Peter's 'Fact' is a Contradiction

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FlashDangerpants
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Re: Peter's 'Fact' is a Contradiction

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Peter Holmes wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 11:06 am Sigh.

I've explained my use of the word fact, which is in line with all of the dictionary definitions I've come across.
And also with common sense. After all, if we just decided that fact was defined by consensus alone, then we would have a very weird time dealing with the once universally held myth that the Sun went round the Earth, and we would have to ask questions like "when did the Sun stop orbiting the Earth?"

There is no sane way to reason that consensus defines truth, that would make it impossible to comprehend the phrase "you can fool all the people some of the time".

So many pages have been typed about what facts are on this forum, with very little apparent consideration given to the possibility that there might be more than one type of thing that we would call a fact, and more than one way to verify facts, and that if we do distinguish between types of fact, one obvious way to draw that distinction would be to consider what methods of verification apply to which sort of facts.

And we do have more than one type of fact, and I would say that how we go about verifying them is part of how we make the distinction. And further, I would suggest that to talk of facts which must be verified "empirically and philosophically" is to blur that distinction in attempt to hide something. Some facts are verified one way, a completely different sort of fact gets verified the other way.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Peter's 'Fact' is a Contradiction

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

Peter Holmes wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 11:06 am Sigh.

I've explained my use of the word fact, which is in line with all of the dictionary definitions I've come across.

I've explained that my thinking is in line with the later Wittgenstein, who laboriously unmade the mistake he made in the Tractatus, where he wrote 'The world is the totality of facts, not of things'. 'Die welt ist die Gesamheit der Tatsachen, nicht der Dinge.' And German friends have explained to me that the confusing English dual-use of the word fact also exists in German.

I've explained where VA's delusion - that features of reality are, somehow, created by us when we describe them - comes from. How it's a result of an ancient mistake in metaphysics: taking what we say about things for the way things are.

And on and on.

I'll just point something out here. A contradiction is a 'speaking-against itself' - which is a linguistic matter. And, outside language, reality and its features are not linguistic. So if, as all dictionaries roughly say, we use the word fact to mean 'a feature of reality that is or was the case', then such a fact can't be a contradiction. For example, a dog can't be a 'speaking against itself'.

So VA's OP title is incoherent. Among other things.

The deep philosophical mess evident in the extracts VA has reproduced, here and elsewhere, is evidence, to my mind, of the pervasive and potent nature of the myth of propositions - the delusion that a feature of reality is, somehow, identical to a factual assertion (a so-called proposition), so that knowing a feature of reality is possible only if a true factual assertion asserts it. This ridiculous idea is manifest in the JTB theory of knowledge truth condition - S knows that p iff p is true - correspondence theories of truth, truth-maker and truth-bearer theories, and so on.
You are "straw-maning" again.
I NEVER agreed with the above,

PH: "taking what we say about things for the way things are"

If you don't agree with the Corresponding Theory of Truth and its corresponding fact, then it would be preferable to avoid using the term 'fact' [corresponding] which is very confusing as this definition is still prevalent in Philosophical Dictionaries.

Btw, in addition to 'fact', you are using terms like 'state of affairs' 'that which is the case', matter of fact, feature of reality, as synonymous with 'fact' thus muddying the waters.

I suggest we stick to the term 'thing' i.e. the real thing.
In this case, I would claim there are real moral thing which are not independent of the human conditions.
The term 'thing' can be used interchangeably with 'object' where relevant.

Whatever is the real thing, it is not the description of the thing.

Whatever is the real thing and the reality the thing is not independent of the mind but rather it is entangled with the human conditions.
Humans are the Co-Creator of Reality They are In
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32476

In addition, re consensus,
the consensus is on the conclusion of the verification and justification processes.
Such consensus do not create the real thing that emerged in spontaneity with the human conditions, thus not mind independent.

The consensus upon a credible FSK give us the high confidence level that our judgment of what is knowledge of that thing is true.
Skepdick
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Re: Peter's 'Fact' is a Contradiction

Post by Skepdick »

If this is a thing
Image

and this is a thing

Image


Then that's equivocation.
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