Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus · Chapter
4.2 explained
This chapter defines the sense of a proposition in terms of its agreement or disagreement with the possibilities of atomic facts, linking meaning to logical space.
What happens
This chapter defines the sense of a proposition in terms of its agreement or disagreement with the possibilities of atomic facts, linking meaning to logical space.
Themes in this chapter
Logical Atomism
The sense of a proposition is grounded in atomic facts and their possibilities.
Picture Theory of Language
Propositions picture reality by agreeing or disagreeing with atomic fact configurations.
Characters to notice
- Mr. Wittgenstein
Author of the Tractatus, presenting the core theory of propositional sense.
Key passages
“The sense of a proposition is its agreement and disagreement with the possibilities of the existence and nonexistence of the atomic facts.”
A proposition's meaning consists in whether it matches or mismatches the possible states of atomic facts.
Clarifies the truth-conditional view of meaning central to the Tractatus.