On ‘Facts Revisited’

Abstract

Neale's book does a wonderful job of telling us what the relevant constraints are. Thanks to Neale's work on slingshot arguments, we have a precise idea of what claims we must leave out of philosophical theories if we are to avoid theories which suffer from ontological collapse and commit us to the existence of at most one fact (or whatever). I shall put it forward that the strictures on theories of facts may be less disruptive than Neale suggests. Neale himself says that Russell's theory of facts is fine.2 So we have a prototypical theory. I want to bring to the discussion a different theory from Russell's, which, as I see it, avoids crucial flaws in the protoype, but can equally stay out of trouble. I bring this theory to light by questioning an assumption of Neale's. The assumption involves the Principle of Substitutivity for Singular Terms, psst. (The fact identity connective fic (Fic(<P,i/f) (abbreviates the fact that <P = the fact that \jj.) The assumption in question is the one that Neale puts in place when he says: