Allegory of the Cave (Summary and meaning)

The ‘Allegory Of The Cave’ is a theory put forward by Plato, concerning human perception. Plato
claimed that knowledge gained through the senses is no more than opinion and that, in order to
have real knowledge, we must gain it through philosophical reasoning.

‘The Allegory of the Cave’ by Plato

 In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato distinguishes between people who mistake sensory knowledge
for the truth and people who really do see the truth. It goes like this:

 The Cave

 Imagine a cave, in which there are three prisoners. The prisoners are tied to some rocks,
their arms and legs are bound and their head is tied so that they cannot look at anything
but the stonewall in front of them.
 These prisoners have been here since birth and have never seen outside of the cave.
 Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between them is a raised walkway.
 People outside the cave walk along this walkway carrying things on their head including;
animals, plants, wood and stone.
 The Shadows

 So, imagine that you are one of the prisoners. You cannot look at anything behind or to
the side of you – you must look at the wall in front of you.
 When people walk along the walkway, you can see shadows of the objects they are
carrying cast on to the wall.
  If you had never seen the real objects ever before, you would believe that the shadows of
objects were ‘real.’
 The Game

 Plato suggests that the prisoners would begin a ‘game’ of guessing which shadow would
appear next.
 If one of the prisoners were to correctly guess, the others would praise him as clever and
say that he were a master of nature.
 The Escape

 One of the prisoners then escapes from their bindings and leaves the cave.
 He is shocked at the world he discovers outside the cave and does not believe it can be
real.
 As he becomes used to his new surroundings, he realizes that his former view of reality
was wrong.
 He begins to understand his new world, and sees that the Sun is the source of life and
goes on an intellectual journey where he discovers beauty and meaning
 He see’s that his former life, and the guessing game they played is useless.
 The Return

 The prisoner returns to the cave, to inform the other prisoners of his findings.
 They do not believe him and threaten to kill him if he tries to set them free.
‘ The Allegory of The Cave’ by Plato – The Meaning

 The Allegory of the cave by Plato should not be taken at face value. In essays and exams,
whoever is marking it expects you to have a deeper understanding of the meaning of the theory.
You can then use these to think about criticisms and then to form your own opinion.

The Cave

 In Plato’s theory, the cave represents people who believe that knowledge comes from
what we see and hear in the world – empirical evidence. The cave shows that believers of
empirical knowledge are trapped in a ‘cave’ of misunderstanding.
The Shadows

 The Shadows represent the perceptions of those who believe empirical evidence ensures
knowledge. If you believe that what you see should be taken as truth, then you are merely
seeing a shadow of the truth. In Plato’s opinion you are a ‘pleb’ if you believe this (their
insult for those who are not Philosophers)!
The Game

 The Game represents how people believe that one person can be a ‘master’ when they
have knowledge of the empirical world. Plato is demonstrating that this master does not
actually know any truth, and suggesting that it is ridiculous to admire someone like this.
The Escape

 The escaped prisoner represents the Philosopher, who seeks knowledge outside of the
cave and outside of the senses.
 The Sun represents philosophical truth and knowledge
 His intellectual journey represents a philosophers journey when finding truth and wisdom
 The Return

 The other prisoners reaction to the escapee returning represents that people are scared of
knowing philosophical truths and do not trust philosophers.

(https://philosophyzer.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/the-allegory-of-the-cave-by-plato-summary-and-
meaning/)

Difference of truth and fact

A fact is a reality that cannot be logically disputed or rejected. If I say "fire is hot," I
don't care how great your reasoning skills are, if you touch fire your skin will burn
(and don't give me that "but people can walk on hot coals!" bull. There's a difference
between the transfer of heat through conduction and training one's body to deal with
the agonizing pain of said conduction). Now when I say this, I am not speaking a
truth, I am speaking a fact. If you say "fire is not hot," you are not lying, you are
incorrect. Facts are concrete realities that no amount of reasoning will change. When
one acknowledges a fact, they are doing just that. Facts are not discovered, facts are
not created, facts are simply acknowledged.

