What are first principles? They are statements about things that stand on their own as absolute truths. As fundamental self-evident truths, all other propositions or assumptions are anchored on them. The concept has it’s roots in philosophy and has been widely adopted in math, physics, biology and other sciences. Over 2300 years ago, Aristotle said that a first principle is the “first basis from which a thing is known” and that pursuing first principles is the key to doing any sort of systemic inquiry.
Why is this important? Every day we are faced with problems and challenges. We are faced with making hard decisions in order to solve problems and make progress. As we think through how to best solve a problem, we typically rely on assumptions about how things are or ought to be. The issue with assumptions, is they tend to limit our problem-solving options and blind us to more creative solutions.
So how do we think and reason using first principles? The first step is to define the problem we are trying to solve. Once it’s defined, it can be broken down into it’s component parts and each part can be tested exclusive of the other parts. The parts can be broken down further until a big picture view of the problem is comprehended. Ideally all of the component parts are exclusive to one another and taken as a whole, they are comprehensive. This is much easier said than done. In most cases, a great deal of time is spent simply defining the problem and breaking it down. Solving the problem is simply evaluating, prioritizing, and testing each part to build a solution.
One useful tool is first defining the problem, and then creating an issue tree.