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.
6 of 219 works
1864DostoevskyDostoevsky,Notes from UndergroundRussianFictionFull text
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Записки из подполья
Russian · Fiction
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q22Does organizing daily life by fixed schedules strengthen or weaken self-government?
Weakens. If all acts were tabulated by rules like a table of logarithms, man would be a piano key; he will act against his interest to prove he is not.
- Q22Does organizing daily life by fixed schedules strengthen or weaken self-government?
1894TolstoyTolstoy,The Kingdom of God Is Within YouRussianTreatiseFull text
Leo Tolstoy
Царство Божие внутри вас
Russian · Treatise
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
Yes. Military drill, by deception, blows and vodka, turns sensible young men into soldiers who would bayonet their own fathers on command.
- Q36Should public officials carry out rules without exercising personal moral judgment?
No. The state spreads each act of violence across many officials, each of whom says he only obeyed orders, so that no one feels responsible; every official must refuse.
- Q21Can repeated obedience train a person to obey without judgment?
1917LeninLenin,The State and RevolutionRussianTreatiseFull text
- Q35Does treating the state as an artificial machine give its members grounds to redesign it?
Yes. Lenin interprets Marx as requiring the working class to smash ready-made state machinery rather than merely take possession of it.
- Q35Does treating the state as an artificial machine give its members grounds to redesign it?
1924ZamyatinZamyatin,WeRussianFictionFull text
- Q22Does organizing daily life by fixed schedules strengthen or weaken self-government?
Weakens. The narrator praises the Tables of Hours that fix when everyone rises, works, eats and walks, and hopes to absorb even the two personal hours; the novel shows this as the end of freedom.
- Q22Does organizing daily life by fixed schedules strengthen or weaken self-government?
1925BelyaevBelyaev,Professor Dowell's HeadRussianFictionFull text
Alexander Belyaev
Голова профессора Доуэля
Russian · Fiction
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
Yes. A scientist's severed head is kept alive by machines and remains himself, thinking and suffering, without a body.
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
1933BerdyaevBerdyaev,Man and MachineRussianPeriodicalFull text
- Q31Can reliance on machinery become a form of idolatry?
Yes. Berdyaev describes faith in technics as the remaining strong faith of modern civilized humanity, whose attachment to it may change humanity’s own image.
- Q31Can reliance on machinery become a form of idolatry?