factoids and
consensus by slight of
hand, is ironically dubbed: 'truthiness'
by mock pundit (or: "fundit") Steven Colbert.
Philosophy consists of Logic, Metaphysics, Ethics and other value judgments.
Philosophy, which began, historically, as the quest for the right way of life, therefore includes questions of values including but not limited to Ethics or Morality and even Esthetics. Seeing as how among those important values are often also included clarity, Philosophy also includes logic. And, as, for some, the quest for the right way of life includes or requires investigation of the world we live in, this gave rise to Natural Philosophy, that which today we call science.
But that only begs all manner of questions as to the best way to conduct such investigation. Hence, the Philosophy of science, including Metaphysics herein concisely defined is in context and usage pertinent to rationalistic Philosophy of Science.
All usages and concepts of Metaphysics begin and diverge from Aristotle's famously eclectic work, whence wherein even fundamentals of logical causality for natural science actually still serving in good use, ever await the most difficult extrication from convoluted mystical and Theological confusion and the worst enduring obscurantism.
Regarding most broadly Metaphysics as the philosophy of the nature of being, inescapably that must admit Metaphysics as as pertains to essential forms or formal precise logical systematization of abstractions along with the subject matter or application of the the dizzying broader range of usage and convictions particularly as may pertain even to howsoever Epistemologically and Methodologically dubiously claimed howsoever transcendent esoteric knowledge or Theology of subjects putatively existent or mysteriously or even magically and mystical influence upon our lives, after all conceivably as elusive and indirect from the concrete physical world as are abstract principles generally, and hypothetically if so given, perhaps similarly intelligible more to the mind than the senses, of the term 'Metaphysics,' admissible as well to Metaphysics as more concisely defined in context and usage pertinent to Rationalistic Philosophy of Science, or, to put it more concisely, Rationalistic Metaphysics, explicitly in that no conjecture, however groundless, is ever forbidden a'priori. After all, Metaphysics includes all question of Ontology of any kind.
Hence, however possibly actually
motivated, controversy
between Rationalism equipped with Scientific Method and the entire range of opposition there to, generally tends to be,
indeed,
Epistemological
and Methodological, regarding all questions of
standards of evidence.
Indeed, any sheer illogic, regardless of source and vintage, may ever thereby
become subject to
criticism,
fault-finding and controversy,
of course for purposes of bringing to light invalidating circuitous reasoning
and self contradiction, but also in order to make alternative non mechanistic conjectures as to
the very nature of being and causality, of such audacity as thereby to challenge
even known logic itself, all adequately explicit.
Because, again, all conjecture is permissible, however extreme. But then lucid
presentation remains all the more crucial to Metaphysics
with ever any conceivable bearing upon the practice of science.
However, even in context and usage specifically as pertinent to Rationalistic Philosophy of Science, there nevertheless remain two distinct senses of the word 'Metaphysics', because the suffix 'Meta' here is employed both in a somewhat different denotation both of 'beyond' and also in the sense of 'pertaining to' as aspects or application of Metaphysics.
And accordingly, since an hypothesis, to be scientific, must be testable and conceivably refutable, and therefore even rejecting all argument from First Principle, Metaphysics, in the sense that the prefix 'Meta' is still to be understood to denote that Metaphysics howsoever is thought to lie beyond the boundaries not just Physics but science in general, is the domain of questions that cannot, as yet, be tested, but that can, nevertheless, be at all rationally discussed or subject to reasoning, as for example in sheer conjecture and even whatever explanatory power all thereof, even such issues of critical preference as explanatory adequacy together with optimal simplicity, called: theoretical elegance, if not even the sheer esthetics all thereof, and also Logic, certainly as pertains to essential forms or formal precise logical systematization of abstractions.
After all, Philosophy endures as the incubator of emergent new fields of science.
For example, -and speaking of alternative non mechanistic conjectures as to the very nature of being, causality and even Logic at all- the question of whether Quantum Mechanics, Ontologically, is a function of Indeterminacy, whatever that means, or just any more ordinary measurement uncertainty, Epistemologically, is an intelligible question that at long last passing out from abstract Metaphysics into practicable science, only now as testable hypotheses to answer that question are emerging, as well as competing testable hypotheses, and prior hypotheses are becoming testable that hither to may not have been.
And this may yet bear impact into Metaphysics in the broader Philosophical definition thereof as concerning itself Ontologically with the nature of being, specifically as including conundrums of the aware and thinking mind with at least seeming free willed choice in whatever sort of qualitative aspect relationship or coexistence with the physical body subject to causality of whatever sort and determinism (even unto Nihilism) or Indeterminacy or perhaps anything else, if not utter magic or destiny for all that we know.
But Metaphysics in the related sense that the prefix 'Meta' is ever construed to denote that Metaphysics is howsoever intended simply to pertain not merely to Physics but as extended also to science in general, is the Philosophy of science that strives towards an optimal guiding premise for Scientific Method, much as Algebra is to Mathematics.
The difference is, however, that Mathematics including Algebra is simply part of Logic, logical principles and generalities being no more than the broadest and most consistently Empirically corroborated observations possible, in support of the hypothesis of any truth, meaning: correspondence to reality, accrued via any practicable discipline of Logic, because Logic is true regardless of knowledge thereof, dealing with causality most broadly and abstractly, therefore taken as being also an aspect somehow inherent to external reality, therefore also an invariant internally consistent principle in and of itself (or, so we may hope), equations leading inexorably as they always have, to their valid internally self consistent solutions.
But mere reference to logic, being knowledge providing the principles of correct reason, nevertheless never ensures correct utilization thereof. Indeed, Phenomenologically, one readily perceives oneself as being entirely logical, even whilst committing even the most gross or subtle of errors in reasoning that so easily evade detection. The knowledge and practice of Logic was only perfected by civilization. To begin with, a capacity for logic is encoded into the human brain by the trial and error of evolutionary survival, along with certain logical falsities, particularly certain psychological false tendencies as of reinterpretation in light of invited inference or of reciprocal correlation and enduring relationship, even therefrom magical causality, along with other similar over confidence in mistakes of fallacious reasoning, gross and subtle, yet close enough and not generally grave enough to sufficiently imperil immediate survival, thereby forestalling reproductive success completely enough wipe out our species. -For example, among many possible false inferences, various blithe overextension of inductive argument by analogy, which endured the longest before finally being discredited thereby seemingly concluding the history of logic. Categorical logic of as we know it is complete. As things stand, there is nothing more to discover or resolve.
And even logic is subject to the incompleteness principle, thereby allowing a range of possibility within limitations, yet by itself inadequate to explain or predict further specifics so as to complete the picture. Whereas it is science that goes beyond the abstract in seeking particular truth, defined as correspondence to reality in far more particular assertions. And so, unlike any purely logical exercise, science is also Empirical in that science is dependant upon external reality testing investigating problems confronted in the real world by continually narrowing at all likely viable hypotheses from amongst logical possibilities including as they must, also those hypotheses which happenstantially are not true.
