Facts

First published Fri Sep 21, 2007; substantive revision Fri Oct 16, 2020
Facts, philosophers like to say, are opposed to theories and to values (cf. Rundle 1993) and
are to be distinguished from things, in particular from complex objects, complexes and
wholes, and from relations. They are the objects of certain mental states and acts, they make
truth-bearers true and correspond to truths, they are part of the furniture of the world. Not
only do philosophers oppose facts to theories and to values, they sometimes distinguish
between facts which are brute and those which are not (Anscombe 1958). We present and
discuss some philosophical and formal accounts of facts.

 1. Philosophies of Facts
o 1.1 Facts, Facts & Facts
o 1.2 Facts, Ontology and Metaphysics
o 1.3 Facts and Knowledge
o 1.4 Facts, Intentionality, Semantics and Truthmaking
o 1.5 Brute Facts
 2. Formal Theories of Facts
o 2.1 Facts and Worlds
 2.1.1 Some Characterization Principles
 2.1.2 Facts as Sets of Worlds, Worlds as Facts, Worlds as Sets (or
Pluralities, or Sums) of Facts
o 2.2 Boolean Operations on Facts
o 2.3 Independency
o 2.4 Facts and Propositions
 2.4.1 Facts as True Propositions
 2.4.2 Making True
o 2.5 The Inner Structure of Facts
 Bibliography
 Academic Tools
 Other Internet Resources
 Related Entries
1. Philosophies of Facts
1.1 Facts, Facts & Facts
The word “fact” is used in at least two different ways. In the locution “matters of fact”, facts
are taken to be what is contingently the case, or that of which we may have empirical or a
posteriori knowledge. Thus Hume famously writes at the beginning of Section IV of An
Enquiry concerning Human Understanding: “All the objects of human reason or inquiry may
naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact”. The word
is also used in locutions such as

 It is a fact that Sam is sad

 That Sam is sad is a fact
 That \(2 + 2 = 4\) is a fact.
In this second use, the functor (operator, connective) “It is a fact that” takes a sentence to
make a sentence (an alternative view has it that “It is a fact” takes a nominalised sentence, a
that-clause, to make a sentence), and the predicate “is a fact” is either elliptic for the functor,
or takes a nominalised sentence to make a sentence. It is locutions of this second sort that
philosophers have often employed in order to claim (or deny) that facts are part of the
inventory of what there is, and play an important role in semantics, ontology, metaphysics,
epistemology and the philosophy of mind.
We may, then, distinguish between Humean facts and functorial facts. With the help of this
distinction, two philosophical options can be formulated. One may think that there are facts
in the functorial sense of the word which are contingent—the fact that Sam is sad—and facts
in the functorial sense which are not contingent—the fact that \(2 + 2 = 4\). Or one may think
that all facts in the functorial sense are contingent, are Humean matters of fact. The latter
option is expounded in the influential philosophy of facts to be found in
Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1921). Wittgenstein there announces that the world is the totality
of facts and that every fact is contingent (Wittgenstein TLP: 1.1).
The word “fact”, particularly when it is understood in the functorial sense, belongs to a
family of related terms: “circumstance”, “situation (Sachlage)”, “state of affairs
(Sachverhalt)”. We refer happily to the state of affairs or circumstance that Sam is sad and to
the situation in which Sam is sad, although “It is a circumstance/situation that Sam is sad”,
unlike “It is a fact/the case that Sam is sad”, is ill-formed.
In what follows, we distinguish three types of account of what it is to be a fact in the
functorial sense and consider some possible roles for facts which have been thought to yield
arguments in favor of admitting facts into our inventory of what there is. Since the category
of facts is a formal category, a semantic or ontological category, we then look in some detail
at different formal theories of facts and their ilk.
What might a fact be? Three popular views about the nature of facts can be distinguished:
  A fact is just a true truth-bearer,
 A fact is just an obtaining state of affairs,
 A fact is just a sui generis type of entity in which objects exemplify properties or
stand in relations.
In order to understand these claims and the relations between them it is necessary to appeal
to some accounts of truth, truth-bearers, states of affairs, obtaining, objects, properties,
relations and exemplification. Propositions are a popular candidate for the role of what is true
or false. One view of propositions has it that these are composed exclusively of concepts,
individual concepts (for example, the concept associated with the proper name “Sam”),
general concepts (the concept expressed by the predicates “is sad” and “est triste”) and
formal concepts (for example, the concept expressed by “or”). Concepts so understood are
things we can understand. Properties and relations, we may then say, are not concepts, for
they are not the sort of thing we understand. Properties are exemplified by objects and
objects fall under concepts. Similarly, objects stand in relations but fall under relational
concepts.
It will be convenient to understand the view that a fact is just a sui generis type of entity in
which objects exemplify properties or stand in relations as relying on the way of
understanding properties and relations just sketched. We shall refer to the view as the claim
that facts are exemplifications. Similarly, we may understand the claim that a fact is an
obtaining state of affairs to say that a state of affairs is something which contains one or
more objects and at least one property or relation and that a state of affairs obtains if an
object exemplifies a property or one or more objects stand in a relation. “Obtains” (German:
“besteht”) belongs to the same family of predicates as “is true”. Just as it is often argued that
the truth-predicate is tenseless and timeless, so it is sometimes argued or assumed that
“obtains” is tenseless and timeless. A distinct question: Is “obtain” not simply a fancy way of
saying “exists”? (Sundholm 1994). No, it is sometimes claimed. Obtaining is a mode of
being. If a state of affairs obtains, then an obtaining state of affairs exists, a fact exists. In this
respect, “obtains” resembles “endures”. Things endure. If a thing endures, then the enduring
thing exists.
But it should be noted that some philosophers use “proposition” or “structured proposition”
(Soames 2010) to refer to what are here called “states of affairs” and that some philosophers
do not distinguish between properties and concepts. Furthermore, it should be borne in mind
that in ordinary English the expression “state of affairs” is not normally used to refer to
something which obtains or fails to obtain. It is used to refer to what is the case. Philosophers
who talk of “states of affairs” as obtaining or failing to obtain are employing the term as a
technical term, often as a translation of the German word “Sachverhalt”. Finally, states of
affairs, unlike facts, are commonly said to last or endure, whereas “Sachverhalte” do not last
or endure.
The two views of facts as exemplifications of properties and as obtaining states of affairs
raise many metaphysical and ontological questions and are often appealed to in giving
answers to metaphysical and ontological questions. They are also often appealed to in
answers to questions about semantics and intentionality. Finally, facts are sometimes invoked
in an area where semantics and ontology connect, the theory of truthmaking. Throughout the
twentieth century the categories of fact and state of affairs have also been been the object of
scepticism (see Betti 2015).