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.
The Human Condition
Labour, work, action — three distinct activities of the vita activa, and the modern reduction of action to making
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Human Condition |
|---|---|
| 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 | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Tradition |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The Human Condition
Real political time of the public realm. Natality — the human capacity for genuine new beginnings — is the temporal core of Arendt's philosophy.
Space
The Human Condition
The public realm is a real, spatially located human achievement. Substantival.
Matter
The Human Condition
Labour engages biological matter; work fabricates durable objects. Material reality is the substrate of the lower activities.
Observer
The Human Condition
The Arendtian observer is the human person in plurality — embodied, active in the public realm, capable of natality (new beginnings).
Energy
The Human Condition
Not engaged directly.
Information
The Human Condition
The historical record of action — the stories told about the deeds of human beings — preserves human plurality across time.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Arendt's sharp distinctions between labour, work, and action have been criticised as too rigid (her treatment of labour as merely biological is one of the principal targets) and defended as analytically productive. Her relationship to her teacher Heidegger — philosophical, personal, and politically fraught — is the central biographical question.