In this paper, we analyse causation in terms of factual difference-making. Factual difference-making is an alternative to counterfactual difference-making which does not face the problem of redundant causation. Our analysis defined in a framework of causal models solves many causal scenarios with which accounts in terms of counterfactual difference-making still struggle. The upshot is that causes are, perhaps, better understood as factual difference-makers rather than counterfactual ones.

This paper explains a fallacy that often arises in theorizing about human minds. I call it the Factual Belief Fallacy. The Fallacy, roughly, involves drawing conclusions about human psychology that improperly ignore the large backgrounds of mostly accurate factual beliefs people have. The Factual Belief Fallacy has led to significant mistakes in both philosophy of mind and cognitive science of religion. Avoiding it helps us better see the difference between factual belief and religious credence; seeing that difference in turn enables (...) us to pose interesting normative questions about various mental states labeled “belief.”. (shrink)

According to the substantialist, substances should be regarded as the fundamental ontological category. It is substances that are the bearer of properties, that are causally efficacious and that compose the things we see and touch around us. Cumpa has argued that this metaphysics fits poorly with classical physics and Buonomo has extended this argument into the quantum realm. After reviewing their claims, I shall argue that simple reflection on the form of the Standard Model also undermines substantialism. I will then (...) explore Dasgupta’s qualitative factualism in this context before suggesting that modern physics does not compel us to adopt such a stance. The alternative is to adopt a form of structuralism which, although it may be rendered compatible with factualism, can also stand as a ‘third way’ between these stances. (shrink)

What are the truth conditions of want ascriptions? According to an influential approach, they are intimately connected to the agent’s beliefs: ⌜S wants p⌝ is true iff, within S’s belief set, S prefers the p worlds to the not-p worlds. This approach faces a well-known problem, however: it makes the wrong predictions for what we call (counter)factual want ascriptions, wherein the agent either believes p or believes not-p—for example, ‘I want it to rain tomorrow and that is exactly what is (...) going to happen’ or ‘I want this weekend to last forever, but of course it will end in a few hours’. We solve this problem. The truth conditions for want ascriptions are, we propose, connected to the agent’s conditional beliefs. We substantiate this connection by pursuing a striking parallel between (counter)factual and non-(counter)factual want ascriptions on the one hand and counterfactual and indicative conditionals on the other. (shrink)

In ‘Factual Difference-Making’, Holger Andreas and Mario Günther (2025) propose a theory of model-relative actual causation which performs remarkably well on a number of known problematic cases. They take this to show that we should abandon our counterfactual way of thinking about causation in favour of their factual alternative. I cast doubt on this argument by offering two similar theories. First, I show that the theory of Factual Difference-Making is equivalent to a partly counterfactual theory. Second, I give a fully (...) counterfactual theory that makes the same judgments in the scenarios discussed by Andreas and Günther. (shrink)

Say that two sentences are factually equivalent when they describe the same facts or situations, understood as worldly items, i.e. as bits of reality rather than as representations of reality. The notion of factual equivalence is certainly of central interest to philosophical semantics, but it plays a role in a much wider range of philosophical areas. What is the logic of factual equivalence? This paper attempts to give a partial answer to this question, by providing an answer the following, more (...) specific question: Given a standard propositional language with negation, conjunction and disjunction as primitive operators, which sentences of the language should be taken to be factually equivalent by virtue of their logical form? The system for factual equivalence advocated in this paper is a proper fragment of the first-degree system for the logic of analytic equivalence put forward in the late seventies by R. B. Angell. I provide the system with two semantics, both formulated in terms of the notion of a situation’s being fittingly described by a linguistic item. In the final part of the paper I argue, contra a view I defended in my “Grounding and Truth-Functions”, that the logic for factual equivalence I advocate here should be preferred to Angell’s logic if one wishes to follow the general conception of the relationships between factual equivalence and the notion of grounding put forward in the 2010 paper. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Silva's work on factual awareness. He argues that factual awareness can help us acquire knowledge. This position is appealing to many of us who think of reasons as consisting of facts and think of factual knowledge as being a belief that's based on good reasons. One potential problem for this view, however, is that it's been argued that factual awareness just is knowledge (albeit under a different description). It might seem that there's a potential modal (...) difference between factual awareness and factual knowledge (e.g., it might seem that there's visual awareness of facts and that this kind of factual awareness doesn't require the kinds of modal tie to the facts needed for knowledge) but I shall argue that initial appearances are misleading and that knowledge of and awareness of facts have the same modal requirements. Whilst there are no modal conditions necessary for us to have perceptual awareness of things in our surroundings, there are modal conditions that must be met for factual awareness, so it turns out that factual awareness is quite likely just knowledge and factual awareness does not supervene upon the perceptual relations we bear to things in our surroundings. (shrink)

