that car is beautiful, he is angry, why do I wonder about things, I feel happy/sad, etc.. etc..
Quoting Douglas Alan
The liars paradox basically proves that Omega is unknowable.
Quoting Douglas Alan
In reference to your question about synthetic propositions, again, the analytical philosopher or the LP would deny/consider such a statement as nonsensical, which is one reason why LP (has limitations) is not used in say cognitive science/psychology or theoretical physics, etc. etc..
The irony seems to be that although the LP recognizes the empirical method for discovering/uncovering its truth value, for whatever reason they deny the aforementioned propositions relating to existential phenomenlogy... .
No, that's not right. The project of reducing all propositions to formal logic is orthogonal to logical positivism, which is the thesis that only propositions that can be verified (either via irrefutable reasoning or via empirical observation) have meaning.
Just because you've reduced a proposition to logic does not entail that you can verify it. And even if you can't reduce propositions to logic doesn't mean that you can't verify them.
Whether Russel was in fact a logical positivist is a matter of debate, as far as I'm aware. He definitely wasn't part of the movement.
|>ouglas
I think he was at one time, then basically discovered it's limitations. Perhaps another one who awoke from his dogmatic slumber's :brow:
That's not right either Douglas. Formal logic is a priori.
Russel's project was to convert propositions into formal logic. One cannot determine the truth of a statement expressed in formal logic a priori when it is not a logically valid statement.
E.g., if we convert the sentence "Santa Claus exists" into formal logic, we get something like:
There exists an x such that S(x)
where S is a predicate that is true for Santa Claus and false for everything else.
We cannot a priori determine the truth value of this statement just because it has been expressed in formal logic.
|>ouglas
*The above site is not the definitive on philosophical terms and meanings. It has a disclaimer at the bottom which reads, And, because of that, it will be readily evident what its shortcomings are. However, it presents a very good (workable) relation between the meanings of various philosophical expressions.
Some of the expressions and meanings are:
- An axiom is an irreducible primary. It doesn't rest upon anything in order to be valid, and it cannot be proven by any "more basic" premises. A true axiom can not be refuted because the act of trying to refute it requires that very axiom as a premise. An attempt to contradict an axiom can only end in a contradiction.
The term "axiom" has been abused in many different ways, so it is important to distinguish the proper definition from the others. The other definitions amount to calling any arbitrary postulate an 'axiom'.
- Words are symbols of concepts. They act as the means of making concepts into mental concretes. They allow the storage of a conceptual integration that can be recalled on demand. Words are references to a concept. They are mental entities which trigger the contents of the concept. By making the concepts into concretes that can be easily maintained and used, we are able to use concepts as particulars, allowing further integration.
Words in themselves are meaningless and mostly arbitrary. They are auditory or visual symbols of concepts, which contains the meaning. A definition applies to a concept, not a word. A word is a name given to a concept. It isn't the concept itself. A word is only meaningful if it has a concept, which in turn, has a definition. Without these, a word is just a noise.
- A definition describes the basis of integration of a specific concept. It describes the essential nature of the concept. It differentiates all other particulars from those included under the concept.
A concept has a genus and a differentia. The role of the definition is to describe both.
- Knowledge is the mental grasp of the facts of reality. It is the awareness of the identity of particular aspects of reality. It is not just an awareness of reality, but an understanding of it. It is a successfully formed conclusion about some aspect of reality. An example of knowledge is the identification of the law of gravity. It is a characteristic of reality that is identified and understood.
Knowledge is gained through a successful evaluation of one's perceptions. It is through the use of reason that man draws conclusions about the world. It is through objectivity that man identifies the validity of those conclusions. Knowledge is the clear, lucid information gained through the process of reason applied to reality.
Indeed. And so would Kant, I think. Accordingly, I believe he would say existence is not a real predicate, in that existence in itself by definition, does not describe its properties. And so S (x) would be a synthetic statement v. a more obvious analytic/a priori/ tautological statement.
Of course, the ontological argument for God's existence is the contextual framework for all that. To this end, a priori formal logico-deductive reasoning would not be the exclusive means or tool to use in trying to determine causation, Being, so on and so forth [for a Deity's existence]. Instead, most would agree (theoretical physicists) that synthetic judgements and inductive reasoning is the more appropriate method when making statements and/or discovering properties about same.
