I posted this thread;
All Philosophies Reduced to Realism vs Anti-Realism [Idealism ..]
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=28643
i.e. All Philosophical issues are reduced to Philosophical Realism vs Philosophical Anti-Realism[/b] [Idealism ..]. This is often shorten to the Realism vs Anti-Realism dichotomy.
Thus on the topic of 'what is fact' we end up with the Realist vs the Anti-Realist views on 'what is fact'.[Philosophical] Realism can also be a view about the properties of reality in general, holding that reality exists independent of the mind, as opposed to non-realist views
Realism about a certain kind of thing (like numbers or morality) is the thesis that this kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism
While the self-claimed "realists" had one single view [as above] the anti-realist positions branched into many different sub-views, e.g. various idealism, etc. My anti-realist position is that of Kant's Empirical Realism or Transcendental Idealism.
The issue is when the self-claimed "realists" present 'what is fact' they merely assume their definition and interpretation is the sole true representation of 'what is fact'.
This was what happened with their hijacking of the term 'realism' and insisting all their views are absolutely real but that is not the case, there are more realistic views of reality from the anti-realists.
The self-claimed "realists" view of 'what is fact' [truth, knowledge or reality] is based merely on the common and conventional sense interpreted from the very basic human brain. The idea of the external world as the real thing is so obvious but this is relatively a very "kindergarten" view in the philosophical perspective.
The anti-realists do not reject the realists' view but for various reasons suspect the philosophical realists' view of reality is too commonsensical, narrow and shallow, thus presented their own anti-realists more advanced philosophical view of what is reality and following that, "what is fact."
Note the similar advancing views in Physics from Newtonian [purely realism] to Einsteinian [mixed realism + anti-realism] to QM [pure anti-realism].
Peter Holmes, et. al. dogmatic realist version of 'what is fact' is similar to that of the Newtonian view of reality, i.e. the external world is absolutely independent of the human conditions.
The anti-realists' view of 'what is fact' since >2500 years ago to the present has moved forward tru' the Einsteinian to the QM's anti-realist view of reality.
The self-claimed "realists" view of 'what is realist-fact' [truth, knowledge or reality] which is groundless is too "kindergartenish" to counter the anti-realist [mine] view that there are objective moral facts [anti-realist version].
To Peter Holmes, et. al.
I am still waiting for your justifications on how you ground your 'what is fact' i.e. the so-called realists' fact.
My point;
Whenever the issue of 'fact' is raised we must be mindful there are two versions of 'what is fact', i.e. the so-called realists' fact vs the anti-realist's fact.
The anti-realists' [mine ~Kantian] is more realistic than the so-called realists' fact [which is too commonsensical, narrow, shallow thus relatively "kindergartenish".]