The Sellarsian task of ontology is to reconcile two seemingly divergent images of ordinary objects such as persons, tomatoes and tables, namely, the manifest image of common sense and the scientific image provided by fundamental physics (Sellars, Science, Perception, and Reality, 1963). Can the genuine categories of the ontologies of Substantialism (Heil, The World as We Find It, 2012), Structural Realism (Ladyman and Ross,Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized, 2007; French, The Structure of the World: Metaphysics and Representation, 2014), and (...) Factualism (Cumpa, ‘A Materialist Criterion of Fundamentality’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 2014), such as ‘substance’, ‘structure’, and ‘fact’, help us to solve the problem of the reconciliation of the two images of ordinary objects? In this paper I defend the thesis that the ontology of Factualism does a better job of reconciling the manifest and the scientific images of ordinary objects than other ontologies. (shrink)

This article articulates the figure of the storyteller and the concept of factual truth to reflect on elements of Hannah Arendt’s philosophy that are also important for understanding our political situation. In it, Arendt's thought is seen as tributary to history and disposed to an alternative model of thinking: narrative thinking. Two ideas that revolve around the figure of the storyteller and the concept of factual truth. The goal of this research is, then, to take up again Arendt's reflection on (...) factual truth in order to understand our own context, marked by negationism and even by ideas such as “post-truth”. The choice of the author is not fortuitous, but is justified by the approach in which truth is not taken as an epistemological, neutral issue. To this end, we divide our text into four parts. In the first, we resume essential aspects of the relation between Arendtian thought and history. In the second, the same question is seen from the point of view of the questioning of the adequate way to respond to the “imperative of testimony” about the concentrationary experience. In the third, we turn to the figure of the storyteller and “narrative thinking” as an alternative to the Archimedean point of view. Finally, we find the notion of factual truth that, in fact, underpins all previous moments. (shrink)

Large language models are often discussed in terms of grounding and reference. Such debates leave largely unresolved the question of factuality: LLMs may refer successfully while still producing false or unstable propositions. Drawing on inferentialist approaches associated with Brandom, the paper shifts attention from reference to assertion, commitment, and epistemic accountability.

I argue that psychology and epistemology should posit distinct cognitive attitudes of religious credence and factual belief, which have different etiologies and different cognitive and behavioral effects. I support this claim by presenting a range of empirical evidence that religious cognitive attitudes tend to lack properties characteristic of factual belief, just as attitudes like hypothesis, fictional imagining, and assumption for the sake of argument generally lack such properties. Furthermore, religious credences have distinctive properties of their own. To summarize: factual beliefs (...) are practical setting independent, cognitively govern other attitudes, and are evidentially vulnerable. By way of contrast, religious credences have perceived normative orientation, are susceptible to free elaboration, and are vulnerable to special authority. This theory provides a framework for future research in the epistemology and psychology of religious credence. (shrink)

Within debates concerning responsibility for ignorance the distinction between moral and factual ignorance is often treated as crucial. Many prominent accounts hold that while factual ignorance routinely exculpates, moral ignorance never does so. The view that there is an in-principle distinction between moral and factual ignorance has been referred to as the “Asymmetry Thesis.” This view stands in opposition to the “Parity Thesis,” which holds that moral and factual ignorance are in-principle similar. The Parity Thesis has been closely aligned with (...) volitionist accounts of moral responsibility, whereas the Asymmetry Thesis has been closely aligned with Quality of Will accounts. Two central questions are at work here: how ignorance excuses, and whether it excuses in the same way for both moral and factual ignorance. I will argue that these questions have often been confused in the present debate, and once we have distinguished more clearly between them, it seems that Quality of Will accounts are compatible with the Parity Thesis. And more generally: that the distinction between moral and factual ignorance is far less important in debates about responsibility for ignorance than it has often appeared. (shrink)

The paper argues that applications of the principle that “ought” implies “can” (OIC) depend on normative considerations even if the link between “ought” and “can” is logical in nature. Thus, we should reject a common, “factualist” conception of OIC and endorse weak “normativism”. Even if we use OIC as the rule ““cannot” therefore “not ought””, applying OIC is not a mere matter of facts and logic, as factualists claim, but often draws on “proto-ideals” of moral agency.

