Epistemology as Constraint Selection and Ontology as Operational Persistence A Unified Constraint-First Account of Recursive Epistemic Systems

Abstract This paper rejects the standard separation between epistemology and ontology. The conventional view treats epistemology as a method for acquiring knowledge and ontology as a description of what exists. This division presupposes a representational model of knowledge: a world of objects exists independently, and knowledge consists in forming internal representations that correspond to it. That framework fails under scrutiny. It cannot non-circularly justify representation, and it permits systems that are internally coherent but disconnected from constraint. This paper proposes an alternative: Epistemology is constraint-selective. Ontology is operational persistence under those constraints. Knowledge is not the accumulation of accurate representations. It is the retention of models that survive recursive exposure to constraint—prediction, perturbation, correction, and stabilization. Correspondingly, what must be treated as “real” within such a system is not a set of substances, but those structures that cannot be eliminated without loss of stability, predictive capacity, or corrective function. This yields three shifts: • truth becomes survivorship under constraint • identity becomes persistence under transformation • legitimacy becomes constraint closure rather than coherence alone This paper formalizes the interlock between epistemology and ontology as two aspects of the same recursive process, establishes guardrails against semantic inflation, and situates the framework between naive realism and unconstrained constructivism. It does not claim a final metaphysics. It specifies a discipline. ⸻ 1. The False Separation Most epistemological frameworks begin with an unexamined assumption: There exists a world composed of objects, and knowledge consists of constructing representations that correspond to those objects. From this, a division follows: • ontology determines what exists • epistemology determines how it is known This division generates persistent failure modes. Epistemology becomes a problem of representational accuracy without a non-circular verification criterion. Ontology becomes an imported commitment, unconstrained by the processes that supposedly justify it. Systems can then achieve internal coherence while remaining unconstrained by reality. This paper rejects that structure. The relevant question is not: What do we know about what exists? The relevant question is: What survives constraint, and what persists under recursive correction?