ON FOUNDATIONS FOR DEDUCTIVE MATHEMATICS

FRANK QUINN
arXiv:2407.02507v1 [math.HO] 18 Jun 2024

1. abstract
This article was motivated by the discovery of a potential new foundation for
mainstream mathematics. The goals are to clarify the relationships between prim-
itives, foundations, and deductive practice; to understand how to determine what
is, or isn’t, a foundation; and get clues as to how a foundation can be optimized
for effective human use. For this we turn to history and professional practice of the
subject. We have no asperations to Philosophy.
The first section gives a short abstract discussion, focusing on the significance of
consistency. The next briefly describes foundations, explicit and implicit, at a few
key periods in mathematical history. We see, for example, that at the primitive
level human intuitions are essential, but can be problematic. We also see that tradi-
tional axiomatic set theories, Zermillo-Fraenkel-Choice (ZFC) in particular, are not
quite consistent with mainstream practice. The final section sketches the proposed
new foundation and gives the basic argument that it is uniquely qualified to be
considered the foundation of mainstream deductive mathematics. The “coherent
limit axiom” characterizes the new theory among ZFC-like theories. This axiom
plays a role in recursion, but is implicitly assumed in mainstream work so does not
provide new leverage there. In principle it should settle set-theory questions such
as the continuum hypothesis.

2. Abstractions
“Foundation” refers to a body of deductive practice, here mainstream deductive
mathematics. Historically practice comes first. Foundations are a way to analyze
the body of practice, particularly its consistency.
(1) A primitive is an object, hypotheses, or method of argument that is pos-
tulated rather than deduced from something else.
(2) A primitive foundation is a collection of primitives that is complete in
the sense that no other primitives are needed. Note that the methods of
argument (the logic) is part of the foundation.
(3) A foundation is consistent if every chain of deductions that produces a
contradiction can be shown to have a logical error.
2.1. About consistency. The operational view of consistency is “complete re-
liability”, in the sense that the outcome of an error-free argument will never be
contradicted by the outcome of any other such argument. Moreover, the outcome
will not introduce errors if used as an ingredient in further arguments. Arguments
by contradiction for example, assume something, deduce a contradiction, and con-
clude that the thing assumed must be false. Success is sensitively dependent on

Date: June 2024.

1
2 FRANK QUINN

everything else used in the argument being completely reliable, and that the logic
itself does not introduce errors.
Consistency provides an internal criterion for correctness. In practice, however,
it is far more important as a criterion for incorrectness. In reasonably ambitious
research programs, 95 percent or more of attempted proofs turn out to have flaws.
Sometimes, with luck and persistence, these flaws can be corrected, and the at-
tempts converge to a valid argument. Sometimes years of effort have to be aban-
doned as hopeless, or outright wrong. The payoff for this painful process is closure:
even outrageously counterintuitive conclusions are accepted when the arguments
are carefully checked and found to be error-free.
Empirical. Gödel has shown that foundations generally cannot prove their own con-
sistency. However, we can test consistency: make lots of deductions, and verify that
any contradictions are accounted for by logical errors. Sometimes inconsistencies
do not appear until work reaches a certain level of sophistication. Another wrinkle
is that a foundation can be technically inconsistent but consistent in practice in the
sense that methodology has evolved so as to steer people away from the inconsisten-
cies. The main point is that empirical consistency is a property of a methodology
rather than of a foundation. Explicit foundations are largely retrofits that record
successful experience and narrow down potential sources of error.
Global. Evidence for consistency applies to the development as a whole, not just
individual results. In other sciences, and in mathematics when trying out new
methodologies, experiment can give evidence that individual conclusions are re-
liable, within limits and independently of most other conclusions. Foundational
consistency checks are global in that they support consistency of the whole devel-
opment. This is the flip side of the fact that a single genuine failure would throw
doubt on the whole development.
2.2. Definitions and axioms vs primitives. We clarify usage in the mathemat-
ical community.
Definitions are located inside a developed context, and usually consist of ax-
ioms that the things being defined should satisfy. Properties of these things are
to be inferred from the axioms and more-basic ingredients. In particular, while
intuition and intent can guide the formation of a definition they have no logical
force. Indeed, first attempts at definitions typically fail to have intended proper-
ties. Major standard definitions are often the result of years of work to fix failures
and consolidate partial successes, and should be thought of as distilled hard-won
wisdom. They are certainly not arbitrary constructs.
Primitive objects, hypotheses, etc. are starting points for the logical context,
not defined in terms of lower-level objects. Primitive hypotheses, in particular,
are not axioms in the contemporary sense. Since properties cannot be inferred
from lower-level material, they depend on heuristic ideas, syntax specifications,
and examples.
For example, Euclid’s description of points as “things without width or length”
is not a definition in the contemporary sense because “width” and “length” have
not been given precise meaning. It succeeds as a primitive because this, filtered
through physical experience, some pictures, and examples of usage, reliably evokes
consistent understandings. Polygons are ‘defined’ because they are described in
terms of primitives.
 ON FOUNDATIONS FOR DEDUCTIVE MATHEMATICS 3

