Cogitatum

Keep the prose. See the reasoning.

A small markup language for arguments in ordinary writing. Keep your outline as it is; mark what a line is doing, and the structure you meant becomes something you can read, check and revise.

Project Cogitatum

The light is on the language.

Project Cogitatum studies inquiry artefacts: writing that keeps questions, reasons and unfinished work open, so that a person, or a person working with an AI, can pick it up again, examine it and revise it. The language is its first part, and the one you can use today.

Available now Cogitatum, the language
In the workshop Reconstruction with AI
Further out Cogitatio

Try it here

Should the library stay open later?

One reason, two objections. The first challenges the attendance count; the second questions what it shows about ordinary evening use. Choose a line to see what it is connected to.

Both objections sit beneath the reason: [O] challenges the reason itself; [O/] challenges the step from the reason to the claim.

An imagined library discussion. Edit a sentence or a mark, and the reading follows.Open this source in the Playground →

Semi-formal, step by step

Formalize only as far as the question needs.

A mark has a precise effect; the words stay yours to interpret. Start with the prose you have, mark what you want to examine, and add or withdraw marks as the inquiry moves.

1Write

- A neighbourhood library is considering later opening hours.
- The library should stay open until eight on weekdays.
  - Forty people visited after six at last month's evening event.

0 points · 0 connections

An ordinary outline. Nothing is claimed about its structure yet.

2Mark what matters

- A neighbourhood library is considering later opening hours.
- [C] The library should stay open until eight on weekdays.
  - [G] Forty people visited after six at last month's evening event.

2 points · 1 connection

Two marks: this line is the claim, that one its reason.

3Question it

- A neighbourhood library is considering later opening hours.
- [C] The library should stay open until eight on weekdays.
  - [G] Forty people visited after six at last month's evening event.
    - [O] The count included repeat entries.
    - [O/] People may have come for the event itself.

4 points · 3 connections

Doubt the evidence, or the step from it. Remove a mark and the line is prose again.

The marks

A mark says what a line does.

[Q]QuestionWhat the inquiry asks.
[C]ClaimA position, or an answer to the question above it.
[G]GroundA reason for the line it sits under.
[O]ObjectionChallenges the line it sits under.
[O/]Objection to the stepQuestions the step from the reason to the claim.
[R]ReplyAnswers an objection.
[D]DistinctionClarifies what the line above means.
[?]GapSomething the argument still needs.

Unmarked lines stay prose. A name such as @claim lets a later line refer back to the same point.

What it does

It shows the structure. It does not judge it.

Plain text, always: A note is a Markdown outline that reads well without any tool, in any editor.
Structure, not verdicts: The compiler recognises the marks and checks references. Whether a claim is true or an inference sound stays with you.
Nothing to sign up for: The compiler, the cog command and the Playground run on your machine or in your browser, with no account or AI service.

Begin

Pick a way in.

Project Cogitatum

The language is the first part of a longer project.

See it as a sky ↑

Available now

The language and its tools

Cogitatum 0.5.0, its compiler and the cog command, this reader and the Playground.

In the workshop

Reconstruction with AI

An assistant proposes the structure of a passage; a person checks each line against the source. Small recorded pilots so far; no claim that it improves an argument.

Further out

Cogitatio

Keeping an inquiry continuous across revisions, review and time. Not available yet.

This site runs compiler 0.5.0. Bring a note where a mark helped or got in the way: the source and issues are on GitHub.