Undoubtedly, all demonstrative knowledge is founded upon axioms (awwaliyyāt). Therefore, understanding the correspondence of these axioms with reality plays a crucial role in establishing the possibility of attaining certainty in acquired knowledge. Identifying the conceptual origin of axioms and determining the types of concepts involved in them plays the most significant role in explaining their self-evidence and their correspondence with reality. For this reason, this paper seeks to establish that: first, the subjects of axiomatic propositions consist solely of philosophical concepts; and second, that philosophical concepts are rooted in knowledge by presence (ʿilm al-ḥuḍūrī), and only this view can explain the correspondence of axioms with reality. To substantiate this claim, we first examine the characteristics of axioms and demonstrate that they cannot be composed of essential (māhuwī) or logical concepts. Then, by comparing the characteristics of philosophical concepts with those of axioms, we show that since philosophical concepts are derived from knowledge by presence, and since the predicate of these propositions is essential to the subject which is intuitively grasped, the axioms are self-evident and in correspondence with reality. This paper, in fact, seeks to articulate a defense of Allamah Mesbah Yazdi’s position that the concepts of axioms are philosophical in nature.