Resolution Theory: Notes Toward a Complete Philosophical System (Current)

Entry point: Free Will Without Metaphysical Magic paper (++++ ≠ +++=) Resolution Theory proposes a unified framework for agency, responsibility, and governance built around one structural spine: resolution under exposure. The core claim is that explanation does not displace authorship. Causal stories describe how an agent was loaded; responsibility tracks where deliberative uncertainty closed into action. The paper sketches a deliberately minimal ontology (existence as difference-making within ordered change) and places epistemology downstream as error-sensitive world-tracking. Consciousness is treated functionally as the registration layer of exposure—where outcomes land as non-disposable for a continuing subject. Adopting Phenomenal Modesty, the framework remains neutral on the ultimate metaphysics of qualia while arguing that moral and practical thresholds depend on exposure-bearing subjecthood rather than intelligence alone. Personal identity is handled reductionistically via continuity of governance: stable feedback channels (memory, learning, self-model, dispositions, bodily and institutional continuity) that keep later states answerable to earlier resolutions. Normativity is derived as a stability condition of time-extended agency under consequence, and becomes morally binding under shared exposure in coupled social systems where signal, trust, and risk-allocation are jointly produced. The framework separates binary responsibility from scalar blame, extends to institutional legitimacy as auditable authorship (blocking “authorship laundering”), and outlines implications for justice, punishment, and AI governance (including non-delegable liability and constraints on lethal autonomy). Stress tests address non-human agency, swarms, markets, corporations, and artificial systems. This is an updated version of previous system note.