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.
The Order of Things
Man is an invention of recent date — and one perhaps nearing its end
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Order of Things |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Time · Grain | Discrete |
| Time · Freedom | Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Relational |
| 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 | Passive |
| 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 | Relational |
| 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
The Order of Things
Discontinuous epistemes succeed one another rupturally, not gradually. Time is real and directional, but historical knowledge is not cumulative in the simple sense.
Space
The Order of Things
Not theorised directly.
Matter
The Order of Things
The material conditions of knowledge production shape what can be known.
Observer
The Order of Things
The Foucauldian observer is shaped by the episteme; the subject is plural at the empirical level, historically conditioned. Largely passive — what can be thought is determined by the conditions of thought.
Energy
The Order of Things
Power as the energetic principle in subsequent works (Discipline and Punish); already implicit here in the analysis of knowledge production.
Information
The Order of Things
Discursive formations are the relational informational structure of any episteme. No commitment to personal information conservation.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The "death of man" thesis was widely controversial and Foucault's subsequent work moved toward more specific political-historical analysis. The relation between his early archaeological method and the later genealogical-power analytics has been the central interpretive question. Foucault distanced himself from "structuralism" but the book is recognisably structuralist in method.