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But see, that's the point of my last sentence. You're going for axioms - there's just no room for wordsmithing. When you leave the essential terms of your state

But see, that's the point of my last sentence. You're going for axioms - there's just no room for wordsmithing. When you leave the essential terms of your statement without a clear definition, the axiom is meaningless. EDIT: In this particular case, the choice of using "truth" or "fact" completely changes the premise. (And even then, I've already made a boatload of assumptions here on the exact definition of each word.)

adrianN 9y ago
I have the impression that almost every philosophical discussion is actually a discussion about definitions. Tomes have been written about "truth" and "fact" and their differences and similarities. I don't think we can reasonably hold a discussion in an Internet forum where each comment is only a couple of sentences long to the precision standards expected from philosophical discourse in an academic context.
- dahauns 9y ago
  To be polemic: So, what, we shouldn't even try? Of course there's a limit to precision in a forum discussion, but yes, definitions are damn important in this context and it's perfectly possible to at least trying to aim at a basic level of precision. To stay at this example: (natural) sciences are generally accepted to actually not be about learning (absolute, verified) truths - and that is a cornerstone of nat. science and one of the main properties distinguishing it from religion. We can learn about singular facts and use reason to make generalizations and predictions from those facts that we can try to validate through experiment, thus leading to theories. But scientific theories are never true, they are valid. They are a model, an approximation of what we think of reality, only validated through repeated, but ultimately finite testing, and we can never be 100% sure that they aren't...hm, wrong. (I freely admit though, that it's at this point here where it starts to get hairy in the sense of your post, especially for a non-native speaker. :) )

adrianN 9y ago

I have the impression that almost every philosophical discussion is actually a discussion about definitions. Tomes have been written about "truth" and "fact" and their differences and similarities. I don't think we can reasonably hold a discussion in an Internet forum where each comment is only a couple of sentences long to the precision standards expected from philosophical discourse in an academic context.

dahauns 9y ago
To be polemic: So, what, we shouldn't even try? Of course there's a limit to precision in a forum discussion, but yes, definitions are damn important in this context and it's perfectly possible to at least trying to aim at a basic level of precision. To stay at this example: (natural) sciences are generally accepted to actually not be about learning (absolute, verified) truths - and that is a cornerstone of nat. science and one of the main properties distinguishing it from religion. We can learn about singular facts and use reason to make generalizations and predictions from those facts that we can try to validate through experiment, thus leading to theories. But scientific theories are never true, they are valid. They are a model, an approximation of what we think of reality, only validated through repeated, but ultimately finite testing, and we can never be 100% sure that they aren't...hm, wrong. (I freely admit though, that it's at this point here where it starts to get hairy in the sense of your post, especially for a non-native speaker. :) )