My interest was recently piqued by an article in The Atlantic (October 23, 2018) claiming that “Americans over 50 are worse than younger people at telling facts from opinions, according to a new study by Pew Research Center.” Author Alexis Madrigal summarizes the results of the study: “Given 10 statements, five each of fact and opinion, younger Americans correctly identified both the facts and the opinions at higher rates than older Americans did.” But is the fact vs. opinion dichotomy a viable one? Philosopher John Corvino thinks not. In a hard-hitting article titled, The Fact/Opinion Distinction (The Philosophers’ Magazine, 4 March 2015), he surveys several attempts to elucidate the distinction, and concludes that they all fail.
For instance, some people claim that facts are true, but surely opinions can be true as well. Others assert that facts are directly observable, but many scientific facts would fail to satisfy this condition. (Seen a quark lately?) Still others propose that opinions express beliefs, but this makes no sense either: some of our beliefs are factual beliefs, while others are mistaken beliefs. Nor will it do to define facts are statements which are provably true: as Corvino points out, “proof” is to some degree audience-relative, and there is no absolute yardstick that measures whether a proof works or not. (I might add that few scientific statements are actually provable.) More promising is the proposal that facts have objective content, whereas opinions have subjective content, but many statements commonly classified as opinions (“God exists”) say nothing about subjective states of mind, while other statements which describe subjective states (“Being publicly humiliated is psychologically harmful”) are arguably factual. Lastly, the much-vaunted “fact-value distinction” does not coincide with the alleged distinction between facts and opinions, as some statements which are said to express opinions (e.g. A Democrat will win the White House in 2020) say nothing at all about values. In the end, Corvino tentatively puts forward a definition of his own: a statement of fact, he suggests, is “one that has objective content and is well-supported by the available evidence” whereas a statement of opinion is “is one whose content is either subjective or else not well supported by the available evidence” (italics mine – VJT). But this strikes me as a contrived definition: something is a fact if it is A + B, and an opinion if it is not-A or not-B. In the end, Corvino suggests “that we abandon the ambiguous fact/opinion distinction” and “focus instead on whether people can offer good reasons for the claims they make” – a sentiment which I would echo.
In order to see more clearly why the fact-opinion is philosophically flawed, let’s have a look at the five opinion-statements listed by Madrigal in his article in The Atlantic:
1. Democracy is the greatest form of government.
2. Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally are a very big problem for the country today.
3. Government is almost always wasteful and inefficient.
4. Abortion should be legal in most cases.
5. Increasing the federal wage to $15 an hour is essential for the health of the U.S. economy.
But what about these statements, which are identical in form to the above statements, and differ only in content?
1′. Longer life is the greatest form of poverty reduction. [See here for why.]
2′. Climate change and pollution are a very big problem for the country today.
3′. Bottled water is almost always wasteful and inefficient.
4′. Self-defense should be legal in most cases.
5′. Maintaining our competitiveness is essential for the health of the U.S. economy.
While statements 1 to 5 above would generally be regarded as opinions, one could make a good case that statements 1′ to 5′ are factual: they are either axiomatic or well-supported by evidence.
I can only conclude that semantics fails dismally to capture the fact-opinion distinction. Pondering this, I had another idea: could we construct an algorithm which would distinguish reliably between facts and opinions? Obviously, we could, if we allowed it to learn from human evaluations of whether a statement expresses a fact or a mere opinion. And in time, I imagine that the algorithm would surpass the abilities of most humans, most of the time. But then I had another thought, after reflecting on Corvino’s final definition of a fact as a statement supported by good reasons. A generalized algorithm for distinguishing a good argument from a bad one sounds like an impossibility to me: the number of different kinds of arguments is potentially infinite, and one could never build an algorithm to evaluate them all. And for that matter, how would the algorithm evaluate arguments relating to its own abilities?
One thing I am certain of, however, and it is this: attempts to school children in the distinction between a fact and an opinion are, for the most part, pure and unmitigated rubbish.
