The symbolising fact in a-p-b is that, say* a is on the left of p and b on the right of p; then the correlation of new poles is to be transitive, such || so that for instance if a new pole a in whatever way i.e. via whatever poles is correlated to the inside a, the symbol is not changed thereby. It is therefore possible to construct all possible ab functions by performing one ab operation repeatedly, and we can therefore talk of all ab functions as of all these || those functions which can be obtained by performing this ab operation repeatedly. [This is quite arbitrary but if we once have fixed on which sides the poles have to stand we must of course stick to our convention. If for instance „apb” says p then bpa says nothing. (It does not say ~p.) But a-apb-b is the same symbol as apb (here the ab function vanishes automatically for here the new poles are related to the same side of p as the old ones. The question is always: how are the new poles correlated to p compared with the way the old poles are correlated to p.]

(2015–) Wittgenstein Source Bergen Nachlass Edition (WS-BNE). Edited by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen under the direction of Alois Pichler. In: Wittgenstein Source, curated by Alois Pichler (2009–) and Joseph Wang-Kathrein (2020–). (N) Bergen: WAB.