Philosophers from anselm and scotus to hartshorne and malcolm have argued that the true claim that God is a necessary being implies that theism is a-Priori demonstrable. Philosophers such as hick, Penelhum, And geach have denied this, Contending 1) that god's necessity is factual, Indicating his eternal independence, Rather than logical, Indicating his existence in all possible worlds, And 2) that from the former nothing follows a-Priori about the truth or falsity of theism. I argue that factual and logical necessity (...) are conceptually inseparable, That God can be demonstrated to exist in all possible worlds. I take statements about the modalities of existence of things to be equivalent to statements about the modalities of instantiation of concepts, And argue that the concept God is necessarily instantiated, I.E., That God necessarily exists. The argument is compared and contrasted to a similar argument of hartshorne's. (shrink)

The core of Van Leeuwen’s thesis is that the prescientific word ‘belief’ is multiply ambiguous between distinct cognitive kinds, just as the prescientific word ‘star’ can refer to a ball of gas or a planet. This book examines two of these cognitive kinds: factual belief and religious credence. After briefly discussing Van Leeuwen’s method, I examine the putative kindhood of factual belief and religious credence, arguing that the distinction between the two is not as clear-cut as Van Leeuwen makes it (...) out to be. The distinction may consist in a continuum rather than discreet kinds. (shrink)

In this book Gregory Browne rejects the views of David Hume and the Logical Positivists, and argues that there are necessary factual truths, which include a wide range of truths from many fields of knowledge. Browne argues for the necessity of Newton's Laws and truths about natural kinds, and for the factuality of definitional truths and truths of logic and mathematics. Browne synthesizes the work of Kripke, Putnam, Quine and others, but goes beyond the usual discussions of the meanings (...) and definitions of terms to discuss the references of various kinds of terms, and specifically to develop a theory of kinds, distinguishing 'Deep Kinds' and 'Shallow Kinds'. His theory of Deep Kinds does not accept all of the assumptions commonly associated wtih a theory of natural kinds. (shrink)

According to social constructionism factuality, the establishment of accounts as corresponding to an objective external reality, is an interactional accomplishment ordinarily achieved in everyday conversations. In cases of disagreement regarding the interpretation and nature of events, however, not only the plausibility of the account, but also the rationality, integrity, and accountability of the participants is at stake. Delusions present extreme cases of such disagreement. This paper analyzes extracts from an interview with an individual diagnosed as delusional focusing on the (...) factualization devices used in the negotiation of accounts. The question of whether the observation of conversational rules documented in the interview is sufficient to establish the plausibility of an account and the rationality of its teller leads to arguments around the necessity of shifting the focus from the grounded micro-analysis of talk to wider social and institutional processes. (shrink)

Clinical decisions are expected to be based on factual evidence and official values derived from healthcare law and soft laws such as regulations and guidelines. But sometimes personal values instead influence clinical decisions. One way in which personal values may influence medical decision-making is by their affecting factual claims or assumptions made by healthcare providers. Such influence, which we call ‘value-impregnation,’ may be concealed to all concerned stakeholders. We suggest as a hypothesis that healthcare providers’ decision making is sometimes affected (...) by value-impregnated factual claims or assumptions. If such claims influence e.g. doctor–patient encounters, this will likely have a negative impact on the provision of correct information to patients and on patients’ influence on decision making regarding their own care. In this paper, we explore the idea that value-impregnated factual claims influence healthcare decisions through a series of medical examples. We suggest that more research is needed to further examine whether healthcare staff’s personal values influence clinical decision-making. (shrink)

