If we overlook the fact that propositions have a sense which is independent of their truth or falsehood, it easily seems as if true and false were two equally justified relations between the sign and what is signified. (We might then say e.g. that “qsignifies in the true way what “not-qsignifies in the false way). But are not true and false in fact equally justified? Could we not express ourselves by means of false propositions just as well as hitherto with true ones, so long as we know that they are meant falsely? No! For a proposition is then true when
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it is as we assert in this proposition; and accordingly if by “q” we mean “not-q”, and it is as we mean to assert, then in the new interpretation “q” is actually true and not false. But it is important that we can mean the same by “q” as by “not-q”, for it shows that neither to the symbol “not” nor to the manner of its combination with “q” does a characteristic of the denotation of “q” correspond.


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