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.
8 of 219 works
1784KantKant,An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?GermanEssayFull text
Immanuel Kant
Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?
German · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
Yes. Statutes and formulas, the mechanical instruments of reason, are the shackles of permanent immaturity; he criticizes 'do not argue, obey' while allowing obedience in office.
- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
Yes. In the 'private' use of reason within an office, an officer, tax official or clergyman must obey and not argue; he may criticize freely only as a scholar addressing the public.
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
1842LotzeLotze,Leben. LebenskraftGermanEssayNo text yet
- Q07Does living activity require a principle beyond physical and chemical processes?
No. Rejects a special vital force; living phenomena arise from the same kinds of forces as inorganic nature, arranged in complex ways.
- Q07Does living activity require a principle beyond physical and chemical processes?
1880Bois-ReymondBois-Reymond,The Seven World-RiddlesGermanEssayFull text
Emil du Bois-Reymond
Die sieben Welträthsel
German · Essay
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?
Unresolved. Under the mechanical view the brain's state at each moment is the necessary effect of the previous one, leaving no room for free will, yet the felt freedom of choice remains one of seven unsolved world-riddles.
- Q05Can human choices be fully explained by physical causes?
1884JheringJhering,Jest and Earnest in JurisprudenceGermanEssayFull text
Rudolf von Jhering
Scherz und Ernst in der Jurisprudenz
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. In the satire, the heaven of theoretical concepts is separated from the practitioners’ afterlife: practitioners could neither breathe nor see in the theorists’ world. This excerpt does not give a particular unjust judicial decision.
- Q11Should a judge follow a general rule when it produces an unjust result in a particular case?
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?
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?