No axiom, no deduction

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Where there is no axiom-system, there is no deduction.

I think this is a fair statement (for most of us) at least if we understand (i)
"an axiom-system" in a certain logical-expressive/normative-pragmatical
manner, as an expression of a system of deductive-inferential norms as to
how to use the "undefined" nonlogical terms in making and taking deductive
inferences under the rule of that axiom-system, and (ii) "deduction" in the
modern rigorous sense of the term, as inference in which we are concerned
strictly with what follow from what under the rule of an axiom-system (in
the sense of (i) above), independently from any irrelevant specificities of any
semantic-extensional interpretation that happens to satisfy all the axioms.
(Note) Surely, merely logical deductions ----- i.e., deductive inferences
whose validity obtains at the level of pure logic, propositional or
(first-order) predicate logic ----- are possible without any axiom-system
(or with an "empty" axiom-system).1 But, I exclude them from the
range of "deduction" in this writing, for the sake of simpler exposition.
The purpose here is not to offer full accounts of an axiom-system and
deduction that take care of all cases or instances of an axiom-system and
deduction, but to offer an idea about how to understand or think about

1 The distinction I draw here, between logical and nonlogical deductions,

roughly corresponds to the distinction between "formal" and "material"
(deductive) inferences of Wilfrid Sellars and Robert Brandom. I do respect
their insight that our language contains in its "grammar" (to put it
deliberately loosely for now) certain norms that legitimate deductive
inferences which are more substantial than mere logical ones. But, I don't
think it's very appropriate to discuss this distinction by calling the logical
deductions "formal" and the nonlogical deductions "material," because I
think that linguistic norms that legitimate such nonlogical deductive
inferences comprise something essentially like an axiom-system, which I
think is an expression of an abstract structure or form. In short, all
deductions are formal (or intensional), i.e., abstinent from what is material
(or extensional), which is the object of our reference rather than inference.

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 the essential connection between axiomatics and deduction, which I
think has been "sensed" by all working mathematicians "by intuition"
but has evaded elucidation. So, to focus on its purpose, I ignore logical
deductions in this blog post.
The slogan ("No axiom, no deduction"), with these assumptions, (i) and (ii), is
fair because such a level of rigor would be generally impossible (for most of
us) to maintain, in making or taking a long chain of deductive inferences
(especially under a complicated system of inferential norms), unless the
exact content of the inferential commitments, which are conferred on us by
the axiom-system-in-effect, is thus made explicit (and precise) in the form of
an axiom-system. Understood in this way, an axiom-system may also be
said to define or demarcate a deductive context, in the sense that while, and
only while, we take a set of statements as an axiom-system-in-effect, we
enter a certain normative community ----- or better yet, a tentative linguistic
community ----- in which we entitle and oblige one another to use the
"undefined" nonlogical terms of the axioms in the way "implicitly defined" (to
borrow this Hilbertian phrase) by the axiom-system (as a whole, to be sure).

Many of us may be more accustomed to thinking of an axiom-system as a

precise statement of a set of (each necessary and together sufficient)
conditions for a given "intuited" data-set to satisfy in order to count as an
instance of an abstract-structural concept, which is in this sense defined by
the axiom-system in question.
(Note) By an "'intuited' data-set," I mean a data-set that "presents itself
to us" as a concrete and inherently structured data-set, either through
"empirical intuition" (i.e., perception) or through some "non-empirical
intuition" (e.g., "mathematical intuition").2
For those of us, the notion of "inferential commitments conferred on us by an

2 All these terms related to the notion of "intuition" are put in the
scare-quotes because I'm critical of this passive, spectator-theoretic
conception of "intuition." I'm now writing a paper to present a certain
naturalistic philosophy of perception (which is a part of my "re-thinking of
'mind'" project) in which this criticism is developed more fully.

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axiom-system" may be paraphrased as the discursive commitments that we
incur when we abstract an "intuited" data-set D as nothing more or less than
an instance of an abstract-structural concept C (defined or definable by a
certain axiom-system), whose content consists of (i) our entitlements in that
context to say whatever can be said about D only in virtue of its being an
instance of C, and (ii) our obligations in that context to refrain from saying
anything that cannot be said about D only in virtue of its being an instance
of C. My explanation here may not be as precisely on the mark as it can be.
But, I hope it is enough to get across my point. My point is that the kind of
logical-expressive/normative-pragmatical conception of an axiom-system and
deduction that I put forward above has some inherent connection with the
traditional model-theoretic, structural conception of them, and, so, with a
version of semantic inferentialism.

