ADMISSIBILITY PRECEDES THEORY

This paper establishes a strict ordering constraint on scientific reasoning: admissibility precedes theory. It proves that no theory—physical, mathematical, or otherwise—can be meaningfully formulated, evaluated, or empirically assessed unless the conditions of admissible reference, standing preservation, and scope integrity are already satisfied. The result is structural and eliminative. The paper does not advance a new theoretical framework, nor does it modify or privilege any existing theory. Instead, it shows that attempts to let theory determine admissibility invert the logical order of justification and inevitably rely on illicit moves such as surrogate reference, post hoc stabilization, or scope transport. The analysis blocks a common class of errors in which theoretical success, explanatory power, or empirical adequacy is taken to license or repair inadmissible foundations. It demonstrates that such moves conflate internal coherence with admissible standing, and that no amount of theoretical refinement can compensate for a prior failure of admissibility. This work is purely boundary-setting. It introduces no new primitives, no construction rules, and no operational criteria. Its contribution is to delimit what theory can legitimately do by clarifying what must already be in place before theory can exist, be evaluated, or be confirmed at all.