In Groundwork of Phenomenological Marxism, Husserl’s concept of primal institution [Urstiftung] is used to distinguish between three concepts of history: contingent history (which is not a subject for phenomenological investigation), transcendental history (which refers to an institution, such as Galilean science, that structures experience during its persistence), and the event whereby transcendental history incurs into contingent history. In the event, a transcendental, philosophical form affects empirical history such that subsequent events refer back to the original event and forward to its completion [Endstiftung]. This threefold structure applies to the primal institution of philosophically justified political principles in historical life. I will argue that the incursion of philosophy into political life requires a rhetorical structure of a double negative that expresses the paradox of primal institution. Through an analysis of the famous Socratic statement that “the unexamined life is not worth living” and Kant’s definition that “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity,” the paradoxical double negative in both statements is shown to be a necessary feature of their primal institution. In conclusion, the necessary reference of philosophy to politics, alongside the distinction between them, is clarified.