Topic Matrix

The cross-corpus layer: topic × philosopher → a one-sentence position plus the
grounding slugs of his knowledge base. Each topic is an axis of dispute; within
a file the positions are grouped into clusters of allies, and the sharpest
oppositions are named at the end. A philosopher is included only if his corpus
actually holds a position on the topic.

• Suffering — an evil to be treated, or the material that elevates?
• Will — the engine of life, a blind force, or something to renounce?
• Death — learn to die, prepare for it, ignore it, or seek a meaning it cannot destroy?
• Faith and God — a wager, the strength of life, a method, an instrument, or silence?
• Morality — a real norm, a useful skill, or a mask (of fear, self-love, weakness)?
• Power — a technique of holding it, a psychology of submission, or power over oneself alone?
• Wealth and Work — service and a law of nature, an exact science, or vanity and parasitism?
• Success and Effort — method and perseverance against non-action and the futility of striving.
• Self-Knowledge — can one see oneself honestly, and with what: the pen, the examen, the deed?
• Self-Improvement — the craft of habit, a spiritual method, self-overcoming — or violence against what grows of itself?
• The Crowd and Society — does the mass dissolve the individual, and what can be set against it?
• Passions and the Ego — eradicate desire, unmask it, discipline it, or consecrate it?
• Happiness — a positive goal, the absence of pain, a by-product, or a false compass?
• Truth and Knowledge — what tests knowledge: reason, the heart, the deed, the result — and is there any scale at all?
• Habit and Discipline — habit as the builder of virtue and faith against habit as a tyrant.
• Freedom — through renouncing externals, through self-mastery, through independence — or does no one really want it?
• Love and Compassion — the basis of morality and of works, or weakness and self-love in disguise?
• Fate and Control — fortune, the Tao, the dichotomy of control, and the "exact science" of results.

Adjacent layer: the index of contradictions — pairs of opponents along the axes.