Consider this video by David Snell, which blithely informs readers that facts can be proven, whereas opinions cannot. We have already observed that many scientific statements would fall foul of this criterion. To make matters worse, Snell claims that any statement containing the word “should” should be deemed an opinion. (What about that statement?) Snell maintains that “Pregnant women should not drink alcohol” expresses an opinion, even though he freely acknowledges that studies show drinking alcohol during pregnancy is harmful to the health of the unborn child. I can only reply: if proving that doing X is inherently harmful isn’t enough to show that you shouldn’t do it, then what is?
Or take this video by Imagine Easy Solutions which defines a fact as a statement which is accepted by the majority (!), verified by experts and proven information. Since the video fails to inform its readers what constitutes proof, it is utterly worthless. To make matters worse, the video claims that if the author of a statement is known for having extreme points of view, the statement should be rejected as an opinion. And how does it propose that viewers identify bias in an author? By Googling it. I kid you not. To compound its errors, the video classes all statements preceded by the words, “I think that…” as mere opinions. Finally, statements like “Cronuts are the greatest dessert pastry of all time” are uniformly classified as opinions, but it ain’t necessarily so. Food critics can agree, for instance, on what makes a great pizza (see here and here), and most of us know a good wine when we taste one.
Lastly, this popular video (if you can bear to watch it – honestly, it’s like watching paint dry) informs its viewers: “An opinion is a belief or feeling. It is a person’s thoughts. It cannot be proven.” There is so much philosophical nonsense contained in these three statements that I feel like throwing my hands up in the air. “Shopping is hard work” is classified as an opinion. Oh, really? What about “Trudging around a shopping mall for eight hours is hard work,” or “Carrying a 20-kilogram shopping bag for 2 kilometers is hard work”? Are these mere opinions?
I feel sorry for today’s schoolchildren, who are often forced to take lessons on distinguishing facts from opinions by well-meaning but misguided teachers. They deserve better than this. What say you? Do you think the distinction is a vital one?
Bravo VJ!
This must be the shortest OP by you ever… Congratulations! Thank you!
I have a question: who determines what is a fact and what is an opinion?
Have you read Jerry Coyne’s book Fact vs Faith? If you have, you’d know what I’m talking about…
Hi J-Mac,
Thanks for your kind words.
Who, indeed?
In response to your query: I haven’t read Jerry Coyne’s book, although I reviewed its key arguments (many of which can be found online) in a post on Uncommon Descent back in 2015. Cheers.
I completely disagree.
So I looked at the Atlantic article. And their list of facts is a list of facts, while their list of opinions is a list of opinions. If you cannot tell the difference, then I think you have a problem.
I also looked at your linked Corvino article. And it is very mushy — as mushy as the OP to which I am responding. He presents a list (1a to 4a) of facts and a list (1b to 4b) of opinions. And, again, it is completely clear which are facts and which are opinions. If that is not clear to Corvino, then he has a problem. I did not find his “hard hitting article” at all hard hitting. If philosophers find it hard hitting, then there’s a problem in philosophy.
In a way, this gets to the core of the problem. Truth is a core concept in philosophy, but it is one where philosophers still disagree. Something is rotten in the state of philosophy (with apologies to Shakespeare).
So I looked at your list.
Clearly 1′ to 5′ are opinions, not facts. No, one could not make a good case that they are factual. One could make a good case that we should believe them, but that does not make them factual.
I watched the linked video by David Snell. While I don’t completely agree with his characterization, I see the video as actually pretty good. It is not nearly as mushy as Corvino’s article or as your post.
In any case, here’s the difference that I see for the lists in The Atlantic.
For all of the statements listed as facts, there are clear community accepted standards by which those statements can be evaluated.
For all of the statements listed as opinion, there are no standards which are accepted community wide that can be used.
The same criteria seem to work for Corvino’s lists. And the same criteria are enough for me to characterize your 1′ to 5′ as opinion.
Well, I dunno, Vincent. seems to me a claim is factual if it can be supported with evidence, otherwise it’s just an assertion, i e an opinion..
