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Full Idea
If we imagine a world of mere matter, there would be no room for falsehood, and although it would contain what may be called 'facts', it would not contain any truths.
Gist of Idea
In a world of mere matter there might be 'facts', but no truths
Source
Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch.12)
Book Ref
Russell,Bertrand: 'The Problems of Philosophy' [OUP 1995], p.70
A Reaction
Only a realist will buy a concept of mind-independent 'facts', but I am with Russell all the way here. We should not say "the truth is out there", but "the facts are out there". Facts are the target of thought, and truth is a relationship to the facts.
| 19471 | A fact is a thought that is true [Frege] |
| 22641 | Realities just are, and beliefs are true of them [James] |
| 5418 | In a world of mere matter there might be 'facts', but no truths [Russell] |
| 13988 | Many sentences do not state facts, but there are no facts which could not be stated [Ryle] |
| 8161 | We know we can state facts, with true statements [Dummett] |
| 19278 | There is no gap between a fact that p, and it is true that p; so we only have the truth-condtions for p [Hale] |