ABSTRACT
consider the sentence ‘this is red and this is green’. Call it A. Assume that in A the two occurrences of ‘this’ refer to the same colour spot. In the Tractatus Wittgenstein claimed that A is contradictory. The claim has provoked varying reactions. Urmson argues 2 that the individuals of the Tractatus are rudimentary Aristotelian substances. Accordingly, though he acknowledges the role which the truth-table explication of logical truth plays in this work, he tends to minimize its importance. For this Bergmann takes him to task, 3 insisting, not unfairly, that he thus fails to appreciate a difficulty which the claim creates. Bergmann, himself, faces this difficulty head on by maintaining that the claim is inconsistent with what he calls the bulk of the Tractatus, which in this context I take to mean the truth-table explication of logical truth.
