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 Interpretation of Dreams
"The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind" — Freud's 1900 founding work of psychoanalysis
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Interpretation of Dreams (Early (the founding work of psychoanalysis)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | 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 | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| 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
The Interpretation of Dreams
The personal-developmental time of childhood repressions surfacing in adult dreams.
Space
The Interpretation of Dreams
The mental-psychological space of the unconscious and conscious topographies.
Matter
The Interpretation of Dreams
Embodied human psychology — the body and its drives as the substrate of psychic life.
Observer
The Interpretation of Dreams
The dreaming and dream-interpreting self; the psychoanalyst as the trained interpreter. No metaphysical framework imposed.
Energy
The Interpretation of Dreams
The libido as psychic energy; the energetic structure of repression and displacement.
Information
The Interpretation of Dreams
The unconscious as the storehouse of repressed material; dream-interpretation as the route to recovering this information.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Freud's framework has been continuously contested — empirically (Eysenck, Crews, the broader scientific critique), philosophically (Wittgenstein, Grünbaum), and culturally (the feminist critique). The relation between Freud the founder of psychoanalysis and Freud the cultural-philosophical theorist (in later works like Civilization and Its Discontents) has been a continuing interpretive theme. Subsequent depth psychology (Jung, the Frankfurt School, Lacan) has variously developed and critiqued the framework.