A truth on the other hand, is almost the opposite. Truths are those things that are not
simply acknowledged, but must be discovered, or created. If I say "God exists," and I
possess strong reasoning for the affirmative of that statement, then God really does
exist, that is a reality. However, if another individual possesses strong reasoning for
the negative, and because of this reasoning they believe that God does not exist,
then that is also a reality. If we were to debate our ideologies, and my reasoning
appeared stronger than theirs, they may choose to adopt my belief that God does
exist. If they do, then the existence of God is just as true as the nonexistence of God
which they believed a week ago. Truths, as opposed to fact, are much more fluid and
malleable than their empirical counterparts.

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=42+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=42+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).

1.2 Facts, Ontology and Metaphysics

The metaphysical and ontological questions which are raised by the two views of
facts mentioned include the following: Are the properties and relations which go to
make up facts abstract (repeatable) universals or bearer-specific (non-repeatable)
properties and relations (tropes)? If they are abstract universals, are these such that
they are always exemplified, as friends of “Aristotelian” universals claim, or not, as
friends of “Platonic” universals claim? And are they qualitative only (the property of
being round) or also substantial (the property of being a man)? Are there facts
containing abstract objects and properties, for example the fact that 2 is a number? Is
a fact which contains a concrete object, for example the fact that Sam is sad, itself
concrete or abstract? Are there facts which are formally complex, for example
negative or conditional facts? What is the relation between facts, on the one hand, and
concrete events, processes and states, on the other hand? Do objects stand in
relations because the objects and the relations they stand in are parts of facts? What
are the identity conditions for facts? Are there states of affairs which do not obtain?
May such states of affairs contain non-existent objects? Are states of affairs abstract
entities which exist necessarily? Do facts understood as exemplifications of properties
come in two kinds—the contingently existing ones and the non-contingently existing
ones? (For discussions of all these questions see the entry onstates of affairs.) If
concrete events, processes and states are identical with facts or can be constructed out
of facts, then it is plausible to think that causality is a relation between facts. If they
are not identical with facts and cannot be constructed out of facts, then it is plausible
to think that causality is a relation between events and states and that causality should
not be identified with causal explanations. For discussions of the view that one or
both of the relata of the causal relation are facts, see Vendler 1967a,b; Menzies 1989;
Mellor 1995; Persson 1997; and also the entry on the metaphysics of causation.
The assumption that facts contain objects, properties and relations as proper parts may
be criticised (Lowe 1998; Vallicella 2000; Künne 2003). One natural mereological
principle is that the proper parts of the most basic kinds of whole belong to the same
general ontological category to which their wholes belong. Thus parts of things or
substances are things or substances and parts of processes are processes. The view
that the fact that Sam is sad contains a substance and a property offends against this
principle: substances and properties belong to different kinds and neither substances
nor properties, it seems, are facts. Perhaps the natural mereological principle should
be rejected in favor of the view that entities of any kind may come together to form a
whole. But friends of facts tend to think of facts as forming a very natural kind of
whole. Another possible view is that Sam is a fact rather than part of a fact
(Armstrong 1997; Johansson 2004: 34; Récanati 2000; Bergmann 1967).
Even if facts or states of affairs do not contain objects such as substances or events,
some may still be about, or concern, such objects. This notion of aboutness has
recently been assigned heavy metaphysical duties. Thus, Shamik Dasgupta (2014,
2017) defines qualitative facts as facts which are not about any particular individuals,
and argues that all the basic facts that constitute the universe are qualitative, the
individualistic (i.e., non-qualitative) facts being grounded in that qualitative basis (see
below on grounding as a relation between facts). And Dan Marshall exploits the
notion of factual aboutness for the purpose of theorizing about intrinsicality. In his
2016a, he argues that a number of different notions of intrinsicality can be analysed in
