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.
Experience and Nature
Experience and nature are not opposed — experience is how we know nature, and nature is what experience is of
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Experience and Nature (Late) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Infinite |
| 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 | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Immediate |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Non-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
Experience and Nature
Standard naturalistic temporal realism. Inquiry unfolds in time and is essentially temporal.
Space
Experience and Nature
Standard scientific realism. Substantival.
Matter
Experience and Nature
Real, the environment with which organisms interact. Conserved in the standard scientific sense.
Observer
Experience and Nature
The Deweyan observer is the embodied human organism engaging its environment. Plural, active in inquiry. Moral authority is experience tested in practice.
Energy
Experience and Nature
Standard scientific energetics.
Information
Experience and Nature
Meanings emerge in social interaction; knowledge is constructed through inquiry. Personal information not philosophically conserved.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Dewey's "naturalism" has been read in opposite directions: as a reductive scientism (the charge from religious critics) or as a broad humanism preserving the value of experience against reductive scientific materialism. Modern Deweyans (Hilary Putnam, Robert Westbrook) emphasise the second reading.