That was a good response.Originally posted by zk4586
This topic has caught my eye. I voted that there is a distinction between statements of fact and statements of value (the 'is' - 'ought' distinction), whereby factual premises, statements about how things really are must be separated from assertions entailing how things ought to be (obviously you can see that Hume has influenced me). But, please, I'm certainly curious about why you feel there is no distinction.
That was a good response.
But what a 'thing' is, seems dependent upon what a thing can be.
Being and 'value' seem intrinsic, to me.
fact / value
Distinction between assertions about how things really are (fact) and how things ought to be (value). Drawn by Hume, but also defended by Stevenson, Hare, and other ethical noncognitivists, the distinction is usually taken to entail that claims about moral obligation can never be validly inferred from the truth of factual premises alone. It follows that people who agree completely on the simple description of a state of affairs may nevertheless differ with respect to the appropriate action to take in response to it.
...the relationship between fact and value (along with a suspicion of any supposed dichotomy between them) is a theme that can be found in many pragmatists. Indeed, the view most commonly associated with pragmatism, James’s notorious claim that truth was "the expedient in our way of thinking", and that "absolute truth" was that which "no further experience will ever alter," is, in an important sense, just a symptom of his underlying pragmatism about value, and one could endorse such a view of truth for other reasons without thereby being a pragmatist
James takes the existence of objective values to require our eventual actual agreement about what to value. This line of thought shows up the most explicitly in James’s "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life", where ethical objectivity is understood as requiring an actual settlement about what competing preferences should be satisfied. A merely potential settlement does not seem to be enough for James, so if our valuing practices never reaches a consensus amount initially competing preferences, then they can never be more than just that, competing preferences with no ‘objective’ fact about which one should have been satisfied.
Furthermore James suggests that ethical objectivity requires not only that there will eventually be a type of convergence among our needs and moral views, but also that such a convergence will endure. The objectivity of ethical values in the world requires the real endurance of a valuing community, and if all valuers disappear, the existence of objective value will have turned out to be illusionary.
Originally posted by RageSk8
I would argue that there isn't a difference between a statement about fact and a statement about value. Before I do, however, I would like to see the respones to the above pole.
In my opinion, I think values are factual to the person who believes in them. Facts are true, until proven wrong?(is there a special name for things like that...hypothesis?) This reminds me..."Politics is for the moment, an equation is for eternity". The equation is a fact.
Rage, you're trying to discern whether there is a difference between the way things really are, and the way they should be? First off, is there really an established "should be"? Secondly, it is obvious that not everyone's opinion, of how things ought to be, is fulfilled in how things really are.
The equation is a fact only insomuch as it accurately fits or portrays a collection of data. Can we assume that it will fit all future data? If it doesn't than it breaks down, it ceases to be of value. Can we call such things facts?
Facts are true until proven wrong. That is to say, they are...temporary. Ether was once a fact, but now it has become factitous.
Facts only portray the given data, and until we find more data, we could edit this fact.
Hmm... I disagree. Facts are that which have been proven objectively to be correct. Hence, in science, there is no such thing as a fact.Originally posted by MajinVegeta
Facts are true until proven wrong. That is to say, they are...temporary. Ether was once a fact, but now it has become factitous.
Facts only portray the given data, and until we find more data, we could edit this fact.
this is an excellent thread; more intellectual than I had expected. Good job, Rage!
Hmm... I disagree. Facts are that which have been proven objectively to be correct. Hence, in science, there is no such thing as a fact.
Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Lets try it this way, a one dollar bill is, in fact, a piece of paper, with some fancy printing upon it's faces.
It's value, is something that is mutable, and changing, inasmuch as it's value is only related to it's factual existence, by personalized/idiosyncratic Perception(s).
The fact of it's existence is not changed by perceptions, only by actions, (burn it) whereas it's value is changable by perception.
A Stated Fact is meant to represent a self evident truth, a stated value is a self perceived 'truth'.
The differentiation of the inner opinion that is value, and the outer observation (drawn from within) that is, if described accurately, fact.
Nothing can. The concept of "fact" is an ideal, a goal. Science IMHO gets us closest, but still not quite there.FZ, if you don't think science can reveal facts (by your definition of a fact as something which has been proven objectively to be correct), then what can?
Originally posted by MajinVegeta
Facts are true until proven wrong. That is to say, they are...temporary. Ether was once a fact, but now it has become factitous.
Facts only portray the given data, and until we find more data, we could edit this fact.
this is an excellent thread; more intellectual than I had expected. Good job, Rage!
Originally posted by FZ+
Nothing can. The concept of "fact" is an ideal, a goal. Science IMHO gets us closest, but still not quite there.
On the other hand, an objectively verifiable observation is as close as possible to a fact. But even this is clouded by the necessary uncertainties that must exist.
Well... stranger things have happened. I suggest that facts exist only in the mind as a concept. In reality they are an unattainable goal - like "freedom" or "free love" or "world peace" etc.I don't like this. If we have invented the word fact as a designation for something that objectively exists with certain designative qualities, insomuch as objectivity depends on uniform or consistent agreement of those qualities, then it seems very strange indeed to believe that we have stretched the word to the point where it no longer applies to anything.
