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.
Metaphysics
Being is said in many ways — substance is the focal sense — and the unmoved mover is the eternal actuality at the apex of nature
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Metaphysics |
|---|---|
| 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 | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Total |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Cosmic-ordering |
| 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 | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Metaphysics
The cosmos is eternal — time has no beginning. Book Λ's unmoved mover is the eternal cause of the eternal circular motion of the outermost heaven, which communicates motion downward through nature. Time is substantival in the precise Aristotelian sense (the number of motion with respect to before and after, Physics IV.11), linear, uni-directional.
Space
Metaphysics
The Aristotelian cosmos is a finite, geocentric, hierarchically ordered sphere. Place (topos) is the inner boundary of the containing body. No vacuum, no infinite extension. Substantival in the sense that place is a real structural feature of nature.
Matter
Metaphysics
Prime matter (materia prima) is pure potentiality; every concrete substance is hylomorphic. Matter is substantival within the framework, conserved across substantial changes, locally interactive. The Metaphysics gives the most sustained ancient treatment of matter as a philosophical category.
Observer
Metaphysics
The Aristotelian observer is embodied, plural, active. Knowledge is total in principle (the philosopher can know first causes) but built up through experience and demonstrative reasoning. The metaphysical agency is cosmic-ordering: the unmoved mover is "that for the sake of which" all natural motion is directed, but is not a personal providence. Moral authority is reason.
Energy
Metaphysics
Energeia — actuality — is one of Aristotle's technical achievements. The unmoved mover is pure actuality, eternal, complete. Created actualities are substantival within their finite lives and dissipative in the irreversible sense of natural change.
Information
Metaphysics
The forms are the substantival informational structures of things — eternal patterns realised in matter. The forms are conserved at the cosmic scale; individual substantial forms cease at the end of each particular's existence. Personal immortality is famously unsettled in Aristotle: De Anima III.5 leaves the question of the active intellect's persistence open in a way that Avicenna, Aquinas, and Averroes each resolved differently.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Metaphysics as we have it was not a single book composed by Aristotle; it is a posthumous compilation, and some books (K, especially) overlap with the Eudemian Ethics. The doctrine of the unmoved mover's relation to the world ("how can pure actuality move what it does not touch?") was the central medieval philosophical problem and remains a live point of dispute. Aristotle's treatment of the active intellect (in De Anima, but presupposed in the Metaphysics) supports both Avicennan-Thomistic personal-immortality readings and Averroist unicity-of-intellect readings.