and thereby I determine the sense of the proposition.
The point at which the simile breaks down is this: we can indicate a point on the paper, without knowing what white and black are; but to a proposition without a sense corresponds nothing at all, for it signifies no thing (truth-value) whose properties are called “false” or “true”; the verb of the proposition is not “is true” or “is false”—as Frege thought—but that which “is true” must already contain the verb.
4.064 Every proposition must already have a sense; assertion cannot give it a sense, for what it asserts is the sense itself. And the same holds of denial, etc.
4.0641 One could say, the denial is already related to the logical place determined by the proposition that is denied.
The denying proposition determines a logical place other than does the proposition denied.
The denying proposition determines a logical place, with the help of the logical place of the proposition denied, by saying that it lies outside the latter place.
That one can deny again the denied proposition, shows that what is denied is already a proposition and not merely the preliminary to a proposition.
4.1 A proposition presents the existence and non-existence of atomic facts.
4.11 The totality of true propositions is the total natural science (or the totality of the natural sciences).
4.111 Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences.
(The word “philosophy” must mean something