This paper explores whether public reason liberals have an obligation to justify the factual claims that underpin coercive norms. Traditionally, liberal theorists have focused on justifying moral principles, assuming that empirical facts are either (1) not as deeply relevant to people’s lives as moral beliefs or (2) can be easily resolved through expert consensus. However, increasing public disputes over scientific facts and recent findings in cognitive psychology challenge these assumptions. I contest this view by presenting three counterarguments. The Inseparability Argument (...) states that factual and moral claims are deeply intertwined, and many empirical beliefs are rooted in broader worldviews that shape personal identities; the Equivalence of Public Reasons Argument maintains that, insofar as factual claims play a decisive role in shaping coercive policies, they must be subjected to the same justificatory standards as moral claims; finally, the Argument from Epistemic Pluralism claims that liberal societies are not only morally but also epistemically diverse, with citizens holding competing views on what counts as reliable knowledge. Together, these arguments support the existence of a Liberal Duty of Factual Justification (LDFJ), asserting that public reason liberals must engage in the justification of factual premises, as they do with moral principles, to maintain democratic legitimacy. (shrink)

Abstract.Mandatory risk assessment is intended to reassure concerned citizens and introduce reason into the heated European controversies on genetically modified crops and food. The authors, examining a case of risk assessment of genetically modified oilseed rape, claim that the new European legislation on risk assessment does nothing of the sort and is not likely to present an escape from the international deadlock on the use of genetic modification in agriculture and food production. The new legislation is likely to stimulate the (...) kind of emotive reactions it was intended to prevent. In risk assessment exercises, scientific uncertainty is turned into risk, expressed in facts and figures. Paradoxically, this conveys an impression of certainty, while value-disagreement and conflicts of interest remain hidden below the surface of factuality. Public dialogue and negotiation along these lines are rendered impossible. The only option left to critics is to resort to claims of fear and to call for new risk assessments to be performed, on and on again. Science is allowing itself to be abused by accepting the burden of proof in matters more suited to reflection and negotiation. The specific challenge to science would be to take care of itself – rethinking the role and the limitations of science in a social context, and, thereby gaining the strength to fulfill this role and to enter into dialogue with the rest of society. Scientific communities appear to be obvious candidates for prompting reflection and dialogue on this issue. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, phenomenalism is the position that physical facts depend upon sensory facts. Many have thought it to imply that physical statements are translatable into sensory statements. Not surprisingly, the impossibility of such translations led many to abandon phenomenalism in favor of materialism. But this was rash, for if phenomenalism is reformulated as the claim that physical facts supervene upon sensory facts, then translatability is no longer required. Given materialism's failure to account for subjective experience, there has been a revival (...) of property dualism. But property dualism implies indirect realism with its threat of scepticism. Given difficulties with materialism and dualism, philosophers should reconsider phenomenalism. (shrink)

The platonism/nominalism debate in the philosophy of mathematics concerns the question whether numbers and other mathematical objects exist. Platonists believe the answer to be in the positive, nominalists in the negative. According to non‐factualists (about mathematical objects), the question is ‘moot’, in the sense that it lacks a correct answer. Elaborating on ideas from Stephen Yablo, this article articulates a non‐factualist position in the philosophy of mathematics and shows how the case for non‐factualism entails that standard arguments for rival positions (...) fail. In particular, showing how and why non‐factualists reject nominalism illuminates the originality and interest of their position. (shrink)

Taoist philosophy of heart-mind explores the nature of mind and psychological phenomena with a factual nature and guides the possibility and practical path of the sage with a value-oriented nature, and realizes the unity of the two in exploring the nature of mind and transcendence. In terms of factual nature, Taoism takes “Tao” as the metaphysical foundation and “qi” as the material basis, emphasizing the emptiness, stillness, non-action, and natural authenticity of the heart-mind, thus realizing a holistic understanding of the (...) nature and functions of the heart-mind. In the value-oriented nature, Taoism takes “becoming a sage” as its goal, affirming the innateness and universality of Tao, believing that everyone can become a sage, and advocating that through “positive and negative cultivation”, we can remove the obscurations of innate endowments and return to the innate state. It also advocates that through “positive and negative cultivation”, the obscurations of the acquired should be removed, and the mind should be returned to the innate endowments, so as to realize the transformation from the “ordinary heart-mind” to the “sage’s heart-mind”. By encompassing both factual and value-oriented, Taoist philosophy of heart-mind offers a distinctive framework for contemporary philosophy of mind, expands the scope of psychological phenomena, and provides a holistic, non-dualistic alternative to mainstream naturalistic approaches. It thus opens new pathways for addressing the “problem of meaning” and advancing cross-cultural dialogue in the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