terms of the notion of a state of affairs being intrinsically about something, and in his
2016b he defends a particular account of that sort.
One ontological role for states of affairs and facts is to be the primary bearers of
modality. Suppose that facts are obtaining states of affairs. Then we may distinguish
the obtaining state of affairs that Sam is sad from the obtaining states of affairs that
Sam is possibly sad, that Sam is probably sad, and that Sam ought to be sad. Here the
modal properties qualify the property of being sad and so qualify Sam. They are de
re modalities. And, so the view goes, the place of such modal properties is in states of
affairs. (A state of affairs is, as the German terms “Sachverhalt”, “Sachverhältnis”
suggest, a relation between things, the way things stand with respect to one another,
“wie die Sachen sich zueinander verhalten”.) A further claim is that some de
dicto modalities properly qualify states of affairs: the state of affairs that Sam is sad
probably obtains/possibly obtains/ought to obtain. Suppose that a fact is just the
exemplification of properties. Then we may distinguish the fact that Sam is a man and
the fact that Sam is necessarily a man. But a friend of facts like the last one then has
to accept that not all facts are formally simple.
Another possible ontological role for states of affairs and facts is to provide the terms
for the tie of grounding or explanation. The fact that there is an explosion explains the
fact that Sam’s head turns (causal explanation). The fact that Mary slapped Sam is
explained by the fact that Sam is a sexist (explanation of action by reference to an
“objective” reason; Dancy 2000). The fact that Sam admires Mary is explained by the
fact that she is charming (explanation of feeling by reference to an “objective”
reason). The fact that there is a one-one correlation between the Fs and the Gs is
explained by the fact that the number of Fs = the number of Gs (non-causal,
conceptual or essential explanation). Sceptics about such claims ask what “the fact
that p explains the fact that q” adds to “q because p”. (See Correia & Schnieder 2012,
Mulligan 2007, Trogdon 2013, and the entry onmetaphysical grounding.)
Appeal to facts has also been made in order to give a semantics for counterfactuals
(Kratzer 2002). A premise semantics for counterfactual, Kratzer argues, relies on
facts:
in a premise semantics, a “would”-counterfactual is true in a
world w iff every way of adding as many facts of w to the antecedent
as consistency allows reaches a point where the resulting set logically
implies the consequent. On the other hand, a “might”-counterfactual is
true in a world w iff not every way of adding as many facts of w to the
 antecedent as consistency allows reaches a point where adding the
consequent would result in an inconsistent set.
Those facts, she argues, have to be propositions, but they must be highly specific,
almost as specific as facts conceived of as particulars (see section 1.3 below).
Finally, certain metaphysical disputes of the realism/anti-realism type are sometimes
characterized in terms of facts: in such a dispute, the realist is said to countenance
facts of a certain kind, whereas the anti-realist is said to reject facts of that kind. The
disagreement between realists about tense (or A-theorists) and anti-realists about tense
(or B-theorists), for instance, is sometimes taken to boil down to a disagreement about
the question whether there are tensed facts: the former answer ‘Yes’ while the latter
say ‘No’. (See, e.g., Mellor 1998, Fine 2005 and Correia & Rosenkranz 2011.)
One difficulty faced by such characterizations is that of making clear what the
relevant facts are supposed to be. The difficulty is particularly acute in certain
debates, for instance in the debate over tense realism. For what is it for a fact to be
tensed? It cannot simply be said that a tensed fact is a fact that can be referred to by
means of a tensed description of type “the fact that p”, where “p” is a tensed sentence.
For it is open to a B-theorist to hold that such expressions do refer to (tenseless) facts
—e.g., that “the fact that Sam is lying” refers, at any time t, to a fact which can also
be referred to (at any time) using the description “the fact that Sam is lying at t”.
Another suggestion is that a fact is tensed if and only if it is transient, i.e., sometimes
obtains and sometimes fails to obtain. Yet, it may be replied, even if the proposed
characterization does capture some tensed facts, it leaves aside a number of other such
facts, e.g., those which can be referred to by “the fact that Sam is currently sitting or
not currently sitting” and (barring certain forms of indeterminism) “the fact that if
Sam is currently sitting, then it was the case yesterday that Sam would be sitting one
day hence”, respectively.

