You don't have to believe axioms, they're just fundamentals on which to build logical systems; geometry, for example, has multiple variants, depending on the axioms chosen.
The point is that they're simply taken to be true (i.e. brute fact) within the system in question, and then their implications can be explored.
I have no disagreements with what you're saying there.
The point to notice here however, is that axioms imply
a pretense which includes the assumption that we play no role in giving meaning to their terms such as those involving existence (denoted by the word 'is'), and thence that truth exists (ie: '
is true'). This then implies that there is some kind of logical necessity that is independent of our process of generating the 'fuzzy' meanings we hold for those axiomatic statements.
An alternative mind dependent reality (MDR) hypothesis viewpoint, (previously presented), however, diametrically opposes that notion, because it begins by noticing the process where
we, (aka humans), control/assign our meanings, rather than pretending it away.
Descartes said
"I think therefore I am" (which begs the question:
"Don't you mean you think therefore you think you are?"). This is not Solipsism either because it would say:
"I know I am because I think, but I don't know anything else" (which the begs the question: "
Do you count what you mean by 'I' and by 'existing', as among the things you do know, or among the things you don't know?"
The MDR hypothesis says: "
What I mean by 'thinking', and what I mean by 'being', involve a process of meaning generation that depends sensitively on how my mind works, including what I mean by 'how my mind works'. It may be less impressive, but that's the price of actually being 'true' (
in the scientifically (objectively) demonstrable sense).
You won't find this scientifically valid viewpoint anywhere in any of these long past philosopher's writings. Russell, Descartes, Popper, Hume (etc) and all of history's philosophers I've investigated all skipped over this fundamental point. History in this instance, serves only past history .. and I think the MDR viewpoint is becoming a preferred more scientific approach (eg: along the similar lead set by Hawking/Mludinow).
Its coming from the MDR perspective that the ridiculousness of the circular arguments in Russell's axioms become apparent. Whilst axioms obviously work in adding tremendous value in the systematic field of mathematics (and formal logic), when used in a general philosophies, they produce nothing different from tightly held, entirely ambiguous and subjective religious beliefs (aka: Religions!)