The Formal Genesis of Philosophy: Theory-Internal Meaning, Conceptual Abstraction, and the Interface between Philosophy and Non-Philosophy

This paper proposes a systematic reconstruction of philosophical theory construction. It argues that the essence of philosophy does not lie in describing reality but in formally generating the conditions under which reality becomes intelligible. Philosophical theory construction is defined as the act of assigning to any conceptual or empirical content an abstract, theory-internal form endowed with meaning specific to that theoretical context. This process constitutes an interface between philosophy and non-philosophy: within philosophy, the form creates meaning; beyond philosophy, it provides a structure through which the empirical world can be interpreted. The paper develops a four-layer model—formal attribution, theory-internal meaning, interface mediation, and formal narrative reasoning—and situates it within the history of philosophical thought from Kant to Badiou. It concludes that philosophy’s originality resides in its capacity to construct formal truth rather than empirical truth, thereby offering a model for future interdisciplinary and computational applications of philosophical method.