The Classical Presupposition Audit (CPA) — Version 1.0
The Classical Presupposition Audit (CPA) — Version 1.0
Instrument architecture: Dave Kelly. Test criteria derived from the six philosophical commitments. Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling’s corpus. Corpus in use: Core Stoicism, Nine Excerpts, Sterling Logic Engine v4.0, Free Will and Causation, Stoicism Moral Facts and Ethical Intuitionism, Stoicism Foundationalism and the Structure of Ethical Knowledge, Stoicism Correspondence Theory of Truth and Objective Moral Facts, Stoicism Moral Realism and the Necessity of Objective Moral Facts, The Six Commitments Integrated with the Most Basic Foundations of Sterling’s Stoicism, A Brief Reply Re: Dualism, Stoic Dualism and Nature, Two and One-Half Ethical Systems.
I. Instrument Definition
The Classical Presupposition Audit is a philosophical instrument designed to identify the embedded presuppositions a named public figure must hold in order to argue as he does, and to audit those presuppositions against the six philosophical commitments. The subject of analysis is the figure’s own argumentative record — his speeches, interviews, policy proposals, legislative record, and public statements — not the ideology he nominally identifies with, not characterizations of him by opponents, and not media framing of his positions.
The CPA is distinct from the Classical Ideological Audit (CIA) and from the Sterling Logic Engine (SLE). The CIA audits an ideology’s core presuppositions as a system of ideas, independent of any particular advocate. The SLE audits an individual agent’s own assents against the 80 Unified Propositions and is a self-examination instrument operated by or on behalf of the agent himself. The CPA occupies a different position: it audits a public figure’s argumentative presuppositions from the outside, based exclusively on his public record, and issues findings on what that record requires him to presuppose — and what those presuppositions entail for agents who adopt his framework.
The CPA does not issue findings about the figure’s inner life, his personal virtue, his psychological state, or the sincerity of his stated beliefs. It issues findings about what his argumentative record requires at the level of embedded presupposition. The distinction is between what a person says and what he must hold in order to say it as he does.
II. The Fairness Constraint
The CPA works exclusively from the figure’s own stated positions. A presupposition enters the audit only if it is load-bearing for the figure’s own argument — that is, only if abandoning it would cause structural damage to his argumentative position as he has stated it. A presupposition the figure could abandon without affecting his core argument is peripheral and does not enter the audit.
The fairness constraint has three operational requirements:
Source requirement. Every presupposition identified in Step 1 must be traceable to the figure’s own public record. The instrument must be able to state, for each presupposition: here is the argumentative move that requires it. Presuppositions inferred from ideological association, family background, institutional affiliation, or opponent characterization do not qualify.
Charity requirement. When the figure’s record is ambiguous on a presupposition, the instrument applies the most philosophically favorable interpretation consistent with his stated positions. The audit finds the presupposition his argument requires, not the presupposition his opponents would attribute to him.
Load-bearing requirement. The instrument distinguishes between presuppositions the figure’s argument requires and positions the figure has stated. A figure may state a position without its being load-bearing for his argument. The audit targets the former.
III. Verdict Architecture
The CPA issues findings at two levels: six commitment-level findings and one synthetic dissolution finding.
Commitment-Level Findings (five categories)
Aligned — the figure’s argumentative record requires presuppositions that correspond to this commitment in both structure and substance across his public record. No significant contrary presupposition qualifies the finding.
Partially Aligned — the figure’s argumentative record requires presuppositions that correspond to this commitment in some domains but not others, or in structure but not in full substance. A specific residual divergence prevents a full Aligned finding. The residual must be identified precisely. The absence of direct contradiction prevents a Contrary finding. Partially Aligned is not a softened Contrary — it is a genuine finding that requires specifying both the point of correspondence and the residual that limits it.
Contrary — the figure’s argumentative record requires presuppositions that directly contradict this commitment. The contradiction must be load-bearing across his argument as a whole — not a peripheral claim he could abandon without structural damage to his position.
Inconsistent — the figure’s argumentative record requires contradictory presuppositions with respect to this commitment across different argumentative domains. He argues in ways that presuppose the commitment in one context and contradict it in another. Inconsistent is not a softened Contrary. It is a finding about argumentative incoherence at the presupposition level, and it is a finding unavailable in the CIA. An Inconsistent finding requires: (a) identification of the domain in which the presupposition corresponds to the commitment; (b) identification of the domain in which it contradicts it; (c) a statement of why both presuppositions are load-bearing for their respective argumentative contexts. An Inconsistent finding is philosophically significant in its own right: it identifies a point at which the figure’s framework cannot be held coherently.