That is why science deals in weighing the evidence as best we may. Because there is no absolute proof, proof positive, or proof at all, outside of logic including mathematics, wherein proof is only of validity, defined as theoretical logical internal consistency, and never of truth, again, defined as correspondence to external reality which is never ascertainable by logical possibility alone but only by investigation Empirically. Abuse of the word: 'proof' outside of logic, historically has served only to misguidedly imply a similar certainty to what are rightly entirely Empirical questions that by contrast to logical problems, can never be resolved a'priori.
Thus, Metaphysics consists of Ontology, Phenomenology, Epistemology and, by extension, Methodology.
Down the rabbit hole: Digressions into paradox
Epistemologically and Methodologically, all interpretation of Empirical observation of objective reality must be subject to constraints of logic, but never vice versa. However, is all that really true after all? Or can it be that there may indeed be Empirical observations forcing us to reevaluate even logic in and of itself??!! It is an Ontological tautology that nothing ever really supersedes logic. But can we yet even know logic as it truly is?
Again, logic, providing the principles of correct reason, nevertheless never ensures correct utilization thereof. Indeed, Phenomenologically, one readily perceives oneself as being entirely logical, even whilst committing even the most subtle of errors in reasoning that so easily evade detection. Logic was only perfected by civilization. To begin with, a capacity for logic is encoded into the human brain by the trial and error of evolutionary survival, along with certain logical falsities, particularly certain psychological false tendencies especially as of reinterpretation in light of invited inference or of reciprocal correlation and enduring relationship, even therefrom magical causality. along with other similar over confidence in mistakes of fallacious reasoning, gross and subtle, yet close enough and not generally grave enough to actually forestall reproductive success and eliminate whatever cognitive characteristics. -For example, among many possible false inferences, various blithe overextension of inductive argument by analogy, which endured the longest before finally being discredited thereby seemingly concluding the history of logic. Categorical logic of as we know it is complete. As things stand, there is nothing more to discover or resolve.
Categorical logic dealing in mechanistic causality deals in variables, known or unknown, that are either true or not true at any given moment, only. This is called: the excluded middle, violation whereof is sheer illogic as willfully embraced in doublethink. But instead of singular actuality, the indeterminate probabilities of the nigh surreal and certainly Post Modern Copenhagen interpretation Quantum Mechanics seemingly claim incursion into the excluded middle, which is to claim that there is no singular truth (correspondence to reality), after all. -that is, though, save as for one remaining central question as to whether the Copenhagen interpretation Quantum Mechanics itself is true or false, in other words: whether otherwise there is singular truth or not. And hence the standing scientific challenge of falsifiability to bring Quantum Mechanics, specifically the Copenhagen interpretation, out from Metaphysical speculation. -Unless the scientific quest for truth itself and therefore interpretation of results at all, be rejected entirely...
And the other important conundrum aside from the notion of statistical causality as entailed in Quantum indeterminacy, also confounding traditional mechanistic logic, is entailed in any conceivable prospect of time travel back into the past, which indeed may rival statistical causality as entailed in Quantum indeterminacy as the most alien concept to all human thought and experience. After all, even logic itself deals in causality, while retrograde time travel means causality violation.
But with ever the achievement or discovery of backwards time travel, logic as we know it would be rendered by the very possibility, merely a specialized case or subset of rules for localized application, of some greater principle than the logic we know. Only in classic time travel Science Fiction are enshrined different at all self consistent fundamental speculations, that will belong to Metaphysics until if ever experimentally falsifiable, as to the possible workings and ramification of causality turned back upon itself in closed time-like loops.
Ontology is the question of what is, the domain of objective reality. An ontic or Ontological statement or hypothesis, called an assertion, is such as employs the verb "to be" dealing with what is. An Ontology is any particular hypothesis concerning existence, that which may exist and conditions as they may obtain.
But reality is distinct from our limited knowledge thereof:
Phenomenology is the study of the Phenomena. A Phenomenology is any particular hypothesis seeking in any part to explain the Phenomena.
Subjectivity refers to effects resultant from the perspective of whatever or whomever effected or even affected, as expressed by verbs most especially seeming and hence, from the subjective first person perspective, expressed, grammatically, in the passive voice. For the Phenomena, literally, appearances, is each our own private ongoing simulation of outside reality from continual sensory input, in which we live. In other words, not just any effect whatsoever, but, more specifically, that we experience at all, both perception, an interpretation from sensory input from the outside world, and also in consciousness, reflection or inner life, logic, reasoning, memory and that we come to be aware of our own thoughts and feelings, even intentions, that are often considered as perhaps intrinsic qualities or qualia, perhaps even ineffable properties of experience or as experienced even such as immediacy, as qualified, described in however differentiating distinctive characteristics rather than as however if at all quantified, numerically. -In fiction, Point Of View or POV, wherein the literary device of interior monologue may attempt to convey in words, reflection, situation with Representation of Consciousness or thought process as a vehicle of narration. Indeed, stream-of-consciousness may endeavor to show, convey or portray experience, the entire subjective Phenomena, as it passes by, however even at random.
The gap in Behaviorism was never cognitive, but Psychodynamic all along. Behavior, including action and expression or dialogue, is often actually less mediated by cognitive events than by Psychodynamic events, feelings and motivations to be specific, often with inner conflict, in an observable (show: don't tell) cycles of Motivational Reaction Units. Cognition is a rational function of the ego, Phenomenologically manifest in reflection.
Perceptual Physiology, Neuroscience and Psychology all impact Phenomenology, the study of the Phenomena. Indeed, in the personal constructs of social cognition, elaborate construction of false inference built from successive red herrings, often arises from various learned or innate naturally flawed Epistemological Methodology.
Just as Solipsism is the fruitless hypothesis that nothing is actually real save, perhaps, for the perceiver or perhaps, at that, not even the self, Empiricism is the promising Epistemological, Phenomenological and Ontological hypothesis that knowledge of reality arises, one way or another, from experience of some external reality, incidentally or by observation or experiment.
Thus does Empiricism relate Phenomenology and Epistemology, Ontologically.
Epistemology is the question of how knowledge arises, particularly, by whatever, if any, the causal chain of events as ever may end, indeed, in knowledge. An Epistemology is any particular hypothesis of how knowledge arises, and indeed, at the end of what manner of causal chain of events, if any.
Methodology, then, is is applied Epistemology, the search for any systematic application of Epistemology, deliberately, in ongoing investigation. An Epistemological Methodology is any particular hypothesis of how one might best go about increasing knowledge.
For Epistemological Methodology in the Philosophy of Science, most singularly crucial to science, is the investigation into the salient principles, workings, validity and practice of Scientific Method, into the efficacy thereof and the reasons why or else failure analysis, even as science advances drawing Scientific Method into new challenges and novel context as ever may arise, in hopes of detecting and correcting the ever possible decent of Scientific Method into blind habit and superstitious arbitrariness and gradually degeneration into pseudoscience. Indeed, an Epistemological Methodology provides necessary premise to valid Scientific Method. Otherwise, Scientific Method becomes ever more slipshod and arbitrary, continually degenerating and subject to distortion, as systemic problems and error unchecked, creep in, continually. As, for example, with the self validation of assumptions in statistical quality control.
Other crucial Epistemological and Methodological questions include those of Inductivism Vs Hypothetico Deductivism and Reductionism Vs. Gestalt.
