Aristotle's First Principles

Core Philosophy

"If you want to understand something, break it down to its most basic truths — things that cannot be reduced further — and reason upward from there." — Aristotle

First principles thinking rejects reasoning by analogy ("others do it this way, so we should too") and instead asks: what do we KNOW to be true, and what can we build from only those truths?

Unlike Four Causes (which analyzes what exists) or Dialectics (which examines trade-offs), this method starts from zero and rebuilds.

When to Use