Definition of "principle"

Let us consider ‘my dog is asleep on the floor’ again. Frege thinks that this sentence can be analyzed in various different ways. Instead of treating it as expressing the application of __ is asleep on the floor to my dog, we can think of it as expressing the application of the concept my dog is asleep on __to the object the floor(see Frege 1919). Frege recognizes what is now a commonplace in the logical analysis of natural language. We can attribute more than one logical form to a single sentence. Let us call this the principle of multiple analyses. Frege does not claim that the principle always holds, but as we shall see, modern type theory does claim this.

2011 July 20, Edwin Mares, “Propositional Functions”, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, retrieved 2012-07-15

Lavinia—shrewd, careless, clever; ready to meet any difficulty, however humiliating, that might occur; utterly without principle; confident in that good fortune, which she scrupled at no means of attaining—was the very type of the real.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Author and the Actress”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 105

Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.

2013 July-August, Sarah Glaz, “Ode to Prime Numbers”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 4

The soul of man is an active principle.

1664, John Tillotson, “Sermon I. The Wisdom of Being Religious. Job XXVIII. 28.”, in The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson, Late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury: , published 1720

those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering

1828, Dugald Stewart, The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man

Doubting sad end of principle unsound.

1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza 2

Let an enthusiast be principled that he or his teacher is inspired.

1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 4, in An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], book I, page 20