reason is absolute in and of itself that thing in which it is said to be, reason, rational and substantiating, absent from wavering or ill effects, completely durable and absolutely generous to what it does, not impartial to grace.
Nathan
Yes, once a fact is grasped it is indeed self-evident, as in the fact is itself and needs no other ‘evidence’ than that it has been understood. Just as truth=reality=fact=exists=is, all of these mean the same thing although can be usefully used in different ways to capture subtler types of meanings within that broader context of all meaning the same thing.
A=A is imperative, one grasped, cannot be undone or refuted. Only the pathological mind comes up with distorted ways of doubting this, like such minds will also tell you that 1+1 is not always 2, they somehow twist weird nonsense into words as if it has meaning. But we can ignore such non-philosophical things.
“Reality is absolute” as you say, well yes but that does not mean that we know all of what reality is, or that there is not more beyond what WE experience as reality; it simply means that, per the definition of reality, it is indeed absolute in the sense that it is an undeniable fact that it exists and that it is ‘everything’ (as defined) or at least includes and is in sum total ‘everything’ (again as defined).
Simply put, if someone wants to posit that something exists beyond reality then they are not in fact talking about reality but a sub-reality or just some part of reality itself. Therefore such a person is merely contradicting themselves, just like the person who says 1+1 does not always =2 is also contradicting themselves.
If facts are self-evident, what do we need reason for?
Once grasped, once understood, facts are self-evident. That doesn’t mean it takes no effort to initially grasp them.
Photosynthesis is a fact, which we now know. People 1000 years ago did not know this was a fact, yet even back then it was still a fact.
Once we understood this was a fact, its “fact-ness” or being a fact is a self-evident fact. You can correctly state, “Photosynthesis is a fact, and it is a fact that photosynthesis is a fact” without contradicting or repeating yourself.
The title of this topic should probably be changed to “Fact-ness is self-evident”. Once a fact is understood as true, as being a fact, then this is self-evidently true simply by the nature of what facts are. Of course we might be wrong, perhaps the sun really does orbit around the earth and our “facts” about the earth orbiting the sun and how our solar system works are really not facts at all. But that would be a case of mistaken identity, for in that case we are not talking about facts at all but rather something else.
Fact-ness is somewhat independent of facts themselves or of the reasons why something is true. Fact-ness itself is really interesting, as is the fact (lol) that we can understand facts-as-such while other animals cannot do that. Fact-ness itself is a separate level of understand from the things which the fact describes. Like above, we can talk about photosynthesis and what it is, how it works, etc. but we can also SEPARATELY talk about the fact of photosynthesis, the fact that it is a fact. The idea that something is true adds another dimension to simply talking about the thing itself.
A squirrel might see an acorn and know there is an acorn there, but in its mind it is not thinking “it is a fact there is an acorn there” and this is highly significant as pertains to the difference mentally between humans and squirrels.
This is also why one great philosopher once said, “truth is the concept of concepts.”
Not all facts are self-evident. Some are immediately obvious and don’t require much proof—for example, “I am thinking” or “Something exists rather than nothing.” These are self-evident because we experience them directly and don’t need outside evidence to verify them.
But many facts require evidence, context, or even specialized knowledge to be understood as true. For example, facts about scientific theories, historical events, or even day-to-day things—like how airplanes work—aren’t necessarily self-evident. They rely on complex systems, studies, or even language and definitions that make them understandable only with added information.
So, while some facts may seem self-evident, most truths in our lives need interpretation, context, and proof to be fully grasped. And even what we take as “self-evident” can be deeply influenced by our culture, background, and assumptions.
The very temperature today is not a self evident fact, we need a thermometer to know the degree of heat outside. Not self evident, other than a vague and subjective, its nice, warm, cold, etc…
Sure, but the point I already made about this is that, once understood, temperature itself AND the specific temperature today are self-evidently facts. As in, the fact that we know these and that we know HOW we know them, and that we know what this means, are all truths which are self-evidently true in their own sufficient and necessary contexts. And to grasp this concept is to understand the nature of facts, something that IS TRUE regardless of human opinions or subjective interpretations or our feelings or beliefs.
Further is the understanding that even though we can be mistaken about certain facts, and even though we can be mistaken about whether or not we are or might be mistaken about certain facts, does not belie the FACT that facts-as-such exist and that the universe itself means something in pure factual terms. All of this is a somewhat logically self-evident set of understandings-- in other words, once the mind gets to the point of being able to grasp the first step in this process of understanding the further steps manifest themselves naturally and self-evidently, at least to those minds not dishonestly closed off or damaged to truthful appreceptions.
Said another way, the “fact of facts” is simply facticity itself. Or is itself simply another fact. The underlying metaphysical-meaningful nature and content of any of these statements is always the same: truth, simply and plain truth that cannot be ignored or denied or wished away or “contextualized out of existence” because it already includes its own contexts entirely and absolutely… that is what truth means.
The whole truth and nothing but the truth. The full scope of meaning in its purer form as applied to specific truths and then to the nature of those truths as truths and then to the nature of the statements about these truths and then to the nature of truth itself. All of this is bundled up within the concept of ‘facts’ and it is all indeed quite self-evident, if one bothers looking that is.
The sad mistake is when you read people like Wittgenstein, they come so close but then their academic instinct takes over and they feel compelled to make it all hopelessly more complicated and contrived than it really is. Falling into the nature of language as an excuse to avoid falling into truth… what a particularly proper fate for an academic posing as a philosopher.
A fact can be true at some particular times, at all particular times, or of the timeness of times.
But if it cannot be true at any time, it is not a fact. If an impossibility is presented as if it is a fact, it is a false fact… which is an oxymoron.
The fact that an impossibility is impossible is an example of a self-evident fact upon which to evaluate the factuality (truth) of claims.
Do we consider claims factual until proven false? Should we?
“But if it cannot be true at any time, it is not a fact.”
I quite don’t understand this claim.
The fact “Biden is the president” is true right now but won’t be a fact next March. Next March, the statement “Biden was the president” will be a fact, yes, but the two statements are not the same.
No shit. Every statement of truth has its proper sufficient and necessary context. In both space and time, and also in meaning. Not sure what is hard to understand about that.
Speaking of which, Biden was never president. He was installed because of an election coup in 2020. So “Biden the fake president” would be more accurate.