First Principles and The Art of Thinking Like Aristotle and Kant

I am a fan of Elon Musk; I really am.

But to discuss First Principles without discussing philosophy is unacceptable :-).

The concept does, after all, originate in philosophy.

Elon Musk may be applying and adapting the concept to commerce, but it originated with Aristotle and was further refined by Kant and others in a profound and dare I say, more nobel context.

Also see Kant’s Postulates, Descartes’ Cartesian Meditations, and John McDowell’s Brute Facts for other attempts to get to the irreducible essence of things.

We should never cite a technocrat for concepts that originated in the academy 2,000+ years ago.

Here is the full text of Aristotle’s First Principles as discussed by Terrence Irwin:

Where did Elon Musk get these ideas?

Opportunities to introduce philosophy in a general context are rare; when we do have the opportunity to discuss philosophical concepts in a modern context, I think we should point people to the philosophers and their writings.

Elon:

None of this is to say that I do not want to be one of the chosen few who get to go to Mars.