The Scientific Method, as typically taught us in school and preliminary undergraduate science courses, is a process consisting of the following four steps in order:
Actually, however, in science as in life, all stages are concurrent, perpetual and ever subject to ongoing correction and thereby surprising change in direction. And there is endless controversy confronting problems inherent to every aspect of adequate observation, explanation, prediction and experiment; indeed, of Epistemology and whatever the causal chain of events as ever may end in knowledge, let alone systematic Methodological application thereof.
Because there always needs to be a valid reason for good science to be anything more than a mere cultural activity to be dismissed as little more. Otherwise, science, always fallible at best, remains at risk from becoming increasingly arbitrary, even superstitious.
Knowledge, if there is any such a thing, must be more than belief, arbitrarily, even though our knowledge is so limited and fallible. After all, belief alone can be not only mistaken but even arbitrary and irrational.
But perhaps knowledge may be characterized by Epistemology, the study of the way in which knowledge arises, Methodologically, which is to say, deliberately and systematically. In other words, the way in which truth, correspondence to reality, and not just logical validity, may better and more reliably be identified in assertions, statements of initially unfounded conjecture, and come to our awareness. More specifically, perhaps the nature of knowledge in specific, rather than all possible belief generally, is somewhere in cognition or learning, even however fallible. Indeed, even linguistically, knowledge may often be understood from Empirical Epistemology, as even synonymous with subjective perception and experience, as when one has known sorrow, or even in the biblical sense of carnal knowledge.
After all, any conjecture or assertion may be true or not, but the question remains how said truth or falsity might be detected and known, either way. And this, perhaps, is what characterizes knowledge, distinctly. Thus must knowledge be somehow distinct from mere happenstancially true conjecture, in that knowledge must be more than lucky accidental incidental true possibility that might well go undetected (even though knowledge often does come about by chance discovery).
Unfailingly, a stopped clock is precisely and exactly true twice a day, just as the tired old joke goes. But such will tend to be unknown truth. Indeed, there would be more knowledge of the time of day to be gleaned, however approximately, simply by gazing up at the sky!
Knowledge means knowledge of truth. Knowledge is awareness of truth (defined as correspondence to reality) particularly in assertions. And even no matter how problematical, awareness of truth as an repeatabley observable and corroborated enduring or recurrent real circumstance or occurrence, seems unrefuted. It's only certainty that actually remains impossible. Hence the demand for knowledge to be certain knowledge remains impossible and unreasonably perfectionist. Knowledge can ever more closely approach, but never quite arrive at, the whole truth, because there will always be much remaining unknown, countless gaps and errors yet to be found. That is why, as a matter of Epistemology, knowledge is improved Hypothetico Deductively, by continual trial and error and even verisimilitudinous approximation, according to soundest available or practicable Methodology.
Again even linguistically, knowledge may often be understood from Empirical Epistemology, as even synonymous with subjective perception and experience, as when one has known sorrow, or even in the biblical sense of carnal knowledge. But knowledge can also be of information, cases, skills and processes. "Factual" [sic.] or declarative information is often the easiest to state and to assess and simply therefore often preferred, even though no less often of least practical importance, skills often being found the most difficult to articulate and of greatest practical importance along with processes and cases.
Truth seldom lies buried in the data and therefore knowledge is not simply an end product of induction by Empirical packrats. Massive unsorted garbage in, bloated and obscure garbage out. Esoteric knowledge, prescriptive and calculatingly encoded and camouflaged into intentional obscurity or else however entirely ingenuous and descriptive, is fundamental yet derived only via careful comparison of diverse knowledge from many fields with keen attention and sagacity, and stultified by by compartmentalization. Indeed, according to the Triz theory of inventive problem solving, only pioneering discoveries are more rare and precious than cross-disciplinary solutions, knowledge imported from one discipline into another. While the ineffable, even knowable, even transmissible, nevertheless defies explanation or description. And relevant living knowledge (as opposed to knowledge that is rightly called: inert), serving renewal and vitality, is growth, the experience of change put into practice, learned behaviors never immutable but ever subject to re-adaptation, emergent in collective interaction, tacit, highly charged and redolent, profoundly with the sensibility of drama, may even skirt the ineffable, often defying ready articulation let alone routine management via knowledge-driven Epistemology.
Knowledge can be of information, cases, skills and processes, abilities ingrained to second nature. "Factual" [sic.] or declarative information is often the easiest to state and to assess and simply therefore often preferred, even though no less often of least practical importance, skills often being found the most difficult to articulate and of greatest practical importance along with processes and cases.
So, what is the importance of all this vocabulary definition?
And because arguing fine points thereto, which are often pivotal in just about every other field, becomes unbelievably cumbersome sans "them big words" and the primary concepts they encapsulate. -Which must otherwise be parenthetically restated at length in every single sentence!
And that is always more cumbersome and confusing, not less.
Objectivity should be unambiguous!
Indeed, there are more than one possibly confusing related senses even of the very word 'objective:'
Conflation arises from the vague ideation that objectivity in the mind and it's sound reasoning and conclusions, being more than merely subjective and Phenomenal, somehow partake of or participate in the objectivity of external reality.
Sheer dogmatism aside, it is an all too common misguided linguistic implication that the objectivity of external reality can or somehow has ever magically or sympathetically resonated in any way, or otherwise simply entered like unto the proverbial thief the night, numinously, into the consciousness even of the most objectively minded thinker. -As in the notion of having or possessing [sic.] rather than simply knowing "facts" [sic.] (whatever all that means) rather than truth (correspondence to reality in assertions). Or else, as a straw man argument, a dishonest sham, to deny objective reality (which is the subject matter of Ontology) at least Epistemologically, that since none of the aforesaid can be so, we must all to any degree therefore embrace Solipsism or even Relativism (which is the baffling oxymoronic doctrine of multiple subjective truth whatever that can possibly mean), or at least some other type or form of Post Modernism, though, arguably, not all schools of Post Modernism are equal or irredeemable to critical thinking, only given that conjecturality and uncertainty, indeed as admissible by analytic deconstruction, can at long last be embraced optimistically and never again mourned as the Ecclesiastical futility of Wittgensteinean paralysis.
But any Empirical process, even at best conceivable fidelity, remains entirely mechanistically causal, some sort of physical chain of events and also logical progression from input to conclusion. Objectivity in the mind may even arrive at or at least come close to truth, but truth only means correspondence to reality, objective reality itself remaining distinct from anything of the subjective or Phenomenal. Only the process of Epistemologically sound Methodology in pursuit of truth defined as correspondence to reality, at all accounts for and connects objectivity in the Phenomenal mind to the objectivity of external reality.
Hence these two senses of the word 'objectivity' remain related but distinct, and should so be preserved.
Why the very word 'fact' is to be avoided like the plague!
