Factual Fissures: Claims and Contexts

Abstract

Claims of factuality are assertions that rest on effective performance. What constitutes a good performance may vary culturally and according to social context. A comparative perspective, moreover, shows that distinctions between fact and judgment may not be universally clear and may themselves be culturally determined, but that inserting our own claims to factual precision into that perspective strengthens rather than weakens them because it broadens the empirical basis of assessment.