Let us consider the objection again. Can I give a concrete example showing that the mathematical concept of the proposition is inadequate to model the world of daily human experience? It seems to me that religion, ethics, and perhaps literature or art are areas of the human world which might yield such examples. Yes, perhaps, consider a work of literature.
Is it not customary to speak of the "truth" of a novel even if that novel is fiction? Perhaps we do not use the word 'truth' but we might say the "theme" of the work or "what the author is trying to say." However, all that this means is that the author is trying to "say" something and of course it is customary to say that what one says has "truth" in the sense that it is either true or false. (Please note that now I am talking about word
use, and I am
not talking about the truth or falsehood of the
proposition that proposition theory posits. I am discussing the use of the word 'truth' as it is used in the context of discussing a novel, not in terms of the truth value of a proposition in proposition theory.) Therefore we grand that we speak of the "truth" of a novel provided we agree that the author is "saying" something through the form of the novel.
So what, for example, is Jack Kerouac saying through
On the Road? (This is just the most recent novel I have read.) Is he saying anything? Although this sort of question is vague, we presume so. Afterall who would claim that
On the Road is nonsense? Perhaps some might do so, saying that it is a pointless story advocating an unhealthy lifestyle of drugs, sex, jazz, and aimlessly wandering across the globe, but of course in saying so they would be contradicting themselves by saying that the book says
nothing yet "advocates"
something--curious indeed. So we will assume that
On the Road "says" something--i.e. something other than what is literally stated in its component words. What this
something is, is of course not very simple. Answer the question, what is the theme of
On the Road? This question will of course lead to different, perhaps conflicting answers. Whose answer is correct? Perhaps someone will say that the novel says
p and another will say that not-
p. Who is going to say definitively whether
p or not-
p is correct? Need there be an answer? In the interpretation of a text might it not be helpful to know that on one hand the text says
p but on the other hand says not-
p? Perhaps such knowledge leads to even more knowledge about what the text is saying. Note here that if our
p's are propositions, we run into trouble since propositions are posited as entities such that
p is true iff not-
p is false. This indicates that propositions are inadequate to discuss the complexities of what a text is saying and hence the truth of a text.
Of course, in order to make this response to the objection much more valid I would need to perform a much more complex analysis of text interpretation; however, I do not (as yet) have the necessary training for such an analysis. Nevertheless, the example is clear.