At least the distinct senses of the word 'objectivity' remain intelligible and useful. But as a costly lazy habit of writing and speech, the very word: 'fact' [sic.] in its ever expanding profoundly Orwellian polysemic deceptively linguistically leading ambiguous vagary, that at the same time pretends most narrow concise and precise definition, cannot but confuse the distinctions between specialized usages of the very word 'fact' [sic.] as in science or in history or even interchangeably with validity, being no more or less than logical internal consistency, reality, truth which is correspondence to objective reality in assertions, knowledge being awareness thereof, information or data of whatever kind, accepted truism, even data sets arbitrarily, and all so forth and as we shall discover abundantly anon, also by far the worse, all in order thereby to obfuscate the intrinsic and inevitable uncertainty of our Epistemological circumstances, behind a propagandistic veil of myth and symbol of unattainable and actually unnecessary and possibly even undesirable certainty, thereby to diffuse appropriate doubt and rationally skeptical credulity.
Indeed, aside from just such dishonest propaganda application including linguistically leading questions, there simply is no other correct usage of the very word: 'fact.' Indeed, there is no statement that cannot be rendered that much clearer and more precise, and thus more readily accountable, by the simple substitution of any more specific synonym, such as: reality, information, truth, knowledge thereof, and all so forth, for the manipulatively empty buzzword: 'fact.' If the range of possible synonyms cannot be narrowed from context at all, then by that token the sentence is exposed as unintelligible.
Honorable and reasonable people who cleave to any one of the more coherent and linguistically meaningful usages of the very word: 'fact' [sic], often stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the disparity amid possible usages and the inevitability of bypassing, being any conversational exchange with different and idiosyncratic meaning to each participant, therefore not even qualifying as actual communication.
Emphatically, I do not know what "facts" [sic.] are. I do not know what the word means. Therefore, I stopped using it. And so should you, gentle reader!
And an assertion proffered matter-of-factly or even incidentally, generally denotes the distinctly bland confidence of unequivocal unconcern characterizing a disinterested direct straightforward and unemotional neutral tone lacking any surprise whatsoever. The very word 'factual' means either characterized by or containing fact, or merely declarative, or especially, being terse and even to the point, or else, alas, as is more common, trivialization and over simplification dispensing with background and context, and the most flagrant hand waving, the aforesaid fact(s) ranging from 1) those that are objectively real, true denoting correspondent to reality, or only 2) valid denoting theoretically logical and internally consistent, 3) knowledge denoting awareness of truth (again, truth defined as correspondence to reality), 4 & 5) believed (especially, widely, most especially by consensus), either 4) currently or 5) historically, 6) a) information, b) howsoever considered discrete items thereof, even 7) data sets arbitrarily, all as opposed to imagination, surmise, judgment, opinion (especially individual or minority), viewpoint (likewise), values, sentiment, nor, digression, despite every all too crucial creative and investigative (Epistemologically Methodological) function or intelligible context that all the latter may serve in arriving at any of the former, nor especially, abstraction, said omission being perhaps worst of all, because often the truth is only to be understood only via the effort of conceptualization.
And precisely thus all too often is even the exact truth all too often discounted as merely philosophical! Nevertheless, understanding is exactly no more or less than explanatory abstraction enabling cogitation upon and employment of concepts effective and pertinent to whatever subject matter at hand. Explanation is of causation in context and likewise of consequence. Rational construction comes intermediate between objective reality and subjective perception and experience at all, the Phenomena, let alone abstract or practical comprehension.
And to make natters worse, not only are background information and conceptualization thus disparaged, that we ought never to dig deeper or spare much thought, but the very word 'fact' has gained from this aforesaid range, set of sets or category of fact, all these seven distinct but often blithely unspecified usages as to be rendered hopelessly ambiguous! And any usage of the very word: 'fact' such as where a more precise synonym cannot be derived from context, is, of necessity, ambiguously unclear, whether by blithe omission or by conniving propaganda design. For the very word ‘fact’ [sic] exists only in order to foment confusion and smuggle blithe certitude in by the back door.
For although propaganda, replete with all manner persuasive symbols and metaphors, is typically emotive, nevertheless there is also pseudo rational propaganda taking the appearance of genuine scientific or journalistic truth, but often actually deceptive mystification. Because, rather than genuine, rational appraisal of information, citations of ersatz “facts“ [sic] and figures leave the impression of great rationality, effectively mythologizing science itself, often by ignoring or under representing important positions on issues in order thereby preordaining the dominance of ones own favored view.
Inevitably, just as all manner of entirely unintentional gaps ands errors in faulty knowledge and thinking result in perfectly honest mistakes, selective information, if not also falsehood and vague manipulation, is also often presented in slippery and deceptive persuasion.
And often the intended target of such pseudo rational propaganda is unable or unwilling to analyze the figures, or simply overwhelmed by argumentum verbosum, sheer volume of material, even Inductivist raw data, such as appears well researched, and thus is persuaded only by the fraudulent appearance of rationality promoted via just such vague capricious mystification as insidiously conditioned into the solid sounding authoritative buzz word: 'fact,' rather than by ever actually reasoning and coming to grips with reality and the fallibility of imperfect knowledge, all such salient crucial distinctions blurred by the very word: 'fact' in it's confidently Orwellian vague ambiguity, exactly as will be seen. For the very word ‘fact’ [sic] exists only in order to foment confusion and smuggle blithe certitude in by the back door. After all, propaganda exploits much invited inference that is often neither logically valid nor actuallyentirely true.
5) Indeed, in discussion of history, in yet another distinctly different usage, the word 'fact' denotes mainstream truisms contemporary to geographical and chronological milieu or familiar world.
4) For a truism is
an all too often blithely undoubted assertion commonly accepted as blindingly
obvious or self evident. Alas, however, truisms are notoriously unreliable.
Indeed, the wishful manufacture of fraudulent truisms,
factoids and
consensus by slight of
hand, is ironically dubbed: 'truthiness'
by mock pundit (or: "fundit") Steven Colbert.
2) In Logic and therefore mathematics, fact is tautological, fact being any part or aspect of a definition, valid denoting theoretically logical and internally consistenthence taken as given and acceptable as premise in a logical or mathematical proof, however direct and concise or circumlocutious and involved. -In other words, then: a correlate, a proposition that follows with little or no proof required from one already proven.
8) Scientific claims of fact are defined as a) consistent and repeatable observations or as b) assertions thereof. c) -Though by the same token, facts may have to be quantifiable in numerical figures. But if expression of any of the latter is, indeed, precisely the intention, then it will better and stronger by far to state exactly so, that whatever observations are consistent and repeatable, or that assertions to that effect have been proffered. -Let alone stated only quantifiably, or worse, without qualification or worse still, without comprehension, as ever the case may be.
And the same goes likewise for any other context, usage and abuse of the word 'fact.' Know what you mean and say what you mean. For Orwellian language is insidious! Indeed, blithe habit of usage never necessarily insures understanding or coherence. And the very word 'fact' has come to embody all that has ever so needlessly come to be rendered convolutedly obscure about that which is most simple, manifest and fundamental in Metaphysics.
9) Beware, then, the most insidious ninth meaning and usage of that ultimate authoritatively evasive propaganda equivocation: 'fact' [sic.]!
Indeed, just what are they saying, who so claim to have the facts? What ever can they be talking about? Indeed, it must make a huge difference, which sort of fact, by which of the eight distinct but then undifferentiated into obscurity linguistic meanings, anyone may ever purport to have in their possession. -Not to mention, exactly how and in what sense such intangibles are ever in any way distinctly possessed.