Anyway, the slogan above ("No axiom, no deduction") presupposes a certain

systematic conception of an axiom-system and deduction, in which the two
concepts (an axiom-system and deductive-inferential discourse/deliberation)
are really mutually inseparable: An axiom-system is what affords us
deductive-inferential discourse/deliberation, and the latter is what we do
(with words, or with conscious cognitions of comparable explicitness) under
the "rule" or "reign" (so to speak) of an axiom-system. Admittedly, this
conception of an axiom-system and deduction is an outcome of long-lasting
inspiration by (some chapters of) Robert Brandom's Making It Explicit (and
Articulating Reasons), as is suggested by my use of his terminologies above.3

3 But, I must report that, based on my recent (belated) study of the chapter 6
of the MIE, I now suspect that my conception of an axiom-system and
deduction, which I think demands a broadly Kripkean, or broadly
direct-reference-theoretic treatment of the phenomenon of reference, seems
to oppose Brandom's total philosophy of language in this regard, while it
shares with it a broad philosophical orientation or framework (consisting of
logical-expressivism, normative-pragmatics, and semantic-inferentialism).
I believe that making/taking of referential expressions (or singular terms)
can be incorporated in this general framework in a way other than suggested
by him. ----- At this occasion, let me also confess that, although in this
website I have mentioned his name as a major influence on my project of

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Meanwhile, this conception owes an insight to Minao Kukita's "Mathematics
as speech act" (a handout, in Japanese, at a workshop of JACAP conference),
too. It may be fair to say that this conception is a certain
broadly-Brandomian extension of Kukita's original speech-act theoretic
approach to axiomatic-deductive discourses/deliberations in mathematics.
So, in this blog post, let me call it the KB conception (of an axiom-system and
deduction), for short. Of course, it goes without saying that all
responsibility for any error of this conception is mine. Moreover, this
tentative designation surely does not imply that this conception has received
any approval from Prof. Brandom or Prof. Kukita, or that I expect that it
would. (I have no expectation either way, as of now.) The designation is
primarily for want of other purely descriptive and short phrase, and,
secondarily, for acknowledging my intellectual debts to them.

2
If we adopt this KB conception of an axiom-system and deduction, then, the
history of rigorous axiomatics can be seen as the history of rigorous
deductive sciences. From this point of view, two historical incidents seem to
stand out. The first is Newton's axiomatization of mechanics, which I have
read being described (in Tomonaga, 1979, if I remember correctly) as the first
axiomatic theory in the history of physics, which introduced rigorous
deduction to the practice of physics. The second is found in the history of
mathematics: namely, the gradual emergence in the mathematical
community of the formal (in the sense of semantics-free) treatment of diverse
"intuited" data-sets (of classical mathematics), by way of axiomatization of a
common pattern that recurs across such diverse data-sets, by which we
abstract away from their formally-irrelevant specificities. The KB

"Re-thinking 'mind'," I did so while I had read only a few chapters of the two
books. My study of his philosophy has since made some progress, which
made me recently suspect the aforementioned difference. But, I'm still very
much in the middle of my study. So, I may change my opinion about
whether and where my philosophy differs from his.

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conception requires us to study these histories anew.

The preceding paragraph says all what I want to say in this section 2. But,
it contains a few complicated issues, which I must clarify before moving on to
the final section 3.

First of all, the adjective "formal" above (as in the phrase "formal
treatment") is used in the aforementioned sense of semantics-free or
extension-free. It should not be confused with another sense of it, which
has become common in the philosophies of logic, mathematics, and language,
at least ever since Frege expressed, in his Begriffsschrift, a strange ideology
about deduction and won almost ubiquitous consensus among the experts
since then. The ideology may be put as follows:
In order for us to be really rigorous in deductive inference, it is not
enough, in the final analysis, to make explicit inferential norms by way
of axiomatization. On top of that, such a "pre-formal" axiom-system
ought to be "formalized," in the sense of being turned into a
symbol-system such that (i) the syntactic notion of a statement (or a
well-formed formula) is recursively defined on the set of all
(combinatorially possible) symbol-strings and (ii) the proof-theoretic
notion of a proof (or provability) is similarly recursively defined on the
set of all (combinatorially possible) wff-strings.
I refrain from any substantive criticisms of this ideology here, beyond the
insinuation (that it's strange). Anyway, although I will use the word
"formal" (and related words like "form," "formalism," etc.) in this blog-post,
my use of it should not be understood in this sense (unless explicitly noted
otherwise).

