Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus · Chapter
4.46 explained
Wittgenstein distinguishes two extreme cases among possible groups of truth-conditions: tautology (true for all truth-possibilities) and contradiction (false for all truth-possibilities).
What happens
Wittgenstein distinguishes two extreme cases among possible groups of truth-conditions: tautology (true for all truth-possibilities) and contradiction (false for all truth-possibilities).
Themes in this chapter
Logic and Tautology
Defines tautology and contradiction as extreme cases of truth-conditions
Characters to notice
- Mr. Wittgenstein
Author of the proposition
Key passages
“Among the possible groups of truth-conditions there are two extreme cases. In the one case the proposition is true for all the truth-possibilities of the elementary propositions. We say that the truth-conditions are tautological . In the second case the proposition is false for all the truth-possibilities. The truth-conditions are self-contradictory . In the first case we call the proposition a tautology, in the second case a contradiction.”
There are two limiting types of truth-conditions: tautologies, which are true for every possible assignment of truth-values to elementary propositions, and contradictions, which are false for every such assignment.
Clarifies the definitions of tautology and contradiction in terms of truth-conditions