Logic, as the trivium treats it, is the art of ordering discourse, of ordering the movement of the mind from one thing known to another, toward truth. It presupposes significant speech: terms that have meaning, statements that can be true or false, questions and commands that are not statements, and paragraphs that convince an audience of something true. We cannot follow an argument or an attempt at persuasion unless that argument or effort has been put into language.
What about images? We sometimes speak of images as having a rhetoric or a discourse, or as being able to persuade people of something. It is true that images can carry discourse of a certain sort and even persuade in a way, but this is true only figuratively: an image cannot itself persuade us of anything; it is what the image seems to imply that may persuade us when we understand it in the right context. Imagine, for example, a candid photograph of a famous politician caught doing something terrible; he has seen the camera just before the picture was taken and is reaching to cover over the camera lens with his hand. The image itself is damning, but only because we understand the context, know the politician, and know that what he was caught doing is wrong.
It is words, then, that communicate, speak truth, and persuade.
Most students should begin with grammar. The reason is that we must first be able to speak and hear correctly, and to know what is meant by our words, before we can ask in detail whether what the words say is true or not. That may seem easy or even something so obvious that anyone can do it, but consider a close look at philosophical and legal arguments or even arguments about the meaning of life. One key is being able to understand complex statements and being able to form them yourself.
If we want to begin our higher studies with inference and logic, that is a good desire. But it is better not to neglect the preliminary study, even though it is not a difficult one. For one thing, grammar helps us to see the universal foundations of our language and words and that can help us avoid thinking that our reasoning is somehow limited because it is only carried out in one language.
Next, we consider why we must begin with words. (If you still wish to consider other possibilities for where to begin our higher studies, you can go back and explore, for example, science or mathematics or the need for self-expression.)
Continue to Why the Classical Tradition Begins with Words.
Or go back to Where to Begin for Higher Studies in General to explore another starting point.