Truth/fact

I actually wrote and article to the title Does Truth Exist. I think that truth is a funny thing and it is based on perception. For example: If you ask someone to identify a purse snatcher...one might say he was a tall guy, another might say he was short but the fact would be that he was 5 foot 7. It would depend on how tall the person describing him was and neither wuld be lieing.LOL

I think both the words are interrelated but the thing is that truth remains intact through all the ages, but fact can change depending upon circumstances. Truth is universal and eternal but fact is ever changing with time.

I think they are different as you have stated. I think facts can and have changed, well, maybe not, it's just that they were stated incorrectly. So, yes, the perceptions changed. And I think the truth does have many sides. For A and B are facing face to face, A would be in front of B but for B it would be A, but both are truths.

I find the truth is something that we can believe in. It doesn't always have to be something that can be seen in a physical way. A fact is something we know to be correct and examples of these things can be seen.

I believe that truth's can be changed by perception or changes that occur very frequently in society here and around the world. Facts are hard cold facts...they exist in their time and do not change although perception of facts may probably vary in their understanding depending on the person faced with those facts and or their ability to analyze the facts...forensics for example (watch alot of ncis..lol). In short, I believe truths can change continually while facts don't change at all.

Hi everyone! I just want to give my idea about fact and truth. Truth is something we experience. Unless we encounter something or has a clear knowledge about something we can't that it's true. While fact is something proven to be real, or correct, or let's say true. Facts exist even without our knowledge but not with truth that is why truth is associated at times with faith. Truth is something is we believe in while fact is a fact and couldn't be changed whether we believe it or not. My example is, for others aliens are true because they claim that they have encountered one but for others it's just a fiction. This means that those who do believe have experienced it. Fact and truth do not always go together but most of the time they do. Like for example, it's a fact that the sun exist whether we believe it or not. And we can also say that it is true that the sun exist because we experience it everyday.

A fact is an actualised state of affairs. A state of affairs is an arrangements of things and the truth value of that a state of affairs (That is, if it is a fact) can be determined from the world. But truth has many meanings, there is subjective truth, intra subjective truth and the elusive objective truth. To explain; if I feel hot, that is subjectively true for me If a thermometer displays a high temperature reading that is intra subjectively true. At this point we may want to say the thermometer reading is objectively true but that is too fast. What is hot? Compared to the temperature of the sun it is cold. So, when the thermometer records a high temperature, by common accord we say it is hot. So, truth, ion this sense, is an intra-subjective agreement or common assent all the best urban

It is a little bit confusing but the factis it has strong similarities and to differentiate the meaning of these words, is how one applies them in writing. We often read something like 'bible truth and not 'bible fact'.

Hi savypat, Is there really a difference? Isn't it also a truth that the sun came up this morning? Isn't every fact also a truth. I know a fact is the past, something that has already happened but would not some people object if for example, we stated the truth that we will all die? Maybe I'm just trying to be difficult here but can we make any statement about the future that we are sure is truth. Blessings.

I remember Indiana Jones trying to differentiate the two and it's just so bad that I couldn't remember what he said. lol You were right about your definitions of the two. They are similar but not the same. For me, a fact is like an evidence that will eventually lead to the truth. But without the correct facts, or if some facts are missing, then the truth, as we know or think we know may not be the ACTUAL TRUTH. Do I even make sense here? lol That's how I understand it anyway.

This topic has philosophical implication including the example on the sun rising everyday (this is the example used by David Hume in his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding), but I'll strive to make it simple for easier understanding. Definitely, truth and fact are distinct from each other; there is notable difference between them. Truth refers to something which is true, right and correct. Examples are: "There are seven days in a week." "Triangles have three sides." "Barrack Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America." These are true and correct statements. A fact is something that has happened (as pointed out by savypat). The Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition) defines it as something that has actual existence which is objective (sounds philosophical). The examples mentioned above are also statements of facts as they are factually existing or occurring. It is a fact that "There are seven days in a week," that "Triangles have three sides," and that "Barrack Obama is the 44th President of the United states of America." The examples given are examples of truth and examples of fact. What is the difference? Here's the answer. All facts are truths. The fact about "seven days," "triangles," and "Barrack Obama" are all truths; they are all correct. But not all truths are facts. Truths can be held to be true even if they are not supported by facts. Examples: "The soul is immortal." "God exists." "There is freedom." These are statements widely held to be true, but they are not statements of facts. Why? Simply because they cannot be factually known statements. There is no way to verify whether they truly exist or not in the physical sense of the word. They exist as a mental reality and regarded by many (including myself) to be true. But how do we know that they are true, right and correct statements? This can be answered philosophically or theologically, not scientifically (when we talk of the science of Newton, Immanuel Kant, Stephen Hawking, among others).

Here is what I think. There are truths that are not based on facts .... for example truths can be extensions of experiences, intuition, history, ideas.... all of which may be non-fact based. Truths are complex. Facts are not complex; there is no ambiguity; it's black or white. So facts are comforting, while truths can be unsettling and leave questions in one's mind. Does this make sense to others?