Even the expression: to seek truth, is already problematically imprecise, not to be taken too literally. -For, to make a fine point, it is only knowledge of the truth that one may ever hope in any way or sense actually seek to possess...
Indeed, what then can it mean: to have
the truth? Truth, after all, is correspondence to reality, in assertions.
Only assertions can be more approximately or precisely true or else generally
false, and possess or partake in any quality of truth, if one cares to put it
that way. Hence, what we can attain or achieve, is not truth, but, to be
precise, knowledge
of truth, awareness of correspondence to reality in particular
assertions.
And if indeed we do value truth and knowledge
thereof, then it well behooves us to beware! Whenever that vastly ambiguous and
insidious, ill advised utterance of Orwellism: 'fact' [sic]
is employed, how can such fine distinctions possibly be clearly expressed and
saliently borne in mind?
For example, what is meant by assertion or claiming possession of the fact of God? Simply even to possess knowledge of God, would of necessity nevertheless forever remain however uncertain to mere mortals. But as fact also denotes reality, the fact of God means the real existence of God. Hence, possession of the 'fact' [sic] of God, purports to internalize the claimed external reality, perhaps even numinously: somehow or other thought to be perhaps supernatural direct contact and hence somehow privileged and inerrant knowledge without sensory intermediation of Empirical Phenomena. Because, otherwise, even whatever sort of hypothetical inner dwelling or manifesting divinity would be no more unquestionable than any other inner feature or event of mind, brain and body. Thusly, by just such flagrant conflation and question begging, the vaunted personal relationship with God, is zealously and dogmatically slammed shut to all but literal prima facie interpretation! -The latter exercise in sheer lunatic Sophistry presenting perhaps the most extreme possible confusion over the different and sometimes confusing senses of the very word: 'objective.'
9a) 'Fact' [sic.] or for that matter even knowledge, in the sense or claim of what is even however widely or expertly accepted or believed to be true, meaning: correspondent to reality, may be deemed the least problematic so long as the uncertain conjecture thereof no matter how well corroborated or otherwise established, the risk of and propensity to truism or error otherwise and generally nevertheless, remain ever openly recognized nonetheless. 9b) And this holds no less even in raising the stakes by defining 'fact' [sic.] as uncontroverted or even incontrovertible and singularly true, whether, as by implication, also discrete and even fairly concise. 9c) But if as in pertaining to privileged articles of faith, opinionation or belief is taken to indicate or even to confer truth, rather than hopes if truth ever emerging to be known and believed or opined, then transitively, fervent beliefs and articles of faith can be shamelessly included and numbered amongst 'facts' [sic.] ! The issue remains that of privilege.
Indeed, 'fact' [sic.] being howsoever objective, therefore differentiated from mere opinion, does it then follow that objective people are not individual and opinionated or critical, but heteronymous and harmoniously united and loyal well above temptation, engagement and ensnarement into anything so shifting and fallible as controversy?
Yes, perhaps above all, the authoritatively evasive propaganda equivocation of purported 'fact' [sic.] claims privilege from doubt via cultivation of the illusion of innocent and trustworthy neutrality!
Indeed, for another example: "These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." said US secretary of state Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations security council on Wednesday February 5, 2003 concerning the notorious alleged Iraqi WMD. But just what sort of facts where they? (Especially if they where not even assertions. Was it actually Powell's intention that these claims he presented did not in any way seek to represent reality let alone correspond thereto and possess truth value? Could he have been deliberately trying to slip in a clue to tip off the rest of world?) For in secular application no less than via Theology, the very word ‘fact’ [sic] exists only in order to foment confusion and smuggle blithe certitude in by the back door.
9) Yes, indeed, most insidious and deceptive of all, comes that ninth distinct linguistic meaning, any implication in usage, whatsoever, of the word 'fact' such as denoting or in any way somehow implying (patently impossible and unnecessary as this may be) a proven [sic.] (complete, total, positive) certainty -or else whatever conceivable unspecified and unclear manner of however validated, verified, privileged, authoritative or received a certitude surrogate of whatever sort, as if negating all risk so as to absolve all responsibility. For the very word ‘fact’ [sic] exists only in order to foment confusion and smuggle blithe certitude in by the back door. In truth, however, the usage of the very word 'fact' is so often no more than the slippery vagueness of eightfold ambiguity only paraded as anything however more solid, clear or distinct, yet all the more in service to the puerile evasion of any very thought howsoever of accountability.
Although, in science, where certainty is only relative at best, some or other manner of preponderance of evidence (after whatever sufficiently rigorous process of elimination, refutation of alternative viable hypotheses) may even be deemed conclusive. But even that depends upon how high one sets the bar. However, even the most conclusive evidence may yet be over turned, and, frequently, even quite inconclusive hypotheses are better or best in so far as such may, nevertheless, still be even by far the more likely hypotheses more elegant or better supported by the preponderance of evidence available than whatever known competing hypotheses, despite remaining to whatever degree and by whatever standard inconclusive, than whatever known viable alternative or contrary hypotheses, negation or denial, likewise inconclusive no less, so long as competing explanations remain open, serious and viable. For such is the ongoing burden of evidentiary support upon the positive, however much corroboration as and if available, but never verification.
Indeed, science neither recognizes nor requires (complete, total, positive) certainty, because, by implication, any Ontological claim of such (complete, total, positive) certainty must be proven. And, again, because there can be no absolute proof, proof positive, or proof at all, outside of Logic including Mathematics, wherein proof is only of validity, which is to say, theoretical logical internal consistency, and never of truth value, again, defined as correspondence to external reality which is never ascertainable by logical possibility alone without actually testing by Empirical observation and experiment always actually predicated upon systematic doubt, never axiomatic certainty. For abuse of the word: 'proof' outside of Logic, historically has served only to misguidedly imply a similar certainty to what are rightly entirely Empirical questions that by contrast to logical problems, can never be resolved a'priori.
Nevertheless, the very word 'fact' continues sneaking just such mythic "proof" in by the proverbial back door.
Shades of Orwell! Old Joe Friday should get a big slap on the wrist and shut the fuck up!
For the very word ‘fact’ [sic.] exists only in order to foment confusion and smuggle blithe certitude in by the back door. Indeed, in case doubt is ever exposed, creeping error in whatever background information may even be attacked as "bad facts" as if doubt, sheer credulity, where a special case, even an aberration or anomaly (even unpatriotic!) rather than a constant, perfectly healthy and responsible. For exactly such is the destructive chicanery that aims at the dishonest concealment of controversy.
Yet the nature of reasonable doubt, beyond which lies the aim of the highest standard for criminal conviction, remains perpetually controversial. Though in civil litigation the far lower burden is such as to be met either by a preponderance of the evidence or by clear and convincing evidence. Questions of fact are distinct from questions of law. And under the law, facts, as distinguishable from a suspicion, innuendo, supposition, fiction or mistake, are explicit and specific truth particularly as of pertinent circumstances, actual events past or ongoing, all as must be established at trial by presentation of evidence before a judge or jury.