It is argued that, while there is no such property as truth, there is a feature of factuality which certain states of affairs have and others lack. Since states of affairs can appear before the mind as having this feature when, in reality, they do not have it, a most difficult epistemological problem arises, namely, how to distinguish between a state of affairs which merely appears to have factuality and a state of affairs which really is factual. The (...) test for factuality, it is maintained, is twofold. It consists, on the one hand, of perception and introspection, and on the other, of coherence. What we perceive and introspect is not only presented to us as factual, but justifiedly taken to be factual. In case of doubt, though, we cannot but fall back on coherence, comparing some of our beliefs, perceptions, assumptions etc. with others. (shrink)

This chapter begins from Augustine’s autobiographical reflections on errors of judgement made by himself and others in his youth. Using them, this chapter shows that doctrinal errors and mistaken beliefs about the world are deeply entwined with evaluative judgements, thereby undermining the traditional fact/value distinction. Furthermore, every kind of assent to factual or doctrinal claims involves a value judgement about the level of proof required for assent to be justified. We can be morally required to believe or to withhold belief. (...) Scepticism can be a culpable refusal of trust. So moral understanding presupposes an epistemological virtue, which is itself subject to moral judgement. (shrink)

This book is an anthology of essays dealing with the problem of the justification of claims to factual knowledge of various sorts. All, except one excerpted from a book, were originally journal articles. Part one, contains essays by R. F. Holland, William Earle, and E. J. Furlong on the problem of memory. Part two, contains essays by A. J. Ayer, C. H. Whiteley, and H. H. Price. Part three contains essays by Ayer, R. J. Hirst, and C. H. Whiteley. A (...) general introduction precedes the essays. A useful bibliographical essay is also given.--A. S. C. (shrink)

Professor Kai Nielsen is one of the most forceful proponents of the view that theological assertions have no factual reference because they are compatible with any empirical state of affairs; no evidence, it is alleged, is allowed to count as falsification of such assertions, and therefore they spuriously purport to be what they are not. In this he follows the well-known essay by Professor Antony Flew in which the same argument was advanced, and Nielsen's own most recent contribution on the (...) subject in Religious Studies should be read against the background of his earlier controversy with Professors John Hick and George Mavrodes in The Canadian Journal of Theology. In this latest article he broadens the canvas to question the significance of applying language and concepts appropriate to the realm of empirical observation to anything that is held to transcend it; and this is the substance of Part II of his paper, in which he engages in debate with Professor Ian Crombie, treading well-worn ground that has been the subject of innumerable philosophical discussions. The rest of the paper, however, is a restatement of his earlier contention, and it is with this more limited issue that I shall be concerned in what follows. For I believe that Nielsen is wrong in two quite fundamental respects: he is mistaken in supposing that theological assertions are compatible with any empirical state of affairs: he bases his critique of theological assertions on a far too uncritical appraisal of the principles of verification and falsification in the case of ordinary factual statements. If I am right, the larger questions raised in Part II will still remain open, but it is high time that the ‘verification-falsification argument’ should be shown to be unfounded. (shrink)

The essay argues that some factual propositions are both clearly true and not known. The essays argues that those propositions are evidence for anyone to whom they are clearly true.

Dienes & Perner argue that there is a hierarchy of forms of implicit knowledge. One level of their hierarchy involves factuality, where it may be merely implicit that the state of affairs is supposed to be a real one rather than something imagined or fictional. I argue that the factual or fictional status of a thought or utterance cannot be a matter of concept, implicit or explicit.

