Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus · Chapter
5.101 explained
Wittgenstein presents a complete schema of truth-functions for two elementary propositions, p and q, listing all sixteen possible combinations of truth-values and their corresponding verbal expressions, from tautology to contradiction, and
What happens
Wittgenstein presents a complete schema of truth-functions for two elementary propositions, p and q, listing all sixteen possible combinations of truth-values and their corresponding verbal expressions, from tautology to contradiction, and introduces the concept of truth-grounds.
Themes in this chapter
Logic and Tautology
The schema explicitly includes tautology and contradiction as limiting cases of truth-functions.
Logical Atomism
The analysis of propositions into elementary propositions and their truth-functions exemplifies logical atomism.
Characters to notice
- Mr. Wittgenstein
Author of the Tractatus, presenting the truth-functional schema.
Key passages
“Those truth-possibilities of its truth-arguments, which verify the proposition, I shall call its truth-grounds.”
The truth-possibilities that make a proposition true are its truth-grounds.
Definition of truth-grounds in terms of verifying truth-possibilities.