This may be more timely for next time, but I wanted to ask it anyhow.
It seems that for truth we need correspondence. So we have a fact-in-the-world bit on the one side, and a representation-of-a-fact bit on the other. So:
(1) •Snow is white• is true iff it is the case that snow is white.
Or, it seems,
(2) •It was temperature d at time t• is true if it is the case that it was temperature d at time t.
It seems that we can still have the fact-in-the-world bit going on in the absence of propositions. Propositions are just going to be the representation-of-a-fact bit. So the left-hand side bits of (1) and (2) might not be there. But this seems consistent with the right-hand side bits may still have obtained.
Doesn't it seem plausible that something might be the case, even though it fails to be represented as being true or false?
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2 comments:
I think your point is a good one, it's one King mentions at one point as well (the chapter eludes me, probably ch 3).
Anyway, I think the intuition against this notion goes something like this:
T) All it is for P to be true, is that the world is as P represents it to be.
Under King's view it's true that we still have the fact-in-world going on where there are no propositions. Consider a location (in time, place, modality, whatever) L at which Adam is tall but there are no propositions. It's still the case that there's the fact-in-world going on there that has Adam being tall. That's enough for it to be the case now that the proposition that Adam is tall at L is true. However the objection still holds that it's not true at L that Adam is tall (since there is no proposition at L to be true). This goes against (T). At L the world IS the way P represents it to be, but it isn't the case that P is true there.
I don't think that this is a knock down argument (for the very reason you gave). However it points out a deviance in our common sense view of truth from what King says is truth.
I suppose the middle ground might be: when there was no language, there were truths; but they were not taken to be true.
I'm not sure if this middle ground would really make anyone happy.
Maybe 'true' is ambiguous between 'representings' and 'representeds'. I guess King wants 'truth' to be a representing, but someone else might take it to be what is represented.
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