We argue that Dienes & Perner's (D&P's) proposal needs to specify independent criteria when a subject explicitly represents factuality. This task is complicated by the fact that people typically “tacitly” believe that each of their beliefs is a fact. This problem does not arise for comparative evidence on monkeys, for they presumably lack the capacity to represent factuality explicitly. D&P suggest that explicit visual processing and declarative memory depend on explicit representations of factuality, whereas the analogous implicit (...) processes do not require such representations. Many of the implicit/explicit findings are also found in monkeys, however, and D&P's account needs to explain this striking parallel. (shrink)

What is the logical form of judgments, if they have one? This question remains an enigma for any transcendental approach to logical thought. The paper addresses the matter by following the debate between Edmund Husserl and Christoph Sigwart from 1890 to 1904. It shows the pivotal role that the problem of judgment played in this discussion. Since judgments were thought to be both refined mental acts and fundamental logical elements, the related issue was a thumbnail version of the broader conflict (...) between psychology and logic. The paper argues that Husserl, far from overcoming Sigwart’s “Kantian-psychologistic” approach, ends up integrating it into the later stages of his phenomenological work; and that this approach does in fact pose an unavoidable transcendental-genetic problem for Husserl’s phenomenology of logic. The argument intends to contribute to a possible integration of the study of the factual “nature” of men within the horizon of the philosophical logic of knowledge. (shrink)

I shall argue that those who hold that there are factual complexes, or facts, and who subscribe to a correspondence theory of truth, according to which truth is analyzed in terms of correspondence to facts, need not hold that, in addition to facts, there are propositions.

Supervenience in metaethics is the notion that there can be no moral dif-ference between two acts, persons or events without some non-moral difference underlying it. If St. Francis is a good man, there could not be a man exactly like St. Francis in non-evaluative respects that is not good. The phenomenon was first systematically discussed by R. M. Hare (1952), who argued that realists about evaluative properties struggle to account for it. As is well established, Hare, and following him, Simon (...) Blackburn, mistakenly took the relevant phenomenon to be weak rather than strong supervenience, and the explanations they offered for it are accordingly outdated. In this paper, I present a non-factualist account of strong su-pervenience of the evaluative and argue that it fares better than compet-ing realist views in explaining the conceptual nature of the phenomenon, as well as in offering an account of the supervenience of the evaluative in general, rather than more narrowly the moral. While Hare and Blackburn were wrong about the specifics, they were right in that non-factualists can offer a plausible account of the supervenience of the evaluative, that in certain respects is superior to competing realist explanations. (shrink)

Knowledge is factually grounded belief. This account uses the same ingredients as the traditional analysis—belief, truth, and justification—but posits a different relation between them. While the traditional analysis begins with true belief and improves it by simply adding justification, this account begins with belief, improves it by grounding it, and then improves it further by grounding it in the facts. In other words, for a belief to be knowledge, it's not enough that it be true and justified; for a belief (...) to be knowledge, it must be justified by the facts. This account solves the Gettier problem. Gettierized beliefs fall short of knowledge because, albeit true and justified, they are not grounded in the facts. This account also elucidates why knowledge attributions are sensitive to epistemic standards. It's because whether we take a belief to be grounded in the facts is sensitive to epistemic standards. (shrink)

SummaryThis paper considers the method of idealization and factualization as the main method of all advanced empirical sciences. The procedure is as follows. Some idealizing conditions are assumed: the vanishing of factors (pi=0) which never vanish in the real world. An idealization law is formulated — a law which is exactly (non-vacuously) fulfilled only in an ideal model, not in any real system. Then the idealizing assumptions are abrogated one by one-it is a process of gradual factualization, of the transition (...) to the factual laws which are fulfilled in real systems. These laws may be directly applied and tested by experience. (shrink)

This paper considers the method of idealization and factualization as the main method of all advanced empirical science. The procedure is as follows. Some idealizing conditions are assumed: the vanishing of factors $(p_{i}=0)$ which never vanish in the real world. An idealization law is formulated -- a law which is exactly (non-vacuously) fulfilled only in an ideal model, not in any real system. Then the idealizing assumptions are abrogated one by one-it is a process of gradual factualization, of the transition (...) to the factual laws which are fulfilled in real systems. These laws may be directly applied and tested by experience. (shrink)

In this commentary on Andreas and Günther’s ‘Factual Difference-Making’, I highlight some of the key features of their account actual causation. I raise some possible counterexamples. Finally, I raise the question of whether their account can shed light on the practical role played by our concept of actual causation and offer a tentative suggestion.

