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.
Fragments and Testimonia
Only the present sensation is real, only bodily pleasure is the good, and the wise enjoy without being enslaved
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Fragments and Testimonia |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | not engaged |
| Time · Ontological Status | not engaged |
| Time · Grain | not engaged |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | not engaged |
| Time · Dimensionality | not engaged |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | not engaged |
| Space · Ontological Status | not engaged |
| Space · Curvature | not engaged |
| Space · Dimensionality | not engaged |
| Space · Locality | not engaged |
| Matter · Extent | not engaged |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Matter · Conservation | not engaged |
| Matter · Dimensionality | not engaged |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Immediate |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Singular |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Feeling |
| Observer · Theological Method | N/A |
| Energy · Extent | not engaged |
| Energy · Ontological Status | not engaged |
| Energy · Conservation | not engaged |
| Energy · Dispersibility | not engaged |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | not engaged |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | not engaged |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Fragments and Testimonia
Time is ethically restricted to the present moment: past pleasure is gone, future pleasure is uncertain. The testimonia show no interest in cosmological time. Non-deterministic: the wise person exercises genuine choice in how to enjoy the moment.
Space
Fragments and Testimonia
Space is unthematised. Aristippus famously said "I am a stranger everywhere" — indifferent to place. (Diogenes Laertius II.73)
Matter
Fragments and Testimonia
Matter is accessible only through sensation. The Cyrenaic epistemology brackets the external world: we know our affections, not their material causes. Matter is therefore relational — known only through its effects on the body.
Observer
Fragments and Testimonia
The observer is singular, embodied, and epistemologically isolated: each person knows only their own present sensations. Knowledge is immediate and non-retainable in the strong sense — each moment's sensation is new. Active agency: the wise person chooses how to engage with present pleasure.
Energy
Fragments and Testimonia
No concept of energy. The "smooth motion" (leia kinesis) of the soul that constitutes pleasure is a phenomenological description, not a physical theory.
Information
Fragments and Testimonia
Information is radically private and present. Each sensation is a private affection that cannot be verified intersubjectively. Personal information is not conserved: the present moment is the only locus of reality.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Fragments' central tension is between epistemological solipsism and practical social wisdom. If only present private sensations are knowable, how did Aristippus navigate courts, conversations, and the complex social world with the grace the anecdotes attribute to him? The later Cyrenaics (Hegesias, Anniceris, Theodorus) split precisely over this tension — whether hedonism leads to despair, sociability, or self-deification.