Thanks VJ!
I think a lot of the arguments you used to comment on Coyne’s book at UD apply to this OP. I just don’t want it to get side-tracked… Maybe later…
Good thread.
I agree that facts/opinions is mushy in human history.
Good grief they say evolution is a fact!! some say genesis is a fact about origins.
It must finally be based on the weight of evidence. so to have a fact relative to a opinion MUST finally be based on a common agreement of what is weight in evidence.
i think(whopps) this is why we do have facts. We have “conclusions’ everyone agrees , based on a agreement , there is great weight of evidence.
A fact is not a democratic vote. yet it is a popular agreement THAT there is WEIGHT of evidence that settles a conclusion.
THEN there is sincere error.
People sincerely think evolution has weight of evidence and lots of people, in more backward countries great majorities, agree to this weight.
Evolution is a fact to them and its more then thier own opinion as they see it.
iTS a fact!!!
Yet its not a fact and not a fact because of democracy.
It does not , upon inspection, have weight of evidence at all.
I agree opinion must be a inferior conclusion of using weight of evidence.
There really is not enough weight to make it a fact even to that person.
Facts to be something must be something.
Opinions to be something must be something.
so facts and opinions must be different species dealing with conclusions.
Exactly. And there is even a philosophy of truth that captures that idea (pragmatic truth). But I suspect you knew that (that is just my opinion, of course.)
But why should we accept the community of scientists view of facts over the community of non-scientist Youtube posters?
Because science works to accomplish the goals it sets itself and which interest us laypersons as well.
Now the fact/value distinction would be something the philosophically-inclined could have a principled disagreement about. But I guess that would be unhealthy. Which is of course a value judgement!
Can someone have an opinion about an opinion?
Can someone have an opinion about a fact?
Can someone have a fact about a fact?
Can someone have a fact about an opinion?
Statements supported by evidence are factual, even if they are wrong. Statements of opinion are frequently followed by qualifying statements and evidence.
A criminal conviction is a fact. Guilt is the often the plural of opinion.
My job has become exponentially more difficult when I encountered a generation of students who had been raised with a fact/opinion dichotomy. They always ask me whether I want their “opinions” in their essays. I tell them that I want their arguments. They look at me like I’ve grown a second head. They have no idea what that means. Maybe teaching the Corvino article at the beginning of my classes would help — so thanks for that link!
In any event I agree with Corvino that we’re much better off without “the fact/opinion distinction” and instead pay attention to what matters: the kinds of reasons for holding a belief (if there are any) and how compelling those reasons are.
Heck, in most cases it’s all I can do to explain the distinction between reasons and causes — most of the time when I ask students why they believe something, they tell me facts about how they were raised. I tell them, “I don’t care about how you came to this belief; I care about your reasons for holding it.” Then they stare at me like I have a third head.
All of this is, by the by, quite separate from my views about the nature of truth.
“Opinion” is like “politician.”
It’s an epithet.
An opinion is a statement having the grammatical form of a factual statement, but with which we disagree. We may disagree for any of several reasons.
We may judge it to be a well formed statement supportable by evidence, but false.
We may disagree about the sufficiency of supporting evidence.
We may judge it to be nebulous.
Back in the day, we argued over whether evolution was a fact, whether it was supported by facts, and whether it could be falsified by demonstrating that one or more supporting bits of evidence turned out to be false or defective.
Isn’t the distinction between fact and opinion more one of the knowledge of the person expressing the opinion? My knowledge of cosmology is minimal but, from the little I have gleaned from popular science articles, it is my opinion that the big bang was real. However, Stephen Hawking may view the big bang as a fact.
That is one of the reasons I say the word opinion is an epithet. Saying a statement is an opinion implies that it is wrong. That’s the connotation.
It could be wrong because the person making the statement is uninformed, misinformed, or unqualified.
But classifying a statement as an opinion is not really an argument, unless it is being classified due to being nebulous and incapable of being supported. In which case, the statement could be refined.
I do see that as a concern.
