Meaning of the word facts

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A fact is a datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance, which, if accepted as true and proven true, allows a logical conclusion to be reached on a true–false evaluation. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by experiments or other means.

For example, «This sentence contains words.» accurately describes a linguistic fact, and «The sun is a star» accurately describes an astronomical fact. Further, «Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States» and «Abraham Lincoln was assassinated» both accurately describe historical facts. Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.

Facts are different from theories, values, and objects.^[1]

Etymology and usage

The word fact derives from the Latin factum. It was first used in English with the same meaning: «a thing done or performed» – a meaning now obsolete.^[2] The common usage of «something that has really occurred or is the case» dates from the mid-16th century.^[2]

Barbara J. Shapiro wrote in her book A Culture of Fact how the concept of a fact evolved, starting within the English legal tradition of the 16th century.^[3]

In 1870, Charles Sanders Peirce described in his book «The Fixation of Belief» four methods which people use to decide what they should believe: tenacity, method of authority, a priori and scientific method.^[4]

The term fact also indicates a matter under discussion deemed to be true or correct, such as to emphasize a point or prove a disputed issue; (e.g., «… the fact of the matter is …»).^[5][6]

Alternatively, fact may also indicate an allegation or stipulation of something that may or may not be a true fact,^[7] (e.g., «the author’s facts are not trustworthy»). This alternate usage, although contested by some, has a long history in standard English according to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.^[8] The Oxford English Dictionary dates this use to 1729.^{[citation needed]}

Fact may also indicate findings derived through a process of evaluation, including review of testimony, direct observation, or otherwise; as distinguishable from matters of inference or speculation.^[9] This use is reflected in the terms «fact-find» and «fact-finder» (e.g., «set up a fact-finding commission»).^[10]

Facts may be checked by reason, experiment, personal experience, or may be argued from authority. Roger Bacon wrote «If in other sciences we should arrive at certainty without doubt and truth without error, it behooves us to place the foundations of knowledge in mathematics.»^[11]

In philosophy

In philosophy, the concept fact is considered in the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge, called epistemology and ontology, which studies concepts such as existence, being, becoming, and reality. Questions of objectivity and truth are closely associated with questions of fact. A fact can be defined as something that is the case, in other words, a state of affairs.^[12][13]

Facts may be understood as information, which makes a true sentence true: «A fact is, traditionally, the worldly correlate of a true proposition, a state of affairs whose obtaining makes that proposition true.»^[14] Facts may also be understood as those things to which a true sentence refers. The statement «Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system» is about the fact that Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system.^[15]

Correspondence and the slingshot argument

Pascal Engel’s version of the correspondence theory of truth explains that what makes a sentence true is that it corresponds to a fact.^[16] This theory presupposes the existence of an objective world.

The Slingshot argument claims to show that all true statements stand for the same thing, the truth value true. If this argument holds, and facts are taken to be what true statements stand for, then one arrives at the counter-intuitive conclusion that there is only one fact: the truth.^[17]

Compound facts

Any non-trivial true statement about reality is necessarily an abstraction composed of a complex of objects and properties or relations.»Facts possess internal structure, being complexes of objects and properties or relations» ^[14] For example, the fact described by the true statement «Paris is the capital city of France» implies that there is such a place as Paris, there is such a place as France, there are such things as capital cities, as well as that France has a government, that the government of France has the power to define its capital city, and that the French government has chosen Paris to be the capital, that there is such a thing as a place or a government, and so on. The verifiable accuracy of all of these assertions, if facts themselves, may coincide to create the fact, that Paris is the capital of France.

Difficulties arise, however, in attempting to identify the constituent parts of negative, modal, disjunctive, or moral facts.^[18]

Fact–value distinction

Moral philosophers since David Hume have debated whether values are objective, and thus factual. In A Treatise of Human Nature Hume pointed out there is no obvious way for a series of statements about what ought to be the case to be derived from a series of statements of what is the case. This is called the is–ought distinction. Those who insist there is a logical gulf between facts and values, such that it is fallacious to attempt to derive values (e.g., «it is good to give food to hungry people») from facts (e.g., «people will die if they can’t eat»), include G. E. Moore, who called attempting to do so the naturalistic fallacy.

