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.
2 of 219 works
1930FreudFreud,Civilization and Its DiscontentsGermanTreatiseFull text
Sigmund Freud
Das Unbehagen in der Kultur
German · Treatise
Full text · Period translation
Open source →- Q38When a person accomplishes something through a machine, should the machine's power count as that person's capability?
Yes. With his auxiliary organs man has become 'a kind of prosthetic God', but the organs have not grown onto him, give him trouble, and have not made him happy.
- Q38When a person accomplishes something through a machine, should the machine's power count as that person's capability?
1931SpenglerSpengler,Man and TechnicsGermanTreatiseFull text
Oswald Spengler
Der Mensch und die Technik
German · Treatise
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q32Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?
No. Treats machine technology as the expression of Western man's will to power, a stage in a culture's life that ends in decline.
- Q33Can a society adopt another society's machinery without adopting its ways of life?
Yes. Western technics has become detachable from the Faustian culture that made it, so non-Western peoples can take it up and turn it against the West.
- Q32Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?