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Full Idea
Wittgenstein's 'fundamental idea' is that the 'and' and 'not' which guarantee the truth of "not p and not-p" are meaningful, but do not get their meaning by representing or standing for or referring to some kind of entity; they are non-referring terms.
Gist of Idea
'And' and 'not' are non-referring terms, which do not represent anything
Source
report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Notebooks 1914-1916 [1915], §37) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1
Book Ref
Fogelin,Robert: 'Walking the Tightrope of Reason' [OUP 2004], p.28
A Reaction
Wittgenstein then defines the terms using truth tables, to show what they do, rather than what they stand for. This seems to me to be a candidate for the single most important idea in the history of the philosophy of logic.
| 6563 | 'And' and 'not' are non-referring terms, which do not represent anything [Wittgenstein, by Fogelin] |
| 23481 | Propositions assemble a world experimentally, like the model of a road accident [Wittgenstein] |
| 23500 | My main problem is the order of the world, and whether it is knowable a priori [Wittgenstein] |
| 22323 | The philosophical I is the metaphysical subject, the limit - not a part of the world [Wittgenstein] |
| 18276 | A statement's logical form derives entirely from its constituents [Wittgenstein] |
| 16908 | We can dispense with self-evidence, if language itself prevents logical mistakes [Jeshion on Wittgenstein] |
| 18274 | Analysis complicates a statement, but only as far as the complexity of its meaning [Wittgenstein] |
| 4678 | Absolute prohibitions are the essence of ethics, and suicide is the most obvious example [Wittgenstein] |
| 23472 | The sense of propositions relies on the world's basic logical structure [Wittgenstein] |