Factual–counterfactual distinction

Factuality—what has occurred—can also be contrasted with counterfactuality: what might have occurred, but did not. A counterfactual conditional or subjunctive conditional is a conditional (or «if–then») statement indicating what would be the case if events had been other than they were. For example, «If Alexander had lived, his empire would have been greater than Rome.» This contrasts with an indicative conditional, which indicates what is (in fact) the case if its antecedent is (in fact) true—for example, «If you drink this, it will make you well.» Such sentences are important to modal logic, especially since the development of possible world semantics.^{[citation needed]}

In mathematics

In mathematics, a fact is a statement (called a theorem) that can be proven by logical argument from certain axioms and definitions.^{[citation needed]}

In science

The definition of a scientific fact is different from the definition of fact, as it implies knowledge. A scientific fact is the result of a repeatable careful observation or measurement by experimentation or other means, also called empirical evidence. These are central to building scientific theories. Various forms of observation and measurement lead to fundamental questions about the scientific method, and the scope and validity of scientific reasoning.

In the most basic sense, a scientific fact is an objective and verifiable observation, in contrast with a hypothesis or theory, which is intended to explain or interpret facts.^[19]

Various scholars have offered significant refinements to this basic formulation. Philosophers and scientists are careful to distinguish between: 1) states of affairs in the external world and 2) assertions of fact that may be considered relevant in scientific analysis. The term is used in both senses in the philosophy of science.^[20]

Scholars and clinical researchers in both the social and natural sciences have written about numerous questions and theories that arise in the attempt to clarify the fundamental nature of scientific fact.^[19] Pertinent issues raised by this inquiry include:

• the process by which «established fact» becomes recognized and accepted as such;^{[20]: 182 fn. 1}
• whether and to what extent «fact» and «theoretic explanation» can be considered truly independent and separable from one another;^{[20]: 185 [19]: 138}
• to what extent «facts» are influenced by the mere act of observation;^[19]: 138 and
• to what extent factual conclusions are influenced by history and consensus, rather than a strictly systematic methodology.^[19]: 7

Consistent with the idea of confirmation holism, some scholars assert «fact» to be necessarily «theory-laden» to some degree. Thomas Kuhn points out that knowing what facts to measure, and how to measure them, requires the use of other theories. For example, the age of fossils is based on radiometric dating, which is justified by reasoning that radioactive decay follows a Poisson process rather than a Bernoulli process. Similarly, Percy Williams Bridgman is credited with the methodological position known as operationalism, which asserts that all observations are not only influenced, but necessarily defined, by the means and assumptions used to measure them.^{[citation needed]}

The scientific method

Apart from the fundamental inquiry into the nature of scientific fact, there remain the practical and social considerations of how fact is investigated, established, and substantiated through the proper application of the scientific method.^{[20]: 181 ff} Scientific facts are generally believed independent of the observer: no matter who performs a scientific experiment, all observers agree on the outcome.^[21]
In addition to these considerations, there are the social and institutional measures, such as peer review and accreditation, that are intended to promote factual accuracy among other interests in scientific study.^[20]

In history

A common rhetorical cliché states, «History is written by the winners.» This phrase suggests but does not examine the use of facts in the writing of history.^{[citation needed]}

