Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
On Truth
Truth as "rectitude" — Anselm's philosophical analysis of truth in propositions, opinions, will, action, sensation, and substantial being
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | On Truth (Mature) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
On Truth
c. 1080-1085. Anselm was about 50, prior of Bec since 1063, abbot since 1078; not yet archbishop of Canterbury (1093).
Space
On Truth
Bec abbey (Normandy) — Anselm's monastic context until the 1093 move to Canterbury. The dialogue's dramatic form (teacher and student) reflects the monastic-pedagogical setting.
Matter
On Truth
Single short Latin dialogue (13 chapters, ~30 pages). Form is compressed-systematic: each domain (statement, thought, will, action, senses, things, supreme truth) gets a short chapter.
Observer
On Truth
Middle Anselm. The observer is the philosophical-theological master in dialogue with the student, working out the metaphysical foundation of the project the Monologion and Proslogion had carried out.
Energy
On Truth
Scholastic-dialectical energies. The dialogue's argumentative engine is the question-answer-objection pattern that would shape the high-medieval scholastic disputation.
Information
On Truth
Single short dialogue. The work's principal informational structure is the convergence-thesis at chapter 13: all truths participate in the Supreme Truth that is God.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
First of Anselm's three dialogues; the metaphysics-of-truth foundation for his theological work. Aquinas's 'De Veritate, q. 1' (his great early disputation on truth, 1256-59) directly engages and extends the Anselmian framework, making De Veritate's influence reach the high scholastic synthesis.