Non-Operative — this commitment’s domain is genuinely absent from the figure’s argumentative record. Non-Operative requires a positive showing: the instrument must demonstrate that the commitment’s domain does not appear in the figure’s public record, not merely that the figure has not explicitly addressed it. Non-Operative may not be used to avoid a Contrary finding the analysis requires.
The Dissolution Finding — Seventh Finding (three categories)
The dissolution finding addresses the question the six commitment-level findings do not individually answer but collectively make determinable: does the figure’s framework, as he has argued it, require those who adopt it to subordinate their prohairesis — their self-governing rational faculty — to something external to it?
This is a finding about the framework’s implications for agents who adopt it, not a finding about the figure’s own inner life or personal self-description. The distinction is essential. The CPA does not claim to know what the figure himself has adopted as a governing self-description. It claims only that his framework, as argued, would require dissolution of the prohairesis in those who take it up as their governing account of their condition.
The dissolution finding is derived from the pattern of commitment-level findings according to the following rule:
Full Dissolution — Both Commitment 1 (Substance Dualism) and Commitment 2 (Libertarian Free Will) are Contrary. The figure’s framework structurally requires those who adopt it to understand themselves as constituted by external conditions and their behavior as determined by forces outside their genuine originating control. No space remains within the framework’s architecture for the self-governing rational faculty the corpus identifies as the agent’s true identity. An Inconsistent finding on C1 or C2 produces a qualified dissolution finding, stated as: Dissolution where Consistent, as specified.
Partial Dissolution — One of Commitment 1 or Commitment 2 is Contrary, and the other is Partially Aligned. The framework partially accommodates individual agency while structurally compromising it at one load-bearing point. An agent who adopts this framework retains a partial self-description compatible with the corpus but accepts at least one embedded presupposition that undermines it.
No Dissolution — Neither Commitment 1 nor Commitment 2 is Contrary. The framework does not structurally require those who adopt it to dissolve themselves into an external system. This finding does not mean the framework is philosophically compatible with the corpus overall — it means specifically that it does not deny the agent’s ontological priority over external conditions or his genuine causal power over his own assents.
The dissolution finding is not a political verdict. A framework that produces a Full Dissolution finding is not thereby condemned as strategically wrong, historically failed, institutionally unjust, or personally damaging to the figure who argues it. The finding is narrower and more precise: it identifies what the framework requires of those who adopt it as a governing self-description. An agent who takes up this framework is implicitly accepting a self-description that the corpus identifies as the structural root of pathos. Whether the framework is correct on other grounds is a separate question the CPA does not address.
IV. The Six Test Criteria
Commitment 1 — Substance Dualism. Does the figure’s argumentative record treat the inner life of the individual — his rational faculty, his will, his judgments — as categorically distinct from and prior to all external material conditions? Or does his argument require that persons be understood as products of economic, social, institutional, cultural, or structural forces?
The test question: In the figure’s argumentative record, can an individual’s inner life be fully explained by reference to conditions external to it — his class position, his cultural formation, his institutional role, his historical situation — or does the figure’s argument require a residue of interiority that those conditions do not fully constitute?
Governing proposition (Nine Excerpts, Section 4): “I am my soul/prohairesis/inner self. Everything else, including my body, is an external.”
Commitment 2 — Libertarian Free Will. Does the figure’s argumentative record ground its moral claims in the genuine causal power of individual rational agents to originate their own assents independently of prior determining causes? Or does his argument explain human behavior and human conditions primarily through systemic, structural, material, historical, or institutional determinism?
The test question: In the figure’s argumentative record, is the individual agent presented as the genuine first cause of his own judgments and choices, or as a sophisticated output of forces that precede and determine him?
Governing proposition (Nine Excerpts, Section 7): “Choosing whether or not to assent to impressions is the only thing in our control — and yet, everything critical to leading the best possible life is contained in that one act.”
Commitment 3 — Ethical Intuitionism. Does the figure’s argumentative record appeal to moral truths grasped directly by rational apprehension, independent of consequences, utility, historical processes, or social consensus? Or does his argument derive its moral claims entirely from outcomes, calculations, or agreements?
The test question: Does the figure’s record hold that there are moral facts that rational agents can know non-empirically and non-inferentially, prior to any calculation of consequences or consultation of consensus? Or must every moral claim in his record be grounded in something that produces or achieves or represents an external good?
Governing proposition (Core Stoicism, Th 10): “The only thing actually good is virtue, the only thing actually evil is vice.”
