• _db
    3.6k
    Perhaps a strange question initially, but what are facts and how do they exist?

    Say the cloud above me is a white cumulonimbus. When I say "there exists a white cumulonimbus cloud several thousand meters above me" I seem to be making a true claim.

    But actually, this statement is very vague. What does exist mean? Do the words "cumulonimbus" and "cloud" and "white" refer to, or "carve" reality, correctly (what if the cloud was actually gray?)? What is the status of the relational distance between me and the cloud (we measure it in meters, but is there an additional "objective length"?)? And "above me" actually specifically means above a ~6' tall person (me). And what about all the extra information left out (like the mass, temperature, density, etc of the cloud, etc)?

    So there is a lot of implicit vagueness in this statement. Everyone here "knows" what I mean when I say it, though. Similar statements also portray the same thing:

    "There exists a cloud above me."
    "There is a cloud up there."
    "A cloud exists above darthbarracuda."
    etc.

    There seems to be an objective fact that is exemplified by this statement or any statements of similar structure. For every truth-apt proposition and its reference, there initially seems to be an additional third entity, a fact (of the matter), that determines whether or not the proposition is actually true. It is what we refer to when we say "It is true that...(proposition)."

    But what is this thing, this fact? Is it true that it actually exists (and is that a fact? >:O )? Is it needed for reality to "work"? If it exists, then how does it exist? What responsibilities does it have (for language-users, causation, intelligibility, etc)?
  • Metaphysician Undercover
    12.3k
    Say the cloud above me is a white cumulonimbus. When I say "there exists a white cumulonimbus cloud several thousand meters above me" I seem to be making a true claim.darthbarracuda

    Actually, if there was a cumulonimbus cloud directly above you, it would be dark grey, and not white, because they're very thick, dense, and block out the sun. To someone standing many miles away, the cloud would appear to be white.

    There seems to be an objective fact that is exemplified by this statement or any statements of similar structure.darthbarracuda

    What would be the objective fact then, that the cloud is grey, or that the cloud is white? Perhaps the fact is that the cloud appears to be grey to you, and appears to be white to someone else. But what does this mean?
  • Rich
    3.2k
    What are called facts are just approximate opinions shared by many people, always subject to change. You may consider that you are alive to be a fact, but even that is subject to change. Is like knowing you are awake, just before you go to sleep. Everything is always changing and any fact is just a memory waiting to be uttered but subject to change between the memory and the uttering.
  • River
    24
    "There are no facts, only interpretations"
    -Nietzsche
  • BC
    13.1k
    POV: If I flew through the cloud that you were standing under, from the planes window it would not appear to be a thick white or gray could, but somewhat thick fog. From one angle it might look white to you, from another gray, and if the sun were setting behind you and the cloud, perhaps orange.

    The reports and POVs can be correlated, and you, me, and other observers can come to an agreement that there was a cumulonimbus cloud above you.

    A "fact" is the truth, arrived at with care.

    This meaning (of 'fact') developed from Latin factum, neuter past participle of facere ‘do.’ The original sense was ‘an act or feat,’ later ‘bad deed, a crime,’ surviving in the phrase before (or after) the fact. In the late 1500s it took on its present meaning of something truthful.
  • BC
    13.1k
    "There are no facts, only interpretations"River

    Is that a fact?
  • _db
    3.6k
    Is that a fact?Bitter Crank

    Was exactly my thought, BC. Any all-encompassing metaphysical position has to be able to account for itself.
  • _db
    3.6k
    What are called facts are just approximate opinions shared by many people, always subject to change. You may consider that you are alive to be a fact, but even that is subject to change. Is like knowing you are awake, just before you go to sleep. Everything is always changing and any fact is just a memory waiting to be uttered but subject to change between the memory and the uttering.Rich

    Is this just an approximate opinion? An approximate opinion that everything is just an approximate opinion?
  • Rich
    3.2k
    We have opinions that are a rough approximation of what we are observing. That is the best we can do given that all is past before we utter and everything is in constant motion.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    Facts: states of affairs. They exist by virtue of there being existents of any sort, as well as those existents' dynamic relations with each other, etc.
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