Aristotle's Platonic Response to the Problem of First Principles

Abstract

Aristotle is clear that first principles are not to be established by demonstration, but much less clear about how else we might come to understand them. A series of striking parallels between his Topics and Plato's Parmenides and Sophist show that Aristotle was familiar with a distinct Platonic method developed for this very purpose. The method does not provide a demonstrative guarantee, but it does offer a synoptic view of the consequences for each of an exclusive and exhaustive set of candidate principles. I argue that Aristotle not only recognizes this method and its application to the problem of first principles in the Topics, but also employs a version of the method when discussing first principles in his Metaphysics. Furthermore, I show how, despite appearances to the contrary, this method complements what Aristotle has to say about first principles in the Analytics.