Abstract

Contrary to explicit statements in the text of the Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus, this essay argues that the notion of a negative elementary proposition makes sense within the Tractarian system. The suggestion depends upon separating two strains in Wittgenstein's account of propositional meaning: the picture theory of meaning, and the truth‐functional account of meaning. A proposition could be considered elementary if it contained only one elementary proposition or one elementary picture. In this approach, if p is an elementary proposition, then so is not‐p. Though this change would involve substantial revisions of the Tractatus, it squares with Wittgenstein's fundamental view that logical constants are not representatives.