The A Priori Limit: Why Logic Constrains But Cannot Generate Empirical Facts

A persistent temptation in foundational inquiry is to derive empirical facts from pure logic alone. From Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason to contemporary attempts at deriving particle physics from formal structures, theorists have sought to show that the world *must* be as it is through logical necessity. This paper demonstrates that such projects commit a category error: conflating logical constraints on coherence with facts about which experiential patterns actually manifest. Building on Experiential Empiricism's framework (Sergent, n.d.-a), which establishes valenced experience and logic as the only self-proving axioms, I show that logic provides boundaries for what can coherently occur but cannot determine what does occur. This recognition dissolves a class of impossible research programs while clarifying what formal work can legitimately accomplish: elegant mapping of observed regularities rather than a priori derivation of empirical facts.