Lawyers advance legal theories, while testimony is of recollection of events experienced, expert opinion, even surmise as to character from acquaintance. Nevertheless, the word: 'proof' is completely misapplied, utterly butchered, in legal parlance, to reiterate, in that there still is no absolute proof, proof positive, or proof at all, outside of Logic including Mathematics, wherein proof is only of validity, defined as theoretical logical internal consistency, and never of truth, again, defined as correspondence to external reality which is never ascertainable by logical possibility alone but only by investigation Empirically. Abuse of the word: 'proof' outside of Logic, historically has served only to misguidedly imply a similar certainty to what are rightly entirely Empirical questions that unlike logical problems, can never be resolved a'priori. And such very confusion continues to threaten our system of justice with confusion and miscarriage.
After all, given all these myriad types of fact [sic], facts [sic] may be entirely context dependant, particularly as in the details or embellishments in a complete fiction or outright lie! And most slippery where context is not clearly defined. Plainly, so called fact, which is supposed to clarify, only obscures. Instead, let us strive to be more honest and Metaphysically specific.
fuzzynym
map for 'fact'
Wikipedia
and
Wiktionary
entries
Understanding is explanatory abstraction enabling cogitation
upon and employment of concepts effective and pertinent to whatever subject
matter at hand. Explanation is of causation in context and likewise of
consequence. Rational construction comes intermediate between
objective reality and
subjective perception and experience at all, the
Phenomena, let alone abstract or
practical comprehension.
Regardless of the territory
(speaking metaphorically), whatever sort of
(proverbial) map remains product, also, of whatever
antecedent process of construction or way of perception or understanding, even
however clear and accurate. Truth is correspondence to reality
and knowledge is awareness thereof, entailing any understanding, likewise.
But even barring error outright, the incompleteness theorem plainly rules out any utterly reliable and totally adequate description, and Inductivist raw data without explanatory coherence can never give rise thereto. Such "fact" [sic!], by that very precept or definition, is nothing but an oxymoron of mythic numina, a fantasy of howsoever direct unpremeditated experienced contact with reality, even in spirit or essence!
No, rather, research to make sense of anything, assigns importance or at least focus, to some details of information over others. Indeed, honest and intelligent selection and configuration of whatever information deemed pertinent, remains indispensable, ever fallible and a daunting responsibility of autonomy. And so, the only thing that can ever be clever about dumbing things down, is despicably agile fraud!
For though the range of possible untruth remains infinite, there remain always many different strategies for adequate or better expression, comprehension let alone communication, of truth, featuring: selected details, emphasis and perspective, all towards howsoever adequate representations of reality; but never, outside the hypothetical mind of God, any actually comprehensive Zen meditation upon, let alone whatever futile attempt at expression or communicative transmission, of any totality of being, the senses of objectivity remaining, or so we must hope, ever distinct.
Indeed, if expression were possible such as to embrace any totality of being, would this even be desirable? Certainly, if such were not only possible but accepted as mandatory as in the Zen, what good would that do? In truth, anything salient ever to be said of anything or anyone, must be howsoever particular and in whatever narrowed context. Therefore, it is better to celebrate that to mourn or to deny even howsoever mere human understanding in all limitation and constraint.
Thus the very reason facts [sic!] are considered the height of unbiased objectivity because they are regarded as discrete, inherent and fundamental, rather than being howsoever questionably constructed, let alone contingent. And hence, as authoritatively certain as "facts" are made out to be, such that none ever need delve any deeper, thus, at the same time, the usage of the very word 'fact' becomes a denial of Ontology and a rejection of Epistemological Methodology.
And in the words of Bliss Carman, "What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease." -Which is to say that facts are so-called "common wisdom," more truism, wherein common simply denotes ubiquitousness of frequent habitual repetition, consciously propagandistic or blithely unawares, and hence, often, whatever any wisdom, entirely debatable. Hence, so-called facts may often be less objective or clear than simply memetic, sheer habit.
Starting assumptions or premise should be so named, being as they are indispensable and contingent to intelligibility and inquiry, and hence and no sin. Indeed, by the most reasonable and narrow definition of fact, fact states either what is generally accepted as true, or reality as objectively measurable or Empirically corroborated, even if never actually verifiable.
Yet common wisdom and objective or Empirical supportability remain two entirely different criteria. And there remains, likewise, a marked and vast distinction indeed, between consensus building and the quest for truth defined as correspondence with reality in assertions, indeed, the awareness of the latter, and nothing else or less, constituting knowledge. Common wisdom is at very best, a reasonable starting point and no more.
And the very reason facts [sic!] are considered the height of unbiased objectivity because they are regarded as discrete, inherent and fundamental, so reliable as to stand unquestioned and treated as inherently privileged, nigh transcendental, is because facts [sic!] may be such as are stated as allegedly clear simple unadulterated discrete and even somehow thereby privileged units of information such as stand without subjectivity, conjecture, perspective, explanation, relevant interpretation or need of contingent complication or background. In other words, facts [sic!] are crystal clear, too simple for any confusion and hence beyond doubt, not despite but actually because they are taken superficially and entirely out of context and vastly oversimplified!
Moreover, assuming that these facts [sic!], whatever they are, are meaningful, then that might explain part of the confusion, if meaning is ever mistaken as Ontological, objectively real and somehow intrinsic, rather than subjectively Phenomenal. Meaning and understanding, after all, are created, generated or occur, in the mind, even if subjective experience is seen as part of and participation in, whatever larger events experienced. For truth distilled of structure yields only knowledge bereft of understanding, out of context and pointless. Indeed, even knowledge is but the state of awareness of truth, truth itself remaining distinct from correspondent external reality.
After all, only in sympathetic magic are correspondence or connection (or similarity and contiguity) thought in any manner or degree to lessen distinction and identity. Indeed, are facts [sic!], then, somehow and in some sense inherent rather than being relational or contingent? How, then, can such so called facts [sic!] ever be true? After all, truth is not self contained. Rather, truth is correspondence to reality in assertions, a matter of Methodological empirical Epistemology, unlike like validity (defined as internal consistency of expressions), logical derivable, even in a vacuum.
Facts are
factitious,
derivative and constructed in every way. And truth distilled of structure yields
only knowledge bereft of understanding, out of context
and pointless. Yet the myth, unexamined, survives, as
to the
Reductionist innate and
intrinsic basic intrinsic constituency and even objectivity of facts [sic.], so called.
'Psychology as a science
of critical evaluation' is an attack upon
Reductionism
in Psychology, concluding in
it's own definition of 'fact,' constituting a good observation, as will
be demonstrative, subtly gone awry:
So, according to William S. Verplanck, exactly how is it that fact [sic.] "keeps in contact with actually existing circumstances"? What ever can that possibly mean (aside, of course, that the very word: 'fact' here is not employed simply as a direct synonym for real circumstance)? Keeping contact with existing circumstances, or to employ the same metaphor as more commonly worded: maintaining a grip on reality, is an ongoing enterprise over time. For what is most specifically desired from investigative effort, is to elicit, trigger or bring about such causal connection between ongoing reality and scientific results as achieving any measure of what might even be described as communication (literally: informative transmission and circulation of substance via physical contact) with the real world. In other words, Epistemologically sound howsoever Empirical Methodology. This requires that as events unfold and change occurs, the observing scientist strives to keep in the know. But also, that, even regardless of the need for longitudinal data, knowledge being imperfect, must change, grow and improve.
