Re: Why choose a paragraph element for a paragraph?

On 2009-03-15, dorayme <doraymeRidThis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article <slrngrqe5k.a10.spamspam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Ben C <spamspam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
...
Well, you don't get a "technical" definition from a dictionary I
suppose. There is no authoritative definition for this kind of thing,
but a fact usually means a true statement, and usually it also has to be
contingent (as opposed to necessarily true).

Facts are often disputable, and necessarily true statements often
aren't.


It is true that we *say* facts are disputable. I prefer to think this
is an alternative way of saying that there is a dispute about what the
facts are or a dispute about which of a number of possibilities are more
than mere possibilities. In other words, a fact is to be contrasted with
a mere possibility.

Perhaps the sense of what I am picking up here is not obvious? There is
a sense in which a fact is not the sort of thing that can be disputed.
You can dispute an allegation of fact but not a fact itself.

Yes I think that's a perfectly good clarification: one disputes whether
some statement or other is a fact, not the fact itself.

But you don't have to identify a fact with something that "corresponds"
to a true statement. You can just say a fact is a true statement.

There is a pressure to say that a fact is what corresponds to a true
statement. A statement is something that can be argued about but a fact
- under this pressure - is not the sort of thing than can be argued
about (any more than you can argue with a tree).

The almost overwhelming temptation is to say a sentence is true if it
corresponds with something in a certain way. In the truth relation way!
Here is the sentence and here is the fact. When they are both here, we
have truth.

Some very tricky questions arise about this picture. I am happy to use
the word "fact" in conversation but I prefer not to use it in any
analysis about truth. There is nothing much more primitive than the idea
of a statement or belief being true and talk of facts adds no further
understanding in my opinion.

OK, but saying "there is nothing more primitive [...] than whether a
statement is true" is not so different to saying "the world consists of
facts rather than things" (if a fact is just a true statement).

One way of looking at the idea that the world is facts rather than
things is that it's a way of saying truth is more primitive than
existence.

It isn't the whole story, but it is an illuminating angle on the whole
thing. Loosely speaking it's a sort of relativity principle.

[...]
(I know this last item might surprise but it has been argued that
possibilities are, in a sense, actualities. One main push for this is to
give counterfactuals truth conditions. Counterfactuals can be true. But
*what* makes them true - what fact, if you like?)

The idea is that if there isn't something that can make them either true
or false, then they are _meaningless_. Hence the contrivance of
"possible worlds" and so on. All very silly if you ask me.

I suppose an obsession with facts could be what led someone to the point
where they were demanding truth conditions for every meaningful
statement and this is what you are warning against.

But as a way of doing formal logic with "modality" it's OK. The first
thing anyone notices in formal logic is how little -> is really like
"if". If your formal logic can range over possible worlds as well then
you can do better at formalizing "if".
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Some advice from the people who know please.
    ... I understand what you are saying. ... easily way to parse out the truth quickly. ... But the way I see it, I frequently find that the journalists that I am ... All credible evidence fits ...
    (alt.lang.asm)
  • Re: Godels theorem is invalid?
    ... > Then his definition of truth simply does not match the classical one. ... I am not saying that I agree with Tennant's arguments (which are based ... What exactly do you mean by the assertion ... > NOT ONE IOTA OF IMPACT on the TRUTH or the MEANING ...
    (sci.logic)
  • Re: Universality as warrant for relative truth value
    ... say that you set postmodernism aside because it's not a means to your ... There's no truth, only points ... saying this? ... The reason is simple: ...
    (sci.philosophy.meta)
  • Re: Possible bug in Calendar
    ... That is a substantially different statement and I will thank BOTH of you to stop misquoting me and misrepresenting what I am saying. ... That Date and Calendar have problems is not in serious dispute -- most ... There are no gods. ... Show me putative empirical evidence for a god, and I will show you empirical evidence for either noise or some mechanistically-understandable phenomenon. ...
    (comp.lang.java.programmer)