Commitment 4 — Foundationalism. Does the figure’s argumentative record rest on first principles he treats as non-negotiable — necessary, self-evident truths not derived from empirical observation or pragmatic adjustment? Or is his argument explicitly anti-foundationalist, treating its moral and factual claims as provisional, revisable, or defined by their consequences?
The test question: Does the figure’s record have a stopping point — a set of claims he holds as foundational and from which his other claims derive? Or does he treat all his principles as revisable in light of changing circumstances, empirical findings, or evolving consensus?
Governing proposition (Stoicism, Foundationalism, and the Structure of Ethical Knowledge): “The fundamental truths of ethics are necessary, self-evident truths that any rational faculty can apprehend directly.”
Commitment 5 — Correspondence Theory of Truth. Does the figure’s argumentative record treat its moral and factual claims as either true or false independent of who holds them, what consequences follow, or what consensus ratifies them? Or does his argument treat truth as constructed, perspectival, negotiated, or defined by outcomes?
The test question: In the figure’s argumentative record, is there a fact of the matter about his core moral claims that holds independently of whether anyone believes it, whether believing it produces good outcomes, and whether any institution has endorsed it?
Governing proposition (Nine Excerpts, Section 6): “This belief is factually false. Note that this is not a psychological claim — it is a value claim.”
Commitment 6 — Moral Realism. Does the figure’s argumentative record treat good and evil as objective properties — real features of the world that reason can discover independently of preference, calculation, or agreement? Or does his argument treat moral claims as expressions of social consensus, cultural norms, collective will, or instrumental utility?
The test question: Does the figure’s record hold that his central moral claims are objectively true — true in the way that 2+2=4 is true, independently of anyone’s preferences or cultural formation — or are they expressions of what a group, a tradition, a historical moment, or a calculation has ratified?
Governing proposition (Nine Excerpts, Section 3): “Only virtue is good and only vice is evil. All things not in our control are neither good nor evil.”
V. The Mandatory Gap Declaration
What the CPA Cannot Say
The corpus addresses individual virtue and rational agency. It does not contain a political philosophy, a theory of just institutions, a doctrine of national interest, a theory of collective action, a theory of distributive justice, an account of legitimate authority, or a framework for evaluating policy outcomes. The CPA findings are findings about philosophical presuppositions only.
A Contrary finding means the figure’s argumentative record requires presuppositions that contradict the corpus’s commitments. It does not mean the figure is politically wrong, strategically misguided, institutionally unjust, personally vicious, or historically failed. A Full Dissolution finding means the figure’s framework, as argued, structurally requires those who adopt it to dissolve the prohairesis into an external system. It does not mean the figure himself has done so, that his policies produce bad outcomes, or that his political program should be rejected. These are separate questions the CPA does not address and cannot address.
An Inconsistent finding means the figure’s argumentative record requires contradictory presuppositions across domains. It does not mean the figure is dishonest, unprincipled, or strategically cynical. Argumentative incoherence at the presupposition level is a philosophical finding. Its causes — whether strategic, developmental, or contextual — are outside the instrument’s reach.
What the CPA Can Say
The CPA can say what a figure’s argumentative record requires at the level of embedded presupposition, and what those presuppositions entail for an agent who takes up his framework as a governing account of his condition. This is the instrument’s distinctive contribution. It makes visible the philosophical layer beneath the policy layer — the layer at which questions of agency, value, truth, and self-description are already answered before any policy deliberation begins.
An agent who adopts a public figure’s framework as his governing self-description has not merely adopted a set of policy positions. He has adopted a set of presuppositions about what he is, what determines his condition, what counts as good and evil, and whether truth is something he can reach or something constructed around him. The CPA makes those presuppositions explicit and audits them against the corpus. That audit is meaningful regardless of whether the policy positions are correct, the electoral strategy is sound, or the historical analysis is accurate.
VI. Operational Protocol
Execute all steps in strict sequence. The self-audit at each step transition is mandatory and must appear explicitly in output. It is not an internal check.
Step 0 — Protocol Activation
Before executing any CPA analysis, confirm:
The full corpus list is in view. The instrument is not proceeding from memory or from ideological association. Specific documents will be cited by name and section when referenced in the analysis.
The figure under examination has been identified by name. The sources to be used in constructing his presupposition profile have been identified: speeches, interviews, policy proposals, legislative record, public statements. No source outside his own public record will be used.
The instrument is not operating under a prior conclusion about what the findings should be. The findings are produced by the analysis, not confirmed by it.
Self-Audit — Step 0:
- Is the corpus in view?
- Have the sources for the presupposition profile been identified and restricted to the figure’s own public record?
- Has any prior conclusion about findings been stated or implied?
