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Single Idea 8323
[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / a. Facts
]
Full Idea
Although 'fact' is grammatically a count noun, it strikes us as being at best whimsical to talk about enumerating facts - to talk, for instance, about how many facts I learned today before breakfast.
Gist of Idea
It is whimsical to try to count facts - how many facts did I learn before breakfast?
Source
E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 12.4)
Book Ref
Lowe,E.J.: 'The Possibility of Metaphysics' [OUP 2001], p.258
A Reaction
I always liked the question 'how many facts are there in this room?' One might make a serious attempt to decide how many facts I learned before breakfast, and reach a reasonable approximation, especially if one didn't open the newspaper.
The
21 ideas
with the same theme
[general ideas about facts]:
14778
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Facts are hard unmoved things, unaffected by what people may think of them
[Peirce]
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6111
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As propositions can be put in subject-predicate form, we wrongly infer that facts have substance-quality form
[Russell]
|
6434
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Facts are everything, except simples; they are either relations or qualities
[Russell]
|
21709
|
You can't name all the facts, so they are not real, but are what propositions assert
[Russell]
|
23473
|
Do his existent facts constitute the world, or determine the world?
[Morris,M on Wittgenstein]
|
7610
|
A fact is simply what it is rational to accept
[Putnam]
|
18488
|
We normally explain natural events by citing further facts
[McFetridge]
|
8386
|
Events are picked out by descriptions, and facts by whole sentences
[Crane]
|
17287
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Facts, such as redness and roundness of a ball, can be 'fused' into one fact
[Fine,K]
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8314
|
Are facts wholly abstract, or can they contain some concrete constituents?
[Lowe]
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8316
|
Facts cannot be wholly abstract if they enter into causal relations
[Lowe]
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8318
|
The problem with the structured complex view of facts is what binds the constituents
[Lowe]
|
8323
|
It is whimsical to try to count facts - how many facts did I learn before breakfast?
[Lowe]
|
15137
|
If 'fact' is a noun, can we name the fact that dogs bark 'Mary'?
[Williamson]
|
14095
|
Facts are structures of worldly items, rather like sentences, individuated by their ingredients
[Rosen]
|
4698
|
What counts as a fact partly depends on the availability of human concepts to describe them
[O'Grady]
|
5735
|
Maybe names and predicates can capture any fact
[Melia]
|
5736
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No sort of plain language or levels of logic can express modal facts properly
[Melia]
|
21661
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There are probably ineffable facts, systematically hidden from us
[Hofweber]
|
18916
|
Facts are not in the world - they are properties of the world
[Engelbretsen]
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17267
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The identity of two facts may depend on how 'fine-grained' we think facts are
[Correia/Schnieder]
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