How Do We Know Something is True?

[Willamena]

You're right. Sorry, my error.

You said, Not all statements are truth-bearers, while all facts are truth-bearers.

How can a fact be either true or false?

If it's false, it's not a fact.

If it's a fact, then in my view it's not of itself true, but a truthmaker of statements about it.

Precisely. That's why we invented negation, to (in accord with Aristotle's view and philosophy) present the world as only true.

The world exterior to mind is neither true nor false, but where a "fact" comes into play, we have already partitioned a small bit of that world to address (the proposition).* Once we have portioned bits of the world in our grasp, we have the capacity to relate them: to compare, to contrast, to judge, and to value them. That's where truth comes in, where the way that humans think requires that our picture of the world (our mental bubble) be structured positively. The modern concept of "existence" is another way of approaching the world as true.

"Facts" are propositions that are worded to reflect a positive world (posited as true). That "the sun is the centre of the galaxy" is a posit, as is that "the sun does not circle the earth." The former posits the world as true, the latter as negation. It is facts that are the truth-bearers.

A "statement," on the other hand, is meant to reflect a testimony about the world.


* With our capacity for thought and language, we have partitioned the whole world into propositions, with the form subject-predicate.