AST - A Theory-Generating A Priori Methodology with Deterministic-Form Predictions

This working paper presents Axiomatic and Synthetic Theory (AST) as a theory-generating a priori methodology for scientific inquiry. AST provides a constrained procedure for constructing minimal axiomatic structures and deriving postulates, principles, theorems, corollaries, and, where admissible, deterministic-form predictions prior to empirical investigation. The methodology is built around explicit scope discipline, admissibility and minimality criteria, derivational closure, fixed-point termination, and an anti-patching rule that prevents ad hoc downstream modification in response to empirical anomalies. Empirical methods enter only after theory construction, where they are used instrumentally to test whether theorem-derived conditions and outcomes are instantiated within the declared scope. The paper also specifies diagnostic responses to prediction failure, including derivation error, scope error, structural incompleteness, and lawful structural growth through coupling and dormant postulate activation. The article is a self-contained methodological articulation of AST for a broader research audience and does not replace or modify the binding AST v1.0 corpus.