In Cosmology/Metaphysics it therefore makes the "search for a Deity" more bottom-up, versus the traditional approach for most creationist's who seem to prefer top-down-logic. Personally, I like both.
The phenomena of living this life is much more than simple a priori/ tautological statements... .
I didn't use existence as a predicate. And neither would have Russell. Existence in predicate calculus is specified via the existential quantifier. I can't put in the formal logic notation for that here, so I just wrote it out in English as "There exists an x". When you write it out in predicate calculus, the "There exists an" is written as a backwards "E" instead, and the universal quantifier "for all" is written as an upside-down "A".
In any case, nothing in Russell's project implied propositions should be tautologies. Quite to the contrary. He just wanted to be able to translate the meaning of all propositions into formal logic, and consequently assert that all propositions have truth values. Not tautalogical truth values. Rather truth values that might (or might not) be determined empirically and/or via reasoning or other methods.
|>ouglas
Well with all due respect, that's really not making sense:
A priori=formal logic=potential for tautologies.
With all due respect, I think you did. You said S (x).
No?
I really don't know what to say to you that I haven't already. A proposition written in formal logic is sometimes a tautology but is typically not. If I write
a -> b
that's not a tautology. It's just a formal way of saying that if a is true, then b is true. Not only that, but this might be a false assertion. Just because I write something down formally, doesn't force it to be any more true than if I write it in words. I.e., if I write
If Joan is wearing a red dress, then she is drinking a caramel macchiato.
That caries no more or less weight than the formal logic version:
Let d be true if and only if Joan is wearing a red dress.
Let m be true if and only if Joan is drinking a caramel macchiato.
d -> m
They are just different ways of asserting the same thing. And what they are asserting could be true or they could be false.
Russell did not have any intention of trying to translate propositions into tautologies. He wanted the formal logic version of the proposition to be true when the English language version of the proposition is true and the formal logic version of the proposition to be false when the English language version of the proposition is false.
Quoting 3017amen
This is not using existence as a predicate. S(x) is a predicate that only holds true when x is Santa Claus. It has nothing to do with existence. It's just a normal predicate that is true for somethings (i.e., Santa Claus) and false for other things (e.g., a caramel macchiato).
Maybe I shouldn't have used Santa Claus, because since Santa Claus is fictional, S(x) is actually false for all x. But Santa Claus was a canonical problem for Russell's project, so just comes to mind as a reflex. I.e., we must have spent an entire month in Philosophy of Language trying to figure out how one might get Russell's project to work with propositions such as "Santa Claus wears a red suit", which is true, even though there is no such thing as Santa Claus. This is problematic for Russell, since how do we translate this sentence into formal logic so that it is still true in formal logic.
I'm pretty sure that Russel had an answer for this, but at this point I don't remember what it was. And IIRC, I think that his solution was not widely considered to be very satisfying.
|>ouglas
I think not. He was definitely an influence on the logical positivists, but he was not a positivist himself. I can find no source on the Internet that claims that he ever was. Also, he claimed to be an agnostic. But to a logical positivist, something that could not be verified was considered to be meaningless. Since the existence of god cannot be verified, a positivist would take any claims about "god" to be meaningless, and consequently, a positivist cannot be an agnostic, who could assert meaningful things using the term "god". (I suppose that there could be a positivist who thinks that the existence of god can be proven from first principles. But in that case, they would not be an agnostic. I don't think there were any such positivists, however.)
|>ouglas
If you prefer to limit yourself to the ordinary language which is always imprecise, I have no objection. I thought you were referring to expert opinion -your PhD teacher, the scientists... The first one -OL- doesn't interest me much. Which are we speaking of?
Quoting Douglas Alan
Ask him the question as I put it, please. Don't water it down. I'm intrigued by his answer.
I have a degree in Philosophy from MIT. I was trained that when you want to address questions that are important to normal people, then you have to use the same language that they use, at least for the terms which they'd use to express the question. If you don't, then you will end up answering a different question than the one they asked by changing the meaning of the words on them.
I really have no interest in debating the merit of this approach anymore. I understand that jargon has its use. It's used heavily in all of the philosophy that I've studied. But the jargon is not substituted for the words used in the question being addressed. It is only used only in the innards of the argument.
I really don't have anything more to say on this topic that I haven't already said.
|>ouglas
I find it very strange that at MIT no one has explained to you the difference between factual and formal sciences, analytical and synthetic propositions or truths of reason and truths of facts. And pure and applied mathematics, of course.
