Definitions and the junk room of logic
Definitions are a means of clearing up ambiguities and replacing impractical ambiguities with practical clarity. They simply hide what is unclear. But definitions have nothing to do with truth.
"Facts are true by definition!" - someone recently said to me after reading my notes on Knorr Cetina's "The Fabrication of Knowledge". This is an interesting objection - not so much because of its actual intention, but because it focuses on the role and function of definitions.
Briefly to the starting point: Knorr Cetina represents pragmatic-constructivist positions on truth and knowledge. According to them, we do not find facts, we do not approach a reality that needs to be discovered, but rather - depending on our perspective - we agree on facts, we create them or we set them within a system of rules in order to be able to continue working within this system. Basically, this has been a widespread consensus in the philosophy of science since the criticism of Francis Bacon and his idea of wanting to lift a veil over the world. In other words, since around the middle of the 17th century. This view is still controversial today, especially among people who have a lot to do with seemingly simple and clear connections - often in the financial sector, sometimes also among technicians. This is actually too short-sighted: It continues to offend some. And then counter-arguments like the one about definitions arise.
Definitions play a key role in all discussions about data, facts and truth. Definitions make terms tangible, so that it is only possible to argue meaningfully about whether something is true or not. At the same time, however, the need for definitions is an indication that a term is problematic and needs closer examination.
Definitions of data, facts and truth are as old as modern science itself. The early experimenting scientists of the Royal Society of the 17th century created facts through their experiments, which were deliberately to be seen as neutral elements of knowledge that were not to be questioned more closely, but were certainly in need of interpretation. Facts were something perceptible and measurable. Truth, however, was something else. Observable facts led Robert Boyle, experimenter with the air pump, to the assumption that there must be such a thing as a vacuum. Rationalist dogmatists such as Thomas Hobbes concluded from the same facts that where there was no air, there must be ether - because emptiness could not exist.
Facts are something made - the root of the word says so.
Data was all the more hopeful. After all, the root of the word suggests that data is simply given. However, since data also has to meet certain criteria, and in some respects even certain formats, a slightly closer look reveals that data is not so simple, it is not given, it is also made. Like facts. Or at least they are collected - data are actually capta, to stick with Latin word stems.
This finally leads to the question of definitions. Definitions are different from theories and criteria. A definition of something does not necessarily provide clues as to how something can be recognized as the defined. Popular examples of this come from chemistry: the definition of liquids as acidic or alkaline is based on their pH value. The criterion for deciding this property of a liquid is provided by the color of a test strip. A definition therefore has very little to do with truth or with the question of whether the properties defined as necessary are actually present. This must be determined at a different level.
The philosophy of science recognizes several types of definitions:
Stipulative definitions determine the meaning of a term. Stipulative definitions often introduce new terms that are used as abbreviations for facts previously described with several terms.
Descriptive, nominal definitions describe, they explain something in other words. They often also list criteria.
Finally, reductive definitions reduce terms to known terms. Reductively defined terms are combinations of other terms that are assumed to be known.
Ideally, descriptive and reductive definitions work in a similar way as mathematics. They are based on a functioning, accepted system, just as mathematics can derive, calculate or prove something because it was previously defined in this way. The result of a mathematical question is always already contained in the rules of mathematics. But sometimes the rules are complicated to apply. Nevertheless, rules are mostly conventions. Their truth lies in the fact that they are accepted. Rules are often based on approximations (such as when working with functions and derivatives), sometimes they are also inventions whose purpose is to make something possible - just as imaginary numbers had to be introduced because the previously applicable rules produced impossible results in some processes despite correct execution. A square root of -1 can be the result of simple calculations, but it cannot be represented with these simple calculations.
Descriptive and reductive definitions are analytical techniques. Relationships established beforehand are examined afterwards. They are therefore not suitable for working with large, fuzzy concepts such as truth. This is not only evident in mathematics. The legal system is also a complex created system that is first created, then analyzed and examined for its limits - and treated as if it were law ...
