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 Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
Clarke's 1705 Boyle Lectures — the eternal and necessary fitness of things as the rational ground of moral obligation
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion (Early-career) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Both |
| 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 | 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 | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| 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 Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
1705 lectures; 1706 publication. Clarke was 30, in the second year of the Boyle-Lecture appointment.
Space
A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
St Paul's Cathedral, London (Boyle-Lecture venue).
Matter
A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
Single Boyle-Lecture treatise (~390 pages in the original). Form is the same demonstrative-propositional method as the 1704 first series, but applied to ethics rather than to the existence of God.
Observer
A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
Early Clarke. The observer is the rising philosophical-theological apologist who would shortly become Newton's principal philosophical interpreter.
Energy
A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
Rationalist-ethical-demonstrative energies. The book combines philosophical analysis (the eternal fitnesses thesis) with apologetic-Christian argument.
Information
A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
Companion volume to the 1704 Demonstration. The eternal-fitnesses thesis is the central philosophical-ethical claim; the Christian-revelation apologetic in Part II makes the philosophical case for revealed religion.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The locus classicus of eighteenth-century English ethical rationalism — provoked Hume's attacks on rationalist ethics in the second Enquiry. The Clarke-Hutcheson-Hume debate over the foundations of morality (rationalism versus sentimentalism) defined eighteenth-century moral philosophy; Kant's mature ethics descends from the rationalist side of this debate.