Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus · Chapter
3.3441 explained
Wittgenstein discusses the commonality among all notations for truth-functions, noting that they can all be replaced by the notations for negation and disjunction, thereby showing how a specific notation can yield general insights.
What happens
Wittgenstein discusses the commonality among all notations for truth-functions, noting that they can all be replaced by the notations for negation and disjunction, thereby showing how a specific notation can yield general insights.
Free preview opens on this chapter — companions, themes, and character notes appear beside the text.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Exposition.
- Setup
- Escalation
- Breaking point
- Aftermath
- Closing
This passage marks the story’s dramatic climax because it presents the moment when the protagonist’s obsessive…
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Follow the arc while readingThemes in this chapter
- Logic and Tautology
The passage illustrates how truth-functional notations share a common logical form, reducible to negation and disjunction.
Characters to notice
- Mr. Wittgenstein
Author of the Tractatus, presenting the logical structure of truth-functional notation.
Key passages
“We can, for example, express what is common to all notations for the truth-functions as follows: It is common to them that they all, for example, can be replaced by the notations of “ ~ p ” (“not p ”) and “ p ∨ q ” (“ p or q ”).”
All truth-functional notations share the property that they can be expressed using only negation and disjunction.
This highlights the underlying unity of logical notation.
