※ How it works
A gloss for every hard word.
Be-ing is a reading room for difficult books. This page explains the apparatus: what a gloss is, where the books come from, and what happens between uploading a book and reading it.
† The gloss
A definition written for the page it sits on.
A gloss is a short definition written for one term in one book. Not what the word usually means — what it means here, inside this author’s argument.
Generic dictionaries fail at exactly this point. Look up substance and you get matter, material, the stuff of a thing; in Spinoza’s Ethics, substance is that which exists through itself alone, and the whole book turns on the difference. Dasein gets rendered as “existence,” which loses everything Heidegger built the word to carry. A priori has a dictionary meaning and a Kantian meaning, and only one of them helps you read the Critique.
So every book on Be-ing gets its own glossary, term by term, written against the text itself. The same word can carry different glosses in different books, because it means different things in them.
…we shall understand by a priori knowledge, not knowledge independent of this or that experience, but knowledge absolutely independent of all experience.
※ Gloss
a priori — known independently of all experience. Not “learned earlier”: Kant is asking whether any knowledge owes nothing to experience at all, and the whole Critique is the test.
§ The library
The canon, glossed and free.
The library is built from public-domain books — the Ethics, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Meditations, the Stoics — each one fully glossed before it reaches the shelf. Reading them costs nothing and always will.
Browse by era, school, or region, or start from a collection — a shelf of related books that belong together. Every book in the library carries the full margin apparatus.
‡ Your own books
From a file you own to a glossed edition.
Patron · Coming soon- 01
Upload a book you own
EPUB, PDF, or plain text — the common formats. Drop the file and Be-ing takes it from there.
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Be-ing reads it
The whole book, chapter by chapter, finding the load-bearing terms — the words that would otherwise send you to a dictionary.
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Glosses are written
Each term gets a definition written against this book's argument, not a general one borrowed from somewhere else.
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It appears on your shelf
Ready to read, with the full margin apparatus. Your highlights and notes work the same as in the library.
Processing takes a little while for long books — glossing happens chapter by chapter, and your shelf shows progress as it goes.
Uploading is part of the Patron plan, a small monthly amount. Billing isn’t live yet; see pricing for what it will include.
¶ While you read
Everything stays on the page.
Glosses in the margin
Tap a marked term and its gloss appears beside the text. Tap back into the book; your place never moves.
Highlights and notes
Mark passages and keep notes alongside them, the way you would in a margin — except legible, and searchable later.
Share a passage
Send any passage to someone by link, glosses included, so the person you send it to can actually read it.
Ambient backdrops
Optional video backdrops sit quietly behind the text. Some readers like the company; some turn them off. Both are right.
※ Questions
Common questions.
What formats can I upload?
EPUB, PDF, and plain text. EPUB works best because it keeps the book's structure intact; PDFs and plain text are read and structured as part of processing.
Is the free library really free?
Yes. The books are public domain, and once a book is glossed the work serves every reader who comes after. There is no trial and nothing to cancel.
How long does glossing take?
Most books are ready within hours. Long books take longer — glossing happens chapter by chapter, and careful beats fast. Your shelf shows progress while it works, and the book opens as soon as it's done.
Do you sell my books or data?
No. Books you upload stay private to your shelf, we use them only to write your glosses, and we don't sell your data to anyone.
Do I need to pay to read?
No. The public-domain library is the free plan, in full. Paying — once Patron opens — only adds the ability to upload books you own.