We emphasize that consistency at the primitive level depends heavily on different

users extracting functionally equivalent understandings. This has often been a
problem.

2.3. Deeper is better. In practice, definitions are often easier to learn and use
with precision than are complicated primitives. For example, attempts to use the
real numbers as a primitive were problematic. Now the reals are defined in terms of
natural numbers, and natural numbers are defined using set theory. This approach
has made full-precision understanding of the reals faster and more routine.
Curiously, another benefit of working several levels above the primitives is that it
can filter out misunderstandings or ambiguities about the primitives. For instance,
the traditional axiomatic approach to set theory takes ‘sets’ as primitives, and the
primitive hypotheses proscribing their behavior are quite complicated. But these
do not have to be understood in detail to get a completely solid description of
the real numbers. The new approach to set theory has a similar advantage: the
primitives (object generators) are several levels below sets, so sets are defined and
their properties proved rather than hypothesized. This gives a more accessible, and
slightly sharper, understanding of set theory.

2.4. Other views. There is a vast literature, mostly Philosophical, about the na-
ture and role of foundations. It is far from consistent, and while there are interesting
insights, cf. [Maddy], some of it is pretty silly. It does not seem to be useful to try
to sort through it here.

3. Sketchy history
We draw lessons from a few key historical deveopments, mainly to provide
perspective on what happened in the early twentieth century. The accounts are
ideosyncratic, brief, and superficial, but sufficient for the purposes here. For a bit
more detail I have found the essays in ‘The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’
to be helpful, for example [Bagaria] and [Ferreirós].

3.1. Ancient Greece. The first relatively explicit use of a foundation was in the
geometry and number theory of ancient Greece. The primary significance at the
time seems to have been its use as a metaphor for order in the natural world,
not for its “real-world” applications. Everyone could see, and be impressed by,
genuine consistency coming from logic and innate understanding, as opposed to the
chaotic array of beliefs due to cultural bias or religious or philosophical doctrine.
The practical applications are pretty weak. To some extent this can be seen as a
quantifier issue: for metaphors it is sufficient that the theory have some striking
outcomes. Practical use requires ways to describe outcomes for all problems in
appropriate settings. For example, clever geometric tricks can determine the area
between a line and an arc of a circle in a few special cases. Calculus gives a
description of every such area, and the appearence of transcendental functions
in the solution shows that very few cases can be solved with ancient techniques.
Nonetheless many people find the classical tricks more meaningful than routine but
effective calculus.
4 FRANK QUINN

Meaningful vs effective. We expand on this last remark. It has been known for over
fifty years that humans have an innate physics, and it is essentially Aristotlean.
People therefore find Aristotlean physics comfortable and meaningful, and it was
accepted for centuries even though it fails very simple consistency tests. In general,
humans seem not to expect consistency, either internal or with reality, of the things
we find meaningful.
The lesson for geometry is that Euclidean geometry is in large part an exploration
of human visual perception and physical experience. The fact that it accurately
reflects the structure of the plane is because our visual perception does, not because
it is a direct exploration of the plane. Much of its power as a metaphor comes from
this coincidence: it is comfortable because it matches our perceptions, and effective
because in this case perception accurately reflects reality. Another lesson from
Aristotlean physics is that outside of some areas in geometry our physical intuitions
do not match reality very well. Approaching mathematics through direct perception
seldom leads to effective internalization, but is attractive and comfortable enough
that it remains a strong theme in elementary education.

