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Can a "fact" be defined simply be defined as a "proposition that is true"?
Accepted:
October 1, 2009

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William Rapaport
October 1, 2009 (changed October 1, 2009) Permalink

It can, and no doubt many people do define it that way. But others (including me) prefer to use the word 'fact' to refer to the states of affairs or situations in the world that correspond to true propositions or that can be said to make true propositions true.

Whenever you read someone discussing things like "facts", "propositions", etc., you must always try to find out how that person is using the word, because there often is no standard, universally agreed upon definition.

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