SummaryThis paper considers the method of idealization and factualization as the main method of all advanced empirical sciences. The procedure is as follows. Some idealizing conditions are assumed: the vanishing of factors (pi=0) which never vanish in the real world. An idealization law is formulated — a law which is exactly (non-vacuously) fulfilled only in an ideal model, not in any real system. Then the idealizing assumptions are abrogated one by one-it is a process of gradual factualization, of the transition (...) to the factual laws which are fulfilled in real systems. These laws may be directly applied and tested by experience. (shrink)

Many epistemologists are interested in offering a positive account of how it is that many of our common sense beliefs enjoy one or another positive epistemological status (e.g., how they are warranted, justified, reasonable, or what have you). A number of philosophers, under the influence of Wittgenstein and/or J. L. Austin, have argued that this enterprise is misconceived. The most effective version of this argument is to be found in Mark Kaplan’s paper “Epistemology on Holiday”. After explaining what this criticism (...) amounts to and why it is important, I then respond to it. My response is based upon, and is intended to display the explanatory power of, a contractarian account of our practice of epistemic appraisal. (shrink)

Discussions of moral luck, exceptionalism, and ethical watersheds raise the question of what it would mean for our ethical commitments to exhibit, in an axiologically non-trivial way, a diachronic character. This would render a particular evaluation applicable, by virtue of its content, only at certain times and not others. It would also make whether or not there happen to be cases we can point to at a given time and for a given domain contingent on facts about what antecedently occurred (...) in the world. I explore this first by considering how the issue relates to the metaethical division between factualists and non-factualists, and then by examining Wittgenstein’s distinctive line of thinking, in On Certainty, about how framing commitments and empirico-factual beliefs combine in ways that change over time. I conclude that theorising about ethical diachronicity in such terms leads to a problem of self-referentiality, but argue that while such an approach entails a certain “throwing away of the ladder” of philosophical analysis, this need not leave us with nothing to say. There can be a meaningful consideration of putative cases of ethical diachronicity in other ways, via personal histories and fictional narratives. (shrink)

Andreas and Günther defend a theory of token causation in terms of what they call factual difference-making, which they contrast with counterfactual difference-making. In this commentary I argue that the theory faces problems concerning: i) the causal models employed by the theory; ii) the notion of deviance that plays an essential role in the theory; and iii) the application of the theory to cases involving switching.

This paper argues that the normative character of our unreflective situated behaviour is not factual. We highlight a problematic assumption shared by the two most influential trends in contemporary philosophy of cognitive science, reductionism and enactivism. Our intentional, normative explanations are referential, descriptive or factual. Underneath this assumption lies the idea that only facts can make true or false our attributions of cognitive, mental and agential abilities. We will argue against this view by describing the main features and problems of (...) reductionism and enactivism and then we will offer two arguments against this shared factualist assumption: (1) normative vocabulary is ineliminable if we want a complete explanation of our situated practices; and (2) the factualist assumption is a species of the is-ought fallacy. Finally, we will claim that a folk psychological explanation of our normative practices is fully compatible with ontological naturalism when such descriptivist or factualist assumption is rejected. (shrink)

Este artigo articula a figura do contador de estórias e o conceito de verdade factual para refletir sobre elementos da filosofia de Hannah Arendt importantes também à compreensão da nossa situação política. Nele, o pensamento de Arendt é visto como tributário da história e disposto a um modelo alternativo de pensar: o pensamento narracional. Duas ideias que giram em torno da figura do contador de estórias e do conceito de verdade factual. O objetivo desta pesquisa é, então, retomar a reflexão (...) arendtiana sobre a verdade factual a fim de compreendermos nosso próprio contexto, marcado por negacionismo e mesmo por ideias como a de “pós-verdade”. A escolha da autora não é fortuita, mas se justifica pela abordagem na qual a verdade não é tomada como questão epistemológica, neutra. Para tanto, dividimos nosso texto em quatro partes. Na primeira, retomamos aspectos essenciais na relação entre o pensamento arendtiano e a história. Na segunda, a mesma questão é vista a partir da interrogação acerca do modo adequado de responder ao “imperativo do testemunho” sobre a experiência concentracionária. Na terceira, voltamo-nos à figura do contador de estórias e do “pensamento narracional” como alternativa ao ponto de vista arquimediano. Por fim, encontramos a noção de verdade factual que, na verdade, sustenta todos momentos anteriores. (shrink)

