When discussing subjects of philosophy, very minute differences in word usage can make a large difference. I often use the words fact and truth as differentiated terms. When I do so, I am going to try to keep linking back here so that I do not have to repeat the same explanation over and over, and thus bore everyone.
Fact is the word I try to use for something that is verifiable, objective, and/or quantitative.
Truth is the word I try to use for something that is amorphous, subjective, and/or qualitative.
For example, it is a fact that stealing food is against the law in most places. However, it is true that it is wrong to steal because it hurts those you are stealing from. It also could be true that it would be wrong to let your children starve if you could save their lives by stealing from someone who would be hurt very little by being stolen from.
In these usages, there is usually only one factual answer to a question, but could be many different answers that are all true.
If it is a fact that Jim has five apples, it could be true that he has many apples, but it also could be true that he has few apples. It depends on perspective, how many apples others have, what the apples are for, how big the apples are, and even how much Jim likes the apples.
Perspective, feeling, and uncounted variables are part of truth, while fact is hard and unyielding.
Some questions can have both a factual answer and a truth answer. “Is this soup good for me?” Is such a question. The factual answer would contain the nutritional information of the soup, the nutritional needs of the person asking, and whether it met those needs or exceeded them in any ways that were problematic. The factual answer in this case would not be a yes or a no, because it is unlikely to be as factually clear cut as would be necessary for a binary answer to that question. The truthful answer in this case could be just a yes or no. The truth could be yes because it has many things the answerer views as healthy in it, the truth could be no because it has a large amount of salt and the answerer feels that overrules any other nutritional value it may have, the answer could also be no because the soup has quite a few carbs and the answerer feels that carbs are unhealthy, or it could be yes because the answerer feels it is low in total calories and the answerer feels that caloric content is the primary indicator of the heath value of food. It could be more responsible for those giving the truthful instead of factual answers to explain their reasoning, but they can just truthfully state their qualitative conclusion.
Fact is easier to use accurately when the question is something that has a set, objective, answer. In cases where a qualitative answer of good or bad, worse or better, healthy or unhealthy where there are multiple variables that have unknown weighting against one another, and quite likely includes some variables that are purely arbitrary, factual answers become less and less useful. The fuzzier an issue becomes, the less directly facts figure into our decisions. The more muddled the facts become, the more people tend to rely on truths. Truth is fuzzy, and so it covers fuzzy situations well.
One problem with this dichotomy is when people reject either fact or truth. Both are necessary.
People who insist that just because there are some unknowns, or that there is some fuzziness to an issue, that the facts are all meaningless and arbitrary will make poor decisions. An issue being complex and requiring some subjective judgement does not mean that facts do not matter. Just because you can’t prove that a back-rub won’t help your cancer does not mean that having a backrub means the scientifically verified treatments your doctor has prescribed can be safely ignored.
At the other end, one cannot just ignore truth in the face of facts. No matter how similar the muscle tissue of humans and pigs is, it makes a great deal of difference whether that is a pork chop on your plate or a human chop.
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