Overheard in a discussion.

That depends on whether you are speaking of Social facts, like history, religion and Philosophy. or Scientific facts, like the speed of light and Newtons third Law.. You dont mess with science.. However people pollute every observation by their very presence. Look at the human toll of the Covid pandemic. The pure science took time to discover and its still evolving.. But the human insanity of how it was dealt with was the stuff of snake oil salesmen, with Political interests, Religious interests,and economic interests fuelling fear and ignorance almost from day one.😷

I'm not anti science but I do think that a lot of 'facts' would be better called 'current thinking'
The scientific community have a particular desire of mocking, for example, old wives tales eg that rubbing an onion on the sole of the feet helps the body recover from a cold... This was all rubbished by the scientific community as nonsense, until someone sciency did some research and found that there's something in onions which helps the immune system and the part of the body must able to absorb this was the soles of the feet. At which point it became a scientific discovery.
And there's been ample cases where new ideas from *within* the scientific community have been already universally ridiculed by the rest of the scientific community, because they challenge accepted thinking.... Only to be proved correct decades later. But up until that time, the new ideas weren't facts. They weren't even regarded as unproven theories. They were regarded as untrue.

I think that is nonsense. For example, to say "Frankline Roosevelt was president of the United States 1932-1944" is an undeniable fact.

Someone said "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."

Proven math theorems aren't interpretations.

Physics & chemistry equations that predict future measurements with great accuracy aren't interpretations.

It wasn't a set of "interpretations" that sent a spacecraft on a 9.5 year 3 billion mile journey to rendezvous with Pluto and radio back detailed photos https://www.space.com/pluto-flyby-new-horizons-fifth-anniversary.html

Oh, and another 4 years and another billion miles later, the same spacecraft rendezvoused with a 20 mile long Kuiper belt object called Arrokoth.

Nope. "intepretations" alone won't send our cameras these vast distances or align the antennas to send the data back. It takes accurately measured facts about the solar system and accurate factual equations describing gravity, drag, and other forces on such a spacecraft.

But I think I can agree that there are effectively no facts in philosophy, so Nietzsche is probably right about his chosen field.

P.S. aren't you proud of me for resisting the urge to include photos of Pluto, Charon, & Arrokoth, as well as the course-modifying flyby of Jupiter?1?!

I just came across this quote:

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As Immanuel Kant put it in 1784, "Have the courage to use your own understanding! — that is the motto of enlightenment."

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Seems like Nietzsche is saying "nope, don't trust your understanding," because you will always make interpretations that inevitably lead to subjectivity and thus errors. And that's valid up to a point.

Rephrasing what I said elsewhere, the scientific method allows us to find the excluded middle between Kant & Nietzsche, between trusting & distrusting our understanding. Science allows us to put our understanding to objective tests. If we can predict the results of experiments and measurements and tests, we can get beyond the subjective biases of our own understanding.

Its a vague statement open to interpretation itself.

Fact = Science
Fact = History

Science, for example. My interpretation of the "science" of covid is vastly different to many on here. How do you distinguish fact from fiction when "fact checking" is a business. When "science" is funded by the very institutions that benefit from "science" being a certain way. How can you rely on "experts" when they have obvious conflicts of interest. A brief trip down memory lane: 4 out of 5 doctors smoke camel. Science. Asbestos in talc is good for you. Science.

History for example. Accepted "fact" at one point was clovis first. Or the amazon had been populated by humans a 1000 years ago. Both are now provably incorrect.

Maybe his statement was ironic?

There is absolutely no way to verify or falsify his statement. So it's meaningless.

Neitche was a master of the oxymoron. His statement of fact was contradicting itself.

His statement is correct, but ONLY if the context is that the person asserting a *fact*, has not taken everything into context.

"A Bordeaux blend, with a charcuterie of assorted goat cheese, pecorino and prosciutto is the best lunch combination", is correct within certain Western contexts, but not for the rest of the world.

The drink I am having right now, is chilled to 48F, is always going to be a factual statement, provided I accurately measured it.

Einstein, Newton, Schrodinger, Planck, Leibniz, etc would disagree with him. Every US politician, in either party, probably agrees with Nietzche, however. Do you think Nietzche would back Trump, or Biden? Or fail to see any significant difference?

could be, or maybe the facts can exist independently of our interpretations. or maybe the fact is the human mind is too flawed to actually understand facts at all. I think I could make a case on that given time and resources!

For me, that's the kind of word parsing that people who want to be seen as "above it all" would use.
Fact. Hearts stop beating and, without outside influences, animals die.
The end.

I disagree that there are no facts, but I think what he meant is that people can have different interpretations of facts, so we could never be completely sure if something is true.

Chickens lay eggs. That’s a fact not subject to interpretation. Plus, Nietzsche’s statement is presented as a fact so…

Lets hope he doesn't feel that way about the fact of gravity and standing under a falling tree.

If there are no facts, the statement itself cannot be factual. It cannot be a fact that there are no facts. If it is a fact then there are facts. So if proven true then it is proven false. As such, it's redundant as a statement.

I like cereal.

Wow, didn't know that..not surprising tho. He's wrong about "what doesn't kill u makes u stronger".

I'd say there are facts and interpretations of facts.

You can't walk on the Sun barefoot and a blue whale can't ride a horse.

The sun has always been green since the dawn of civilisation

There's a reason why eye witnesses are unreliable ...

aha ....... so that's what Kellyanne Conway was talking about ...... clever gal !

There is indisputable facts like 2+2= 4, or 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxyegen atom make a molecule of water, but other then physical proof of a fact, perception is relitative to a nearly infinite vantage point of what a fact is.

a fact is not an object of reality. a fact is a private figurative confirmation of the existence of an object of being.

If the interpretation is fact then the interpretation is a fact...

Did I just respond to your comment?

There are no civil discussions unless you agree with me.

No.