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.
7 of 219 works
1900HilbertHilbert,Mathematical ProblemsGermanEssayFull text
- Q10Can a fixed procedure for reasoning settle a disagreement when the participants accept the same premises?
Yes. States the conviction that every definite mathematical problem can be settled, either by solution or proof of impossibility: 'in mathematics there is no ignorabimus'.
- Q10Can a fixed procedure for reasoning settle a disagreement when the participants accept the same premises?
1906FlaviusFlavius,The Battle for Legal ScienceGermanEssayFull text
Gnaeus Flavius (Hermann Kantorowicz)
Der Kampf um die Rechtswissenschaft
German · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q11Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?
No. Manifesto of the Free Law movement, arguing that judges already decide with more freedom than the statute allows and should do so openly.
- Q11Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?
1914RilkeRilke,Dolls: On the Wax Dolls of Lotte PritzelGermanEssayFull text
Rainer Maria Rilke
Puppen. Zu den Wachs-Puppen von Lotte Pritzel
German · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q40Can an artificial companion satisfy the need for companionship if it has no feelings of its own?
No. The child's doll takes all the love given it and answers with silence, because it is made of stuff that cannot respond; Rilke treats this as the child's first experience of not being loved back.
- Q40Can an artificial companion satisfy the need for companionship if it has no feelings of its own?
1919FreudFreud,The UncannyGermanPeriodicalFull text
- Q39Can love for an artificial being remain genuine after its artificial nature is known?
This answer is hidden while the authors build this question’s position key.
- Q39Can love for an artificial being remain genuine after its artificial nature is known?
1919WeberWeber,Politics as a VocationGermanEssayFull text
- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
Yes. The honor of the civil servant is to carry out a superior's order conscientiously as if it were his own conviction, even when he thinks it wrong; personal responsibility belongs to the political leader.
- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
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?