1.3 Facts and Knowledge

“Know” in instances of the locution “x knows that p” is factive: if x knows that p,
then p. Similarly, “know” in instances of the locution “x knows y” is veridical:
if x knows y, is acquainted with y, then there is a y and x knows y.
Is knowledge that p knowledge of facts? Is coming to know (cf. “Erkennen”) that p a
form of contact with facts, where facts are understood as something other than true
truth-bearers? Husserl, Russell, Vendler and Hossack (Husserl 1900–1901; Russell
1906–1907; Vendler 1967a, 1972; Hossack 2007) reply affirmatively to one of these
questions; thus Russell at one point argues that a perception has a single object, such
as “knife-to-left-of-book”, an entity he first called a “complex” and then “a fact”
(Russell ONTF). From Ramsey to Williamson (Ramsey 1927 [1931]; Vickers 2004;
Williamson 2000) many philosophers have replied negatively.
What may be said in favor of the view? Consider the atomic predication Fa, where
this is a formula that a logician would use to represent the claim that object a has
property F. Coming to know thatFa, in the simplest cases, involves acquaintance with
objects and properties. Coming to know that the wall is red by seeing that it is red
often involves seeing the wall. The wall is not any sort of concept. According to a
popular theory in perceptual psychology, seeing that the wall is red or straight
typically involves perception of a constant property, the redness or straightness of the
wall, and perception of it as constant (“property constancy”, “color constancy”,
“shape constancy”). These properties are not concepts. There is thus some reason for
thinking that perceptually coming to know that p, in the simplest cases, involves
epistemic contact with objects and with properties. If that is right, then two
components of the view that to come to know that p in such cases is to come to have
knowledge of facts are plausible. But even if perceptual knowledge of facts is
allowed, it is not clear why one should think that instances of “knowledge that p” or
of “coming to know that p” in which the substitutions for “p” are logically complex,
constitute knowledge of robust facts. Similarly, if we consider the many and various
types of coming to know that p in which the source of knowledge is not sensory
perception but, for example, testimony or inference, we may think that in such cases
there is no reason to think that what we come to know are facts.
Kratzer’s (2002) account of knowledge of facts is applied to Gettier problems (Gettier
1963, see the entry on the analysis of knowledge). She puts forward a view according
to which facts are particulars which exemplify propositions (cf. Baylis 1948)—just as
other particulars such as tables and persons exemplify properties. (She models these
facts and propositions within Situation Semantics, as situations of a certain sort and
sets of situations, respectively, but we need not go into the details here. Note that, as
we saw in section 1.2 above, she also countenances facts which arepropositions.) She
then proposes the following analysis of knowledge:
S knows p if and only if

1. There is a fact f that exemplifies p,

2. S believes p de re of f, and
3. S can rule out relevant possible alternatives of f that do not exemplify p.
It is condition (ii), Kratzer argues, which deals with Gettier cases. Take the second
type of case discussed by Gettier. Smith is justified in believing the false proposition
that Jones owns a Ford. Therefore he is justified in believing the proposition that
Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona. Now Brown happens to be in Barcelona,
but Smith has no idea about where Brown is—in particular, he is not justified in
believing that Brown is in Barcelona. Intuitively, Smith does not know the disjunctive
proposition he is justified in believing. But that proposition is true, and so the standard
analysis of knowledge fails. The analysis in terms of beliefs de re of facts fares better,
Kratzer argues. For, she claims, the fact exemplified by the disjunctive proposition is
the fact that Brown is in Barcelona, and Smith’s belief is not a de re belief about that
fact.

