If you mean Weaver’s contrast between “facts” and “truth,” his point is that collecting empirical details is not the same as understanding reality or knowing what is good. Hobbes: In Ideas Have Consequences, Weaver explicitly places Hobbes in a turn toward explaining the world through reason applied to evidence from nature, rather than asking about a transcendent purpose. Weaver sees that as part of modern thought’s move away from first principles. (wisc.pb.unizin.org) Machiavelli: Be careful about attribution: Weaver’s central historical culprit in Ideas Have Consequences is William of Ockham and nominalism, not Machiavelli. You can connect Machiavelli’s practical, power-focused political analysis to Weaver’s broader critique of worldly, experience-centered thinking, but that is an interpretation—not a direct critique of Machiavelli in the book’s central argument. (rhetoricring.com) What “facts” means: Weaver is not simply saying facts are false or useless. He argues that facts without interpretation and first principles can leave people with lots of information but little wisdom. His phrase is that modern thought substitutes “fact” for “truth.” (wisc.pb.unizin.org) In short: Weaver’s criticism is that political knowledge reduced to observable facts, interests, and technique loses sight of objective moral truth and higher purposes. That fits his reading of Hobbes more directly than it does a specifically documented critique of Machiavelli. (wisc.pb.unizin.org)

 If you mean Weaver’s contrast between “facts” and “truth,” his point is that collecting empirical details is not the same as understanding reality or knowing what is good.

• Hobbes: In Ideas Have Consequences, Weaver explicitly places Hobbes in a turn toward explaining the world through reason applied to evidence from nature, rather than asking about a transcendent purpose. Weaver sees that as part of modern thought’s move away from first principles. (wisc.pb.unizin.org)
• Machiavelli: Be careful about attribution: Weaver’s central historical culprit in Ideas Have Consequences is William of Ockham and nominalism, not Machiavelli. You can connect Machiavelli’s practical, power-focused political analysis to Weaver’s broader critique of worldly, experience-centered thinking, but that is an interpretation—not a direct critique of Machiavelli in the book’s central argument. (rhetoricring.com)
• What “facts” means: Weaver is not simply saying facts are false or useless. He argues that facts without interpretation and first principles can leave people with lots of information but little wisdom. His phrase is that modern thought substitutes “fact” for “truth.” (wisc.pb.unizin.org)

In short: Weaver’s criticism is that political knowledge reduced to observable facts, interests, and technique loses sight of objective moral truth and higher purposes. That fits his reading of Hobbes more directly than it does a specifically documented critique of Machiavelli. (wisc.pb.unizin.org)