On foundations for deductive mathematics

Abstract

This article was motivated by the discovery of a potential new foundation for mainstream mathematics. The goals are to clarify the relationships between primitives, 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 traditional 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.