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.
A Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity
Bramhall's 1655 reply to Hobbes — defending libertarian free will against Hobbist necessitarianism
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | A Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Finite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | NDet |
| 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 | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Limited |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Revelation |
| 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
A Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity
1655. Bramhall was 61, in exile in Antwerp (Bramhall had left England in 1644 after the Civil War broke out and would not return until 1660 — when he became Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland).
Space
A Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity
Antwerp / London publication. Bramhall and Hobbes had originally conducted the discussion in Paris in 1645 while both were exiled in France during the Civil War; the controversy continued by correspondence and publication.
Matter
A Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity
Interleaved polemical-philosophical treatise. Form is characteristic of seventeenth-century printed-controversy: each Hobbesian assertion is reproduced and answered.
Observer
A Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity
Bramhall as defender of libertarian free will against Hobbist necessitarianism. The observer-bishop is the Caroline-Anglican high-Church philosopher-theologian working out the philosophical implications of the Christian-Aristotelian doctrine of voluntary agency.
Energy
A Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity
Polemical-philosophical energies of the canonical English free-will debate. The Bramhall-Hobbes exchange is the most sustained seventeenth-century English controversy on the question.
Information
A Defence of True Liberty from Antecedent and Extrinsecal Necessity
Hobbes's text plus Bramhall's section-by-section replies. The form preserves both sides of the debate within a single volume — a methodological advantage of seventeenth-century controversial print.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The canonical seventeenth-century English free-will controversy — the locus classicus for libertarian vs. necessitarian arguments. Continuously read in subsequent free-will literature; both positions articulated here remain live in contemporary metaphysics of agency.