(…) Heidegger uses the Latinate Prinzip and the German Satz, both of which are commonly translated “principle.” These words are among the most important in Heidegger’s text and have distincdy different senses – they are even specifically opposed to one another on a number of occasions. Since it is essential not to confuse these terms, I have capitalized “Principle” to render Prinzip. (Reginald Lilly, GA10)

The principle, archê (ἀϱχή), principium, is what begins and dominates, the two meanings being connected in both Greek and Latin. It is a generating element of being and/or a point of departure for knowledge. The Aristotelian distinctions are determining: principles and causes ( archai kai aitiai (ἀϱχαὶ ϰαὶ αἰτίαι) ), principles and axioms or hypotheses ( axiômata (ἀξιώματα), hupotheseis (ὑποθέσεις) ); but they do not pose any translation problem. In German, however, the paradigm of the beginning ( Prinzip ) is reduplicated in that of the foundation ( Grund ). The Kantian distinctions overthrew the Aristotelian nomenclature by introducting a sharp distinction between the logical and analytical domain, on the one hand, and the transcendental on the other hand. The logical meaning, which proceeds from the Posterior Analytics, was shaken up by the various axiomatics that emerged between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth: Grundsatz was then used in the sense of the initial laws of a formal system on the basis of which a certain number of theorems, propositions, Sätze, can be derived. (BCDU)