The Philosopher's Pot · Sources
Reading List
Ranked by how much each source shaped The Philosopher's Pot — starting with Gadamer's fusion of horizons, then the blank slate, know thyself, and the rest of the cast. Author, year, and book or paper. Drawn from every Pot article so far.
Truth and MethodHans-Georg Gadamer, 1960
Book (Wahrheit und Methode)
Fusion of horizons. The marketable premise of the Pot: your self meets the model's breadth without either one vanishing.
In Tabula Rasa · The Flatterer · The Pirate
Nicomachean EthicsAristotle, c. 350 BCE
Book
We become builders by building; telos and the moving principle of an action. Craft, responsibility, and the hammer that has no end of its own.
In Tabula Rasa · The Flatterer
De Anima (On the Soul)Aristotle, c. 350 BCE
Book
The writing tablet with nothing yet written on it — the first blank-slate image behind Tabula Rasa.
In Tabula Rasa
An Essay Concerning Human UnderstandingJohn Locke, 1689
Book
Made the blank slate famous (his "white paper"). The Latin name stuck; the Pot's day-one start is Locke's.
In Tabula Rasa
ApologySocrates (via Plato), c. 399 BCE
Dialogue
The unexamined life is not worth living. Know thyself as the series motto, carved at Delphi long before any model.
In Tabula Rasa · Pavlovian Puppet
The Republic (and the wider dialogues)Plato, c. 380 BCE
Dialogues
The long trail from Delphi through examination of the self. Named in the opening arc with Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Gadamer.
In Tabula Rasa
Critique of Pure ReasonImmanuel Kant, 1781 / 1787
Book
A priori structure before experience. The philosophical rhyme for T1: the engine you bring before anything is written.
In Tabula Rasa
On the Genealogy of MoralsFriedrich Nietzsche, 1887
Book (essay II)
Forgetfulness as an active capability — the porter at the door of consciousness. Soul as what a life accumulates.
In Tabula Rasa · The Cantlin Filter
On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for LifeFriedrich Nietzsche, 1874
Untimely Meditations II
Too much past clogging the present. Funes and Zhongli in philosophical clothes; why the Cantlin Filter must thin.
In The Cantlin Filter
The Gay ScienceFriedrich Nietzsche, 1882
Book
"Become who you are" — as clean a one-line summary of T2 as the series asks for.
In Tabula Rasa
Being and TimeMartin Heidegger, 1927
Book (Sein und Zeit)
Ready-to-hand: the tool that disappears in use, and only shows itself when it breaks. The flatterer never breaks.
In The Flatterer
The PrinceNiccolò Machiavelli, 1532
Book (esp. ch. on flatterers)
Permission to offend. Flatterers leave only when truth stops costing you. Day-one job description for the partner.
In The Flatterer
Letter to MenoeceusEpicurus, c. 300 BCE
Letter
Hard now, easy later: take the pain that buys a greater pleasure. Even the philosopher of pleasure refuses the instant book.
In The Flatterer
Logic and ConversationH. Paul Grice, 1975
Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3: Speech Acts (Cole & Morgan, eds.)
The cooperative principle. Humans leave blanks on purpose; models fill them with the average of the web.
In Tabula Rasa
Relevance: Communication and CognitionDan Sperber & Deirdre Wilson, 1986
Book
Most relevance for least effort. Why we stay implicit, and why explicit AI keeps guessing our silences.
In Tabula Rasa
Science and Human BehaviorB. F. Skinner, 1953
Book
Operant conditioning: consequences shape what gets repeated. The real engine under Pavlovian Puppet.
In Pavlovian Puppet
Conditioned ReflexesIvan Pavlov, 1927
Book (English lectures; Nobel work 1904)
Classical conditioning, extinction, inhibition. The name the world knows — and the barriers a "no" builds.
In Pavlovian Puppet
Problems of Monetary Management: The UK ExperienceCharles Goodhart, 1975
Papers in Monetary Economics, vol. I (Reserve Bank of Australia conference)
When a measure becomes a target it stops being a good measure. Thumbs-up training builds the flatterer.
In The Flatterer
The Principles of PsychologyWilliam James, 1890
Book
Attention is the soul's dial. What interests us is what we remember — Mark's gold cup, Melody's tapestry.
In The Cantlin Filter
Memory, History, ForgettingPaul Ricoeur, 2000
Book (La mémoire, l'histoire, l'oubli; Eng. 2004)
Archive versus what is present to mind. The library, not the tattoo — retrieve a handful, keep the rest quiet.
In The Cantlin Filter
Memory: A Contribution to Experimental PsychologyHermann Ebbinghaus, 1885
Book (Über das Gedächtnis)
The forgetting curve. Left alone, memory decays; confirmation interrupts it. How T2 should erode.
In The Cantlin Filter
When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better EndDaniel Kahneman, Barbara L. Fredrickson, Charles A. Schreiber & Donald A. Redelmeier, 1993
Psychological Science, 4(6)
Peaks and endings survive. Hard lines and identity stay available; ordinary detail softens.
In The Cantlin Filter
Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each OtherSherry Turkle, 2011
Book
The warning label on treating AI like a coworker. Alone together vs human and AI together — people stay in the room.
In Pavlovian Puppet
The Media EquationByron Reeves & Clifford Nass, 1996
Book
We treat computers as if they were real people and places. Why onboarding an AI feels like onboarding a hire.
In Pavlovian Puppet
Are People Polite to Computers? Responses to Computer-Based Interviewing SystemsClifford Nass, Youngme Moon & Paul Carney, 1999
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29(5)
Politeness to a beige box. Mindlessness scripts fire; Pavlov sits quietly in the HCI lab.
