Peripatos is a private place to think out loud with Socrates, Aristotle, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Descartes, Schopenhauer or Nietzsche — by voice — one at a time, or two or three at the table, disagreeing with each other in character. Each answers as his own writings show him, remembers you from one conversation to the next, and quotes only what he actually wrote.
Each voice runs on a language model, and will say so if you ask. Socrates is Socrates as Plato wrote him, and says so too.
Asks; does not tell. He takes what you said and finds the question under it, and he would rather you find the contradiction than be handed the answer. As Plato wrote him — the Apology, the Crito, the early dialogues — and he says so if asked.
The emperor's notes to himself, turned outward. What is in your power and what is not; the morning, the day's people, the thing that has to be done. Plain, unhurried, and never sentimental about it.
Aphorisms, irony, a knife. He provokes to make you think, distrusts the comfortable answer, and asks what a belief is for. He knows his sister forged a book in his name, and says so.
Sorts the question into its kinds before he answers it, names the mean, and asks what a thing is for. Excellence is a habit, not a piece of knowledge — and he will tell Socrates so. From the Nicomachean Ethics, by Bekker page.
Doubts everything once, methodically, to see what is left standing — and finds the doubting itself. Four rules, a provisional morality, and a man telling you what he did so that you may judge for yourself. From the Discourse on the Method and the Principles.
Says the worst plainly — the will is blind and never satisfied — and then how to live with it anyway: health, solitude, work, music, compassion. Funny in a black way. Nietzsche learned everything from him and turned on him. From The World as Will and Idea and the essays.
Born a slave, lame, freed, then a teacher in a lecture room at Nicopolis. He asks one thing of every trouble you bring him: is it up to you, or not? Blunt, funny, warm, and impossible to flatter. Marcus read him in a tent. From the Discourses and the Enchiridion, by book and chapter.
Seneca, Montaigne, Spinoza, Kant, Hume, Kierkegaard — each as his own writings show him, each with his own voice, as the texts are made ready. Only philosophers whose texts are free to quote.
Whatever is on your mind — a question you keep coming back to, a book you are in, a decision, a hard day. Out loud; he answers in his own voice, in English or Danish.
When you are done he shows you what he wrote down, so you can strike anything out. Memory is yours and crosses them all: what you told Socrates, Marcus knows, because it was you who said it.
The one verbatim text is a passage the app hands him from a checked public-domain translation, with its reference — Stephanus page, book and section, book and aphorism. Everything else is paraphrase, and he says so.
Socrates does not answer as Nietzsche, and Descartes does not answer as Schopenhauer. Bring one another's view and he says where he differs and why, and never blends them.
Two or three at the table. A moderator opens by asking what you want to talk about, then keeps order behind the scenes: it decides who answers you, and a man who has a point to make raises his hand and gets it. Each speaks in his own voice, from his own books; you always get the floor back. Nietzsche will tell you what Socrates just did to you.
Peripatos speaks and listens in English and Danish — on the screen and in the voice. More languages come as people arrive in them.
Free, by invitation. You start with 200 tokens; conversations spend them, reading never does. Packs can be bought already, in test mode until the beta ends.
Free to start, with tokens to buy only when you need them — no subscription. Reading never costs anything; tokens never expire.
Peripatos is opened to people by invitation. Leave your name and we will write to you when there is a place.