The Theory of Human Centrality (TCH): Normative Autonomy and the Epistemic Limits of Law

The Theory of Human Centrality (TCH), originally formulated in Portuguese as the Teoria da Centralidade Humana, is proposed as a general theory of law organized around a distinction between normative autonomy and epistemic self-sufficiency. Law retains authority to define validity, rights, duties, competences, responsibilities and legal consequences, yet that authority does not entail exclusive capacity to explain the human phenomena on which legal decisions depend. TCH places the person at the integrating center of fact, value, norm, interpretation, decision and consequence and from that premise develops a system composed of epistemic insufficiency, human antecedence of the fact, necessary scientific integration, correspondence between power and cognition, human consequences, continuity of state responsibility and the TCH Test of Epistemic Necessity. The test uses relevance, reliability, materiality, necessity and proportionality to determine when external scientific knowledge ceases to be optional enrichment and becomes part of a legally responsible duty of cognition. The theory does not transfer normative authority to experts, does not equate explanation with exculpation and does not authorize unlimited state inquiry. It instead seeks a controlled form of epistemic openness capable of reducing decisions founded on hidden intuition, misunderstood science, or insufficient factual premises. This foundational preprint reconstructs the intellectual problem addressed by TCH, presents its architecture and principal mechanisms, distinguishes it from generic interdisciplinarity and neighboring approaches, specifies limits and rival explanations and proposes pathways for comparative and empirical testing across adjudication, legislation, public policy and algorithmic decision-making.