Canons

How We Read Rules and What Follows From Them

What follows from a rule, and what still needs a human decision? Canons begins with the ancient dispute between a teacher and his pupil, then changes one condition at a time to show how answers depend on facts, evidence, exceptions and readings. An airline claim, a receipt for the wrong purchase, a chess draw, a supply contract and a bear’s bargain make formal reasoning tangible without requiring specialist training. Historical legal traditions and an international agreement reveal how identical facts can yield different conclusions under different rules. The book distinguishes a computed answer from a verdict, a model from its source, and a proof of inference from the truth of its premises. It asks what independent comparison establishes, what a certificate checks, and where assumptions remain. This illustrated first English edition invites readers to examine the grounds of an answer and identify what could change it. Published by Arxo, it is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

Prologue, 12 chapters and an epilogue, about 25 thousand words. Edition 2026.10, by Rifat Jumagulov. Free under CC BY 4.0; see the colophon.