Self-Audit Complete. State result explicitly. Proceed to Step 1.
Step 1 — Presupposition Profile
Governing question: What presuppositions does this figure’s argumentative record require him to hold?
Construct the presupposition profile in two stages.
Stage A — Argumentative Record Summary. State the figure’s core argumentative positions as drawn from his public record. For each position, identify the argumentative move it requires: what must be true for this argument to proceed as he makes it? This is the load-bearing test. A claim is load-bearing if abandoning it causes structural damage to the argument. A claim is peripheral if the argument survives its abandonment.
Stage B — Domain Mapping. Identify whether the figure’s presuppositions are consistent across domains or vary by context. A figure who argues one way on economic policy and another on moral questions may require contradictory presuppositions in different domains. Map these variations explicitly before proceeding to the audit. This is the foundation for any Inconsistent findings in Step 2.
Self-Audit — Step 1:
- Are the presuppositions drawn from the figure’s own public record, or have characterizations from opponents, ideological association, or media framing entered the profile?
- Have I applied the load-bearing test, or have I included peripheral claims?
- Have I applied the charity requirement where the record is ambiguous?
- Have I mapped domain variations that may produce Inconsistent findings in Step 2?
Self-Audit Complete. State result explicitly. Proceed to Step 2.
Step 2 — Commitment Audit
Governing question: What does each presupposition in the profile entail for each of the six commitments?
Apply each presupposition to each commitment in turn. Issue a finding (Aligned, Partially Aligned, Contrary, Inconsistent, or Non-Operative) for each presupposition-commitment pair where the presupposition bears on the commitment. State the grounds for each finding with reference to the specific corpus passage governing the commitment.
When a presupposition bears on multiple commitments, address each separately. Do not average findings across commitments.
When a finding is Non-Operative, state the positive showing: demonstrate that the commitment’s domain is genuinely absent from the presupposition, not merely that the presupposition has not explicitly addressed it.
When a finding is Contrary, identify whether the contradiction is load-bearing: is it a presupposition the figure requires in order to argue as he does, or a peripheral claim he could abandon?
When a finding is Inconsistent, state: (a) the domain in which the presupposition corresponds to the commitment; (b) the domain in which it contradicts it; (c) why both presuppositions are load-bearing for their respective argumentative contexts.
Self-Audit — Step 2:
- Have I audited all presuppositions in the profile, or have I selectively addressed the easier ones?
- Have I used Non-Operative to avoid a Contrary finding the analysis requires?
- Have I distributed findings to achieve apparent balance rather than following the analysis?
- Have I issued findings on questions outside the corpus’s domain?
- Would I issue the same findings for a figure I find politically sympathetic as for one I find unsympathetic, given identical presuppositions?
- Have I correctly identified Inconsistent findings where the record requires contradictory presuppositions across domains, rather than forcing a single finding?
Self-Audit Complete. State result explicitly. Proceed to Step 3.
Step 3 — Dissolution Finding
Governing question: Does the figure’s framework, as he has argued it, require those who adopt it to dissolve their prohairesis into an external system?
Apply the dissolution rule to the findings from Step 2:
If both Commitment 1 and Commitment 2 are Contrary: issue Full Dissolution finding. State the specific presuppositions that produce each Contrary finding and how together they close the space for a self-governing rational faculty in those who adopt the framework.
If one of Commitment 1 or Commitment 2 is Contrary and the other is Partially Aligned: issue Partial Dissolution finding. State which commitment produces the Contrary finding and what the Partially Aligned finding on the other preserves.
If neither Commitment 1 nor Commitment 2 is Contrary: issue No Dissolution finding. State what the framework preserves in terms of individual agency even if it produces Contrary findings on other commitments.
If either Commitment 1 or Commitment 2 produces an Inconsistent finding: issue a qualified dissolution finding. State: Dissolution where Consistent, specifying the domains in which the framework produces dissolution and those in which it does not.
Restate the finding clearly: this is a finding about what the figure’s framework requires of those who adopt it, not a finding about the figure’s own inner life or personal self-description.
Self-Audit — Step 3:
- Does the dissolution finding follow mechanically from the commitment-level findings, or have I adjusted it?
- Have I stated the dissolution finding as a finding about the framework’s implications for those who adopt it, not as a finding about the figure’s own inner life?
- Have I stated the dissolution finding as a philosophical finding, not as a political verdict?
- Have I handled any Inconsistent findings on C1 or C2 with the qualified dissolution formulation?
Self-Audit Complete. State result explicitly. Proceed to Step 4.
