Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the questions people ask about Philoscopia, its model and its use. For the bigger picture, see [[howItWorks:How it works]]; for the model in detail, The model.
The referential
- What is an axis?
- One of the great questions that run through the history of philosophy (“Are we free?”, “What is a good life?”). There are 80 of them. Each axis lays out its characteristic answers, the poles, between which a body of thought is placed. It is the common frame that makes profiles comparable.
- What is a pole, a median?
- The poles are an axis's characteristic positions (for instance “free will” against “determinism”). Some axes have only two opposed poles, sometimes with a named median for the point of balance; others have several. A position is a placement between those poles, never a mere label.
- Why separate descriptive and prescriptive beliefs?
- Because describing what is and judging what ought to be are not established the same way: a fact is verified, a value is argued for and contested. One does not derive mechanically from the other, this is Hume's distinction between is and ought. Keeping them apart stops a value choice from passing as a plain finding. The detail is on the model page.
- Axis, problem: what is the difference?
- An axis is a stable question that structures the referential and on which profiles are placed. A problem is a live difficulty that lives inside an axis, what is concretely at play there and how it branches out. Axes classify; problems go deeper.
- What are the four relations?
- The axes are sorted by what they put at stake: our relation to truth, to ourselves, to others, to the world. Four orientations, not four sealed boxes: one question often touches several, and is then filed under the one that dominates.
- How are a profile's positions established?
- Each position is first inferred by a top-tier large language model (most often Claude Opus 4.8), then submitted to three other models for checking, and finally reviewed and validated or corrected by an experienced philosophy teacher. A position is explicit or inferred, major or minor, always justified and referenced. It stays open to challenge by design: situating a body of thought cannot be measured exactly, and every position remains open to the community's discussion.
- What are the foundations?
- Beliefs are not independent: a descriptive belief often grounds a prescriptive one. The foundation graph shows, for a position, what it rests on down to the roots, and what it commits to up to the implications.
Building and using your profile
- How do I discover my own profile?
- From the “You” space, by answering the positioning questions: your answers place you on the axes step by step. Conversations with Philos are likewise designed to uncover and test your positions. Nothing is fixed, you can revise at any time.
- What are journeys for?
- A journey puts one of your positions to the test: a sequence of arguments, objections and thought experiments that makes you reflect, then take a reasoned position, ending with exercises to live it.
- What are practices?
- Concrete routines inherited from a philosopher or a movement, to put a belief to the test of action: a Stoic evening review, a discipline of attention, a rule of life. Neither true nor false, but kept or not, fruitful or not.
- What does comparing yourself with a thinker mean?
- We measure the agreement between your positions and theirs on the axes you share alone, with the score and the coverage shown together: a strong agreement on few axes is not a strong agreement on many. The calculation is explained on the scoring page.
Philos, the AI companion
- What is Philos?
- Your AI companion (philos: “friend” in ancient Greek, as in philo-sophy): a philosophical interlocutor that helps you explore, test and articulate your own worldview, anchored in the referential. It takes on several complementary modes of conversation, a set of skills to guide you methodically through the main philosophical approaches: uncovering a position, putting it to the test, comparing yourself with a figure, reading a text, working on a concept, articulating, moving to practice. You open it from any page, with a passage selected or an element in context.
- Can I talk with a philosopher?
- Yes: Philos can embody a figure and answer you in the first person, from their attested positions and arguments and their own manner. It marks what is attested apart from what is inferred, and does not lapse into caricature.
- What does the AI receive of my data?
- The strict minimum the current exchange needs, and nothing that could identify you: no e-mail address, no IP address, ever. The exchange is always anonymous. It is up to you not to give away your own identity (do not use your real name as a nickname, for instance).
- How do I set the level of the replies?
- Three registers, switchable at any time: plain (everyday language, no jargon, very short replies), informed (the core philosophical vocabulary, glossed when needed), in-depth (technical vocabulary, named positions, fine distinctions). They calibrate both the technicity and the length of the replies.
Privacy and offline
- Does my data stay private?
- Yes. Your profile, your positions and your conversations stay on your device, not on our servers. The server keeps nothing personal: only what is needed to sign in and manage your account (an account identifier, your credit balance). The only exception, and it is optional: if you turn on sync across devices, an encrypted profile is stored there, on your decision alone. Exactly what is kept is set out in the privacy policy.
- Does it work offline?
- Everything works without a network, except the conversation with Philos. Exploring, positioning yourself, following a journey: no connection required.
- Which languages are available?
- French and English, both the content and the interface. More languages may follow.
The mobile app
- Will there be a mobile app?
- Yes, a mobile app is planned: the same companionship, with the corpus embedded for fully offline exploration, and the profile staying on your device. For now, Philoscopia is a website.
Premium, credits and AI engines
- Is the conversation with the AI paid?
- The content (axes, profiles, journeys, atlas…) is free to browse; only the conversation with the AI has a real cost at each exchange. It is funded by prepaid credits, billed at the real cost of each message plus a margin that covers running costs (servers, domain, evaluations). No mandatory subscription, no flat per-message fee: you pay only for what you use.
- What does access to the journeys unlock?
- The journeys and the detailed practices call for heavier, more personalized editorial work: they are unlocked by a single, lifetime purchase, which also supports Philoscopia's development. A journey tests your thinking in a guided way, with no recourse to AI at all: a progression of arguments, objections and thought experiments. The detailed practices walk you step by step through putting a position into action.
- Can I use my own AI access?
- Yes. You can supply your own OpenRouter key (the provider is necessarily OpenRouter): your exchanges then go straight to the provider, without passing through our server, without credits or an account, which is the most privacy-respecting option. An experimental local-engine mode also lets you plug in a model running on your own machine.
- Can I reach the referential with my own AI tools?
- Yes: the encyclopedic layer is published as open source, with a local MCP server (philoscopia-referential) that lets you query the referential from your own AI tools.
Content and contribution
- Who writes the content?
- AI-assisted editorial work, reviewed and validated by an experienced philosophy teacher through several loops of evaluation (the process is detailed under "How are a profile's positions established"). The aim is to open that loop to the community through the open-source referential, in the spirit set out in the About page.
- Can I contribute?
- The encyclopedic layer (axes, profiles, glossary, works…) is meant to become open source and open to contributions; the experiential layer (questions, journeys, practices…) stays private. Every contribution is validated automatically before publication.