The Fact/Value Distinction and Similarity-
A fact is a state, it is what happens when a once dialectic relationship of opposite possibilities becomes one final state.
By the law of identity, a fact cannot be a fact and not a fact at one time. What do I consider facts?
The two basic approaches are Empiricism and Rationalism. There are variations of each but the major points are only important here. I think that eventually whether one wanted to use the term ‘truth,’ or ‘fact,’ to represent what I am defining is of minor significance. Yet I don’t want to get caught in ontological traps while trying to define a ‘state’ of being and the process of ‘becoming’ at the same time. If I use the law of identity as a method for establishing at least one ‘a priori’ concept, then let it be the truth that something cannot be and not be at the same time…whatever that ‘being’ might be. So give me that much.
So the Empiricists claim that truths exist before there is any awareness of such truths by any intelligent being. This is the quick way of saying the mind is a total product of the being it is aware of, and therefore it does not advance anything that wasn’t already existing. There would be no internal ‘rules’ that were imposed on concepts so that they made sense, such as the synthetic appropriation of analytic Kantian truths. Knowledge would be a contingent effect of an existing cause, or object, or material universe, whatever. In shorter words, ‘mind’ was not ontologically distinct from being.
Then the Rationalists intervene. Descartes asks, how can you be so sure if all you are aware of is your impressions of the world, not dissimiliar to your dream world, if all you know is that you ‘think’ you see a pool of water, and your eyes decieve you… there is not one there? The only indubitable truth, therefore, was that one could doubt what one saw, and not the reality of what was seen. In shorter words, this would imply that because the empirical world could appear as a false experience, ‘truth’ had to be created and applied by the mind. ‘Sense’ was made out of the raw data by the faculty of reason, and this reason was from without the world. A dualism that considers mind to be distinct from the body and/or the world, and given an ontological status of its own.
Both are correct and incomplete. But what is misconstrued as ‘mind’ in this false dilemma of ‘either mind or body’ is the phenomena of consciousness, and the failure resides in an inappropriate examination of counscious experience. What the Rationalists attempted to qualify as an independent ontological existent could not have being without its object, that is, there could be no ‘mind’ without an object to be ‘mindful’ about, so to speak. Therefore the world was not a ‘mental contingency,’ it was very much a definitive existing being. But conscious experience is always OF something, it is nothing itself if not the revelation of some fact. So to ask for a special status of being for consciousness is not asking for another metaphysical realm like a ‘spirit’ or an ‘agent.’ It is simply a nothingness incarnate. Better yet, without consciousness there would be only undifferentiated being without any facts, since there would be no need to identify a possible state as existing and another as not. There would be no such conception of ‘not-A’ without a conscious negation of some being.
In either case I can move on. What I consider a ‘fact’ is nothing more than an affirmation of a state of being and the denial of its nonbeing. A fact can be an empirical objective truth as in a physical body, or it can be a psychological concept as in a thought, a word, an emotion, etc. Knowledge is simply a presence to being. A fact is what is considered to be the case about what is believed to be the state of some being. Good enough.
Starting with this in mind, rationalization proceeds by stacking previously established facts to reach the current conclusion for the dialectic at hand, one possible state is the outcome and the other is not, and in such an experience that this conclusion is acknowledgable determines it as a fact. This is a two way street. Facts cannot exist without being known, and knowledge cannot exist without facts. A fact must be known to exist, it must be experienced. To ask if a fact can exist and not be ackowledged is to ask only if a state can be possible and not necessarily a fact/state, such as: “the tree does make a sound when it falls unheard in the forest, and that is a fact,” is an assimilation of previous dialectic relationships, and only an acknowledgement of the fact that it would be a possible fact/state, not an actual experience of a fact/state. The probability that the tree makes a sound even if it isn’t heard is irrelevent. There are no facts, ‘probably,’ that is obvious. They are or they are not. Well, if it were possible for a tree to make a sound if it wasn’t heard, wouldn’t it also, then, be possible that a fact can exist without being acknowledged? Looks like it. But ‘possible’ and ‘fact’ are two different things. It may be possible for there to be a fact, and a fact that there are possibilites, but the two cannot exist simultaneously as a state, or, as the case. The conclusion to the outcome of the statement “trees make sounds in the forest when they are not heard” cannot be both a fact and ‘maybe’ a fact.
