We then had this conversation:
Me: “I believe that George Washington was the first president. Is that a fact or an opinion?”
Him: “It’s a fact.”
Me: “But I believe it, and you said that what someone believes is an opinion.”
Him: “Yeah, but it’s true.”
Me: “So it’s both a fact and an opinion?”
Since it was quite a useful word that will undoubtedly be missed, why not being it back with a simple redefinition. We could redefine it as "close enough to true that only a philosopher would object". Then we could continue to use the word, despite the obnoxious objections of philosophers.
Epistemology may be all very neat and interesting, but in the real world there is little place for it. We frequently need to express ideas that may not necessarily be "philosophically pure", in order to get shit done in a timely manner. Think of the concept of "fact" as foma.
It is great that you aren't. The issue is that the author of the article was nitpicking a non-controversial use of the word. His son's responses to him suggest to me that his son was sick of his philosophical shit and just wanted to deal with the world pragmatically. Most people have little patience for epistemology, and I find it hard to blame them.
It's all just words, lines we use to divide, but they seem to be drawing nice solid lines --- whilst the parental unit that wrote the article seems remarkably confused about the factualness of his own beliefs.
I didn't see how it was not --- and so the line of questioning seemed to be willfully ignorant of that mutual exclusivity.
We have "not ripe" and "ripe" apples. Is this apple "ripe"? But see this part of it here isn't ripe! So it's both ripe and non ripe --- ergo, you were taught wrong to distinguish between ripe and not ripe!
blank stare == (are you really that stupid dad?)