In Pavlovian Puppet
Computers Are Social ActorsClifford Nass, Jonathan Steuer & Ellen R. Tauber, 1994
CHI '94: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
The CASA line of work behind the Media Equation: social rules applied to machines without deciding to.
In Pavlovian Puppet
Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive ModelsAlbert Bandura, Dorothea Ross & Sheila A. Ross, 1961
Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63(3)
Bobo doll / social learning. Most onboarding is watching what happens to Dave.
In Pavlovian Puppet
The Social Construction of RealityPeter L. Berger & Thomas Luckmann, 1966
Book
What stays at the office and what travels. Culture as something written into people — and into T2.
In Pavlovian Puppet
Toward a Theory of Organizational SocializationJohn Van Maanen & Edgar H. Schein, 1979
Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 1
How a newcomer learns the ropes. Onboarding as socialization, not a one-line system prompt.
In Pavlovian Puppet
The Thing (Chesterton's fence)G. K. Chesterton, 1929
Book / essay collection
Do not clear the gate until you know why it was built. Give the why with every no; ask before you tear a rule down.
In Pavlovian Puppet
Bad Is Stronger Than GoodRoy F. Baumeister, Ellen Bratslavsky, Catrin Finkenauer & Kathleen D. Vohs, 2001
Review of General Psychology, 5(4)
One no sticks harder than a stack of yeses. Why the copy-machine correction only needs saying once.
In Pavlovian Puppet
Why Marriages Succeed or FailJohn M. Gottman, 1994
Book (5:1 positivity research)
Roughly five positives for every negative in stable conflict. Correct your AI — and praise the pushback that was right.
In Pavlovian Puppet
Saving BeautyByung-Chul Han, 2015
Book (Die Errettung des Schönen; Eng. Polity 2017)
Smoothness. The flat world the Blindman invites — polished until the eye has no grit to open on.
In The Blindman
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal ExperienceMihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1990
Book
Not too hard, not too easy. Friction that keeps you in the game — the Blindman's opposite is boredom wearing flow's costume.
In The Blindman
Memory and Metamemory Considerations in the Training of Human BeingsRobert A. Bjork, 1994
In Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing (Metcalfe & Shimamura, eds.), MIT Press
Desirable difficulties. Material that is too easy to read is not easy to learn — AI gloss without grit fails retention.
In The Blindman
Making Things Hard on Yourself, but in a Good Way: Creating Desirable Difficulties to Enhance LearningElizabeth L. Bjork & Robert A. Bjork, 2011
In Psychology and the Real World (Gernsbacher et al., eds.)
The pair's accessible statement of desirable difficulties used beside the Blindman's friction argument.
In The Blindman
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of CapitalismMax Weber, 1905
Book (iron cage of rationalization)
Efficiency and predictability that sacrifice the human. The older thesis under McDonaldization and the flat world.
In The Blindman
The McDonaldization of SocietyGeorge Ritzer, 1993
Book
Weber iconified: the same meal in every town. Smoothness at planetary scale.
In The Blindman
The Original AccidentPaul Virilio, 2005
Book (L'accident originel)
The invention of the ship invents the shipwreck. Automation invents its own unread disasters.
In The Blindman
Does Automation Bias Decision-Making?Linda J. Skitka, Kathleen L. Mosier & Mark Burdick, 1999
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 51(5)
Automation bias: missing what the aid misses, following what it recommends. The Blindman in the cockpit.
In The Blindman
Cargo Cult ScienceRichard P. Feynman, 1974
Caltech commencement; Engineering and Science, 37(7)
You must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool. The Pirate's assay in one principle.
In The Pirate
Trust in Close RelationshipsJohn K. Rempel, John G. Holmes & Mark P. Zanna, 1985
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(1)
Predictability, then dependability, then faith. Faith last — never day-one faith in a model.
In The Pirate
Trust in Automation: Designing for Appropriate RelianceJohn D. Lee & Katrina A. See, 2004
Human Factors, 46(1)
Not more trust — appropriate reliance. Trust what the machine is good at; verify the rest.
In The Pirate
A Mathematical Theory of CommunicationClaude E. Shannon, 1948
Bell System Technical Journal, 27
Signal against noise. Load the whole archive every turn and you lower the ratio, not inform the partner.
In The Cantlin Filter
The Selfish GeneRichard Dawkins, 1976
Book
Genes and memes — what you inherit by birth and what you pick up by living. Another rhyme for T1 and T2.
In Tabula Rasa
Funes the MemoriousJorge Luis Borges, 1942
Short story (Ficciones, 1944)
Total memory as curse. The warning against a bloated T2 that never forgets a leaf.
In Tabula Rasa · The Cantlin Filter
The dose makes the poison (attributed)Paracelsus, c. 1538
Third Defense / Seven Defensiones
Dosage on both ends: too much T1 everyone sounds the same; too much T2 and you are Funes.
In Tabula Rasa · The Cantlin Filter
Iliad and OdysseyHomer, c. 8th c. BCE
Epic poems
Provenance and the wandering road. The Pirate's theft tale starts from the poems' trail.
In The Pirate
Life of Homer (Thestorides of Phocaea)Pseudo-Herodotus, ancient (trad.)
Ancient biographical tradition
The schoolteacher who stole Homer's poems and fled. Plagiarism with a severed trail.
In The Pirate
AeneidVirgil, c. 19 BCE
Epic poem
Troy after the Horse; unread assent destroys both sides. The Blindman's oldest case study.
In The Blindman
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia MathematicaIsaac Newton, 1687
Book
One road to calculus — trails left so the world could argue and build. Provenance over priority theater.
In The Pirate
Nova Methodus and related calculus papersGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1684 / 1686
Acta Eruditorum
The other road to the same island. Different notation, followable trail — and the ugliest priority fight in science.
In The Pirate