Secondly, I distinguish here between an axiomatization of a common pattern

that recurs across diverse classical mathematical data-sets, on the one hand,
and an axiomatization of a specific classical mathematical data-set, on the
other. A well-known example of the former is the axiomatization of the
abstract structure of group. A well-known example of the latter is the

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axiomatization of the natural number arithmetic into the so-called Peano
arithmetic. Let me call the former structural axiomatization and the latter
foundational axiomatization, borrowing the nomenclature of Feferman
(1999). From the standpoint of the KB conception of an axiom-system and
deduction, an axiom-system does not count as a pure deduction system
insofar as it is conceived of as a foundational axiom-system, i.e., as a system
that expresses the "most basic concepts" and the "most basic doctrines" of a
body of "intuited" knowledge (empirical or mathematical). For, to conceive
of an axiom-system as a foundational system is to conceive of it as a set of
extensionally interpreted statements, whereas deduction is by definition
(according to the KB conception) a (discursive or deliberate) act that
abstracts away from extensional interpretations. So, the aforementioned
"emergence of formal treatment of diverse data-sets" refers to the emergence
of structural axiomatics, not foundational axiomatics.

Of course, to an extent, an axiom-system that is originally developed as a

foundational system can be easily re-conceptualized as a structural system.
That is to say, once an "intuited" body of knowledge is axiomatized (even in
the spirit of foundationalism), we can, in our conception, easily separate its
original, intended interpretation from the system itself, so as to render and
treat it as a structural axiom-system from then on. A perfect example of
this re-conceptualization is actually found in Hilbert's 1899 axiomatization
of Euclidean geometry.4 This fact may seem to detract from the

4 In his 1899 work, Hilbert proved the consistency of his axiom-system -----
its consistency relative to that of real number arithmetic, to be precise -----
by offering an interpretation to it that is other than the intended one,
thereby in effect treating his system as a structural one. So, in his 1899
work, he treated his system in both ways seamlessly, first presenting it as a
foundational system, and then treating it as a structural system. Now, I
have an impression that the KB conception of axiomatics/deduction is still
novel today, and that, behind this situation, there is this widespread
underappreciation of the significance of the foundational/structural
distinction for the epistemology of mathematics. If this impression is not
too far from the truth, I'm tempted to suspect that a remote cause of this
total situation may be found in Hilbert's seamless dual treatment of his

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significance of the foundational/structural distinction for the KB conception.
(Structuralists may be especially enticed to think that way.) But, I have a
serious reservation for genuine formality, in the aforementioned sense, of an
axiom-system that is denumerably categorical.
(Note) Let me call an axiom-system denumerably categorical if it has a
unique model "up to isomorphism," whose cardinality is denumerable.
I suppose that any such denumerably categorical system, indeed, any
system for which the issue of categoricity has ever been raised at all, is
originally developed as a foundational system.
I do not think that such denumerably categorical systems, e.g., Peano
arithmetic, can afford us genuinely abstract, formal-deductive (i.e.,
semantics-free) treatment of its isomorphic denumerable models. So, at
least some foundational systems are inherently somewhat material, in the
sense of defining a "structure" or "form" that is not purely abstract but to an
extent concrete (i.e., requiring some definite reference in its identification or
specification).5
(Note) Unfortunately, I'm not yet ready to say anything about
nondenumerably categorical axiom-systems, i.e., systems that have a
unique nondenumerable model "up to isomorphism." (I even don't
know if there is any such system.) Actually, I'm in the middle of
developing my own (naturalistic) philosophy of what numbers are, or
what we do in making/taking references to numbers of various sorts.
And, I think that this (normative-pragmatics-based, naturalistic)
philosophy of numbers will demand a fundamental re-appraisal of the
standard conception (or treatment) of the denumerable/nondenumerable
distinction itself, in a way that is inseparable from the issues of
foundational/structural distinction and the "ontology" of "mathematical

axiom-system 1899.
5 I explain this opinion in some more details in my On the Aufbau, in which I

offer a criticism of Carnap's "structuralism" which can be read as a contrary

opinion to mine on this issue. (The relevant part comes in pp. 27-8. But,
the discussion there presupposes a lot of materials developed by up to that
point.)

