Topic: Facts vs opinions (Read 1049 times)

http://pbskids.org/arthur/games/factsopinions/

It seems material from my daughter's homework would be appropriate.

A fact is a state of a affairs. There's no such thing as a "false fact" but there is such a thing as a "false belief". Opinions are subjective. There's nothing subjective about believing that the statue of liberty is 3 inches tall.

Regarding the definition of fact, a definition of provability is irrelevant. If you can make a logical sentence that begins 'we attempted to prove the fact that...' then you can be said to be discussing a fact.

'Icecream is good.' Statement of opinion because you can not prove it according to the assumed context. It is entirely subjective. Others could have equally valid but opposing opinions. Perhaps you could come up with some 'provable' interpretation and define good and perform some quantitative analysis on some goodness scale. But that's silly.

'Icecream contains ice and cream.' That is a fact. It may be false. But we can conceivably verify whether or not it is true.

It is a fact that I have the opinion that icecream is good.
vs
It is my opinion that it is a fact that icecream is good. <--- surely you hear the nonsense


I'm jumping on both of your thought trains. While you, Johnj, argue against this line of reasoning, you should not have given it any slack. "Kinda, but no, I can not agree".

Regardless of Sannyasi's own measuring system, the height of the statue of liberty is objective. Whether we know his measuring system, the statement "The statue of liberty is 3 inches tall" is a fact. It is stupid, deceptive, or a terrible example of communication failure. But it is not in anyway a statement of opinion.


It is my opinion that the following is an excellent quote:The fact that it is attributed to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan may be false because it is also attributed to James R. Schlesinger in a 1973 US Congressional testimony.

The question i was discussing (and I believe others were too) is what defines 'proven', and how it relates to 'fact'.

It is my opinion that some of you are ugly idiots. It is a fact that you do not know the difference between fact and opinion. Facts can be proven true or false. Opinions can not.

Kinda, yes I'd agree.  Except in the example you gave, you'd just be altering it's Law of Identity value.  Even if you got 100% of the population under the new measurement, it'd still be fact that 'the statue of liberty is NOT 3 inches, according the Imperial system of measurement'

You then have to backtrack to the most basic thing you 'know' inorder to establish a foundation of fact to build upon.  This would be 'yourself', or the 'fact' that you exist.

Then you have the idea 'I think, therefore I am" from Descartes, and Nietzsches criticism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum#Criticisms)

fact is just popular opinion. i could make up my own measuring system where 3 inches did add up to the size of the statue of liberty, but since not so many people agree with my measuring system it's not a fact

It's a "fact" is your opinion.

Many proven "facts" are later proven false.  Also many "facts" are found on the interweb.

People can have an opinion about anything, I was just referring to the point brought up of 'opinions can be wrong' - it depends if the opinion is on reality or on taste.  It gets real murky when ideologies come into play. Creationists vs Evolutionists, Conspiracy Nuts, etc all have the same evidence, yet their ideology guides what they accept as fact.  I could be wrong or off with my terminology.

Sorry, didn't mean to derail or anything.

You can't really have an opinion about a proven fact.... because it's a fact.

"It is my opinion that the Statue of Liberty is 3 inches tall"

vs

"It is my opinion that the current room temperature is too damn high!"

Or at least that's what I imagine he was referring to.

How so?

Oh yes they can.

Opinions aren't the kinds of things that can be right or wrong.