E. H. Carr in his 1961 volume What is History? argues that the inherent biases from the gathering of facts makes the objective truth of any historical perspective idealistic and impossible. Facts are, «like fish in the Ocean,» of which we may only happen to catch a few, only an indication of what is below the surface. Even a dragnet cannot tell us for certain what it would be like to live below the Ocean’s surface. Even if we do not discard any facts (or fish) presented, we will always miss the majority; the site of our fishing, the methods undertaken, the weather and even luck play a vital role in what we will catch. Additionally, the composition of history is inevitably made up by the compilation of many different biases of fact finding – all compounded over time. He concludes that for a historian to attempt a more objective method, one must accept that history can only aspire to a conversation of the present with the past – and that one’s methods of fact gathering should be openly examined. The set of highlighted historical facts, and their interpretations, therefore changes over time, and reflect present consensuses.^{[citation needed]}

In law

This section of the article emphasizes common law jurisprudence as primarily represented in Anglo-American–based legal tradition. Nevertheless, the principles described herein have analogous treatment in other legal systems such as civil law systems as well.

In most common law jurisdictions, the general concept and analysis of fact reflects fundamental principles of jurisprudence, and is supported by several well-established standards.^[22][23] Matters of fact have various formal definitions under common law jurisdictions.

These include:

• an element required in legal pleadings to demonstrate a cause of action;^[24][25]

• the determinations of the finder of fact after evaluating admissible evidence produced in a trial or hearing;^[26]
• a potential ground of reversible error forwarded on appeal in an appellate court;^[27] and
• any of various matters subject to investigation by official authority to establish whether a crime has been perpetrated, and to establish culpability.^[28]

Legal pleadings

A party (e.g., plaintiff) to a civil suit generally must clearly state the relevant allegations of fact that form the basis of a claim. The requisite level of precision and particularity of these allegations varies, depending on the rules of civil procedure and jurisdiction. Parties who face uncertainties regarding facts and circumstances attendant to their side in a dispute may sometimes invoke alternative pleading.^[29] In this situation, a party may plead separate sets of facts that when considered together may be contradictory or mutually exclusive. This seemingly logically-inconsistent presentation of facts may be necessary as a safeguard against contingencies such as res judicata that would otherwise preclude presenting a claim or defense that depends on a particular interpretation of the underlying facts and ruling of the court.^[30]

See also

• Brute fact
• Common misconceptions
• Consensus reality
• Counterfactual history
• De facto
• Factoid
• Fiction
• Lie

References

External links

• «Facts» entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The facts stated may be true, but there are _other facts_ which are not stated equally true, and which the scope and purpose of such reports did not render it necessary to collect. ❋ Various (N/A)

— _Notice the facts which this paragraph contains, and the relation to each other of the clauses and the sentences expressing these facts_: — ❋ Brainerd Kellogg (N/A)

‘One cannot disbelieve facts, Darya Alexandrovna, ’ said he, with an emphasis on the word ‘facts. ❋ Unknown (1917)

Thus, as _memory is the approximate repetition of once-experienced mental states or facts, together with the recognition of their belonging to our past, so it is accomplished by an approximate repetition of the once-performed neural process in the cortex which originally accompanied these states or facts_. ❋ George Herbert Betts (1901)

Bacon’s history is open to the world, from his boyhood to his death in old age — a history consisting of known facts, displayed in minute and multitudinous detail; _facts_, not guesses and conjectures and might-have-beens. ❋ Mark Twain (1872)

In her case there was a reversal of the usual facts of nature — (_I say facts_, not _laws_): the dreams of most people are more or less insane; those of Lady Alice were sound; thus, with her, restoring the balance of sane life. ❋ George MacDonald (1864)

It is a mere empty dream, unworthy of a serious consideration by any mind imbued with the first principle of inductive science — namely, that all science is the orderly knowledge of facts; and whose first rule is, _first ascertain your facts_. ❋ Robert Patterson (1857)

The _treatment_ of the facts must, in any case, have been due to Keats’s genius, so as to be the same whether he had studied Greek or not: the _facts_, apart from the treatment, must in any case have been had from a book. ❋ Thomas De Quincey (1822)