According to Verplanck, fact [sic.] "is always a knowledge construct, and is more or less valuable for purposes of control and understanding". In other words, knowledge is constructed in order to glean understanding in order, in turn, to facilitate better control.
And why does the precise mind of a scientist wax so poetical except wrestling, desperately, with the vague, tortured and convoluted chimerical notion of fact [sic.] ? Next, let us only remove the very word: 'fact,' and instantly discover how much clearer the entire expression will become!
Because no usage of the word: 'fact' wherein no better and more precise synonym may be derived from context, can ever be rationally lucid or linguistically meaningful.
Indeed, in debating the qualifications for science and critical determination of existential conditions, the real question becomes Epistemological, and what Verplanck is really concerned with is the need for broad Ontological context from prior knowledge of reality, knowledge being awareness of truth and truth being correspondence to reality in assertions. - said knowledge of reality, here named 'fact' simply because even knowledge must be conjectured and factitiously constructed. Alas, and nevertheless, not all so-called 'fact' is truth (correspondence to reality) let alone knowledge (awareness of truth), no matter the factitiousness even of knowing. 'Fact,' so-called, then, still demands critical evaluation as any other assertion. No starting point is ever secure, but at best only at all reasonable and honest.
So-called 'fact,' then, is still often nothing but assertion, pretending somehow some other howsoever privileged category, unstated. We must still strive to glean knowledge, awareness of truth ('truth' denoting correspondence to reality), by the elimination of error, of so called 'facts,' constructs however mistaken for, or fobbed of as, knowledge. Only in just such oft Quixotic striving may we ever gain the perspective of Socratic wisdom gauging the scope of our own ignorance, thus abandoning the smug provincial stupidity of fact [sic!].
Actually, the contrived superficiality of so-called 'facts' is as unduly and blithely biased as can be, shielded from refutation by concealment of the universal conjectural nature of all assertion or claim to truth. Indeed, ostensibly factual superficiality without analytic comprehension, is at best among the least reliable means by which to derive viable hypothesis for understanding of the world, or at worst, a most slippery and calculated lying by omission.
The myth of truth arising via the compilation of data without prejudicial bias, therefore without direction of guiding hypothesis, even however tentative, is Inductivism, which never really works and never will.
The mythic freedom from error of the authoritative stance has been shown to be false and irresponsible. Not only can so called facts be chosen and spun into whatever sheer Sophistry at will, but, indeed, in any case, information must be filtered, selected and interpreted in order to become intelligible at all, even to scratch the very surface!
Fact [sic.] is often so blithely and sharply differentiated from opinion, here perhaps meaning analytic or synthetic evaluation. But actually and intrinsically, all assertions are both opinion and claim of truth value. -and no less so without apology! And, after all, at whatever risk of error and even bias of subjectivity, analytic or synthetic evaluation of information compiled, only strives to come closer to truth by means of refutation, process of elimination narrowing the range of viable hypothesis. Hence, what are so-called facts [sic], or else how are they privileged, that such facts [sic] are not also opinions or perhaps more than mere or even "pure" opinions that are, presumably, the antithesis of fact [sic]?
Indeed, for that matter, just what in Hell is: "pure opinion"? What, by contrast, do unpopular opinions ever feel lonely, become naughty and behave with base and impure moral turpitude? After all, even the most unpopular opinions still seem to blend and propagate! Seriously though, presumably a pure opinion has nothing factual [sic]. But strictly speaking and by definition, can even the most fanciful flight of whimsy actually be so bereft? What notion is there that can ever be so entirely original and without worldly antecedent? In truth, tautologically, all assertions remain in their entirety, both opinion and claims of truth. There is no degree of opinion as versus content of justification or foundation by whatever quantifiable percentage. All hypotheses begin as utterly unfounded conjecture, only subject to critical preference, let alone Empirical scrutiny, all thereafter. Only thus via evolutionary Epistemology do fitter hypotheses survive, and the less fit fall by the wayside.
Hence, opinion is no extrinsic impunity ever to be processed out and away from so-called facts [sic] ! Rather, opinion is the gestation process of perhaps testable hypothesis out from sheer fantasy. For the truth will never simply arise from accumulated so-called facts [sic] by induction. Only the explanatory power of contextual bias of one kind or another renders even the most direct Empirical experience intelligible at all. Objective reality may well need no such assistance, but human perception and comprehension most certainly do! Science, after all, depends not only upon accuracy but upon clear presentation.
10?) Perhaps fact then, is truth that defies awareness thereof, being so refined of humanizing presentation as thereby to become humanly unknowable for sheer lack of relation and relevance all systematically stripped away! -Truth transcendent of knowledge, thus too perfect and Heavenly for any Earthly good!
Indeed, the so called and vaunted impartiality of short attention span infotainment news media only strips events of context, background and therefore whatever hope and reassurance of a subjectively meaningful and therefore comprehensible universe wherein therefore rational action might ever help even to reduce harm. Indeed, far from providing whatever blandly authoritative reassurance at least ostensibly intended, the unacknowledged meaningless ambiguity of just such cursory blandly pseudo-objective news coverage of ongoing senseless calamity and horror is known to contribute to mounting tension and stress, across the population, life long. -A far, far cry from the abiding responsibility that strives for and encourages by example, any sort of genuine objectivity or quasi-scientific journalistic integrity, indeed as best possible for any field work outside of controlled laboratory conditions, ever striving no less, at ongoing self correction and improvement.
The hapless terrified viewers, with no clues for responsibly constructing opinions of their own autonomously and no hint of any agenda foisted upon them, therefore without recourse save heteronomously to trust the seemingly competent and reliable news presenters, are now ripe for propaganda suggestion to fill the void, indeed the most insidious form of propaganda being whatever prevailing and blithely unexamined assumptions and lack of doubt and imagination by which the sheeple are all so oppressed without resistance, the unexamined life not worth the living.
Indeed, the very pompously portentous brain-dead notion that any processed data
whatsoever is thereby in virtue thereof automatically ennobled or becomes at all
meaningful,
much less in any sense actually true, is finally taken as lightly as it
deserves in most opportune parody
deconstruction via
the notorious MTV factoid, items of trivia subjected to humorous
arbitrary correlations interjected at will into the most inane Popup Videos. For
factoids, particularly as manifesting in the press, are generally specious, ranging from the spurious and untrue,
unverified, incorrect, simply mistaken or fabricated outright, to the true but
trivial and therefore of little value,
surviving if at all, only as truism or truthiness,
memetically. And any assay of value
via distinction between triviality and pertinence all demands reference to background for context well beyond sheer
induction, and not just error checking for
verification of correct and even at all reliable citation of information sources.
Likewise, simply as a matter of clear
writing style, such
needlessly cumbersome indirect lackluster circumlocution of tortured literary
"spaghetti scaffolding" as "the
fact that" can be and all to often are thrown about without the
moment's care it takes to work out the actual intended subject and object of a
sentence, in other words, without the bother to identify specifically and
intelligibly whatever it may be that one endeavors to speak or write of, and how
one aspect, signified by a noun, relates to any other, as signified by a verb.
