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.
Madness and Civilization
The history of madness in the classical age — Foucault's 1961 doctoral dissertation that opened his career-long project
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Madness and Civilization (Early (Foucault's breakthrough work, his doctoral dissertation)) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Constructed |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Madness and Civilization
Historical time as the medium of changing conceptions of madness — from Renaissance to classical age to modern.
Space
Madness and Civilization
The institutional spaces of confinement (the General Hospital of Paris, the asylum) as concrete sites of the analysis.
Matter
Madness and Civilization
The embodied bodies of the mad — subject to historically changing institutional treatment.
Observer
Madness and Civilization
The mad subject as historically constructed; the Foucauldian historian as the analyst of this construction.
Energy
Madness and Civilization
The institutional energies of confinement, classification, treatment.
Information
Madness and Civilization
The historically constructed knowledge of madness — neither universal nor natural.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Jacques Derrida's 1963 essay "Cogito and the History of Madness" sharply criticised Foucault's reading of Descartes, leading to a long and famous dispute. Subsequent historians of psychiatry (Roy Porter especially) have criticised some of Foucault's historical claims; the basic philosophical framework has remained influential. The 2006 full English translation has restored material the 1965 abridgment had cut.