3.2. Europe in the 1600s. The next major shift began in the early 1600s when
Galileo, Kepler, and others showed that mathematics could be directly powerful
in the world, not just a metaphor. Mathematical development became driven by
the needs of physical models, and methodology evolved rapidly. For instance, there
is a conflict between ratios and negative numbers that had inhibited use of neg-
atives. This was resolved by replacing ratios with fractions. Compact algebraic
notation replaced earlier discursive formulations. The ancient Greeks were justly
proud of their resolution of “multitudes” into natural numbers, and units indicating
the things being counted, but the analogous resolution of “magnitudes” into real
numbers and units was finally accomplished only in the 1600s. By the time Newton,
Leibnitz, and their contemporaries were active, the power of application-oriented
mathematics was firmly established and core methodologies were taking shape.
Infinitesimals were often part of the foundational intuitions of the real numbers in
this period. They worked quite well for a time, but eventually became problematic
and had to be replaced by limits. We explain how this fits into the analysis here.
Consider the truncated polynomial ring R[δ]/(δ 2 = 0). The implicit presumption
was that a function f of a real variable should extend to this ring, and f [x + yδ] =
f [x] + g[x]yδ where g is the derivative of f . This is true if f is given by a power
series: simply plug the extended variables into the series. Infinitesimals thus worked
as long as it was harmless to assume functions were piecewise analytic. But limits
of analytic functions need not even be piecewise continuous, and continuous limits
can be nowhere differentiable. When limits became important (eg. for Fourier and
Laplace series) infinitesimals became untenable. The methodology had to evolve
from one in which differentiability was assumed, to a more primitive approach in
which differentiability had to be defined and proved.
In the 1960s Abraham Robinson showed infinitesimals can be used consistently
if arguments are restricted to first-order logic. But this first-order logic constraint
is strongly inconsistent with standard practice. This is a potential special-purpose
tool, not an alternative general approach.

3.3. Mid to late 1800s. In this period it was still generally felt that real num-
bers should be understood through intuitions from physical experience, though, of
 ON FOUNDATIONS FOR DEDUCTIVE MATHEMATICS 5

course, this should not include earlier intuitions about infinitesimals. This became
problematic as goals became more ambitious. People without sufficiently accu-
rate intuitions had unreliable outcomes, and were reduced to appeals to authority
(“Gauss did it so it must be ok”) or were shut out of the game. From a foundational
point of view, “intuitive reals” became unsatisfactory as a primitive because it was
not uniformly understood by different users. This is a bit different from problems
with infinitesimals, which in the larger context are inconsistent even when correctly
understood.
In the mid 1800s Dedekind rigorously described the reals in terms of natural
numbers. This made them reliably accessible but didn’t fully fix the difficulties, be-
cause the natural numbers had varying interpretations. Some intuitively-attractive
ones lacked logical force. This was addressed by defining natural numbers using
early versions of set theory. For human use, sets seemed to be effective starting
points. By 1880 Dederkind was using set-theoretic methods and terminology, and
the idea that mathematics could have a foundation in a theory of sets began to
have traction; cf. [Ferreirós].
By 1900, foundation-oriented mathematicians were having good success with
what we now know as naı̈ve set theory. Coming from another direction, Frege,
Cantor, and others clarified intuitive notions about set theory, and showed that it
had its own substance.
3.4. Early 1900s. In 1902 Russell publicized his paradox showing naı̈ve set theory
to be inconsistent. Reactions were quite different in the mainstream and set-theory
communities, and resulted in them drifting apart.
Mainstream community. By 1900 quite a few mathematicians had found naı̈ve set
theory to be effective and reliable, and many leading mathematicians were satisfied
that all mainstream work could be derived from it. The response to Russell’s
paradox was to add the caution “don’t say ‘set of all sets’ ”. This did not effect
actual practice since nobody saw a need to do that anyway.
By the 1920s much of the younger generation had embraced the set-theory foun-
dation and the rigor it enables, and were extremely successful with it. The main
set-theory concern of the period was that the axiom of Choice seemed too good to
be true, not that there would be more problems with naı̈ve set theory.
Set-theory community. The paradox seriously set back the study of sets as a subject.
After a few more unsuccessful attempts they gave up trying to define sets directly,
and instead began abstracting key properties (of naı̈ve set theory) to use as axioms.
In the next phase of the development, the notion of “function” seemed prob-
lematic. A naı̈ve function X → Y is “an assignment of an element of Y to each
element of X”. This does not qualify as a definition because “assignment” is nei-
ther defined nor declared as a primitive. In fact this description of ‘function’ works
well as a primitive, but the community choose not to follow this route. Instead
a single function, the ‘membership’ operator was taken as a primitive. Specifi-
cally, an implementation (or “model”) of the axioms is a pair (U, ∈), where U is
a ‘universe’ of possible elements, and the membership operator is a binary pairing
∈ : U × U → yes/no. In general, subcollections of U correspond to binary func-
tions U → yes/no. The sets of the theory correspond to binary functions of the
form (# ∈ x) for some x ∈ U . Note that elements are used to parameterize sets.
One source of confusion is that this parameterization is sometimes described as an
6 FRANK QUINN