The distinction between the teaching of the facts of a science as instruction, and the teaching it systematically as knowledge, has already been placed before you in a previous lecture: and it appears to me, that, as with other sciences, the _common facts_ of Biology — the uses of parts of the body — the names and habits of the living creatures which surround us — may be taught with advantage to the youngest child. ❋ Thomas Henry Huxley (1860)

The distinction between the teaching of the facts of a science as instruction, and the teaching it systematically as knowledge, has already been placed before you in a previous lecture: and it appears to me that, as with other sciences, the _common facts_ of Biology — the uses of parts of the body — the names and habits of the living creatures which surround us — may be taught with advantage to the youngest child. ❋ Thomas Henry Huxley (1860)

_secondly_, to reduce these facts under general laws; and, _thirdly_, to investigate the «causes» by which both _facts_ and _laws_ may be accounted for. ❋ James Buchanan (1837)

I can understand if the cchool saw the picture and asked her about it, but not allowing her to return to work in the absence of and other facts is a gross over reaction. ❋ Unknown (2009)

But the fact that people like Scott and Matt are so fanatic as to be ignorant of the facts is a reason to not take them seriously, not to adopt their views. ❋ Unknown (2010)

To demoralize them in this way on national news without reporting all the facts is a disgrace. ❋ Unknown (2009)

The only entity that won’t face the facts is the Department of the Treasury, which runs the program and has been desperate to hide the program’s poor performance. ❋ Rep. Darrell Issa (2010)

You do have valid concerns but the extent to which you ignore the facts is astounding. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Sorting out the facts is an on-going project for me. ❋ Kate Fleurange (2007)

Translation: “Juicing up the facts is acceptable to a climate scientist like myself.” ❋ Unknown (2006)

«Yo [deadass nigga] if anyone [scuffs] my timbs they finna get stomped on bruh.»
«Yo that’s facts my guy.»
«[FACTS B] THAT’S ALL I SPEAK!» ❋ Fresh Timbs (2017)

Guy 1 : damn [bruh] this is some [good weed]
[Guy 2] : yo facts facts ❋ Kushndgatorade (2014)

facts ❋ Whatever5551 (2011)

“[Shawn Mendes] is really [hot]”
“[FACTS]” ❋ Anamendes (2018)

Guy 1 : damn [bruh] this is some [good weed]
[Guy 2] : yo facts facts ❋ Kushndgatorade (2014)

Milo: i love you more!!
Brandon: [nooooooo]
Milo: [yessssssss]
Brandon: you [can’t prove it]!
Milo: you don’t have to prove something if it’s already facts. ❋ Owo.milo (2019)

[Ola] Rosling [coined the term] [Factfulness] in order to describe the satisfaction of stating your opinion based on evidence instead of guessing. ❋ Maze71 (2015)

«[Joe] that was [really good] facting!». ❋ PhilipSkovgaard (2010)

The [newspaper] was known to use [facting] tactics in its [articles].
Many memes are guilty of facting. ❋ WorthW8 (2017)

Dave: Hey [Kyle]
Kyle: Hey Dave
Dave: Did you hear that Luke had finally come out?
Kyle: No way! He’s [not even gay].
Dave: FACT!
Kyle: [Fair enough]. ❋ Cptchopper79 (2010)

Last Updated:
3 Apr 2023
— Updated example sentences

People often use the words which value do not fully understand. Just used, don’t think or act according to the template. Among such words are so common that no one even tries to understand their meaning. For example, what is the “fact”? «Well, what? — you will ask. — It’s all they know. That’s what happened, or proven, and so forth.» Is it simple? Let’s deal.

History and definition

The Word came to us from the Latin language. Widely used it began in the thirties of the last century. The original meaning was in the sense of the same definition of truth. For example, the expression ‘facts of life” meant
Really happened, installed, you might be documented. That is something that is impossible to argue. You can only talk about interpretation, but the event itself is considered to be true. Next is the development of the concept. It was used in science. And the question of what is the fact, it was multidimensional. The term has meant the basis of the evidence. For example, what is a social fact? This is empirical knowledge, which was the basis for the construction of various scientific theories. Synonymous with the word “fact” has now become a «postulate». The fact that you cannot refute. In principle, this is the truth.