Here is an interesting article on the subject: https://philarchive.org/archive/MARMBP-5 . Given your degree you should not find any problem in reading it.
I keep wondering what your teacher has to say on the subject. What a pity.
I've never heard of such a distinction. Are you talking about the difference between theoretical and experimental science? I am quite familiar with that distinction. I didn't study much philosophy of science, however, other than Kuhn.
Quoting David Mo
At MIT, it was never my experience that there was some sharp dividing line between the two. At least at the undergraduate level. Applied mathematics was just pure mathematics that you might need in the course of being an engineer, and other pure mathematics might have no applications yet. Or none that would be of interest to a typical engineer.
Engineering departments also had their own highly developed math, such as Laplace transforms and Z-transforms, that the math department did not seem at all interested in. Though when I talked to mathematicians about this sort of math, when I described it, I was told at times that I should feel privileged to have learned such interesting math, even though it was not the sort of the math that they themselves had ever studied.
Quoting David Mo
Which teacher? I got my degree a long time ago. I.e., 1988. Though I continued to take some classes at MIT into the late 90s. Some of my professors are now, sadly, dead. E.g., Judith Jarvis Thomson and George Boolos. And Ned Block moved to NYU.
Regarding reading a paper that uses some particular jargon use of the word "fact", I have no problem with jargon as long as it is explained, used consistently, and understood as jargon and not lay usage. I have never claimed that the way that I have been using the word "fact" is the one true usage of it. Only that it is the typical lay usage of it, and the way that it was generally used in my education. It is also supported, as I have pointed out numerous times, in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, as a common usage in Philosophy.
So, I have no clue why anyone would disagree with anything I have said. Everything I have asserted is completely innocuous. I have never said that anyone else is using the term "fact" incorrectly. I have only asserted that I am not using the term incorrectly. Since the SEoP backs me up on this, please take any further objections to them.
|>ouglas
Right. You mentioned your boss. I understood it was a reference to his master in the degree. I could have used your boss's opinion that you quoted. But it doesn't matter.
Quoting Douglas Alan
Here's a classic: Carnap, Rudolf: "Formal and Factual Science" (1935):
Quoting Carnap
It doesn't matches theoretical and empirical, I think. Better deductive-inductive.
Quoting Douglas Alan
What you are talking about is how the pure-applied distinction is reflected in university departments. You are familiar with the applied mathematics that falls within the realm of factual science. I don't think you are familiar with the turmoil that caused in the field of philosophy of science the emergence of non-Euclidean mathematics . Or with the problem of how certain purely formal mathematical developments are then applied to empirical reality, which is another problem that has fascinated theoretical scientists and philosophers since Leibniz or before... but leaves engineers or biologists indifferent.
Quoting Douglas Alan
If the use of jargon bothers you, you're lost in philosophy... or science. I imagine you'd have a hell with Boolos. I don't understand much of what he writes. Putnam, it seems, doesn't either. I take some comfort in that.
Whether the use of jargon is a result of the need to be more precise in one's ideas or to attract attention is not clear to me. Since I sometimes do not understand it, I tend to think that it is more the latter. But it may be a prejudice of my ignorance. So I'm careful about this. Humility is one of the conditions of the philosopher that they generally don't have.
Now, independently of the abuse of jargon, the problem of the relationship between formal and factual sciences seems to me to be serious. And I don't think it can be solved from ordinary language. "Facts" in ordinary language has a lot of meanings that are continually intermingled. For example: if we talk about mathematical facts on the Internet -9 Amazing Math Facts!, and similar- , it is in relation to applied mathematics. Which leaves the formal-factual problem that is essential in theoretical physics and scientific revolutions in the lurch. That is not good.
My boss has a PhD in linquistics. I was just using him as another piece of evidence in how the word "fact" is used by a layperson. In general, linguists are only concerned with how language is used by laypersons, and not how grammarians, etc., think they should be using language. (Though I'm sure that there are also linguists who study the jargon of subcultures, etc.)
Quoting David Mo
Well, that's pretty old. Almost all of my Philosophy education (other than Philosophy 101) was oriented around engaging in current debates. (Or rather in debates that were current at the time.) The purpose for this, I suppose, is that you couldn't write papers by simple regurgitation. You had to think for yourself and present your own unique arguments.
