METAPHYSICAL ACCOUNTS OF THE NATURE OF FACTS

There are two general approaches to the nature of facts. The compositional approach starts with certain things that could be the components of facts and regards a fact as something formed by putting those things together. The result is fewer facts than on other views, because there are fewer things that could be components of facts, and as a consequence there will be fewer true propositions that are made true by a single fact. The compositional approach makes it plausible and, indeed, likely that facts should be regarded as real units, since having components that are real makes it likely that the compound will be real. The linguistic view of facts, on the other hand, starts with certain linguistic expressions and singles out some of these on account of their linguistic form as describing states of affairs, states of affairs being introduced merely as what those expressions describe, with facts being explained merely as states of affairs that obtain. The compositional view of facts was held by Russell, Wittgenstein, and Armstrong and could be called the classical view of facts, though the linguistic view appears to be more common at the moment. Austin was clear that facts existed in the world but otherwise apparently had something nearer a linguistic view of facts.