Eight tables in a dark room, three philosophers at each, and one empty chair.
You take it.
Every table is a question. Plato, Aristotle and Heidegger argue about what is real; Camus, Cioran and Nietzsche ask why anyone should live in a world without meaning. They were already talking before you sat down, and when you speak, they answer you and each other.
| Table | Question | At the table |
|---|---|---|
| Being | What is real? | Plato, Aristotle, Heidegger |
| Knowledge | What can we know? | Descartes, Hume, Kant |
| Ethics | What is the right thing to do? | Aristotle, Kant, Mill |
| Art | What is art for? | Plato, Kant, Nietzsche |
| Politics | Why obey the state? | Hobbes, Rousseau, Marx |
| Religion | Can reason reach God? | Al-Ghazali, Hume, Kierkegaard |
| Science | What makes science science? | Bacon, Popper, Kuhn |
| Meaning | Why live in a world without meaning? | Camus, Cioran, Nietzsche |
Pick a table and the argument is already running: three written openings, played in turn, with nothing to sign up for and nothing to pay. You can listen at all eight tables and never say a word.
To talk back, connect an OpenRouter account. You sign in on OpenRouter's own page and come back to the same table with your message still in the box. An account without credits gets the free model; with credits you can choose any model OpenRouter lists in Settings.
There is no server behind the site. The key OpenRouter gives back is kept in your browser's local storage, and your messages go from your browser straight to OpenRouter. Disconnect in Settings forgets the key.
Each philosopher is a separate call with their own record: what they hold, who they disagree with, how they talk. If you name someone, they answer. If you do not, a short first call picks the one or two the message is really for. Replies stay under about 70 words.
Eleven of the philosophers also bring their own books. The ones whose works can be shared are cut into passages of about 200 words, and your latest message is used to search them. The three best passages go to the philosopher to think with, not to recite: a reply that repeats eight words of a passage in a row, or opens a quotation, has that sentence dropped. Nothing appears on screen as a quote.
The search runs in a web worker in your browser, and a table's books load only when you sit at it.
All 32 works are English translations in the public domain, taken only from a copy whose printed edition is known:
- printed at least 96 years ago, counted from the current year, and
- every translator dead for at least 81 years.
Prefaces, notes and passages added by later editors are removed. Where a transcription
differs from its printed edition, the scan's page images decide. The rules for each work
live in its philosopher's record in philosophers/, and the build refuses a source that
breaks them.
Camus, Cioran, Heidegger, Popper and Kuhn are still under copyright, and no translation of Kierkegaard or Rousseau passed the rules, so these seven speak from their records alone.
To rebuild corpus/ from the sources (Python 3, standard library only):
python scripts/build-corpus.py
python scripts/build-corpus.py --only kant
Downloads are cached in scripts/.cache/.
The Meaning table talks about life, death and despair, so it says so before you sit down, every time, with a link to findahelpline.com.
It is a static site. Serve the folder over HTTP; opening index.html from disk will not load
the books, because browsers do not start a web worker from a file.
python -m http.server 8000
Everything in this repository is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0 Universal: the code, the philosopher records, the openings, the portraits and table scenes. Use any of it for anything, with or without credit.
The books in corpus/ were already in the public domain; they stay there.