"We are defining theory differently. I view it as a theory in the same sense that evolution is a theory: it's essentially all but proven. So, in that sense theory and fact are pretty much interchangeable. But whatever. I'm not going to argue with you again about why you misunderstand and misrepresent what the Social Contract is. You already know my position on it."

No we aren't. We don't disagree about the standards for Empirical Sciences. But since you are not talking about an Empirical Science, but about Philosophy, you have gotten yourself quite confused.

Social Contract Theory isn't remotely empirical. There are no measurables. No predictive hypotheses. No selected variables. No testability.

It doesn't even have the merit of a claim about history because there are no sources or citations.

I'm not misrepresenting this. No proponent of the argument pretends to treat this philosophical theory as if it were an empirically testable scientific theory.

The difference between the two. Gravity is a fact. And at present the Einsteinian theory of Gravity has no opponents who are doing peer-reviewed work and whose publications are held in esteem within their fields.

Even the popularly questioned Theory of Evolution ( while modified since Darwin's day ) has no refuters who are, again, respected in the field ( as evaluated through replicated experiments, predictions, peer-reviewed publications and all the evaluations of an Empirical Science. )

Its odd that while Social Contract Theory sounds like its making a historical claim, most philosophers treat this as a rhetorical flourish, rather than actually believing that there was a REAL contract, or even a REAL signing event at which people actually chose the "contract." This failure to provide evidence for a historical claim takes it outside of the realm of historical research and places it on par with Hegels Dialectic as a Philosophical theory about how history operated to bring us to the present.

As with so many things in philosophy ( and political philosophy ) which you claim are all but settled; they are far from it. Possibly your unfamiliarity with the respect afforded other theories might stem from an unfamiliarity with the field. Since you compare philosophy to the empirical sciences, I'm inclined to believe that this is the case; and that you are unfamiliar with the prevailing rival theories over the origins of political authority within Philosophy.

The entire Austrian School and its descendants reject the Social Contract because members ( like Karl Popper ) actually believe that political philosophy shouldn't aggressively reject Empirical observations ( as Social Contract theory does. )

Popper writes;
"This theory of a pre-social human nature which explains the foundation of society—a psychologistic version of the 'social contract'—is not only an historical myth but also, as it were, a methodological myth. It can hardly be seriously discussed, for we have every reason to believe that man or rather his ancestor was social prior to being human (considering, for example, that language presupposes society). But this implies that social institutions, and with them, typical social regularities or sociological laws, must have existed prior to what some people are pleased to call 'human nature', and to human psychology."

I certainly see much evidence that the ruling structures of society among the Apes predate contracts or even communication about optional societal arrangements. And there is no observable evidence that society was suspended briefly so that a "state of nature" could give rise to a freely agreed upon evaluation of a contact from outside of a contract. Its pure nonsense when we bother to try to hold it to the standards of an Empirical science.

Fortunately for Social Contact theory it survives in that most practitioners of the discipline do not hold that philosophical theories should be evaluated for Empirical evidence and rejected if it is not forthcoming, or contradicts an abstract hypothesis.

Such Empirical reductions in other disciplines ( like Szasz's attempt to reduce Psychology to Neurobiology ) have been deemed too extreme. But this does lead to very important differences in the standards for Theory and even "fact" between them.

And we must beware of the attempt to silence rivals through faux appeals to Empirical certainty. In most fields of Philosophy it just makes the proponent look foolish. But when Scientism meets Political Philosophy it turns downright genocidal.

Dante