# 4.46 explained — Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

> Chapter companion for Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

## 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

## Character check-ins

### Mr. Wittgenstein

Author of the proposition

## Key lines

> 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_

## Links

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