Because belief itself does not define existence. A million people can see the same thing and say the same thing, but that doesn't mean that it is true. It is still possible, albeit slightly that both of us were simultaneously struck with colour blindness, and when 5 more people walk in, they will all say that the ball is in fact blue. and when another 10 more people come in, it is red and so on. At no point have we justified absolutely that the statement we made is a fact. Rather, we believe it to be the closest to the fact, or as probable to be true as our evidence allows. But the uncertainty is still there. We are still not perfect. We can in this situation say that at present the idea the ball is orange, is round, is in the far left corner of the room is more of a fact than a statement that the ball is cubular, is green, is in the right hand corner of the room. But we cannot say it is a fact for certain.To put this into a simple thought experiment: Let's say you and I go into a small, square room together -- a room in which I have placed an orange basketball in the far left corner of (relative to our position, let us not overcomplicate things too much). If we both agree that that basketball has the quality of being in the far left corner of the room, or the quality of being spherical, or the quality of being orange, so on and so forth, then why can't our concurring subjective views of the qualities of that basketball establish (at least for us) that the ball has the objective qualities (factual qualities) of being spherical, or of being orange, et cetera, thereby justifying that the sentence "that basketball in the far left corner of the room is orange" is a factual sentence -- a sentence that reveals facts: that it is a basketball, that it is in the far left corner of the room, that it is orange.
Originally posted by FZ+
Well... stranger things have happened. I suggest that facts exist only in the mind as a concept. In reality they are an unattainable goal - like "freedom" or "free love" or "world peace" etc.
Because belief itself does not define existence. A million people can see the same thing and say the same thing, but that doesn't mean that it is true. It is still possible, albeit slightly that both of us were simultaneously struck with colour blindness, and when 5 more people walk in, they will all say that the ball is in fact blue. and when another 10 more people come in, it is red and so on. At no point have we justified absolutely that the statement we made is a fact. Rather, we believe it to be the closest to the fact, or as probable to be true as our evidence allows. But the uncertainty is still there. We are still not perfect. We can in this situation say that at present the idea the ball is orange, is round, is in the far left corner of the room is more of a fact than a statement that the ball is cubular, is green, is in the right hand corner of the room. But we cannot say it is a fact for certain.
Originally posted by Mentat
Actually, you are describing theories. A theory is true until proven wrong.
Originally posted by zk4586
I also suggest that "facts" only exist as a concept in the mind, but I say that because we have invented the word fact, along with all other words, to correspond to either something in the real world (tree, apple, our orange basketball) or to act as a representational tool to correspond to certain ideas or concepts or notions. Thus we can feel as though we're accurately using the words (or phrases) freedom and free love if we believe we're using the words accurately to the definition we've ascribed them. And yet, you said that belief itself does not define existence, and I do agree with this. However, you also said (just after the part above that I quoted) that facts exist only in the mind, in which case our using words like "facts" to correspond to some thing -- or, in the case of my simple thought experiment, some agreed upon objective quality that is ascribed to some thing -- is perfectly acceptable.
I certainly see your point, but I still contend that labeling the sentence "that basketball in the far left corner of the room is orange" as a factual sentence is perfectly acceptable because the information that that sentence gives as facts are facts for us. Let's say the scenario you propose happens, and five more people walk in and tell us that the basketball is not orange but, rather, blue. Well, since there is a conflict of reports, this makes suspect our belief that the sentence "that basketball is orange" is fact. We can't be sure now whether they're right or we're right, or, indeed, everyone present is wrong -- since it's possible that they're colorblind and we're not, or, as you also suggest, all seven of us are colorblind. But none of this really matters anyway. We can simply bring more people into the room, ask them what color the ball is (and question them of other qualities of the ball that we believe are facts because the two of us have agreed upon them: position, shape, size, et cetera) and either we'll be convinced that we were wrong and there's something wrong with our eyes or we'll go on believing that we're right and anyone who says different is wrong. Either way, since words -- or, more appropriately, labels -- like "fact" are merely concepts of mind with a specific definition that we have attributed to them, it's perfectly alright to use the word fact in terms of our aforementioned sentence -- in other word, in terms of the qualities that we have agreed that the ball has.
So in other words facts are relative?
Even if you tell me a lie, I know a fact, but the fact that I know is that you are a 'liar', that this was the lie you told, and this is the fact that proves it, the value thereof as yet undetermined.Even if you tell me a lie, I know a fact, but the fact that I know is that you are a 'liar', that this was the lie you told, and this is the fact that proves it, the value thereof as yet undetermined.
So a value can also be a fact, and a fact can have value, or be a value, and they both can, as such of each other, change.
That's a Valuable Fact
Originally posted by Wuliheron
Or is it a factual value or neither one? What it clearly is, is a paradox.
Not really, as the fact of the existence of this planet, is a fact, and we cannot, (at least not at present to the best of my present knowledge) change that fact! hence there is no paradox, only the appearance of one, when judged in/on certain scales.
Originally posted by RageSk8
Sorry for two things:
1. The amount of time before it has taken me to reply
2. The reality that I will probably not be able to give my argument tonight (I will soo though, sorry again, busy trying to get enrolled/financed for college next year and a trip to Germany this summer set up)
I am talking about the general distinction between a factual statement and a value statement, examples:
Examples of facts: "e=mc^2", "the gravitational pull between two objects varies inversely to the the sqaure of the distance between them", "To day is tuesday", "Albertsons is a supermarket", "It is 72 degrees outside"
Examples of Values: "Slavery is wrong", "'Blade 2' is a horrible movie", "It is really hot outside", "Albertsons is a great supermarket", "Homosexuality is not a sin"
Originally posted by wuliheron
Quantum Mechanics suggests a different possibility, that indeed we may exist and not exist at the same time. In addition, as I've stated many times before to you and others, there is no rational explanation for the origin, disposition, and validity of existence as we perceive it. Certainly I like to think I exist and act as if I do, but if wishes were fishes we'd all cast nets. Bottom line, nobody can really say what is happening. If they could, it would resolve quantum weirdness in general.