meaningless; in Frege (and Russell) it only shows that these authors hold as true the propositions marked in this way.
"|-" belongs therefore to the propositions no more than does the number of the proposition. A proposition cannot possibly assert of itself that it is true.)
If the sequence of the truth-possibilities in the schema is once for all determined by a rule of combination, then the last column is by itself an expression of the truth-conditions. If we write this column as a row the propositional sign becomes: "(T—T) (p,q)" or more plainly: "(T T F T) (p,q)".
(The number of places in the left-hand bracket is determined by the number of terms in the right-hand bracket.)
4.45 For n elementary propositions there are Ln possible groups of truth-conditions.
The groups of truth-conditions which belong to the truth-possibilities of a number of elementary propositions can be ordered in a series.
4.46 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.
4.461 The proposition shows what it says, the tautology and the contradiction that they say nothing.
The tautology has no truth-conditions, for it is