Epistemator

Epistemic analysis tools for Claude Code — process ideas, texts, and questions through philosophical reasoning frameworks.

Why

AI gives you summaries. You want the truth.

You asked AI to review an article. It gave you five bullet points. Now what? You can't defend a position with a summary. You can't make a decision based on a shorter version of someone else's thinking. You can't spot a flaw that was faithfully preserved in compressed form.

Summaries tell you what was said. They never tell you why you should believe it.

Epistemator runs ideas through philosophical frameworks that do what summaries can't:

• Stress-test the argument — is this actually defensible? (Scholastic)
• Expose the structure — what are the real moving parts? (Cartesian)
• Find the value — where does quality actually lie? (Pirsig)
• Challenge the framing — what would we see from a different angle? (Six Hats)

Quick Start

/scholastic Is free will compatible with determinism?
/sixhats Should we adopt microservices?
/epistemic --compare https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html

Frameworks

Command	Framework	Question It Answers
/scholastic	Modern Scholasticism (Aquinas)	"Is X true?" — structured disputation via quaestio disputata
/cartesian	Cartesian Reductionism (Descartes)	"What are the parts?" — systematic decomposition to first principles
/pirsig	Metaphysics of Quality (Pirsig)	"What is better?" — analysis through static/dynamic quality patterns
/sixhats	Six Thinking Hats (De Bono)	"How should we think about this?" — structured parallel thinking from six perspectives
/epistemic	Multi-framework orchestrator	Suggests, compares, or lets you pick frameworks

Usage

Slash Commands

Each framework has a slash command. Pass your topic or question as the argument:

/scholastic Is free will compatible with determinism?
/cartesian Why is our deployment pipeline so slow?
/pirsig Should we prioritize code elegance or shipping speed?
/sixhats Should we adopt a microservices architecture?

Natural Language

Frameworks also trigger automatically when Claude detects a matching intent:

Analyze the argument that AI will replace all programming jobs
Break down our authentication system into its component parts
Assess the quality tradeoff between test coverage and development speed
Put on the six hats and evaluate our hiring process

Modes

Structured (default) — produces a complete formatted analysis in a single output, following each framework's methodology step by step.

Interactive (--interactive) — a Socratic guided session where Claude walks through the analysis one step at a time, asking for your input and refining the analysis collaboratively.

/scholastic --interactive Does consciousness require a physical substrate?
/cartesian --interactive Why do our microservices have circular dependencies?

Multi-Framework Analysis

The /epistemic command runs multiple frameworks on the same input and produces a comparative synthesis.

# Auto-suggest best frameworks, ask for confirmation (default)
/epistemic Should our startup pivot to a subscription model?

# Run all four frameworks in parallel
/epistemic --compare The tension between individual freedom and collective responsibility

# Choose which frameworks to apply
/epistemic --pick Is democracy the best form of government?

The comparative synthesis includes: Convergence (where frameworks agree), Divergence (what each lens sees that others miss), Synthesis (insights only visible through multiple lenses), and Meta-Observation (what the pattern of agreement reveals about the nature of the question).

Analyzing Articles and Videos

Pass a URL and Claude will fetch the content and run the analysis on it:

/scholastic https://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html
/cartesian https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/
/pirsig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4
/sixhats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Works with /epistemic too — compare multiple lenses on the same piece:

/epistemic --compare https://paulgraham.com/superlinear.html
/epistemic --pick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYfNvmF0Bqw

Installation

Add the marketplace and install:

claude plugin marketplace add askarzh/epistemator
claude plugin install epistemator

Or install manually by cloning:

git clone https://github.com/askarzh/epistemator.git ~/.claude/plugins/epistemator
claude plugin install ~/.claude/plugins/epistemator

After installation, restart Claude Code. The slash commands (/scholastic, /cartesian, /pirsig, /sixhats, /epistemic) will be available immediately.

Project Structure

.claude-plugin/plugin.json    # Plugin manifest
skills/
  scholastic/SKILL.md         # Framework methodology + prompts
  cartesian/SKILL.md
  pirsig/SKILL.md
  sixhats/SKILL.md
  epistemic/SKILL.md
commands/
  scholastic.md               # Slash command wrappers
  cartesian.md
  pirsig.md
  sixhats.md
  epistemic.md                # Multi-framework meta-command
agents/
  epistemic-analyst.md         # Orchestrator agent

Adding a New Framework

1. Create skills/<id>/SKILL.md — write the methodology with YAML frontmatter (name, description, version)
2. Create commands/<id>.md — thin wrapper that invokes the skill (copy any existing command as template)
3. Add a row to the Known Frameworks table in agents/epistemic-analyst.md

License

MIT