Search by Concept
search_conceptRETURNS QUOTABLE PASSAGES matched by MEANING (cosine similarity on Gemini embeddings, 768d) — paraphrases and adjacent phrasings match even with zero keyword overlap. PICK THIS when the modern term won't literally appear in historical texts — e.g. "distributed cognition" maps to passages about active intellect, art of memory, wax tablet metaphors; "social contract" maps to pre-Hobbesian discussions of consent and authority. → For exact words/distinctive terms use search_translations (cheaper, more precise); to list which BOOKS cover a topic use search_library; if the user named an author/work, get_book first (semantic search is expensive — reserve it for cross-corpus discovery). Similarity calibration: 0.70+ is a strong match, 0.55–0.70 is worth reading but verify, below 0.55 is mostly conceptual drift. Set max_per_book to diversify results across many books rather than cluster on one source. Each passage carries a snippet_type — quote only "translation" snippets, never "summary". Cross-cultural tip: for pre-modern or non-Western topics, also try source-tradition vocabulary — e.g. for seminal economy try "jing preservation" or "bindu yoga" or "istimnāʾ"; for masturbation try "mollities" (Latin) or "hastamaithuna" (Sanskrit) or "shouyin" (Chinese). The corpus is indexed via period translations that use tradition-internal terminology, so adjacent/euphemistic terms often surface material that modern English keywords miss.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| lang | No | ISO code of the EDITION to read, e.g. "es". Default "en". Most books have only English — call get_book and read `editions`, or list_books with has_edition, to find the ones that do not. The response always states which edition it served. | |
| limit | No | Max passages (default 15, max 50) | |
| query | Yes | A concept or natural-language description — full sentences are fine (e.g. "tools that extend the mind beyond the body"). Unlike search_translations, this does NOT require words that appear in the corpus. | |
| author | No | Keep only passages by these authors, e.g. ["Ficino"] or ["della Porta", "Agrippa"]. Matches by name: every word you give must start a word of the book's author field. | |
| year_to | No | Restrict to books published in or before this year. | |
| language | No | Filter by a single original language | |
| diversity | No | How the passages are spread. Default "tradition": each ten holds at most 2 passages per tradition family and per work, so a concept query returns several traditions and not one tradition's nearest pages (a clearly closer match is never passed over). "author": at most one per author and per work, for a cross-author survey. "off": plain nearest-first; use it when looking for one known passage. A quoted query or one naming a year defaults to "off". Each passage carries its book's `tradition` when it has one. | |
| languages | No | Filter to any of these languages, e.g. ["Sanskrit", "Arabic", "Chinese"]. Use instead of language when targeting multiple traditions. | |
| year_from | No | Restrict to books published in or after this year (filters out modern editions and translations). | |
| max_per_book | No | Cap on passages from any single book. Useful when one book dominates the conceptual neighborhood; for one passage per author or per work use max_per_author / max_per_work. | |
| max_per_work | No | Hard cap on passages from one WORK (all printings and editions of it count together, via work_id), so seven printings of De occulta philosophia are one witness, not seven. | |
| max_per_author | No | Hard cap on passages from one author; the rest are DROPPED (unlike diversity, which only re-orders). Set 1 for "N quotes from N different authors". | |
| exclude_authors | No | Drop passages by these authors, e.g. ["Agrippa"]. Use it to iterate a survey: run, see who dominates, exclude, run again. | |
| exclude_languages | No | Exclude these languages, e.g. ["Latin", "French", "German", "English"] to surface non-Western sources. |