What is “fact” in everyday use

People, of course, picked up a beautiful, short and capacious word. Now no one doubts that fact. This is, first, a statement: “Yes, it is!” Still it can be used as an underscore beyond a reasonable doubt
Of truth, so to speak, the emotional inflation of what is said. For example: «the Facts-are stubborn things». Such vivid expressions quite a lot. Know them all.

Evidence base

In law, journalism and many other professional fields, this concept is also often used. Fact in them is an event that took place in reality. For example, an action that led to certain results. Either the act of a person who has an interest. This event explores, investigates, describes. Only after indisputable evidence that it took place, recognizes its reality and truth. The procedure is called the “fact-finding”. Often, it is a rather cumbersome and complex process that involves many specialists. For example, what is a legal fact? In the investigation of a wrongful act is done split crimes in some parts. Each of them is studied from different angles, only then recognized the fact. Next is its legal assessment and analysis of the degree of involvement of the person.

Informative load concepts

The Most interesting is the interpretation of various facts that is entertaining or educational in nature. It’s clear that it’s the truth, evidence is not required. The term in this interpretation is perceived by society. Took advantage of the inquiring minds who decided to present the world with amazing facts. This refers to the information, the existence and reality of which is proved. Interesting it is that it’s so contrary to accepted ideas, that in itself is a unique phenomenon, highly entertaining. We can say that these amazing facts, if you read carefully, provide the basis for change of a person’s world. In any case, forced to broaden your horizons. Let’s look at examples of these facts in more detail.

Understanding

It is Sometimes useful to find information that is not widespread. For those who prefer to complain about your body, ill health and powerlessness, it will be extremely interesting to imagine that so much blood vessels that derived from the tape is longer than the equator is two to three times. Men accusing women of coldness or laziness, we must remember that her heart is beating faster. Maybe that’s why she lives longer. And those who arrogantly believe people the crown of creation, must first explain why the Neanderthal brain volume is larger than that of Homo sapiens? Fans of profanity, it might be useful to ponder that in Russia these terrible terms called “absurd verbs”. Or consider the facts about money that can help the world emerge from the current economic collapse. Did you hear that such “o”? It turns out that this ancient Greek coin, which was not only a measure of value. It could be interpreted as a modern weight. That is, the Obol part — time- a measure of weight! This is such an amazing but useful fact. Such useful and interesting facts a lot. It is very good that most of them are now available thanks to the openness of informative space.

Entertainment

Collecting various facts, people, of course, couldn’t ignore the absurdity, designed to cheer and to lighten the mood. For example,recently everyone was fascinated by the philosophy of Feng Shui. Did you know that this is not just a theory, but
The art of… decoration of graves? Or what would you use this fact: human cow attacks much more often than a shark? Probably that people were not afraid to go to the resort. However, such data are collected, analyzed, and formed into the facts, sometimes ridiculous or useless. But it’s the truth, then, can be useful. For example, there is a proven fact use cockroach! He says that crushed insect reduces pain. Who guessed him to put first? These examples show that the truth of a fact, not always serious. Rather, this concept is natsioalnymi and nadomestnega, such that exists objectively. It’s just there, like a star or planet. But the interpretation of fact, its use depends on the specific person who ran into him. Someone will laugh at a squashed cockroach, and another – remember and apply this knowledge.

Having Considered what is fact, you can sum up. It is a synonym of truth or objective of the event (phenomenon), which a priori is not questioned. Eminently reliable, proven, and requires no check. But this does not mean that all the facts (all that the so-called people) should believe. As the word itself does not validate the interpretation that in him lay people. You need to carefully consider the content of the information, not to be mistaken with the conclusions.