219 works selected for the 40 candidate questions. Selections approved by Ben Breen, 29 September 2026. Arguments are unverified. Quotations were chosen by machine and are unchecked.
14 of 219 works
1614NapierNapier,Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis DescriptioLatinTreatiseFull text
- Q24Does using calculating devices weaken the ability to calculate without them?
No. Logarithms spare calculators the tedium of long multiplications and divisions and the slippery errors they cause.
- Q24Does using calculating devices weaken the ability to calculate without them?
1620BaconBacon,Novum OrganumLatinTreatiseFull text
- Q30Should technological invention be understood as carrying out a divine purpose?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q30Should technological invention be understood as carrying out a divine purpose?
1627BaconBacon,New AtlantisEnglishFictionFull text
- Q27Should a useful invention be restricted if its harmful consequences cannot be reliably controlled?
Yes. The scientists of Salomon's House consult on which of their inventions to publish and swear an oath to keep secret those they think fit, revealing some only to the state.
- Q27Should a useful invention be restricted if its harmful consequences cannot be reliably controlled?
1637DescartesDescartes,Discourse on MethodFrenchTreatiseFull text
René Descartes
Discours de la méthode
French · Treatise
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q02Would a machine's ability to converse appropriately be sufficient evidence that it thinks?
No. A machine could utter words but could never arrange them to answer the sense of whatever is said to it, as the dullest human can; this shows it lacks reason.
- Q03Can a machine exercise judgment when faced with circumstances its maker did not anticipate?
No. Machines act only from the disposition of their organs, which must be arranged for each particular action, while reason is a universal instrument usable in any circumstance.
- Q15Should extending human life indefinitely be a goal of technical progress?
Yes. Hopes that a practical science of nature will free people from countless diseases and perhaps from the infirmities of old age.
- Q28Would the capacity to suffer give an artificial being a claim to humane treatment?
No. Argues animals are machines made by God whose actions follow from the disposition of their organs, and that they lack reason and a rational soul.
- Q40Can an artificial companion satisfy the need for companionship if it has no feelings of its own?
No. A machine might utter words in response to a touch, but it could never arrange words to answer the meaning of whatever is said to it, as even the dullest person can.
- Q02Would a machine's ability to converse appropriately be sufficient evidence that it thinks?
1645PascalPascal,Avis nécessaire à ceux qui auront curiosité de voir la machine d'arithmétiqueFrenchOtherFull text
- Q24Does using calculating devices weaken the ability to calculate without them?
No. The machine does every arithmetic operation without effort and relieves the mind of the fatigue of reckoning with counters or pen.
- Q24Does using calculating devices weaken the ability to calculate without them?
1651HobbesHobbes,LeviathanEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
No. Argues a parent's dominion over a child does not derive from having begotten it but from the child's consent.
- Q35Does treating the state as an artificial machine give its members grounds to redesign it?
No. Hobbes criticizes private conscience as a competing judge of good and evil where civil law has determined the matter, arguing that competing private judgments would divide the commonwealth.
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
1663Huang ZongxiHuang Zongxi,Waiting for the DawnChineseTreatiseFull text
- Q12Can numerical measures adequately determine a person's fitness for a position of responsibility?
No. Criticizes the examination system for selecting officials by a narrow written test, and proposes several alternative routes of recruitment such as recommendation and appointment.
- Q12Can numerical measures adequately determine a person's fitness for a position of responsibility?
1664DescartesDescartes,The Description of the Human BodyFrenchTreatiseFull text
René Descartes
La Description du corps humain
French · Treatise
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q09Can the development of an organism from an egg be explained as the operation of a machine?
Yes. Explains the living body's functions by the motion of matter alone, and states that explaining them requires explaining how the animal forms from its beginning by the same mechanical laws.
- Q09Can the development of an organism from an egg be explained as the operation of a machine?
1668CordemoyCordemoy,A Philosophicall Discourse Concerning SpeechFrenchTreatiseFull text
Géraud de Cordemoy
Discours physique de la parole
French · Treatise
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q02Would a machine's ability to converse appropriately be sufficient evidence that it thinks?
Yes. I know other bodies have minds like mine because their speech is new, fitting and cannot be explained by mechanical principles alone.
- Q02Would a machine's ability to converse appropriately be sufficient evidence that it thinks?
1670PascalPascal,PenséesFrenchTreatiseFull text
- Q10Can a fixed procedure for reasoning settle a disagreement when the participants accept the same premises?
No. Distinguishes the geometrical mind, which reasons from explicit principles, from the intuitive mind (esprit de finesse), which grasps principles too many and subtle to state, and says the two cannot be reduced to each other.
- Q10Can a fixed procedure for reasoning settle a disagreement when the participants accept the same premises?
1674MalebrancheMalebranche,The Search after TruthFrenchTreatiseFull text
Nicolas Malebranche
De la recherche de la vérité
French · Treatise
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
No. There is no necessary connection between my will to move my arm and its motion; I do not know how to move it, so God is the true cause and my will only the occasion.
- Q04Does conscious intention help cause bodily action?
1680FilmerFilmer,Patriarcha: or, the Natural Power of KingsEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
Yes. Filmer treats patriarchal dominion as sovereign power, explicitly invoking life-and-death judgment, war and treaty making. The argument concerns paternal rule, not directly the manufacture of an intelligent being.
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
1689LockeLocke,Second Treatise of GovernmentEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
Both. Argues men are God's property because they are his workmanship, but that human parents do not own children they beget, since children are the workmanship of their maker, the Almighty.
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
1694LockeLocke,An Essay Concerning Human UnderstandingEnglishTreatiseFull text
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
Yes. Places personal identity in continuity of consciousness, not in the body, so a person who loses a limb, or whose consciousness follows a severed finger, remains the same self.
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?