first-principles

So for example, first-principles theorists usually start with a contested theoretical premise such as natural law or original public meaning originalism (the part that is fixed), and then work out what the doctrine should look like based on that premise (the variable).

The Volokh Conspiracy » The Internet, The Fourth Amendment, and Technology Neutrality: A Response to Horowitz 2010

My first-principles intuition on the matter is that international law applies between sovereign states.

The Volokh Conspiracy » A Follow-on Drone Hearing 2010

So for example, first-principles theorists usually start with a contested theoretical premise such as natural law or original public meaning originalism (the part that is fixed), and then work out what the doctrine should look like based on that premise (the variable).

The Volokh Conspiracy » The Internet, The Fourth Amendment, and Technology Neutrality: A Response to Horowitz 2010

My first-principles intuition on the matter is that international law applies between sovereign states.

The Volokh Conspiracy » A Follow-on Drone Hearing 2010

It is a high-rise that is based on first-principles of environmental design.

Jacob Slevin: Times Square's Newest Skyscraper: An Interview with Dan Kaplan of FXFOWLE Jacob Slevin 2010

"You start asking yourself first-principles questions, like ` What is it that we do every month? '"

Wired iPad App Now Available 2010

This should have nothing to do with distributism, but these people make agrarian first-principles for distributism.

Starbucks illustrates the weakness of global economy Athanasius 2007

It will mean that there is no first-principles explanation for why the cosmological constant is just the right size to account for dark energy.

In ‘Dark Energy,’ Cosmic Humility 2007

But does this assertion of certain genera which are at the same time first-principles imply that by combining the genera, each with its subordinates, we find the whole of Being in the resultant combination?

The Six Enneads. Plotinus 1952

Existents, its actualization becomes impossible; it certainly cannot bring itself into actuality: either the actual exists previously, and so the potential is not the first-principle, or, if the two are to be regarded as existing simultaneously, the first-principles must be attributed to hazard.

The Six Enneads. Plotinus 1952