 Opinions get something of a bad reputation, often in a debate. Let's use the term debate loosely here. One person will look at another person's judgments or conclusion here and just simply say, well that's just your opinion. Well usually the reply is something along the lines of no, it's a fact. The insinuation or presumption, if you like, is that facts are better than opinions or opinions aren't worthwhile at all. It's been said, and incidentally by somebody with a very definite axe to grind, opinions don't affect facts, but facts should affect opinion and do if you're rational. Or for instance take my field, philosophy. For more than a few people say that philosophy is useless because it's all a matter of opinion. Okay, you can say this, but I have a question. Is the claim that facts are better than opinions a fact or an opinion? Well to get started maybe we should get a few things straight. Let's start with the distinction between fact and opinion. I did a little hunting around online and looking for the distinction, which of course we know is the font of all good facts and I found quite a few things. I found mostly lessons meant for students anywhere from the 6th to the 12th grade. I should note that there's no single distinction given, or no single grade upon distinction given between fact and opinion. I found a variety of distinctions. However, the predominant consensus is that facts are provable statements and opinions are not, and the Oxford American Dictionary defines facts as indisputable whereas opinions are disputable. There's usually other kinds of descriptions or qualifications between fact and opinion that people try to elaborate on this difference more between the provable and the unprovable. Facts can somehow be measured or are objective whereas opinions are merely subjective. Facts have evidence or are evidence whereas opinions are given purely by emotion or bias. The majority of people agree upon the facts whereas there's widespread disagreement about opinion. Experts can verify facts or agree on the facts whereas opinions have no experts or expertise. Facts deal with what is real or what is true or they're always true. They don't change with the times. Whereas opinions deal with emotion, preference or frankly what is neither true nor false. Facts are in some sense public. They're objective. It's something that you should believe. Facts are what we call in the philosophy of business obligatory whereas opinions are private. They're subjective. They're not something that a person is obligated to believe and opinions are what we call permissible. You can either believe them or reject them. Well given this laundry list of differences between fact and opinion it's not hard to see why facts are held in such high esteem and opinions are not. Ok well let me ask you a question. Well let's consider this distinction between fact and opinion. Facts are proven or are provable. Opinions are not proven or cannot be proven. Is the distinction between fact and opinion a fact or an opinion? Well I'm betting your immediate response to the question is yes. Ok well if the distinction is a fact then there's a proof for the distinction. So what's your proof? Well now immediately you might say that the definition for fact and opinion is the proof for the distinction between fact and opinion. Well the definition is just simply a reiteration of the distinction itself. You cannot prove something simply by reiterating the claim. Look here's my proof that the sun is made of smelly green mustard. Here's how I define the sun. That which is made of smelly green mustard. Well that seems pretty ridiculous. We simply can't prove anything merely by reasserting it. If we're going to prove the distinction between fact and opinion we're going to have to look somewhere else. Well I suppose we can give this a shot. We can say that the distinction is an opinion. However by the definitions and descriptions given above we don't have a very high opinion of opinion. Now this rather ruins the rhetorical move. Remember a common rhetorical move is to say that the other person's conclusions or evidence really is just simply their opinion. If the distinction is merely an opinion then the rhetorical move loses force. After all the rhetorical move is meant to discredit opinion but it crucially relies upon opinion. So what do you think? Is there a proof for the distinction between fact and opinion? Is there a proof for the definition of fact? Is there a proof for the definition of proof? Have I made a mistake somewhere? Have I missed something? If not what comes next? What do we make about the distinction between fact and opinion? What do you conclude? You're welcome to provide your answer in the comment section below. To be clear I'm not questioning whether there is a distinction. Keep the distinction. I'm only asking whether the distinction between fact and opinion is itself a fact or an opinion. The answer is one or the other and a justification for your claim. I can't promise to reply to each comment but I'll try to reply to at least some of them. And if you think you can answer the question and answer whether the distinction between fact and opinion is a fact or an opinion and if you could justify the answer I'd like to see the attempt.