Fact

A fact is perhaps best described as a factual statement + truth. Facts are generally held to be mind-independent, i.e. they would continue to be the case whether or not anyone believed them, or indeed whether or not there were any minds to believe them in the first place.

A factual statement has a truth value, that is to say it is capable of being true or false. Not all statements are of this form, as we can see below:

1. Table salt is comprised of sodium and chlorine.

2. Table salt is comprised of zinc and chlorine.

3. The Beatles were great.

4. The Beatles were rubbish.

Statements 1 & 2 clearly have truth values of T & F respectively. We can therefore assert statement 1 as a fact. In the unlikely case of disagreement, there would be a straighforward recourse to direct experimental proof.

Statements 3 & 4, however, are more problematic. Whatever the weight of support for either side, there remains the possibility of two optimally informed and impartial judges failing to agree (see cognitive command). Without recourse to any direct method of proof, neither statement can be said to have a truth value and thus neither can be asserted as a fact.

Disputed entities, terms and properties

Assertions of fact become more difficult in cases where an opponent has room to question the validity of an entity, term or property contained within the statement. If we consider the following statements:

1. Pol Pot was evil.

2. God created the universe.

3. 5 + 6 = 11

4. Man evolved from apes.

Statement 1 is an apparently straightforward identification of a documented historical figure (Pol Pot) with the property of evil. In order for it to be true, however, a proponent must provide some non-trivial account of the property of evil and how we might come to know it. This is far from easy. Providing a exhaustive list of Pol Pot's "evil" deeds would be insufficient - indeed, it begs the question of how we know those deeds to be evil themselves.

In statement 2, the roles are reversed. This time it is the very existence of the subject-entity that allows room for dispute. As all philosophical "proofs" of the existence of God are highly controversial, if not outright failures, the usual fallback position is an assertion of faith. As it is equally impossible to disprove the existence of God (see verification transcendence), a stalemate is the result.