5.46 If one introduced logical signs correctly then one would also thereby have already introduced the sense of all their combinations; thus not only “p v q” but already also “~ (p v ~q)” etc. etc. One would thereby also already have introduced the effect of all possible combinations of brackets. And thereby it would have become clear that the proper general primitive signs are not “p v q,” “(Ex). fx,” etc., but the most general form of their combinations.

Black (p. 269) offers “real indefinable signs of logic” as an alternative to “proper general primitive signs.”

But if there are no primitive signs in logic--and haven’t we been being pushed toward this view in the last few pages?-- then there is no such thing as this most general form of the combinations of logical signs. And this general form is extremely general. Can we identify it at all? Is it a thing? Is this the form of the world? Or an idol?