An open library
The classic texts of philosophy, read at their source. Every passage is in the public domain and is reproduced word for word from an open edition (Project Gutenberg, Wikisource, the Internet Archive and others), with its source, a commentary on why it matters, and questions to think and argue about.
- c. 399 BCEPlato's Apology: the oracle and the examined lifeSocrates tests the oracle by questioning those reputed wise, and finds that knowing the limits of one's knowledge is the only wisdom he has.
- c. 385 BCEPlato's Meno: the road to Larisa and the statues of DaedalusWhy a true opinion is as good a guide as knowledge, and yet worth less: it runs away unless it is tied down by the reason why.
- c. 380 BCEPlato's Protagoras: the myth of Prometheus and EpimetheusFire and the arts were not enough: without justice shared by everyone, the first cities fell apart. A myth about technology and legitimacy.
- c. 375 BCEPlato's allegory of the cave (Republic VII)Prisoners take shadows for things and echoes for speech. The image this site opens with, in full.
- c. 370 BCEPlato's Phaedrus on writing: Theuth and ThamusThe first critique of a technology of knowledge: written words seem to speak, but asked a question, they give one unvarying answer.
- c. 369 BCEPlato's Theaetetus: what is knowledge?The dialogue that first asks what knowledge is, and ends by rejecting every answer it tries, including true opinion with an account.
- c. 300 BCEZhuangzi: the happy fish (the bridge over the Hao)Two friends on a bridge argue about whether anyone can know what a fish enjoys, and the argument turns on where knowledge comes from.
- 1641Descartes on the piece of wax (Meditations II)A piece of wax changes every quality it has near the fire and is still the same wax; men in the street are seen only as hats and cloaks. What we know, Descartes argues, we know by judgement.
- 1690Locke on testimony and probability (Essay IV.xv–xvi)Locke on the two grounds of probability, our own experience and the testimony of others, and on why each further remove from the first witness weakens the proof.
- 1748Hume on testimony: 'Of Miracles' (Enquiry X)Hume's case that our trust in testimony is founded on experience of its conformity to the facts, and that a wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
- 1748Hume on induction and custom (Enquiry IV–V)Why we expect the future to resemble the past, and why, Hume argues, no reasoning can show that it will: the expectation is the work of custom.
- 1764Reid on the principles of veracity and credulityReid's reply to Hume: we are made both to speak the truth and to believe what we are told, two principles that tally with each other.
- 1843Ada Lovelace's Note G: the Engine 'has no pretensions to originate'The first careful statement of what a computing machine does and does not do, by the person who saw furthest into what it could become.
- 1859Mill on knowing only your own side (On Liberty, ch. II)Mill's argument that a true opinion held without knowing its grounds is a dead dogma, not a living truth.
- 1872Samuel Butler's 'The Book of the Machines' (Erewhon)A satirical treatise, written in 1872, warning that machines might evolve consciousness and learn to speak, and that we could not trust in their moral sense.
- 1872Saxe, 'The Blind Men and the Elephant' (full poem)Six men touch six parts of an elephant and each is sure he knows the whole: Saxe's poem after the ancient Indian parable, in full.
- 1877Clifford's 'The Ethics of Belief': the shipownerA shipowner sends an unsound ship to sea, sincerely believing it safe. Clifford argues he is guilty, because he had no right to the belief.
- 1896William James, 'The Will to Believe': two laws, not oneJames answers Clifford: seeking truth and avoiding error are different duties, and a rule that only avoids error can cost us truths we needed.
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