ABSTRACT
Once the ‘all A is B’ stage of alphabetic generalization has been reached, it might seem that the obvious next step for the syllogism to take is to select a couple of letters to stand for all and is-the logical ‘constants’. If that step is taken, and letter substitutes are devised for all the other logical constants, then a single string of letter-forms can represent each and every one of the various types of proposition that it is possible to formulate. In effect, that is exactly what modern ‘symbolic logic’ does (although it supplements the alphabet by adding a few new symbols). When that stage is reached, the syllogism seems to have dispensed with words altogether. We have apparently passed beyond language into the realm of ‘pure reason’, and the alphabet is the tool that has made this momentous transition intellectually possible.
