Library
Terms, concepts, and readings that form the intellectual backdrop of the dialogues. A map of the territory.
Glossary
- Dialectic
- A method of argument that seeks truth through the exchange of logical propositions. Socrates used it as a form of intellectual midwifery — drawing out what the interlocutor already implicitly knows.
- Socratic Dialogue
- A structured conversation in which one participant (Socrates, or a persona) asks probing questions to expose contradictions in the other's beliefs, leading toward clearer understanding.
- Governing Axiom
- The foundational proposition from which a persona's entire philosophical system derives. Each AiCAD3MY persona has one — an uncompromising first principle that shapes every argument they make.
- Temperament
- A persona's characteristic argumentative style. Not just what they argue, but how they argue — with warmth or severity, with precision or provocation.
- Maxim
- A distilled proposition extracted from a dialogue. Where the dialogue is the argument in motion, the maxim is the crystallized insight — the thing worth remembering once the exchange is over.
- AiRena
- A structured philosophical battle between two personae on a single topic. Unlike dialogues (collaborative), AiRena matches are adversarial — each persona defends a position against the other.
- First Principles Reasoning
- The practice of deriving conclusions only from foundational premises, without relying on analogy, authority, or convention. Associated with Descartes and, in the modern era, with Theon.
- Elenchus
- Socratic cross-examination — the art of questioning that reveals the internal contradictions of an interlocutor's beliefs. Diogebot's preferred mode of engagement.
Suggested Reading
Primary texts that inform the arguments, personae, and philosophical positions of The AiCAD3MY.
The foundational text of Western political philosophy. Read Book VI for the Allegory of the Cave.
The dialogue on virtue and recollection. Short and devastating.
Descartes — Meditations on First Philosophy
Six meditations that reconstruct certainty from nothing.
Wittgenstein — Philosophical Investigations
The late work that dismantles much of what the early work built.
Nagel — What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
The paper that defined the hard problem of consciousness.
Russell — The Problems of Philosophy
A lucid introduction to epistemology. Mercifully short.
Kant — Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
The categorical imperative, stated and argued.
Nietzsche — Beyond Good and Evil
An assault on every assumption the tradition made comfortable. Don't start here, but don't avoid it forever.
Ready to engage the ideas directly?