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.
A Treatise of Human Nature
Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions — and the most rigorous Newtonian science of human nature
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | A Treatise of Human Nature (Early) |
|---|---|
| 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
A Treatise of Human Nature
Time is the framework within which one impression follows another. The famous critique of causation turns on a temporal relation observed as constant conjunction.
Space
A Treatise of Human Nature
Space is the relational manifold of co-existing impressions; not a substantival container.
Matter
A Treatise of Human Nature
External objects are inferences from the regularities of our impressions, not directly perceived. Hume is agnostic about material substance.
Observer
A Treatise of Human Nature
The bundle-self: no simple substantival "I," only a stream of impressions and ideas. Mixed agency (compatibilist). Moral authority is experience and sentiment.
Energy
A Treatise of Human Nature
Not engaged philosophically.
Information
A Treatise of Human Nature
Patterned succession of impressions, relational and discrete. Personal information not conserved across death.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Treatise's alternation between rigorous scepticism and endorsement of common-sense belief was acknowledged by Hume himself ("having taken a glass of wine and played a game of backgammon, I find these speculations cold and strained"). The relation between books I, II, and III — whether the moral philosophy presupposes the epistemology or stands independently — has been the subject of major scholarly debate (Stroud, Norton, Garrett).