LANGUAGE Indeed the picture theory of the propositions grew out of Wittgenstein’s reflections on the difference between propositions and names For Frege names and propositions alike had both sense and reference, the reference of a proposition being a truth-value But, as Wittgenstein came to see, there is an important contrast between the relation between names and what they refer to, on the one hand, and propositions and what they refer to, on the other To understand a proper name, like ‘Bismarck’, I must know to whom or what it refers; but I can understand a proposition without knowing whether it is true or false What we understand, when we understand a proposition, is not its reference but its sense A name can have only one relationship to reality: it either names something or it is not a significant symbol at all But a proposition has a two-way relation: it does not cease to have a meaning when it ceases to be true (TLP 3.144) So, to understand a name is to grasp its reference; to understand a proposition is to grasp its sense There is a further difference between names and propositions consequent on this first difference The reference of a name has to be explained to one; but to understand the sense of a proposition no explanation is necessary A proposition can communicate a new sense with old words: we can understand a proposition that we have never heard before and whose truth-value we not know It is this fact to which Wittgenstein appeals when he asserts that a proposition is a picture What Wittgenstein meant by calling a proposition a picture can be summed up in nine theses: (1) A proposition, unlike a name, is essentially composite (TLP 4.032) (2) The elements of a proposition are correlated by human decision with elements of reality (TLP 3.315) (3) The combination of these elements into a proposition presents— without further human intervention—a possible situation or state of affairs (TLP 4.026) (4) A proposition stands in an essential relation to the possible situation it represents: it shares its logical structure (TLP 4.03) (5) This relationship can only be shown, but not said, because logical form can only be mirrored, not represented (TLP 4.022) (6) Every proposition is bipolar: it is either true or false (TLP 3.144) 135