Just picturing a youthful Amanda Jackson5 singing about freedom—isn't that a lovely thought? 😁 ruggedraven36 at 0:45 Sandra Murphy33 at 0:50 Joseph Bailey41 at 1:20 Walnut at 0:52 Madonna at 2:21 Aljoša at 2:37 And myself at 2:57
Sandra Murphy33 looks just like Cher. Great figure—even after all these years. My moderator is my absolute Tina Turner. You can practically see the energy radiating off her when she’s fired up.
I keep wondering about the older folks—how different would being a philosopher be? Just enough flair, maybe—with those little quotation marks included.
Terry Martinez10 said:Right now, my phone says it’s 11:28 AM, which is an objective fact, yet my wall clock is insisting it’s 11:29 AM, which is also an objective fact. Since I happen to trust my phone more than a piece of plastic hanging on my wall, my personal truth remains that it is 11:28.
In other words—the fact is that we measure time tick by tick, while the truth is that time itself is an a priori category.
It looks like we’re pulling quotes from the web that all seem to circle back to that classic scholastic idea—you know, the one where truth is just the mind matching up perfectly with reality? That definition feels a bit thin to me—mostly because our minds often hold more "reality" than what's actually out there. Isn't that exactly why the idealists were so skeptical of raw facts? As for the whole debate over facts, Kant actually moved that discussion into the realm of practical reason rather than pure reason—which makes perfect sense if you think about it.
Amanda Jackson5 said:I think knowledge works just as well whether you're looking at the big picture or getting down into the weeds; it can be both abstract and concrete at the same time.
Once knowledge is applied, we start calling it a skill, don't we? But does "concrete" knowledge actually exist?
By the way, abstraction isn't always synonymous with truth. 😉 Just because something can be abstracted doesn't mean it possesses a priori truth or that you can reduce reality down to a mere "fact." The same logic applies to things that are measurable—tangible, audible, visible, whatever. Being measurable doesn't mean those observations capture the full truth of a thing.
Conflating a fact with the truth is a fundamental failure to grasp the distinction between the universal and the particular, the synchronous and the diachronic, the finite and the infinite.
When you abstract, you're seeking knowledge. Simply put, it means grasping what truly matters while stripping away the noise. Not that anyone can stop people from rambling away under the guise of "abstracting," though!
Amanda Jackson5 said:Everything makes perfect sense when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. It seems like neither Wikipedia nor the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy really grasp the subject matter either.
If Stanford is seriously arguing that 2+2=4 is a "fact" based on the literal definition of *factum*—meaning an act, since an act is something that manifests—then I guess I should just agree and say I'd rather watch numbers frolic through a meadow... though I'm curious to see how they handle romance.
It’s impossible to ever truly pin down an absolute truth—once you think you've grasped it, doesn't it just slip away? It leads to one rather curious conclusion: we're mostly just surrounded by falsehoods masquerading as facts.
I’ve given you my answer. The reality is that a fact is tied strictly to appearance—so it can't really be labeled true or false on its own. A "factum" is essentially what pertains to appearance and action. Even in American English, we often use "fact" and "truth" interchangeably, though they aren't quite the same—don't you think? In the States, this distinction is even more pronounced. This is where the concept of *doxa* becomes so vital; it's really the only way to truly grapple with the realm of appearances.
1+1=2 isn't just a fact—it’s more of a fundamental truth that physical conclusions must align with if they want to hold any water. Even the ancient Greeks made a distinction between mere appearance and actual truth. We possess much more direct, axiomatic knowledge than we realize. Take one example: God exists, or perhaps that God is love. With these kinds of immediate truths, you can't really find proof of the opposite. That’s where things get tricky—especially when people start swapping facts for truth, as I mentioned earlier. In a strictly critical, assumption-free philosophy, what one person considers an obvious, self-evident truth is viewed by someone else as something that still requires rigorous proof.
Amanda Jackson5 said:But how do we account for abstract truths? Think about logic or mathematical constants. Those facts certainly relate to the observable world, but they aren't strictly limited to it.
I already touched on my thoughts regarding this back in post #306.
In post 306, you basically treated a perceived fact as absolute truth—which leaves the core issue untouched. It’s a bit silly (though I know plenty of people fall into that trap)—but that's where the "fact" enters the fray. Feel free to correct me if I'm off base, but an "abstract fact" is a bit of a misnomer. An abstraction is inherently true by its very nature; if it isn't, then can we even call it an abstraction?
The distinction between truth and fact is actually reflected right in our language—isn't it interesting? We constantly find ourselves saying things like "The truth is x," while simultaneously adding, "But the fact is y..."
Facts are tied to appearances—things can merely seem a certain way or act as if they are, which means there’s simply no proof that it isn't perverse. Truth itself, however, can never be perverse.
The issue arises in the scenario described above. Only this time, the premise shifts:
The truth is that metaphysics has moved forward, while the fact remains that Kant effectively shut it down. The truth is that people still engage with Hegel, whereas the fact is that the era of pure reason has collapsed.