First Principles

There is something of great importance to philosophy today, which is scepticism towards first principles -- also called central thoughts, starting points, simple ideas, and so on. Derrida famously called them origins. They are the core idea, which is simply posited -- simply assumed. In the old days, it is said, people wrote quite elegantly on that basis. Their work could be quite pretty, too -- if fairly useless. OBSERVATION: One of the foremost goals of my own metaphysic therefore is to overcome the problem of first principles. Of course, I believe that it can be convincingly done, or I would merely be turning out pleasing or pretty writing.