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.
Reden der Unterweisung
Detachment, "innerness," and the abandonment of self-will — the foundations of the contemplative life
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Reden der Unterweisung (Early (Eckhart's first major vernacular work, written before the trials of his last decade)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Space · Curvature | Undefined |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Non-local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| 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 | Both |
| Observer · Number | Singular |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| 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
Reden der Unterweisung
The daily monastic time — the round of prayer, work, instruction — as the temporal framework within which detachment is practised.
Space
Reden der Unterweisung
The cloistered community as the social-spatial setting; the "ground of the soul" as the inner non-spatial place.
Matter
Reden der Unterweisung
The embodied young Dominican whose ordinary monastic practice the Reden direct.
Observer
Reden der Unterweisung
The novice whose self-knowledge and detachment Eckhart is forming.
Energy
Reden der Unterweisung
The disciplined energies of the contemplative life — obedience, poverty, suffering rightly borne.
Information
Reden der Unterweisung
The pastoral teaching of the Reden — direct instruction in the basics of the contemplative life.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Some of the doctrines that would be condemned in the 1326-29 trial appear in nascent form in the Reden (the ground of the soul, the birth of the Word in the soul, detachment as the supreme virtue) but the work's pastoral framing protected it from the controversy. The Reden are sometimes treated as the more "orthodox" Eckhart against the bolder German sermons; this is misleading — the same teaching is there, just in a different register.