No Structure Free Aggregation of Reference Dependent Confirmation

This paper establishes a structural impossibility result: reference-dependent confirmation cannot be aggregated without structure. It proves that empirical confirmations tied to distinct reference fixations, scopes, or contexts cannot be combined, averaged, or accumulated in a structure-free manner without violating admissibility and collapsing standing. The result is eliminative. The paper does not critique specific aggregation techniques, statistical methods, or meta-analytic practices. Instead, it shows that aggregation presupposes a shared admissible reference structure; absent that structure, combining confirmations substitutes numerical accumulation for legitimate attachment to a single theoretical claim. The analysis blocks a class of practices in which confirmations obtained under differing assumptions, scopes, or reference schemes are treated as jointly supporting a theory by sheer quantity or convergence. It demonstrates that such practices rely on silent redescription or implicit scope alignment, masking referential incompatibility behind aggregation. This work is purely boundary-setting. It introduces no operational aggregation rules, no enforcement mechanisms, and no methodological prescriptions. Its contribution is to delimit what confirmation can legitimately be combined, clarifying that aggregation without explicit, admissible structural alignment is epistemically illicit.