Amongst those views sometimes attributed to the later Wittgenstein are included both a deflationary theory of truth, as well as a non-factualism about certain regions of discourse. Evidence in favor of the former attribution, it is thought, can be found in Wittgenstein’s apparent affirmation of the basic definitional equivalence of ‘p’ is true and p in §136 of his Philosophical Investigations. Evidence in favor of the latter attribution, it might then be presumed, can be found in the context of the (...) so-called ‘private language argument’, wherein Wittgenstein provides an expressivist treatment of first-person present tense sensation utterances. In this paper, by contrast, I will argue that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy is best understood as endorsing neither a non-factualism about sensation utterances, nor a deflationism about truth. Wittgenstein should instead be understood as offering a ‘mixed’ view of sensation utterances according to which some while not others are apt for expressivist treatment. Moreover, he should be thought of as identifying truth-conditions with semantic ‘correctness-conditions’, and thus truth with semantic ‘assertibility’. (shrink)

Kripke’s Wittgenstein is standardly understood as a non-factualist about meaning ascription. Non-factualism about meaning ascription is the idea that sentences like “Joe means addition by ‘plus’” are not used to state facts about the world. Byrne and Kusch have argued that Kripke’s Wittgenstein is not a non-factualist about meaning ascription. They are aware that their interpretation is non-standard, but cite arguments from Boghossian and Wright to support their view. Boghossian argues that non-factualism about meaning ascription is incompatible with a deflationary (...) theory of truth. Wright argues that non-factualism about meaning ascription is incoherent. To support the standard interpretation, I’ll respond to each argument in turn. To the degree that my responses are successful, Byrne and Kusch have an unmotivated interpretation of Kripke’s Wittgenstein. Wilson provides a factualist interpretation that is not based on Boghossian and Wright’s arguments. Miller argues for a non-factualist interpretation against Wilson, but I’ll show that Miller’s interpretation faces a dilemma. Miller’s argument cannot be maintained if a coherent interpretation of the skeptical solution is to be provided. I’ll show how this dilemma can be avoided and provide an independent argument against Wilson so that a non-factualist interpretation of the skeptical solution can be maintained. (shrink)

The article deals with the development of the philosophy of France Veber, the pupil of Meinong and a main Slovene philosopher. One of the most important threads of Veber’s philosophy is the consideration of knowledge and factuality, which may be seen as a driving force of its development. Veber’s philosophical development is usually divided into three phases: the object theory phase, the phase when he created his philosophy of a person as a creature at the crossing of the natural (...) and the spiritual world, who as an active, not merely passive subject possesses her own causal powers, and the third phase, when he supplemented his earlier philosophy with the theory of a special side of our experience which he called hitting-upon-reality. It is a direct experience of reality, a special kind of intentionality, which is however fundamentally different from presentational intentionality, which alone is taken into account by object theory or phenomenology. The questions of knowledge and factuality are closely connected in Veber’s philosophy since, pace Veber, knowledge is a kind of, we may say, justified experience the object of which is a factual entity. Hence, if we want to understand what knowledge is, we must face the challenge of comprehending factuality. There are five stages to be noted in the development of his epistemology. The first two belong to his object theory phase, the third to his person phase, the fourth is characterised by his distinguishing and exploring truth and validity with regard to the thought about God, and the basis of the fifth phase lies in his theory of hitting-upon-reality. In Introduction to Philosophy and The System of Philosophy, that is in the year 1921, Veber believed that factuality was a property of the object, which we do present, but we do not present the factuality of this factuality. In 1923, in The Problems of Contemporary Philosophy and in the work Science and Religion, he already rejected such a view. There is something that makes things factual, but that is a complete unknown X. Therefore we cannot even say what kind of an entity this factuality is. Some people would probably demand the following formulation: if X is an ultimate mystery, we should not claim even that it is an entity. In The Problems of Presentation Production Veber claimed that factuality is not a property since this would lead to a regressum ad infinitum. Philosophy related internally correct experience to personal will. In T he Book about God he developed the thesis that factuality depends on the act of God. In The Question of Reality he importantly modified, developed and enriched the thesis that we do not present reality with his theory of immediate experience of factuality. (shrink)

In the present work are identified the main features of the algebraic structure with respect to the logical operations, of the set of all the quantum mechanical utterances for which can be specified a factual counterpart and factual rules for truth valuation. This structure is found not to be a lattice. It depends crucially on the spacetime features of the operations by which the observer prepares the studied states and performs measurements on them.