M1 Why Explanation Cannot Be the Primitive

This paper establishes that explanation cannot function as a primitive within any admissible descriptive system. By enforcing standing conservation and fail-closed evaluation, it is shown by exhaustion that treating explanation as foundational leads to circularity, hidden scope transport, or post-hoc legitimacy generation. The argument is purely negative and necessity-based: no alternative primitives are proposed, and no explanatory methods are advanced. The treatment is declarative and non-procedural, placing on record the structural impossibility of explanation serving as a grounding primitive.