identification: “elements of sets are again sets”. This phrasing may be a hangover
from 19th century philosophy. More general functions are then defined in terms of
sets. Specifically, a function X → Y is a correspondence whose graph is a subset
of X × Y . The standard forms of the axioms up to this point are mainly due to
Zermillo.
A problem with the Zermillo axioms is that they do not ensure there are enough
functions to transact the basic business of set theory. Experimentation, drawing on
a strong legacy of formal logic, revealed that functions obtained from set operations
by first-order logic are sufficient to give workable rigorous set theories. Standard
formulations of the logical hypotheses are mainly due to Fraenkel. Many variations
have been considered, but after about 1920 the Zermillo-Fraenkel (ZF) axioms were
widely accepted as standard. We will see, however, that while this solved a problem
in set theory, it disconnected formal set theory from the mainstream.

3.5. Mid 1900s to early 2000s. Early in this period the axiom of Choice was ac-
cepted as well-tested, and included in standard formulations of both communities.
Zermillo-Fraenkel-Choice became the “gold standard” in the set-theory commu-
nity, and naı̈ve-with-choice (as always, with the set-of-sets constraint) remained
the implicit standard for the mainstream.

Mainstream community. Naı̈ve set theory—as used in standard practice—enabled

highly rigorous arguments of a depth unimaginable in the previous century. The
consistency of naı̈ve set theory—again, as used in standard practice—is extremely
well tested. It is possibly our most solidly established empirical conclusion. There
are some drawbacks, but there is no reason to accept any loss of functionality to
address these drawbacks.
One drawback is that category theory does not fit comfortably in standard set
theories. Categories were introduced essentially as bookkeeping devices to encode
large-scale structures in algebraic topology and homological algebra. For these pur-
poses ignoring set-theory mismatches seemed harmless. By the late 1900s delicate
work with higher-order category theory and point-set properties of universal spaces
needed more precision. There were proposals to use categories as a substitute for set
theory, cf. [Marquis], [Maddy]. Grothendieck developed a variation, topos theory,
initially as a setting for vigorous abstract algebraic geometry. As it matured this
was also promoted as a substitute for set theory. Later Voevodsky proposed using
his “univalent foundation” as a setting for mathematics, citing its effectiveness for
computer implementation.
These proposals reflect a misapprehension about foundations. We have stressed
that the core job of a foundation is to give a distilled starting point that identifies
key consistency checks, and to encode the results of such checks. To be effective a
foundation should be minimal and as simple as possible. The proposals above are
quite elaborate, and designed to display mathematical structure or make it more
mechanically accessible. These are good things for applications but, as we saw
with the real numbers, working directly with high-level concepts is likely to cause
problems. The situation seems to be that for generations, set theory has provided
such a rock-solid base for mainstream practice that we have forgotten what it is like
to have to worry about the reliability of our tools. The proposals implicitly assume
consistency will follow from our experience with set theory. Indeed many of them
 ON FOUNDATIONS FOR DEDUCTIVE MATHEMATICS 7

implicitly depend on a background set theory, so implicitly presume consistency to

be inherited from that.
The foundation described in the next section begins several levels below set
theory. The lower-level environment seems to give an effective setting for categories.

