10 Oct '11 19:31>1 edit
On facts and states of affairs
From The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/states-of-affairs/):
“A philosophical dispute lurks beneath the terminological distinction between "fact" and "state of affairs."”
I will follow a later distinction in the article which treats a fact as a state of affairs which obtains (as opposed to a possible, but non-obtaining) state of affairs. I really don’t want to bring a larger philosophical dispute into this, and am flexible. Nevertheless, it seems that the distinction may well matter for the inference and questions that I am trying to present.
Also, from The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy[/I, p. 876]:
“State of affairs, a possibility, actuality, or impossibility of the kind expressed by a nominalization of a declarative sentence. … Some take facts to be actual states of affairs, while others prefer to take them as true propositions. If propositions [i]are states of affairs, then facts are of course both actual states of affairs and true propositions.” (Italics in original)
So, again, I will take a fact to be an actual state of affairs. This is opposite my original understanding. And, again, I would like to see how the distinction plays out in this case.
From The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/states-of-affairs/):
“A philosophical dispute lurks beneath the terminological distinction between "fact" and "state of affairs."”
I will follow a later distinction in the article which treats a fact as a state of affairs which obtains (as opposed to a possible, but non-obtaining) state of affairs. I really don’t want to bring a larger philosophical dispute into this, and am flexible. Nevertheless, it seems that the distinction may well matter for the inference and questions that I am trying to present.
Also, from The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy[/I, p. 876]:
“State of affairs, a possibility, actuality, or impossibility of the kind expressed by a nominalization of a declarative sentence. … Some take facts to be actual states of affairs, while others prefer to take them as true propositions. If propositions [i]are states of affairs, then facts are of course both actual states of affairs and true propositions.” (Italics in original)
So, again, I will take a fact to be an actual state of affairs. This is opposite my original understanding. And, again, I would like to see how the distinction plays out in this case.