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.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
All knowledge starts from impressions; causation is custom, not necessary connection; reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| 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 | Both |
| 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 | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Time is the framework within which one impression follows another. There are no synthetic a priori truths about temporal order; we observe sequences and form expectations by custom. Hume's analysis of causation (sections IV–VII) turns on a temporal relation: cause precedes effect, contiguity, and constant conjunction — but no necessary connection discoverable in any impression.
Space
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Space is a relational manifold of co-existing impressions, not a Newtonian container. Hume is not formally a Berkeleyan idealist (he doubts both materialism and idealism with roughly equal force), but he gives no support to substantival space.
Matter
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
External objects, on Hume's analysis, are not directly perceived; they are inferences from the regularities of our impressions. Section XII.1 (of academical scepticism) is agnostic about substantial matter while affirming the practical irresistibility of belief in it.
Observer
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
The Humean observer is the bundle-self: there is no simple, substantival "I" discoverable in introspection, only a stream of impressions and ideas associated by custom. Knowledge is immediate (from impressions) and never extends beyond experience. Agency is mixed — Hume's compatibilism in section VIII analyses freedom as the absence of external constraint, not the absence of causation. Metaphysical agency is None: section XI's polite dialogue undermines natural theology, and section X notoriously argues that no testimony for miracles can outweigh the evidence of standing natural law.
Energy
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Not Hume's topic; the empirical physics of his day is presupposed. Energy in the modern sense was not yet a unified concept in 1748.
Information
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Information is the patterned succession of impressions, relational and discrete (each impression a distinct perception). Personal information is not conserved across death — Hume's essay "Of the Immortality of the Soul" (published posthumously) argues vigorously against personal immortality, and the Enquiry's naturalism gives no place for it.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Hume's text alternates between vigorous scepticism (in argument) and equally vigorous endorsement of common-sense belief (in practice). Section V.2 on "sceptical solution" makes the tension explicit: nature has fitted us to believe what reason cannot ground. Critics ever since (Reid, Kant) have asked whether the position is stable; defenders (Strawson, Garrett) argue it captures the actual structure of human cognition.