A fact is the outcome of an indeterminancy between the states of opposing possibilities which proceeds as the relationship of which one is conscious of(acknowledging) by the very fact that it exists to be known as a fact. The dialectic is that of ‘true/is’ and ‘false/is not,’ and the conclusion is the fact about the end state of the relationship as either one or the other of the dialectic.
The dialectic relationship proceeds in the moment when one decides how to answer a question such as: does one plus one equal two. The fact at this moment is a synthesis, that is, the conclusion at the present point is the possibility of each thesis simultaneously, in as far as before the decision is made about the answer the question exists to be asked because it is either true or false, and the present fact is that it remains unknown until it is answered, both outcomes equally possible as they are both undetermined as the answer to the question. One enters this process only knowing that it is a fact that the outcome of the relationship will have to be one or the other, as both possibilities only exist as one approaches one’s answer, eventually the dialectic relationship will end at one state and become a fact. Here, there are only two basic outcomes, yes or true, no or false, obviously. But in the process of becomming conscious of the question there is a moment when there are no facts about the final state of the outcome. I used the math example only as a demonstration of a true/false relationship, not as if ‘two’ were the only logical conclusion, and obvious.
A fact, then, is the final state of a process of indicating what is the case as it is experienced as acknowledgeable, and it begets itself. There can be no facts without there also being the acknowledgement of the preceeding possibilites as the undetermined state of a dialectic relationship before there is a fact/state end, and the indication results from a set of previous dialectic relationships which have cancelled into final states allowing for there to be a possible future facts/state as the finality of the present one.
Fact deciphering works backwards. It is not a future fact/state that provides for reason the dialectic process of determining facts in experiences. Facts are not true because in the case that there be an event where one possibility is the outcome and the other is not, that this is given and is a uselful conclusion. Facts are states because they have been experienced as a conclusion to antithetical relationship between two possible outcomes: true or false, and have been rendered through the process of recalling previous fact/states in deciding the outcome of the present. Remember, the possibility of a tree making a sound when it isn’t heard is indeed a fact, but it is oxymoronic to say that it is merely a fact that it is still only possible.
A value is not a state, but it can be a fact that there is value. Evaluation works forward. It would be absurd to ask: “Is your use of the handy valuable tool true or false,” or “Is your dedication to your family the case or not the case,” before these events were over. A value is an adjective method by which we commit useful acts that achieve results for desired ends, such as :there is much value in the riding lawn mower, it cuts time in half" is stating that the object holds value because of its use. The object itself is merely a fact, a lawn mower, that is, you no longer wonder if it is a pink elephant. The final outcome in that decision is “the lawn mower is the fact/state.” But how can the viability of the mower be a fact? How can its use be a fact like in “in any kind of yard, this mower is the best,” if some yards have high brush which cannot be cut with the mower, while in others the yard is so small, you couldn’t turn the damn thing around? Facts involve determined possibilites: true events and false events. You might say that this is no argument against it. That the value of the mower in yard A is a fact, but in yard B it is not, should be obvious. I agree.
It is in the misrepresentation of ‘use’ that seemingly bans value from being categorized with facts. Clearly it can be a fact that things can be valuable. But you must look closer to see how it is valuable that there are facts. Values cannot emerge without facts, there must be these states in order for there to be desirable outcomes. Everything originates from the dialectic relationship.
Perhaps the argument then turns to the question: “What values are neccesary facts under all conditions.” We had admitted that there can be different conditions where the riding mower wouldn’t be useful, and agreed that because it is a fact that the mower is valuable sometimes, we won’t classify it in the same category of facts as we would the chance that the tree make a sound without being heard. This kind of fact, remember, cannot be both a maybe and a fact at the same time. It either will or will not, in any conditions.
Well, what if we add some rain and make the forest wet so that it will damper the sound? No, then that’s a different forest altogether. But wait a minute. We thought that facts were necessary in any conditions. They are, but I never said that they would be the same facts, only that the method of creating facts is uniform each and every time. I don’t see much difference in the method of employing value to things and activities. Ends, means, and desires are deciphered dialectically as well.
I want to add that there is quite a bit more that can be said about this issue, as everyone knows. I only felt that this basic idea was enough to cover the important aspects of the matter and seal a gap between the two opposing concepts. Any additions are welcome.