Set-theory community. The ZFC axioms were found to be under-determined, and

in 1963 Paul Cohen introduced Forcing as a systematic way to construct new mod-
els. A flowering of the subject ensued, with many thousands of pages devoted to
showing a wide variety of hypotheses are consistent with, or independent of, the
basic axioms. Deep results were found in other directions, PCF theory and large
cardinal axioms to mention only two. See [Jech] for an extensive introduction.
However, these theories do not provide a foundation for mainstream practice.
Sufficiency of naı̈ve set theory was asserted around 1900, and this assertion does not
apply to theories that require first-order logic. The general problem is described
by the “coherent limit axiom of [Quinn 1] but we illustrate it in an important
special case.Recall that every real number in the unit interval has a base-2 decimal
expansion that assigns either 0 or 1 to each natural number. This assignment
can also be thought of as specifying a subcollection of N. The restriction of the
assignment to any finite interval [0, n] of natural numbers is a function in any ZFC
theory. Equivalently, the intersection of the subcollection with [0, n] is a subset in
any ZFC theory. The full assignment is the limit of these restrictions, or equivalently
the subcollection is the union of the intersections. However, there are ZFC models
in which some of these limits are not functions in the model, or equivalently the
union of the finite subsets is not a set in the model. The corresponding real numbers
are missing from such theories. To insure a particular real number is in a particular
model we would have to employ either special information about the model, or first-
order logic. This is an issue even for elementary calculus. But in the mainstream
nobody addresses this. The conclusion is that ZFC is too restrictive to describe
standard mathematical practice, even at basic levels.
The insufficiency of ZFC does not seem to be a deep point. The fact that it went
generally unremarked may be another instance of meaningfulness overshadowing
concern for effectiveness.

4. Object generators
We sketch the proposed new foundation; see [Quinn 1] for details, and [Quinn 2]
for a guide to routine use.

4.1. Generators. The full story begins several levels below set theory, with “object
generators” and their morphisms. The intuition is that object generators “generate
objects”, essentially like the ‘object’ primitive in category theory. If G is an object
generator then X ∈∈ G means “X is a an object in G”, and generators are defined
using the syntax “X ∈∈ G means (· · ·)”.
Essentially nothing else is included. Unlike sets, generators provide no way
of identifying their own outputs, and no way of knowing if two outputs are the
same. Further, while expected uses are for mathematical objects, for instance
X ∈∈ groups means “X is a set with a group structure”, nothing prevents silly
examples, for instance X ∈∈ G means “X is a Tuesday in the month of May, 1917”.
Rather than try to prevent such things we filter them out at a later stage. Note
that few requirements means few opportunities for contradiction.
8 FRANK QUINN

“Morphisms” of generators are essentially the same as “functions” in naı̈ve set

theory: a morphism F : G → H is an assignment of an object F [X] ∈∈ H to every
object X ∈∈ G.

4.2. Logic. The native logic of object generators is non-binary in the sense that
we might assert that X, Y are the same, but in general there is no (yes, no)-valued
function that can detect this. This logic is unfamiliar and somewhat complicated,
and the first step toward set theory is to establish a sub-context that does use
binary logic.
The key ingredients are binary functions: functions to an object generator with
exactly two objects. We denote this by {yes, no}, or {0, 1}. One of the primitive
hypotheses (axioms) asserts the existence of a two-object generator. Standard
binary logic applies to such functions. Incidently, these functions have no allowance
for time dependence, so they cannot detect things in the physical world. This is
how silly examples of object generators get filtered out.