1.4 Facts, Intentionality, Semantics and Truthmaking

We have mentioned the view that facts may explain actions and mental states and the
view that facts are what we know. Facts are also invoked in the philosophy of mind
by philosophers who claim that judgments or beliefs enjoy the property
of intentionality, of being “directed towards” something, because they represent states
of affairs or are psychological relations to states of affairs and that judgments and
beliefs are correct or satisfied only if states of affairs obtain, that is, if facts exist.
Versions of these claims are given by many philosophers from Meinong, the early
Husserl and Russell to Searle (Searle 1983). Analogous claims in semantics are
sometimes made about propositions or other truth-bearers: the proposition that Sam is
sad represents the state of affairs that Sam is sad and is true only if this state of affairs
obtains. Versions of this view are given by Husserl, Wittgenstein and Carnap. See
the supplementary document on the History of Philosophies of Facts.
One objection to the view that the judgment that Sam is sad represents a state of
affairs is that although the judger arguably thinks of Sam and of his sadness, he may
not possess any concept of a state of affairs. (Consider the analogous claim that one
may judge that p without employing the concept of truth). Perhaps then a judgment
represents a state of affairs but does not represent it as a state of affairs. One objection
to this claim is that it commits one to the ontological view that there are states of
affairs which do not obtain, the states of affairs represented by false judgments or
beliefs.
If we reject the view that judgments and beliefs represent states of affairs, it is still
possible to claim that judgments and beliefs have correctness conditions which
mention states of affairs: if x judges correctly that p, then the state of affairs
that p obtains. And if this is plausible, so too is the further claim that if x judges
correctly that p, then x judges correctly that p because the state of affairs
that pobtains. Facts make judgments correct.
Does the proposition that Sam is sad represent the state of affairs that Sam is sad? It
may be objected that the proposition does not refer to anything as a state of affairs.
And once again the friend of states of affairs may retreat to the safer claims that the
proposition that Sam is sad is true only if the state of affairs that Sam is sad obtains
and that if the proposition that Sam is sad is true, it is true because the state of affairs
obtains. Facts make propositions true.
Facts, then, are perhaps qualified to play the role of what makes judgments correct
and propositions true. But the theory of correctness and of truth does not require us to
accept that there are facts. Indeed it may be thought that the requirements of such a
theory are satisfied by the observations that a judgment that p is correct only if p, and
that the proposition that p is true only if p. If arguments in metaphysics or
epistemology persuade us that there are facts, then we may perhaps appeal to facts in
giving accounts of correctness and of truth. In the case of the theory of correctness
conditions for judgment and belief the argument that knowledge is of facts together
with the view that, contrary to a long and influential tradition, the theory of belief and
of judgment presupposes a theory of knowledge (Williamson 2000) may persuade us
that facts make judgments and beliefs correct.
The view that facts make propositions or other truth-bearers true is one theory among
many of truthmaking. The theory of truthmaking deals with questions at the
intersection between ontology, metaphysics and semantics. The view that facts are
what make truth-bearers true is the oldest theory of truthmaking. One central choice
within truthmaker theory is between acceptance and rejection of truthmaker
maximalism. Truthmaker maximalism is the view that every truth has a truthmaker.
(It is an analogue of claims about modalities other than the modality of truth such as
that every necessity is made necessary, that every probability has a probabiliser, that
if something has a value there is something which makes it valuable, a “valifier” etc.)
Factualist truthmaker maximalism says that every truth is made true by a fact.
Factualist truthmaker maximalism comes in many shapes and sizes. It is sometimes
combined with the view that propositions represent states of affairs. It is sometimes
defended by friends of the view that facts are obtaining states of affairs (Pfänder
1921), sometimes by friends of the view that facts are neither true propositions nor
obtaining states of affairs but exemplifications of properties (Armstrong 2004).
By far the most popular objection to factualist truthmaker maximalism, an objection
made by both friends and enemies of facts, is that it is ontologically baroque, that is to
say, incredible. The idea that there are negative or conditional facts, the objection
goes, is incompatible with the demands of metaphysical economy or with the
requirements of naturalism. By far the most popular factualist alternative to factualist
truthmaker maximalism is the view that all logically atomic truths have truthmakers
and that these are formally simple or atomic facts or the view that the only
truthmakers which are facts are formally simple. Versions of these views are defended
by the logical atomists (see the entry on the correspondence theory of
truth and section 2.4.2 below).
Appeals to facts as truthmakers presuppose that there are different facts. But it has
been argued that if there are any facts, there is only one Great Fact. See
the supplementary document on the Slingshot Argument.
If this argument is sound, then theories of facts as truthmakers and as what correspond
to truths as well as many other theories which rely on facts, are trivialised.
In the debate between friends and enemies of factualist truthmaker maximalism it is
often assumed that truthmakers must be ontologically or metaphysically fundamental.
Indeed it is sometimes argued that the theory of truthmaking is a guide to what there
is and it is assumed that what there is is just what is ontologically fundamental. The
assumption may be rejected (see the entry ontruthmakers). Perhaps there are facts but
facts are not ontologically fundamental. (Compare the claim that there are social
entities but that these are not ontologically fundamental.) Then even atomic facts
would not be ontologically fundamental. Perhaps Sam and his concrete state of
sadness are ontologically fundamental and the fact that Sam is sad is not ontologically
fundamental.
What might it mean to say that there are facts but they are not ontologically
fundamental? Perhaps that facts or the unity of facts are determined by non-facts
(Vallicella 2000, Mulligan 2006b). Possible candidates for this role are truth-bearers,
for example propositions, together with what is ontologically fundamental. If facts are
not ontologically fundamental, then one objection to factualist truthmaker
maximalism misses its mark. According to yet another view, facts are complexes
made up of objects and properties and those complexes which are facts are less basic
than their parts (Fine 1982).
Any philosophy of facts owes us an account of the form of such expressions as “the
fact that Sam is sad” (Lowe 1998) and “the state of affairs that Sam is sad”.
(Analogous questions arise concerning the form of “the proposition that Sam is sad”,
“the property of sadness”, “the concept of sadness” etc.) Friends of facts who have
written at great length about facts and given the distinct impression that they are
referring to facts and predicating properties of facts have nevertheless claimed that
facts or situations cannot be named (Russell, Wittgenstein; cf. Clarke 1975) or that
they have no properties (Ingarden 1965). The expression “the fact that Sam is sad”
looks like a definite description. What is the form of such a description? One
possibility (Künne 2003: 10) is that it should be read as: the unique x such that x is a
fact and x=x= that Sam is sad.
One objection to this suggestion is that clauses such as “that Sam is sad” cannot flank
the identity sign. The following identity sentence, on the other hand, is perfectly well-
formed and, many friends of facts claim, false:
The fact that Sam is sad = the proposition that Sam is sad
This suggests that clauses such as “that Sam is sad” can only flank the identity sign if
they are governed by expressions such as “the fact”, “the proposition”, “the belief”.
The suggested analysis of our definite descriptions may be motivated by the
assumption that “the fact that Sam is sad” is derived by nominalising “It is a fact that
Sam is sad” and the assumption that in the latter sentence “It is a fact” takes “that Sam
is sad” to make a sentence.
Another account of expressions such as “the fact that Fa” builds on suggestions made
by Russell in 1913 (Hochberg 2001). Let ‘TT’, ‘AA’ and ‘ININ’ express the relations
‘is a term in’, ‘is an attribute in’ and ‘informs’, respectively. These relations are the
formal ontological relations between atomic facts, on the one hand, and their terms
(objects), attributes (properties) and forms, on the other hand. Then the structure of
“the fact that Fa exists” is:

