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Full Idea
A fact may be an object and an extension (Quine's view), or a property and a set of properties, or an object and a property; the view I favour is the third one, which seems the most natural.
Clarification
The 'extension' is the set of objects which qualify
Gist of Idea
Facts are object-plus-extension, or property-plus-set-of-properties, or object-plus-property
Source
Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3)
Book Ref
McGinn,Colin: 'Logical Properties' [OUP 2003], p.63
A Reaction
Personally I tend to use the word 'fact' in a realist and non-linguistic way. There must be innumerable inexpressible facts, such as the single pattern made by all the particles of the universe. McGinn seems to be talking of 'atomic facts'. See Idea 6111.
Related Idea
Idea 6111 As propositions can be put in subject-predicate form, we wrongly infer that facts have substance-quality form [Russell]
| 21673 | There are simple and complex facts; the latter depend on further facts [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
| 18376 | Russell asserts atomic, existential, negative and general facts [Russell, by Armstrong] |
| 18737 | There are no positive or negative facts; these are just the forms of propositions [Wittgenstein] |
| 15201 | That Queen Anne is dead is a 'general fact', not a fact about Queen Anne [Prior,AN] |
| 17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
| 8163 | Since 'no bird here' and 'no squirrel here' seem the same, we must talk of 'atomic' facts [Dummett] |
| 6075 | Facts are object-plus-extension, or property-plus-set-of-properties, or object-plus-property [McGinn] |
| 19322 | Why can there not be disjunctive, conditional and negative facts? [Kirkham] |
| 15071 | Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K] |
| 10367 | There is only one fact - the True [Schaffer,J] |
| 15338 | We may believe in atomic facts, but surely not complex disjunctive ones? [Horsten] |
| 17293 | Worldly facts are obtaining states of affairs, with constituents; conceptual facts also depend on concepts [Audi,P] |