I try to avoid saying “evolution is fact”, and I think it would be better if others avoided it. It’s not that I doubt evolution. But it is sufficiently contentious in the society at large, that I think we should avoid asserting it as fact.
That’s unfortunate.
In mathematics, the arguments are the important part. That’s why we always tell students “show your work”.
Bob Brandom likes to say that facts are true claims. I think that’s right. The hard work lies in figuring out what makes a claim true!
Agreed. There was a study done a while ago that found being correctly acquitted or convicted (in a UK magistrates court) was about the same as a coin toss.
Kantian Naturalist,
I think it’s not very warm at my desk. Just my opinion. Check the room thermometer and find it’s reading 19.7°C. And that’s a fact!
I often wonder if some of your posts here are meant to let of steam after one of those student encounters.
I don’t think that quite works. Consider: it’s a fact about you that you are experiencing a sensation of insufficient warmth, just as it’s a fact that the room temperature measures at 19.7 Celsius.
That’s not their only function . . . but it is one of them! 🙂
KN comes here to see people staring at him like he has a fourth head.
Hi Neil Rickert,
Well, let’s have a look at the statements, shall we? It seems that they’re all either axiomatic or well-supported by evidence.
1′. Longer life is the greatest form of poverty reduction. (Evidence: here.)
2′. Climate change and pollution are a very big problem for the country today. (Evidence: here and here.)
3′. Bottled water is almost always wasteful and inefficient. (Evidence: here.)
4′. Self-defense should be legal in most cases. (Axiomatic, because it’s fundamental to any legal system: you can’t have rights unless you’re able to defend them. But if you’d like more supporting arguments, see here: here.)
5′. Maintaining our competitiveness is essential for the health of the U.S. economy. (Evidence: here.)
If none of those links counts as evidence in your book, then what the heck does?
So there are no community-wide standards that can be used to evaluate the statement that climate change is a problem for the country today? I’m dumbstruck.
Truth is also a core concept in your specialty: mathematics. (Boolean algebra, anyone?) And the whole of Russellian logic is built on the notion that some propositions are true, while others are false. If philosophy is in trouble, then I suspect mathematics is in even bigger trouble.
Thoughts?
Kantian Naturalist:
That was my reaction, too.
I had a good laugh at your remarks about sprouting a third head. I’ve seen that kind of mindset, as well.
Kantian Naturalist,
In fact, (heh) I was illustrating the fact that I was mistaken in it being cold. My perception was unreliable. Now I know it is near enough 20°C, I know I am not really cold.
Alan Fox,
We could disagree, have different opinions, on what the comfortable temperature of a room should be
Alan Fox,
And I dare say, research has been done to test what a sensible temperature is to maintain in a dwelling.
That surprise me. Aren’t you a truth is end-of-inquiry supporter? If so, doesn’t that have to include an domain-relative analysis of the nature of inquiry which is truth-seeking?
I missed your point, didn’t I. 😉
Latest NYT Stone article is about local skepticism, which I think could be thought of as a variant of the “that’s just their opinion” approach to facts/opinions. Its author recommends a probability scale for the fact/value spectrum.
But whether it is a black-gray-white spectrum, or a [0,1] scale, it still seems to me that we to be must be willing to take action where warranted, and taking action based on something having high probability is tantamount to treating it as a fact.
Knowledge, Ignorance and Climate Change
Not convinced by the opinion expressed by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar (in the article you link to) that longer life leads to reduction in poverty, necessarily.
PS @ Vincent
I mean the increasing longevity in Japan, for instance. I hear there are families where children are supporting parents who are, in turn, supporting parents. What’s the standard retirement age in Japan? *googles* Is it really 60?
Why?
What do you mean by “problem” and “today”? What is your measure?
At least in the USA, a substantial portion of the community (a large minority) does not accept the scientific standards. In particular, those not accepting the standards include many conservative Christians.
And, not surprisingly, the same group do not accept pro-choice, same sex marriage comprehensive sex education at an early age and unrestricted access to birth control. And they support Trump.
