I have been reading the recent discussion about whether "facts" can be "rational

I have been reading the recent discussion about whether "facts" can be "rational

I have been reading the recent discussion about whether "facts" can be "rational" or "irrational" http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/2829). Professor Rapaport suggests that philosophers use facts differently than most non-philosophers. Facts, he says, "simply 'are'". They are not like beliefs, which are more like sentences. His statements have left me very confused. The Earth is round. Is that a fact? We all die. Is that a fact? Seems to me that it is. And it's simultaneously a sentence. I don't see how a fact can be anything but a sentence. But suppose facts are not sentences. They are situations. One big fact would be the way the world is, I suppose. A smaller fact might be the way my room is right now. Fine, why can't situations be "rational" or "irrational"? I think very often we come upon a situation and say things like "This situation is totally crazy", by which we mean, it is irrational. As the questioner said, dictionary.com defines "rational" as "agreeable to reason". Certainly many situations are agreeable to reason; others are not.

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