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.
9 of 219 works
1803KantKant,Kant on EducationGermanTreatiseFull text
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
No. Absolute obedience in childhood is necessary because it prepares the child to obey laws as a citizen; the youth later obeys rules of duty, which means obeying reason.
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
1809MüllerMüller,The Elements of StatecraftGermanTreatiseFull text
Adam Müller
Die Elemente der Staatskunst
German · Treatise
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q35Does treating the state as an artificial machine give its members grounds to redesign it?
No. The state is not a machine or a factory but an organic union of all physical and spiritual needs grown through history, so it cannot be redesigned by contract.
- Q35Does treating the state as an artificial machine give its members grounds to redesign it?
1821HegelHegel,Elements of the Philosophy of RightGermanTreatiseNo text yet
G. W. F. Hegel
Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts
German · Treatise
No text yet · Period translation
Open source →- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
Yes. Civil servants are educated to a dispassionate, upright demeanor in which personal passions and ties give way to universal interests.
- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
1830HegelHegel,Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Part III (Philosophy of Mind)GermanTreatiseFull text
G. W. F. Hegel
Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften
German · Treatise
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q20Does making an action habitual increase a person's freedom to act?
Yes. Habit is unfree because it is natural, but free because the soul is no longer occupied by feelings it has made habitual and can attend to other things.
- Q20Does making an action habitual increase a person's freedom to act?
1855BüchnerBüchner,Force and MatterGermanTreatiseFull text
- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?
Yes. There is no force without matter and no mind without brain; thought and will are functions of brain matter under natural law.
- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?
1867MarxMarx,Capital, Volume IGermanTreatiseFull text
- Q13Can machines undergo a process of evolution even when humans build and reproduce them?
No. Calls for a critical history of technology on the model of Darwin's history of natural organs, but says with Vico that human history differs from natural history because we made it.
- Q18Does operating machinery develop or diminish a worker's skill and judgment?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q19Who should receive the benefits when machinery increases the amount a worker can produce?
Under capitalism the capitalist takes it; this is the problem. Machinery is not meant to lighten toil; it cheapens goods so the worker's share of the day shrinks and the unpaid share taken by the capitalist grows.
- Q37Should tools used to perform bodily functions be understood as parts of the human body?
No. In handicraft the worker uses a tool; in the factory the machine uses the worker, who becomes its living appendage.
- Q13Can machines undergo a process of evolution even when humans build and reproduce them?
1877KappKapp,Outlines of a Philosophy of TechnologyGermanTreatiseFull text
Ernst Kapp
Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik
German · Treatise
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q13Can machines undergo a process of evolution even when humans build and reproduce them?
No. Argues that tools and machines are unconscious projections of human organs, so that technology develops as an outward copy of the human body.
- Q37Should tools used to perform bodily functions be understood as parts of the human body?
Yes. Tools and machines are unconscious projections of the body's organs, with the hand as the model for all tools, so technology is the body carried outward.
- Q13Can machines undergo a process of evolution even when humans build and reproduce them?
1895RouxRoux,Collected Papers on the Developmental Mechanics of OrganismsGermanTreatiseFull text
Wilhelm Roux
Gesammelte Abhandlungen über Entwickelungsmechanik der Organismen
German · 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. Proposes a developmental mechanics that studies the causes of embryonic form by experiment on eggs, treating development as the working-out of physical and chemical causes.
- Q09Can the development of an organism from an egg be explained as the operation of a machine?
1899HaeckelHaeckel,The Riddle of the UniverseGermanTreatiseFull text
- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?
Yes. The struggle over free will has ended in favor of determinism; the human will is no freer than an animal's and differs only in degree.
- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?