Wittgenstein’s Revenge

Context Omission and Trust are fundamental ingredients in the creation of facts, and both depend completely on subjective judgment. Facts are not “indivisible atoms of truth” — instead, they seem impossible to define with the objectivity we’ve come to expect from them.

To establish a Fact,  someone  must decide what context is relevant to include, and what to exclude.

The trouble is,  there is no objective way to decide what context to omit.  Context omission is inevitably subjective — it’s whatever the omitter decides is irrelevant.

Science holds all knowledge as tentative and uncertain.

While people tend to accept this in theory, the metaphor of Facts connotes certainty and permanence, and inspires a fervor often indistinguishable from religious fundamentalism.

The metaphor of Facts thus creates a countercurrent to the spirit of science in public discourse and everyday life.

We think of ‘facts’ as being somewhat equivalent to data — they’re observations, which in theory anyone could verify.

But observation is just one of three essential ingredients required to make a Fact.

The other two are:

• 1) Context omission, and


• 2) Trust, in the one omitting the context.