3.1The primary text
The primary text is Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay (1795), in the English translation by M. Campbell Smith (1903), read in the Project Gutenberg transcription listed in the parent study's texts.json (eBook 50922, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/50922/pg50922.txt). The file was downloaded for this article and its SHA-256 digest checked against the prefix recorded in texts.json (832e24a28acf492d); the prefix matched. Every quotation of Kant is copied character for character from that file, with line breaks closed up into single spaces. Passages marked with underscores for italic type, the translator's footnotes and the translator's introduction are not used.
The reading note on Perpetual Peace covers the first and sixth preliminary articles and the three definitive articles. This article also reads the third preliminary article, the closing remarks on the preliminary articles, and the two appendices. Its readings of those passages are its own.
3.2The records
The two records come from Meridian's published collection of fifty defence questions. Each sets out a decision in a fictional polity before its outcome: a decider and mandate, a deadline, three options with trade-offs, unknowns, stakes, boundaries, conditions for reopening, and two later developments. Each is followed by thirteen judgments generated by AI: eleven from named perspectives, a staff synthesis and a judgment made alone (the solo judgment). All carry the creation date 2026-09-09.
The records are modern summaries written by AI for the platform, and every institution, event and figure in them is synthetic. They are not records of any real treaty, verification regime, video or committee. The originals are in Korean; this article quotes the English translation made once for the parent study and stored beside each record.
The study refers to the two cases by the short titles of its plan. Arms verification data publication is the record whose English title is Publication Unit for Arms Reduction Verification Data (setting year 2044). Unverified video disclosure is the record whose English title is Unverified video and scope of disclosure (setting year 2026). The first names Cassandra as its symbolic frame, the second the blind men and the elephant; this article mentions the second frame once and otherwise does not use either. Block quotations from a record are followed by the short title and the field. Judgments are named by their perspective and claim.
The second record is not about a treaty. It concerns an information crisis around relief shelters in a fictional city. It is included because its decision has the same form as the first, a choice of who may see contested evidence and what is published about it, and because its judgments state more directly a weakness of the open reserve. Section 6 says where the analogy holds and where it does not.
3.3The ledger
The parent study built a ledger of its fifty defence questions. A program copied out what each record states directly, such as the decider, the deadline, the conditions for reopening and the option each judgment chose. Two models of different families then read each record separately and answered the same questions about it, such as who bears the cost of waiting and how hard the decision would be to undo. Each answer was marked as stated in the record's words or inferred from the setting. Where both readers agreed, the cell is settled; otherwise it is unsettled. The study read eight pre-registered hypotheses against the ledger twice, strictly and leniently. The ledger does not measure openness, verification or credibility. It enters this article in Section 7.4, in plain words, and in the appendix.
3.4How the reading proceeds
Section 4 reads Kant as a case in its own right and draws three propositions. Sections 5 and 6 each open with a claim about one record, read it at length, and bring the propositions to bear. Section 7 returns to the debate and states what the readings can and cannot carry.