Data before the Fact - "Raw Data" Is an Oxymoron - page 4

“data.” What is more, there is a practical consideration: one has to have some language
left to work with, and after thrilling conceptual histories of truth, facts, evidence, and
other such terms, it is helpful to retain one or two irreducibles. Above all, it is crucial
to observe that the term “data” serves a different rhetorical and conceptual function
than do sister terms such as “facts” and “evidence.” To put it more precisely, in contrast
to these other terms, the semantic function of data is specifically rhetorical.
The question then is: what makes the concept of data a good candidate for something
we would not want to deconstruct? Understanding this requires understanding what
makes data different from other, closely related conceptual entities, where data came
from, and how it carved out a distinctive domain within a larger conceptual and dis-
cursive sphere.
So, what was data prior to the twentieth century? And how did it acquire its pre-
analytical, pre-factual status? In this, etymology is a good starting point. The word “data”
comes to English from Latin. It is the plural of the Latin word datum , which itself is the
neuter past participle of the verb dare , to give. A “datum” in English, then, is something
given in an argument, something taken for granted. This is in contrast to “fact,” which
derives from the neuter past participle of the Latin verb facere , to do, whence we have
the English word “fact,” for that which was done, occurred, or exists. The etymology
of “data” also contrasts with that of “evidence,” from the Latin verb vid ¯ re , to see. There
are important distinctions here: facts are ontological, evidence is epistemological, data
is rhetorical. A datum may also be a fact, just as a fact may be evidence. But, from its
first vernacular formulation, the existence of a datum has been independent of any
consideration of corresponding ontological truth. When a fact is proven false, it ceases
to be a fact. False data is data nonetheless.
In English, “data” is a fairly recent word, though not as recent as one might guess.
The earliest use of the term discovered by the Oxford English Dictionary occurs in a 1646
theological tract that refers to “a heap of data .” It is notable that this first OED citation
is to the plural, “ data, ” rather than the singular, “ datum. ” While “ datum, ” too, appeared
in seventeenth-century English, its usage then, as now, was limited—so limited, that in
contrast to the well-accepted usage of the plural form, some critics have doubted
whether the Latin datum was ever naturalized to English at all. 7
“Data” did not move from Latin to English without comment. Already in the eigh-
teenth century, stylists argued over whether the word was singular or plural, and
whether a foreign word of its ilk belonged in English at all. In Latin, data , is always
plural, but in English, even in the eighteenth century, common usage has allowed “data”