First Principle
In mathematics, first principles are referred to as axioms or postulates. Gödel's incompleteness theorems have been taken to prove, among other things, that no system of axioms that describe the set of natural numbers can prove its own validity - nor perhaps can it prove every truth about the natural numbers.
In philosophy, a first principle is a basic, foundational proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.
Read more about First Principle: First Principles in Formal Logic, Aristotle's Contribution, Descartes, In Physics
Famous quotes containing the word principle:
“It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower—and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)