E![ιf(T(a,f)&A(F,f)&IN(ϕx,f))]E![ιf(T(a,f)&A(F,f)&IN(ϕx,f))]

That is, the fact that contains a as a term and F as an attribute and that is of the
form ϕxϕx exists. It has also been argued that what underlies talk about an object
exemplifying a property is just the relations of being a term in a fact and being an
attribute in a fact (Sprigge 1970).
How do expressions such as “the state of affairs that Sam is sad” relate to their
referents? One view is that they are rigid designators. (For discussion of this question
in connection with related cases such as instances of “the property of being F” and
“the proposition that p”, see Schnieder 2005, Yagiwasa 1997, Tye 1981).

2. Formal Theories of Facts

Formal studies of facts are scarce. And they are also heterogeneous, both in form and
in content. In form insofar as they are formulated in languages of various kinds, which
vary greatly in expressive power. And in content, not only because of the variety of
views on given issues, but also because the kind of issues dealt with varies greatly.
This makes it difficult to present these theories within a uniform framework. We are
going to choose a specific framework, present, within that framework, (some of) the
options a fact-theorist may wish to adopt, study their relationships, and give
references in due course to indicate where in the resulting space of possible theories
various accounts, formal and non-formal, are to be located. Our framework is
significantly distinct from many of those which are used in the literature. So it should
be kept in mind that in attributing this or that view to an author, what we will say is
often not to be understood literally: when it is not, what we really attribute to the
author is something which, translated into our framework, is what we literally
attribute to her.
There are two main uses of the predicate ‘is a fact’. On one of them, the predicate is
rigid (necessarily, if something is a fact, then it cannot fail to be a fact). On that use,
and given the assumption that there are contingent facts, it is possible that something
be a fact without existing (obtaining). On the second use, nothing can be a fact unless
it exists, and so on the assumption that there are contingent facts, the predicate is non-
rigid. Some call facts in the first sense states of affairs or situations, reserving the
word ‘fact’ to mean what ‘obtaining state of affairs’ or ‘actual situation’ mean.
Throughout this section we shall use ‘fact’ in the first sense.
The issues we are going to deal with fall under the following five headings: Facts and
Worlds, Boolean Operations on Facts, Independency, Facts and Propositions, The
Inner Structure of Facts. The presentation will be cumulative in character: in each
section we will come back to topics dealt with in previous ones (if any), sometimes in
order to compare the current options available to a fact-theorist to the old ones.

