First principles

In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. 

A first principle is an axiom that cannot be deduced from any other within that system. 

An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word ἀξίωμα (axíōma), meaning ‘that which is thought worthy or fit’ or ‘that which commends itself as evident’.

First principles thinking is a strategy in which you break things down to their fundamental truths and build back up from there, either better than before or into something new.

The term first principles was already in use more than 2,000 years ago by Aristotle, who believed the best way to understand a subject is to break it down to its most fundamental principles, or causes, or elements, defining a first principle as the first basis from which a thing is known.

Aristotle stated, “In every systematic inquiry (methodos) where there are first principles, knowledge and science result from acquiring knowledge of these.”

Later he connected the idea to knowledge, defining first principles as “The first basis from which a thing is known.”

Musk used this analogy in a 2015 Reddit article, “I think it’s important to view knowledge as a sort of semantic tree. Make sure you understand the fundamental principles, meaning the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details, or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”

Musk’s approach is almost the same as the ancient Alchemists’ way, approaching it from a physics framework breaking it down to its smallest parts, investigating what it really is, their fundamental truths so to speak, and then from there, build something new, far more valuable than that has come before. 

Musk would think, “Okay what is a rocket made of? Aerospace-grade aluminium alloys, plus some titanium, copper, and carbon fibre. Then ask, what is the value of those materials on the commodity market? It turned out that the materials cost of a rocket was around two percent of the typical price.”

Instead of buying a finished rocket for tens of millions, Musk decided to build his own, breaking each component down to their original state, dissecting it, investigating it, and then building up from scratch with the same and more.

To build anything, no matter a product or business, you should think like a scientist, an alchemist: deconstruct – and reconstruct, till you find the gold…

The earliest Pre-Socratic philosophers, the Ionian material monists, sought to explain all of nature (physis) in terms of one unifying arche. 

Among the material monists were the three Milesian philosophers: Thales, who believed that everything was composed of water; Anaximander, who believed it was apeiron (limitless) and Anaximenes, who believed it was air. 

This is considered as a permanent substance or either one or more which is conserved in the generation of the rest of it. From this all things first come to be and into this they are resolved in a final state. This source of entity is always preserved.

Although their theories were primitive, these philosophers were the first to give an explanation of the physical world without referencing the supernatural; this opened the way for much of modern science (and philosophy), which has the same goal of explaining the world without dependence on the supernatural

When Aristotle explains in general terms what he tries to do in his philosophical works, he says he is looking for “first principles” (or “origins”; archai):

In every systematic inquiry (methodos) where there are first principles, or causes, or elements, knowledge and science result from acquiring knowledge of these; for we think we know something just in case we acquire knowledge of the primary causes, the primary first principles, all the way to the elements. 

It is clear, then, that in the science of nature as elsewhere, we should try first to determine questions about the first principles. The naturally proper direction of our road is from things better known and clearer to us, to things that are clearer and better known by nature; for the things that are known to us are not the same as the things known unconditionally (haplôs). Hence it is necessary for us to progress, following this procedure, from the things that are less clear by nature, but clearer to us, towards things that are clearer and better known by nature. (Phys. 184a10–21)

For Aristotle, the arche is the condition necessary for the existence of something, the basis for what he calls “first philosophy” or metaphysics. 

Profoundly influenced by Euclid, Descartes was a rationalist who invented the foundationalist system of philosophy. He used the method of doubt, now called Cartesian doubt, to systematically doubt everything he could possibly doubt until he was left with what he saw as purely indubitable truths. 

Using these self-evident propositions as his axioms, or foundations, he went on to deduce his entire body of knowledge from them. The foundations are also called a priori truths. 

His most famous proposition is “Je pense, donc je suis” (I think, therefore I am, or Cogito ergo sum), which he indicated in his Discourse on the Method was “the first principle of the philosophy of which I was in search.”

Descartes describes the concept of a first principle in the following excerpt from the preface to the Principles of Philosophy (1644):

I should have desired, in the first place, to explain in it what philosophy is, by commencing with the most common matters, as, for example, that the word philosophy signifies the study of wisdom, and that by wisdom is to be understood not merely prudence in the management of affairs, but a perfect knowledge of all that man can know, as well for the conduct of his life as for the preservation of his health and the discovery of all the arts, and that knowledge to subserve these ends must necessarily be deduced from first causes; so that in order to study the acquisition of it (which is properly called [284] philosophising), we must commence with the investigation of those first causes which are called Principles. 

Now, these principles must possess two conditions: in the first place, they must be so clear and evident that the human mind, when it attentively considers them, cannot doubt their truth; in the second place, the knowledge of other things must be so dependent on them as that though the principles themselves may indeed be known apart from what depends on them, the latter cannot nevertheless be known apart from the former. 

It will accordingly be necessary thereafter to endeavour to deduce from those principles the knowledge of the things that depend on them, as that there may be nothing in the whole series of deductions which is not perfectly manifest.

The first Principle may indeed be conceived of as a spring (of water) which is its own origin, and which pours its water into many streams without itself becoming exhausted by what it yields, or even without running low, because the streams that it forms, before flowing away each in its own direction, and while knowing which direction it is to follow, yet mingles its waters with the spring.

the first principle, could be imagined as a spring of water from which all rivers have their source.

Why is using first principles important?

It’s important to use first principles in everything in life, not just to build products and business. It’s used to find the truth imperative to guide your own life and not simply believe what others say.

Most people have no problem thinking about what they want to achieve in life. The problem with most other people is letting others tell them what’s real or possible, or what the best way is to do something, thereby outsourcing their thinking to someone else.

Letting others think for you, means that you’re using their analogies, their conventions, and their possibilities. It means you inherited their world. 

First-principles thinking, clears the clutter of what you’ve been told and allows you to rebuild from the ground up. 

First-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibilities.

It’s one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself, unlock your creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results. It allows you to cut through the fog of illusions, shoddy reasoning and inadequate analogies to see opportunities that others miss.

So much of what you believe today could be based on some authority figure telling you that something is true, because you were taught to respect your elders. 

As children, you may have stopped asking questions when told, “Because I said so.” As adults, you may have learned to stop asking questions when people say, “Because that’s how it works.” 

If you outright reject this type of dogma, you probably often become a problem for the status quo. That’s why often the troublemaker child at school or the rebel excel later in life, because they think for themselves and not simply accept everything as truth or how it should be.

If you never learn, or let your children learn, how to take something apart, ask questions, test the assumptions, and reconstruct it, they’ll end up trapped in what other people say is so, and be trapped in the way things have always been done. 

First-principles reasoning cuts through dogma and removes the blinders to what is real and possible.