4.3. Domains and sets. A logical domain is an object generator, say A, with
a binary pairing A × A → {yes, no} that returns ‘yes’ if the two elements are the
same. The name ‘logical domain’ is supposed to suggest that these are natural
settings for binary logic.
Quantification is the final ingredient. If A is a logical domain then the object
generator whose objects are binary functions on A is called the “powerset” of A,
and is denoted by P[A]. The domain supports quantification if there is a binary
function P[A] → {yes, no} that returns ‘yes’ if and only if the input is the empty
(always-‘no’) function. In standard logic the empty-detecting operator is given by
f 7→ ∀x ∈ A, (f [x] = no). The point is that if this one quantification expression is
implemented by a binary function, then all quantifications over A are.
Finally, sets (relaxed sets, if distinctions are necessary) are defined to be logical
domains that support quantification.

4.4. Hypotheses. There are four primitive hypotheses. Three are standard: there
is a 2-element set; the axiom of Choice; and the natural numbers support quantifi-
cation. To clarify this last, the first two hypotheses suffice to construct the natural
numbers, but do not imply that it supports quantification. This is equivalent to
the standard Axiom of Infinity in ZFC. The final hypothesis asserts that if a logical
domain supports quantification then so does its powerset.
Note that ZFC has many more, and more complex, axioms.

4.5. Comparisons. We compare this theory, naı̈ve set theory, ZFC axiomatic set
theories, and standard mathematical practice. First, the “=” operator built into
the logic of naı̈ve and ZFC allows comparison of any two elements of any two sets.
In relaxed set theory “=” is only defined for elements of a single set. Mathematical
practice is modeled on naı̈ve set theory so in principle a global “=” is available but,
as far as the author can tell, it is never used.
Functions are primitives in relaxed and naı̈ve set theory; are described in the
same way; and both are consistent with standard practice. In ZFC only the equality
and membership functions are primitive. Functions obtained by first-order logical
expressions are also functions in the theory. Beyond this, functions are defined to
be correspondences whose graphs are subsets. As explained in the previous section,
this is not consistent with standard practice.
 ON FOUNDATIONS FOR DEDUCTIVE MATHEMATICS 9

Finally, relaxed sets satisfy versions of the ZFC axioms. This is made precise in
[Quinn 1] with the construction of an object that satisfies the ZFC-1 axioms, where
“-1” means “ignore first-order logical constraints”. As above, this makes sense be-
cause functions are taken as primitives. This construction turns out to be maximal
so, in particular, all models of ZFC uniquely embed in this as transitive sub-models.
The “coherent limit axiom”, a generalization of the real-number problem described
at the end of the last section, is shown in [Quinn 1] to characterize this maximal
theory. This axiom is routinely assumed in standard practice so standard practice,
by default, takes place in relaxed set theory. We note that identifying the ‘missing
axiom’ (Gödel’s phrase) does not lead to new mainstream methodology, but rather
emphasizes the extra work that would be required to stay in a smaller ZFC model.
The conclusion is that the relaxed set theory defined in [Quinn 1] is uniquely
qualified to be a foundation consistent with mainstream mathematical practice.

References
[Bagaria] Joan Bagaria, Set Theory, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Win-
ter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL =
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/set-theory/ .
[Ferreirós] José Ferreirós, The Early Development of Set Theory, The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Summer 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL
= https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2023/entries/settheory-early/ .
[Marquis] Jean-Pierre Marquis, ”Category Theory”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philos-
ophy (Fall 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL =
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/category-theory/ .
[Jech] Thomas J. Jech: Set theory – 3rd Millennium ed, revised and expanded. Springer mono-
graphs in mathematics (2002) ISBN 3-540-44085-2
[Maddy] Penelope Maddy What do we want a foundation to do? Comparing set-theoretic,
category-theoretic, and univalent approaches Springer nature 2019, ebook ISBN 978-
3-030-15655-8
[Quinn 1] Frank Quinn, Object generators, relaxed sets, and a foundation for mathematics
preprint 2023, http://arXiv.org2110.01489
[Quinn 2] Frank Quinn, Object generators, categories, and everyday set theory preprint 2023,
http://arxiv.org/abs/2210.07280