The Social Construction of Facts
David Weinberger,
Joho the Blog,
Dec 14, 2022
I think David Weinberg is right, but we need to be clear about what that means. He writes, "the fact-based disciplines we choose to pursue, the roles they play, who gets to participate, the forms of discourse and of proof, the equipment invented and the ways the materials are handled... all are the result of history, culture, economics, and social forces." Quite right, and extensively documented. But there's a corollary: a 'fact' is a physical object. Typically, the fact is distributed across a large number of physical inscriptions (ie., it may be a distributed representation). But what it is not is a non-physical aethereal entity that can mysteriously enter your brain (as, say, 'information'). If you think of a stereotypical 'fact' as a notation in a book, a lot of the discussion about what facts can and can't be becomes a lot clearer. Image: Crista Flores.
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