Putting aside the semantic argument which I am obviously butchering, and the point remains that a statement purporting to be a factual statement must rest entirely on assumptions that are also factual statements

one of the difficulties in communicating with Birdman, setting aside his derisive and contemptuous tone, is that he insists on trading in tautologies unique to his own system of semantic relationships ("Marxism"), and he refuses to acknowledge the merit of any other semantic systems, if he even acknowledges that others do employ alternative systems rather than just being bad at using his own - I'm not sure how stuck in his own head he is

I still think a tautology is necessarily a factual statement in addition to being a circular logical construction

if an "assumption" is "a factual statement made without the speaker's experience of its content"

you're arguing that disparate assumptions preclude meaningful debate?

Oh god.

"if that horse has a single horn, it is a unicorn" is a tautological assertion that makes no factual finding whatsoever

No - I’m arguing that some statements that seem on their face to be either factual statements or factual claims are instead based on assumptions that are value judgment based.

Saying “Capitalism has historically made economies better” requires value judgments about what makes an economy better. Birdman’s original statement that I responded so forcefully to requires the same kinds of value judgments. I actually think those things are the most interesting to debate, but not against someone who views their opinion as a fact because that turns any instances where I disagree into instances where I am wrong or ignorant or brainwashed or something which is much less fun

Opposition to imperialism is fundamental to improving society

That was the statement I objected to being characterized as a factual statement

Beyond frustrating

Society has improved since imperialism

I’ll argue this offline later, because you have intentionally modified the form of my original statement (which was both tautological and factual) into a conditional tautology which changes the frame of the disagreement

I'm closing the window now, and I am not proud that this is how I've spent the past ~hour instead of getting work done.


Birdman, when you have a moment, would you please respond to:

This reminds me of when Pew released this poll. Before I'd seen the actual article I was asking my wife (who was talking about it) whether or not maybe the respondents had been confused between "factual" in the sense of "concerning a question of fact" and "factual" in the sense of "accurate or true".

But then it turned out the survey itself clarified the usage. I've always understood "factual" in the way Pew used it there: "something that’s capable of being proved or disproved by objective evidence" but I'm still curious whether or not most people generally only refer to something as factual when they think it's a fact. But I also just nerd out on survey methodology problems like that :P

I'm also used to thinking of tautology as concerning the logical form of a statement rather than its content, and it makes sense to me that IANAWW's (maybe slightly metaphorical?) usage of "tautological" as a description of birdman's arguments is intended to be calling out the way sometimes the arguments rely a lot on definitions, so that if you define a bachelor as an un-married man then it is tautologically true that no bachelor is married. IANAWW is suggesting that some of birdman's conclusions about socialism or capitalism follow pretty simply from the way he defines the terms, but the definitions are contested.

And yeah I’m pretty sure I’m muddled on that and don’t use it consistently, but generally if I’m talking about a factual statement as one that is both provable and true, instead of just provable with an unknown or negative truth value

Which is probably wrong

It would never occur to me to use factual in your sense.

Probably something to do with my being raised by wolvescomputer programmers. But see! I'm not even saying you're wrong. I was just intrigued when I heard the results of the poll and wondered how much of it was due to that kind of confusion. Because that seemed to fit the results.

this is surely ~95% of people right?

Like I can imagine saying the following:

That’s a normative statement
That’s objectively true
That statement is objectively verifiable/testable/whatever

But I can’t really imagine saying “that’s an objective statement. It’s false”.

I guess that’s inconsistent. :shrug:

+1

Who would say that "Portugal is the most populous nation in Europe" is a factual statement?

Survey designers at Pew apparently

(in casual conversation I probably would never use that phrasing without clarifying. I think sometimes -- usually trying to distinguish between value claims and fact claims -- I use the phrase "factual claim" or something like that. I'm not sure if it helps)

I think the way WN and Pew are using the term is more correct than the way we all are using it

imo that is usually why you add a designator “objectively true” or “factually true” etc. if “factual” meant true than “factually true” would be redundant

For once im on kokiris side

Otherwise everything trump says is factual!