Cognitive Declarative Programming (CDP) — Five Core Axioms and Why It May Constitute a New Software Paradigm

This working paper proposes Cognitive Declarative Programming (CDP) as a candidate for a distinct software paradigm. CDP assumes that application software does not primarily require domain-specific code, but an engine that interprets structured declarations at runtime. The paper formulates five falsifiable axioms that define the necessary conditions for a system to qualify as CDP, and argues that certain properties — domain blindness, self-description, inherent extensibility, structural auditability and LLM compatibility — emerge as consequences of these axioms without being explicitly engineered. A reference implementation in Elixir/BEAM is in preparation as proof of concept.