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 entities." Before this re-appraisal, I cannot say anything about any
metamathematical results which appeals to this distinction.
In any case, in the actual history of mathematics, the emergence of
structural and foundational axiomatics are seamlessly inter-connected (as
pointed out in the footnote 4), although only the emergence of structural
axiomatics counts as the emergence of genuinely formal-deductive sciences,
according to the KB conception. So, in practice, the historical study of how
the genuinely formal-deductive science has been developed in the
mathematical community, and how this development has been perceived in
that community (including the very mathematicians who contributed to this
development, such as Hilbert), involves the study of how its development
and its perception have interacted with the development of various
foundational axiom-systems, as well as with the development of various
"formalizations" (in the sense of recursive-syntactification) of deduction.
(Note) An SEP article on the Frege-Hilbert controversy is brief but
informative for this study. Benefit may be mutual. That is, just
having this article (coincidentally), I'm now inclined to guess that the
KB conception, and a normative-pragmatics-based analysis of the
difference between foundational and structural axiom-systems, may
allow us to put this controversy in a new, and revealing, historical
perspective.

Finally, having made the second point (about the strict, even cardinality-free
sense of formality that is assumed in the KB conception of an axiom-system
qua a deduction system), I confess that I'm not yet ready to say anything
about axiomatics in physics, either. The reason here is related with the
reason for which I cannot say anything about the nondenumerably
categorical axiom-systems. In my lay understanding, theories of physics
are generally such that, in making and taking them, we commit ourselves to
the "existence" of some classical-mathematical "intuited" systems, i.e.,
concrete and inherently structured data-sets about which we are supposed to
have (inter-subjectively shared) "mathematical intuitions" (e.g., number
systems and intuitive Euclidean geometry). Perhaps, theories of physics

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may no longer commit us to anything of intuitive Euclidean geometry. (I'm
too ignorant to say anything conclusive about this.) But, I presume (despite
my ignorance) that they ontologically commit us to various number systems,
by making us make/take definite references to numbers of various sorts. As
I stated above, I'm still in the middle of developing an account of the
pragmatics of making/taking of number-references. So, I cannot say
anything about the history of rigorous axiomatics in physics. ----- But,
despite all this, I still think that even (number-referring) axiomatic theories
in physics can be seen in a broadly KB conception's line.

3
Based on the KB conception, I think that it's fair to say that rigorous
deduction became available in the mathematical community only as the
structural axiomatics was gradually, and spontaneously, emerged in that
community.

I'm very ignorant of this history of mathematics, as yet. But, as a KB

conception subscriber, I'm very much interested in this historical
development. Being an ignorant amateur, I have this impression that
mathematics (i.e., "pure" mathematics, excluding "applied" mathematics
entirely) has radically changed its outlook before and after the emergence of
the structural axiomatics. Before it, mathematics was just classical
mathematics, studies of various "intuited" data-sets or structures. After it,
we seem to have a spectrum of mathematical subject-matters, from the most
concrete ones of classical mathematics to the most abstract ones of
first-order theories without definite reference (or singular terms), such as
group or lattice. Between these two extremes, mathematicians seem to
have developed/discovered a host of mathematical data-sets or structures
that have both aspects in various mixtures. What happened to the
mathematical community, which brought about this outcome?

Of course, to develop any full-fledged answer to this question, I must study

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the actual history of mathematics, and, even before that, must first study
prerequisite mathematics for this historical-philosophical enquiry. But, I
have a sort of a "big picture" hypothesis, about one thing that I think is the
most important ingredient for this historical development. I think that
what happened can be described (again, in retrospect) as an episode of
language evolution. More specifically, I hypothesize that the mathematical
community (as a special kind of linguistic community, united by making and
taking of mathematical statements which are often written in the
cross-linguistically shared notations) gradually developed a new
metalinguistic (or metapragmatic) competence with which to rigorously
talk/think about their own talking/thinking about classical mathematical
data-sets.

Yet more specifically, I think that the emergence of the metapragmatic

competence in question is centrally observed with the change in the ways in
which mathematicians use the locution of quantification, with its
inseparable connection with the use of the equality symbol, =. But, to test
this hypothesis, I must first clarify the pragmatics of quantification and the
equality symbol, by which the current practice of abstract mathematics is
enabled. In other words, I must first substantiate the technical details of
the KB conception of axiomatics/deduction. This is where I am, as for my
philosophy of mathematics.

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