Consequently, I may have lost some historical perspective. On the other hand, in the little Philosophy of Science that I did study, these distinctions from 1935 were no longer being made.
Quoting David Mo
This would also leave me indifferent, even though I have a deep interest in Philosophy. But mostly only how it relates to Philosophy of Mind. And maybe to ethics. But I didn't study ethics deeply.
This said, I do have something of an interest in Kuhn's revelation that science doesn't work nearly as cleanly as one was taught in high school. But I haven't done any deep studies in this area of philosophy.
Quoting David Mo
The use of jargon doesn't not bother me in the slightest. As long as the users of it are clear that they are using jargon, why they are using jargon, use it clearly, and don't slily substitute it for lay usage when answering a philosophical conundrum that has been expressed in lay language.
|>ouglas
I'v presented more than a bit of evidence that they do to the intelligent layperson. I've also proven that they are also used this way by at least enough philosophers to have this usage documented in the SEoP.
Quoting tim wood
You are being complete disingenuous. It's you who started with the name calling.
|>ouglas
Einstein is even older. It happens that in philosophy of science and in science it is convenient to be aware of the theories of the past that are still valid. The thinkers of the past often said things that were clearer and more profound than today stars of philosophy. In any case, on the subject of definitions of "fact", the distinction made by Carnap between formal and factual (natural) sciences is fully valid. See here or here.
Quoting Douglas Alan
I find Kuhn very convincing as well. Especially convincing when he warns that science is more than just what engineers do.
Quoting Douglas Alan
Ordinary language is specially confuse when using the word "facts". For example: "mathematical facts" and "a matter of fact". Therefore a more analytic "jargon" is needed.
That may very well be true, But that doesn't mean
(1) That I have the time or interest to pursue their particular theories. I already spent enough of my life trying to figure out how it is true that Santa Claus wears a red suit when Santa Claus doesn't exist.
(2) That the jargon they used is the one true jargon of philosophy.
Quoting David Mo
All I am asserting is that when you answer the type of philosophical conundrum that is of interest to a layperson, your answer better have actually answered the intended question and not a different one. I think that it is common for philosophers to do so by becoming so entrenched in their own jargon that they no longer even understand lay usage of words.
For an example of someone who is very careful not to make this mistake, I highly recommend Parfit's book "Reasons and Persons". In it, he answers the age-old question, "If I get into that infernal Star Trek transporter, when I am transported down to the planet, will it still be me? Or will I have died, and the person on the planet will just be some poor sap who is deluded that they are me?"
Parfit answers this question deftly, while being careful to preserve the meaning of the question asked, and not answer a different question by sloppy substitution of jargon for lay usage.
|>ouglas
Quoting BrianW
Are the concepts of 'truth' and 'fact' completely differentiated in the way they are defined and symbolised? No, I don't think so. Also, no source of information, philosophy, linguistics or other, seems to have completely differentiated them. However, there is a concept, a principle, which seems to be the source or the fundamental upon which their respective definitions and symbolism are based. Right now, I can only explain that concept as, "that which is." It can be what is designated as reality or existence but, both fact and truth are attempts to symbolise aspects of 'that which is'.
Information and knowledge are other words whose definitions and conceptions are not completely differentiated, and kinda relate in one way or another. I don't think we have, as yet, developed the kind of context (or perspective) in which they could be completely uncoupled. The many arguments in this thread may be proof of that.
You said that it is very common for philosophers to answer a question without answering this particular question. After that, you raised the question of what identity is in a very tangled way. So, what the philosopher needs to do is clarify the question. How does Parfit respond to this? Usually here the layman starts to get exasperated. He wants a clear and simple answer to a confusing and complex question. But this is not the philosopher's fault. It's a problem of mass culture and political demagogy. Factual powers are not interested to teach people to ask questions.
Don't shoot the philosopher. He's doing his best. Although he's not always very good.
I'm not shooting the philosopher. Having studied a lot of philosophy in my day, I've seen what I feel are some ways that it can go wrong, and have expressed my opinion on some practices that can be used to improve it.
What I have suggested is not out of the mainstream of contemporary philosophical thought. In fact, it is how I was admonished to think by Judith Jarvis Thomson in Philosophy 101 when I violated this "best practice". Her advice has stuck with me all of these years.
|>ouglas