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.
Spirit and Reason
Deloria's 1999 essays — Native philosophy of religion and politics
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Spirit and Reason (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Non-Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Bi-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| 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 | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Impersonal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Tradition |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Spirit and Reason
Material composed 1960s-1990s; reader-publication 1999; mature-late Deloria career.
Space
Spirit and Reason
Composed across Deloria's various academic and Native-political-organisational locations (Washington DC, Tucson, Boulder, Standing Rock); transnational subsequent Native-Studies and broader academic readership.
Matter
Spirit and Reason
Native-American religious-and-philosophical thought, federal Indian law and treaty rights, the critique of Western academic anthropology and archaeology, contemporary Native-American politics and culture.
Observer
Spirit and Reason
Mid-to-late Deloria as the foundational Native-American intellectual of the late-twentieth-century period; combining law, theology, history, and philosophy in single voice.
Energy
Spirit and Reason
Philosophical-polemical, legal-analytical, religious-pluralist, sharply-critical-of-Western-academic-disciplines energies.
Information
Spirit and Reason
Reader-anthology format; gathering essay-material across the four main Deloria domains; aimed at Native-Studies and broader academic-philosophical-religious-studies readerships.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Spirit and Reason is a standard reference for Native-American-Studies and for engagement of Western thought with indigenous traditions. Deloria's critique of Western academic anthropology and archaeology (especially as developed in Red Earth, White Lies) provoked sustained controversy in the relevant academic disciplines; the controversy continues to shape methodological debates over the relation between Western-academic and Native-indigenous ways of knowing.