For example: "His situation might have been most dire save for the fact that he
was lucky enough to find allies" instead of "He'd been doomed where it not for
his great luck in finding allies." Because the real topic is not "the fact"
[sic.], whatever the fuck that means, but his luck. Nor is any conceivable
measure or adequacy of his luck any real concern, but that alliance was/is
fortuitous.
Indeed, cumbersome and indirect expressions the likes of "the fact that" tend
not only to lend themselves to the
passive voice, but in such the worst way as to obscure
literal responsibility by displacing the active verbs, needlessly complicating
while actually impoverishing prose rather than truly enriching it, even though
throwing about such fuzzy expressions as "the fact that" seems so handy and may be so
much easier to do than investing a moment's effort and concentration in
attaining the clarity to correct oneself and better rephrase by adequately and
properly grasping whatever genuine operant relationships between the different
elements of prose in turn reflecting whatever actual relationships between
whatever whatever the words signify or correspond to in reality
or even hypothetically, as ever such
relationships may actually
come into effect, contextually.
Here the very word 'fact' plunges to it's depths of authoritatively meaningless ambiguity and bluster, as in the expression "the fact of the matter", signifying the definite nonspecific state of affairs of whatever particular nonspecific state of affairs, Ontologically. At least the common and simple impersonal pronoun 'it' remains undisguisedly unspecific, but without the needless and pointless recursion.
And how is "the fact" [sic] of anything whatsoever at all distinct from whatever existence or occurrence indicated by linguistically referencing thereof in the first place? Indeed, Perhaps the best synonym for the very word 'fact' in all of it's similarly muddled and convoluted fraud, is most readily encountered careening down the rabbit hole into Heidegger's weird world of 'dasein' or recursive being of being.
Because any usage of the very word: 'fact' such as where a more precise synonym cannot be derived from context, is, of necessity, ambiguously unclear, whether by blithe omission or by conniving propaganda design, therefore there simply can be no correct usage of the very word 'fact,' save, perhaps, unless aforesaid deliberately confusing and misleading propagandistic abuse. To reiterate, no usage of the constructed Orwellism: 'fact' can actually be correct except to deception, in the sense of correct application of purposely misleading intentional vagueness.
Moreover, if a separate referent absitively posolutly must be had for all that the sentence as a whole is already descriptive in the first place, then there are still better and more elegantly salient utterances, such as the "phenomena [lower case] of" or "the happenstance that" or better still "the manner in which" or, most simply and self sufficiently, the very words alone, 'how' or even 'that.' -As in "His situation might have been most dire save (for) that he was lucky enough to survive because he found allies." "The cause of his survival where the allies that he came upon so fortuitously."
However the simplest: "Luckily, he survived by finding allies." -remains readily derivable, simply from the bother to identify specifically and intelligibly whatever it may be that one endeavors to speak or write of, and how one aspect, signified by a noun, relates to any other, as signified by a verb, in this case the noun 'he' signifying some person, followed by the appropriate conjugation of the verb: 'to survive' denoting the continuation of his life even in the face of whatever adversity.
Or for still another example: "It thus seems that the fact even that we are in dispute over so many questions, so many of which are fundamental, is itself a fundamental fact." may be less tortuously rendered: "Thus seemingly even that we are in dispute over so many questions, so many being fundamental, is itself fundamental." Or: "It seems that the dispute in the field, over numerous questions so many even being fundamental, already in and of itself, could hardly be more fundamental."
For if one obdurately must insist upon sentence formulation redeploying the verbs of whatsoever occurrence as ever transpires under any whatever conditions as nouns in denoting the existence of any whatever circumstances, instead of "the fact that" [sic.], serviceable and more elegantly literate alternatives might include: "being as," "being that" or even "being as that."
Nothing is to be gained, and everything risked, by mangling simple assertion that such is so, by appeal to (whatever the Hell) the fact [sic.] that such is so.
11!) Indeed, if fact [sic.], like 'dasein,' is merely being, then why not simply concede the Ontological tautology that that what is, is, and thereby steer entirely clear of any such neo-Heideggerian weird world of perfidious antirational syntaxic obfuscation as is-ness, the quality or being of being at all? Is fact [sic.], then, Heideggerian is-ness? More lucidly phrased, Heidegger splits hairs to the effect that existence or being there, refers not to whatever exists but the the way or manner in which anything existent, exists. And the fine distinction may yet obtain on the cutting edge of physics, where questions may yet obtain as to the way or perhaps even some contingent manner in which the universe exists, indeed beyond antecedent causality beginning only from the Big Bang onward. Indeed, we are already confronted with the inadequacy of known logical causality at the limits of chronological regression. Nevertheless, existence or occurrence remains self inalienable, thus no less than daseinic is-ness, the very word 'fact' [sic.] is likewise worse than redundant, deplorably obscurantist and well overdue for retirement from usage at all, much less slippery propaganda certitude surrogacy. For, no less than how Heidegger's expression: 'dasein' weirdly and fantastically denotes some manner of existence or being even howsoever implicitly mystical yet perhaps nevertheless operant within space-time, all not only free of and distinct from antecedent causation but all legitimate scientific questions thereof, the very word ‘fact’ [sic] likewise exists only in order to foment confusion and smuggle blithe certitude in by the back door, by blurring every crucial Metaphysical distinction between proverbial map and metaphorical territory along with the boundaries between abstract Logic and Empirical science, all, as we may recall, by extension from traditional abuse of the concept of: proof, and thereby perhaps even likewise daisenically or Theologically into the the explanation of the known via the unknown, indeed, at least allegedly, the mysterious and unknowable? -never mind precisely how... instead of perseverant endeavor and optimistic striving towards scientific explanation even of unknown origination in terms of the known, even in modern cosmology under pressure from the increasing inadequacy of known logical causality at the limits of chronological regression.
12?) "You’re a fixed point in time, you’re a fact." [sic.] In perspective of the fictional continuity or, dare say: Time Lord historiography of 'Dr. Who,' a BBC Science Fiction / Fantasy TV series drama about a time traveler, with whatever all else ever in flux (and, presumably therefore open to conjecture), a fixed point in time (or: fact) is any past or future historical event or detail thereof, with ramifications such that must not and cannot be altered without the risk of significantly changing history, the cosmos and destiny. All typical and ever characteristic nonsense spoken with conviction, as ever, by the ever charmingly somewhat choleric protagonist of the show, referred to mysteriously only as: the Doctor, but really, any more so than all the other fluid and mendaciously chimerical definitions of 'fact' [sic.]? Allons-y!
All thus has the confusion over these distinctions between proverbial map and metaphorical territory actually deteriorated to the point of entering and muddling what is already so often among our most cumbersome baggage, common language itself. But with the most basic vocabulary and jargon of Metaphysics clearly, precisely and simply defined as here on this page, much such confusion may perhaps ever be ameliorated.
Indeed, t'would seem that even given free choice between them big four dollar words and just two bit monosyllables, ya' still gets what ya' pays for! So say what you mean, mean what you say, shell out the two bucks and don't be two bit!
Learn thy 'ologies!
UPDATE: As of 6/6'04 this very page appears to have been plagiarized by collegeresearch.us