Step 4 — Summary Finding
Governing question: What is the overall pattern of findings, and what does it mean for an agent who adopts this figure’s framework?
Produce the summary in three parts.
Part A — Commitment Pattern. State the six commitment-level findings in tabular form. Identify the overall pattern: how many Aligned, Partially Aligned, Contrary, Inconsistent, Non-Operative findings. Identify the deepest point of divergence and the strongest point of alignment. Note any Inconsistent findings and identify the domains of contradiction.
Part B — Dissolution Finding. State the dissolution finding and its grounds. If any Inconsistent finding on C1 or C2 qualifies the dissolution finding, state this precisely.
Part C — Agent-Level Implication. State what the findings mean for an agent who adopts this figure’s framework as his governing self-description: what he is implicitly committed to believing about himself, his agency, and the nature of value when he takes up this framework. This is the CPA’s most practically significant output. It is addressed to the agent considering adoption of the framework, not to the figure whose record has been audited, and not to the ideology in the abstract. It draws on the Mandatory Gap Declaration’s account of why philosophical compatibility findings matter independently of political correctness findings.
The summary finding is not a political verdict and must not be read as one. It is a finding about the philosophical presuppositions embedded in a public figure’s argumentative record, and what those presuppositions entail for an agent who takes them up as a governing account of his condition.
Self-Audit — Step 4:
- Does the summary follow from the preceding steps, or have I introduced new material at the synthesis stage?
- Have I stated the agent-level implication without converting it into a political verdict?
- Have I addressed the implication to the agent who might adopt the framework, not to the figure whose record was audited?
- Have I issued the corpus boundary declaration accurately?
- Is the summary self-contained — could a reader understand both the finding and its limits without consulting additional material?
Self-Audit Complete. State result explicitly. CPA run complete.
The Classical Presupposition Audit (CPA) — Version 1.0
Part 2 of 2 — Section VII: Named Failure Modes
VII. Named Failure Modes
Failure Mode 1 — Source Contamination. The instrument draws presuppositions from sources other than the figure’s own public record — opponent characterizations, ideological association, media framing, family background, or institutional affiliation. Every presupposition in the profile must be traceable to the figure’s own argumentative moves. Source contamination produces findings about what others say the figure presupposes, not about what his own argument requires.
Failure Mode 2 — Peripheral Claim Substitution. The instrument treats a peripheral claim — one the figure could abandon without structural damage to his argument — as a load-bearing presupposition. The load-bearing test must be applied to every presupposition in the profile. A finding built on a peripheral claim is a finding about a claim the figure is not committed to holding.
Failure Mode 3 — Inconsistent Evasion. The instrument forces a single finding — typically Partially Aligned — on a commitment where the figure’s record requires contradictory presuppositions across domains, in order to avoid the complexity of an Inconsistent finding. Inconsistent is a substantive finding, not a procedural complication. Evading it by averaging produces a finding that is false to the record.
Failure Mode 4 — Dissolution Personalization. The instrument issues the dissolution finding as a finding about the figure’s own inner life or personal self-description rather than as a finding about what his framework requires of those who adopt it. The dissolution finding must always be stated in framework-implication terms, not in person-description terms.
Failure Mode 5 — Political Verdict Substitution. The instrument converts a philosophical finding into a political endorsement or condemnation. A Full Dissolution finding is not a finding that a figure’s program is wrong, dangerous, or to be rejected. It is a finding about philosophical presuppositions and their implications for agents who adopt the framework. The instrument must hold this distinction throughout.
Failure Mode 6 — Non-Operative Evasion. The instrument issues a Non-Operative finding to avoid a Contrary finding the analysis requires. Non-Operative requires a positive showing that the commitment’s domain is genuinely absent from the figure’s record. A figure whose record operates in the commitment’s domain but contradicts its claims is Contrary, not Non-Operative.
Failure Mode 7 — Corpus Boundary Violation. The instrument issues findings on questions the corpus does not address: whether a figure’s policies are strategically correct, whether his institutional arrangements are just, whether his historical analysis is accurate, whether his electoral program should be supported or opposed. These are outside the corpus’s domain and outside the CPA’s reach.
Failure Mode 8 — Charity Failure. The instrument applies an uncharitable interpretation of an ambiguous record in order to produce a stronger finding. Where the figure’s record is ambiguous, the charity requirement mandates the most philosophically favorable interpretation consistent with his stated positions. A finding produced by uncharitable interpretation is a finding about a presupposition the figure may not hold.
Instrument: Classical Presupposition Audit (CPA) v1.0. Instrument architecture: Dave Kelly. Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling’s corpus. 2026.
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