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.
Critique of Pure Reason
The "Copernican revolution" — the conditions of any possible experience are supplied by the mind, not by things in themselves
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Critique of Pure Reason |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Both |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| 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 | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Both |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| 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
Critique of Pure Reason
Kant's most radical claim: time is a pure form of intuition, a contribution of the mind to experience rather than a feature of things in themselves. "Time is nothing other than the form of inner sense" (CPR A33/B49). Time is therefore "empirically real and transcendentally ideal" — it structures all experience, but does not apply to things as they are independent of mind. Time Ontological Status is Emergent in this precise transcendental-idealist sense.
Space
Critique of Pure Reason
Parallel argument: space is a pure form of outer intuition. "Space is not an empirical concept... it is rather a pure intuition" (CPR A24/B39). Newton's absolute space and Leibniz's relational space are both rejected as accounts of things-in-themselves; both can be salvaged as accounts of the empirically real spatial framework of human experience.
Matter
Critique of Pure Reason
Matter is appearance, structured by the categories of understanding. The Refutation of Idealism (B274–9) argues that the existence of objects outside us is the condition of consistent self-consciousness; matter is not in our heads, but it is also not knowable as it is in itself.
Observer
Critique of Pure Reason
The Kantian observer is plural at the empirical level (individual persons), singular at the transcendental level (the "I think" that must accompany all my representations), embodied in experience, and split between phenomenal determinism and noumenal freedom — the great moral problem the second Critique addresses. The metaphysical agency is personal in regulative use (God as a postulate of practical reason) but not in constitutive use.
Energy
Critique of Pure Reason
Kant's pre-critical Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786) treats matter as composed of attractive and repulsive forces; energy in the modern sense is not yet thematised. The first Critique implies a substantival physics within phenomena, in which conservation principles (matter, force) operate.
Information
Critique of Pure Reason
The categories supply the formal-informational structure of all possible experience. This is relational information in a strong sense — the categories are not "out there" but arise in the constitution of objects. The soul's immortality is a postulate of practical reason (Critique of Practical Reason); within theoretical knowledge it cannot be proven, but the moral law requires it.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Things-in-themselves haunt the Critique. Are they a coherent limit-concept, or do they apply the category of causality illegitimately (in saying that they "cause" appearances)? Hegel's critique on this point set the agenda for German Idealism. The other classic tension: the two editions (A and B) disagree on the unity of consciousness and on the Refutation of Idealism. Most modern editions print both.