ABSTRACT
Facts or states of affairs were taken by Bertrand Russell to be entities that sufficed to make true or be the verifiers for atomic sentences. Such truth-makers were atomic facts. The recognition of atomic facts led, in turn, to questions about what other kinds, if any, of facts there were. Such questions were often raised in the context of considering what one need recognize as grounds of truth. Thus specific issues arose about purported negative facts and general facts. Given the need for matter to be informed and for forms to inhere in something, the distinctions and terminology associated with potency and act were available, with matter characterized in terms of potentiality, meaning that it was capable of taking on various forms, in virtue of which there was then something of a definite kind. Russells classic argument is also based on a crucial implicit premise, but one that is diametrically opposed to Abelards.
