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I have a question that stems from a passage from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/

Section 5 paragraph 4

Philosophers have sometimes argued that one of these fields is “first philosophy”, the most fundamental discipline, on which all philosophy or all knowledge or wisdom rests. Historically (it may be argued), Socrates and Plato put ethics first, then Aristotle put metaphysics or ontology first, then Descartes put epistemology first, then Russell put logic first, and then Husserl (in his later transcendental phase) put phenomenology first.

What does it mean that 'all philosophy rests' on x?

I don't get this idea of 'building on foundations' how are the other aspects of a philosopher's ideas built on metaphysics, in other words how does the conclusions reached in that informs lets say ethics?

Nikos M.
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Prince Deepthinker
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    Our policy is one question per question. "Rests" is used in the colloquial sense, i.e. provides foundation for, as in "calculus rests on the theory of limits". Aristotle and Husserl built their philosophies on different foundations because they had very different outlooks and approaches. – Conifold Feb 15 '23 at 00:55
  • I don't get this idea of 'building on foundations' how are the other aspects of a philosopher's ideas built on metaphysics, in other words how does the conclusions reached in that informs lets say ethics? – Prince Deepthinker Feb 15 '23 at 07:04
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    See also [Aristotle on the uselessness of metaphysics](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/77845/aristotle-on-the-uselessness-of-metaphysics). Ironic. –  Mar 02 '23 at 14:49

3 Answers3

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It is clearly nonsense to say that all knowledge, wisdom or philosophy rests on any particular subject within philosophy, and the fact (according to SEP) that some philosophers have argued about it is much to their discredit. However, it is possible to identify interdependencies between different subjects in philosophy. For example, it is difficult to see how you can make much progress in any area without first being clear about how formal reasoning works. Likewise, your view on ethics might be informed by your understanding of phenomenology.

More generally, I believe that it is more helpful to view philosophy as a networked collection of topics rather than as set of isolated branches stemming from a common set of first principles.

Marco Ocram
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First Philosophy is pretty much the same as Metaphysics. It argues for the ground or foundations of philosophy where previous arguments have established a link between metaphysics and other fields of philosophy.

For example, geology is a specialist natural philosophy. And it rests upon the notion of matter which is a metaphysical category.

Mozibur Ullah
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An analogy is how mathematics rests upon set theory. Set theory while a branch of mathematics, itself serves as foundation for other branches. In mathematics: everything is ultimately about sets.

In the same way a first philosophy, while part of philosophy, serves as foundation for other branches of philosophy. So all philosophy would ultimately be about: logic, or phenomenology, or epistemology, or ontology, and so on..; no matter the field of application.

Examples:

  1. Ontology/Ethics: Ethics would be about what moral values exist or not.
  2. Epistemology/Ethics: Ethics would be about ways to know moral values.
  3. Logic/Ethics: Ethics would be about logical foundations of moral values.
  4. Phenomenology/Ethics: Ethics would be related to phenomenal experience of moral values.

As far as I know, contemporary philosophers have largely abandoned the quest for a first philosophy.

Nikos M.
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