Editing First principle (section)

==== Descartes ====
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 and a posteriori|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):
{{blockquote|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] philosophizing), 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 endeavor so 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.<ref>VOL I, Principles, Preface to the French edition. Author's letter to the translator of the book which may here serve as a preface, p. 181.</ref> }}