We shouldn’t say that certain claims fail to count as facts just because there are people who refuse to accept them.
Looking at all the examples cited, I’m thinking “fact” does not necessarily imply true fact.
Fact is a statement that must, by its form, be true of false, but a fact can be supported by evidence one day and contradicted by evidence the next day. One could have a video of an event that is rendered counter-factual due to an incorrect clock used to mark the time and date.
Sloppily formed statements cannot be facts. Things like “Houdini was the greatest magician ever” are not facts, even if widely held to be true.
When i said “guilt” is the plural of opinion, I was being facetious, but I think I was also saying something about how we accept statements as fact.
Well, Dennett would say it is a fact about you that you report and introspect that you are experiencing a sensation of insufficient warmth, but that sensation is just an illusion in the sense Dennett uses the term.
So Dennett’s opinion differs from KN’s opinion of your opinion on the facts about you. Well, at least that is my [fill in the blank].
Did you see Musk’s view of the best way to deal with our future AI overlords? If You Cannot Beat Them, Join Them.
Not only will AI be way smarter than you or I (and von Neumann to boot), but it will type so much faster, too
Is there any particular President you had in mind?
Hi Alan Fox,
You make a good point about longevity in highly developed countries.
I’m only two-and-a-third years away from 60, and I certainly have no plans to retire then. Frankly, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to retire, as I’m not eligible for a pension over here. I’ll just have to keep plugging along until I’m 80 or so.
Here’s an article about the Japanese government’s efforts to raise the pension age to 71 by offering people the carrot of increased payments if they defer their receipt of a pension.
Currently the average retirement age for men is 62, but a few years ago, it was only 60. Anecdotally, however, I come across a lot of men who retire, and then re-enter the workforce for economic reasons, but who only earn about half as much as they used to. Apparently this is quite legal, if they are rehired after retiring.
In Canada you can start collecting full Canada Pension Plan at age 65. This age was established back when the life expectancy for men was around 67, and around 70+ for women. We can still start collecting at 65 but the life expectancy is now 80 for men and 82 for women.
Oh well, that settles it. Dennett was hugely influenced by Richard Rorty. 🙂 We’re talking first person and third person. Dennett made a lot of sense there.
Well, what can I say?
No. But I must have a look as my daughter dropped a bombshell on me by mentioning she was looking at going for a job at Tesla. 😯
Another of my heroes (did I mention Richard Rorty?) is Isaac Asimov. The traders in his Foundation Trilogy developed the technology of copying (effectively 3D printing) so, given an original, they could reproduce anything. “Given an original” – that’s the key.
Well, I am a fairly old person in a developed country. (ATTMO*)
Young whippersnapper!
I could say a lot here. Women in the UK got shafted by a huge hike in retirement age from 60 to 67. The ant and the grasshopper. Inflation. Annuities. It might be off-topic.
I’ll have a look. But the concept seems reasonable. Encourage those who are fit and able to work beyond notional retirement to do so.
My beef with Manu Macron is that a blind eye is turned. Work beyond retirement is what many have to do but it is illegal. Why not make it legal for those capable?
*ATTMO at least that’s my opinion
I leave the Dennett/Rorty relation to KN’s expertise.
I read all the Asimov I could get my hands on in my pre-teens and early teens, including his bible and shakespeare popularizations. Still like reading good galactic empire SF, a genre that he pioneered (i think).
No no no.
I haven’t read the Atlantic piece or other thing, but what a mess this OP is. And based on it, how awful they must be.
Popular philosophy is sometimes quite good, too. E.g., McKeever’s recent “Philosophy of Language in Nine Sentences” (google it) is awesome.
But this stuff. I mean, wow.
Only facts are worth discussing.
Er, why?
Here it is. A 16 minute read, eh? *sets timer and starts to read*
8 minutes!
I dunno. Truth or falsity. Most sentences are inaccurate or open to more than one interpretation and often need qualifying with context. Seems you can be more or less accurate with a statement with absolute truth and absolute falsity as the limits of accuracy.
No no no no no.