Synthetics, on the other hand, are always speculative. Stipulative definitions are synthetic, they create new connections. They introduce a term and give it a meaning, or they find a word for an existing situation. Stipulative definitions have as much to do with truth as the naming of a new asteroid or a new insect with its discoverers - it's just called that because someone suggested it. With regard to the initial question and facts, this means that you can define facts as true by definition if you wish. But that does not mean that this definition is true.
Because "by definition" means: within these rules (and then usually only implicitly: which we have agreed on, which I assume, to which I currently see no alternative) this or that applies. "By definition" therefore always implies, like every appeal, that things could be different. That's why we need rules, that's why we want to set ourselves apart.
Does this trigger an endless regression in which ever more demarcations and rules become necessary, in which we have to accept ever more conditions? Take the example of facts: Facts are true because they have been obtained through certain processes of scientific work and can be verified. These processes are relevant quality criteria that have become established among the vast majority of female scientists. They have become established because they enable criticism, discussion and traceability. These are relevant characteristics of value-free and neutral discourse. Value-free and neutral are important characteristics that do not obscure the view of facts. - Such discussions, which have occupied the theory, philosophy and sociology of science since the 1970s, have recently fallen into disrepute. However, the post-corona helplessness in the face of the many catastrophically poor communication activities of many authorities and governments suggest that this discussion is not entirely idle. Science was denigrated, overused, despised, overburdened with responsibility - all because the rules of the game that applied to the knowledge currently available and the rules according to which the recommendations based on it were made remained unspoken.
The theoretical possibility of regress alone (Harry Collins has described this regress in many laboratory situations) is, for many critics who consider themselves rational, an outrage against the supposed achievements of the Enlightenment, the point at which rational discussion becomes impossible and gives way to pure ambiguity, uncertainty and boring repetition. Even for those who see this as an adventure, this is where the thin ice begins. But it is not only Knorr Cetina who provides orientation and argumentation. David Bloor with his sociology of science, Ludwik Fleck with his reflections on the emergence of a scientific fact, the forefathers of the philosophy of science Kuhn and Lakatos, and, possibly involuntarily, Karl Popper are witnesses who can be called upon here.
We are in the middle of the junk room of logic. The junk room fulfills its purpose in that it can be forgotten. It contains many things that currently present us with a problem that we do not want to have in our immediate vicinity or in our field of vision, but which we believe we may need later. Maybe we don't know what it is right now, but it looks important. Or it has some kind of sentimental meaning for us. As long as the junk room can still hold things and the door can still be closed afterwards, all is well with the world. Every theory, every form of logic needs this junk room. Even mathematics makes a lot of things disappear here and proves what it has previously defined without thinking about the foundations of these definitions (which are of course practical, pragmatic and correct in this sense - but could also be different). Anomalies, the inexplicable, which can be broken down into many individual parts and explained, end up in the junk room. There are no consistently rational explanations for why some things end up in the junk room and others are exhibited in the salon. The explanations are judgments of value and taste or purpose-oriented conclusions.
That's why problems mainly arise when the junk room is opened. Perhaps there is no more space, perhaps someone has heard strange noises, perhaps we just succumb to the recurring urge to clear out every few years (although we can hardly part with anything anyway). Then we have to ask ourselves why we keep or throw something away, what value we attach to this object (i.e. this argument), what we still need to make these old armchairs look good in the living room (i.e. under what conditions an argument can be useful) - and that often leads to trouble.
Questioning definitions also leads to the junk room. It needs to be tidied up, reorganized and dusted off - and on the way there you ask yourself a lot of unpleasant questions that you would rather never have encountered. If we want to remain understandable, then we should close the door to the junk room again as soon as possible - new definitions have the potential to lead to misunderstandings, lengthy discussions and bigger changes than we actually wanted to initiate.
However, if appropriate, reasonable and factually useful definitions are confused with truth, then we need to go deep into the junk room. And it is to be expected that some people will be lost along the way who see no point in tidying up the junk room. That's why we like to keep it closed. But there are some things that challenge us to do so ...