The path is eight-fold and not eight-staged: the Pali term is not "steps" but limbs or spokes, practiced together. It is conventionally grouped in three — wisdom (view and intention), conduct (speech, action, livelihood), and mental discipline (effort, mindfulness, concentration) — and the grouping matters, because it shows how the Buddha's ethics, psychology, and metaphysics are one system. Right view heads the list not as belief but as orientation: seeing that actions have consequences and that the four truths describe the situation you are actually in.