2.1 Facts and Worlds

Many metaphysicians are interested in the modal sphere. They do not only want to
determine which entities there actually are and their actual properties. They wish to
formulate claims with modal content, they want to determine which entities
there can or must be, and which are their properties across all
(metaphysically) possible worlds.
In this section we deal with some basic modal issues related to facts. More precisely,
we shall present and compare certain principles involving facts and (possible) worlds.
Although at some places we shall mention the view that worlds are themselves facts,
or sets or pluralities or sums of facts, we shall remain neutral as to the nature of
worlds.
Let W be the set of all possible worlds, F the function which assigns to each
world w the set FwFw of facts which exist in it, and F the union of all the FwsFws,
i.e., the set of all facts. We assume that W has infinitely many members. This is a
reasonable assumption, which will have some importance in what follows with
respect to certain entailment claims we are going to make (not having the assumption
would force us to distinguish cases). Since we are dealing with theories of facts, we
shall also assume that F is non-empty. Although perhaps there are impossible states of
affairs or situations, we take it that there are no impossible facts. That is why there is
no room for them in our framework.
Where x is a fact, es(x)es(x) (the existence-set of x) is the set of all worlds at
which x exists. And whereG is a set of facts, ces(G)ces(G) (the conjunctive-
existence-set of G) is ∩x∈Ges(x)∩x∈Ges(x), i.e., the set of worlds at which all
elements of G exist, and des(G)des(G) (the disjunctive-existence-set of G)
is ∪x∈Ges(x)∪x∈Ges(x), i.e., the set of worlds at which some elements of G exist.
Notice that ces(∅)=Wces(∅)=W, des(∅)=∅des(∅)=∅, and that given
any G≠∅G≠∅, ces(G)⊆des(G)ces(G)⊆des(G). (Here and elsewhere, we borrow
some vocabulary and symbolism from Fine 1982.)
2.1.1 Some Characterization Principles
We shall say that a set of facts G characterizes a set of
worlds V iff ces(G)=Vces(G)=V, and that a fact xcharacterizes a set of
worlds V iff es(x)=Ves(x)=V (no confusion should arise from the ambiguity of
‘characterize’). At this very early point some work can already be done.
We assume the following definitions:
  F#=F#= the set of all contingent facts (i.e., of all facts whose existence-set is
not W);
 P(F)=P(F)= the set of all sets of facts;
 P(F)∗=P(F)∗= the set of all non-empty sets of facts;
 π(F)=π(F)= the set of all sets of
facts G with G≠∅G≠∅ and ces(G)≠∅ces(G)≠∅.
Of special interest are the following Boolean principles (‘∖∖’ refers to the operation of
set-theoretic subtraction):

 B1.If x∈F#x∈F#, then some fact characterizes W∖es(x)W∖es(x);

 B2.If G∈π(F)G∈π(F), then some fact characterizes ces(G)ces(G);
 B3.If G∈P(F)∗G∈P(F)∗, some fact characterizes des(G)des(G);
 B4.Some fact characterizes W.
If facts can be negated, then the negation of fact x (if any) will have existence-
set W∖es(x)W∖es(x). If facts can be conjoined, then the conjunction of the facts in
set G (if any) will have existence-set ces(G)ces(G). And if facts can be disjoined,
then the disjunction of the facts in set G (if any) will have existence-
set des(G)des(G). One can then u