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 Practical Reason
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration — the starry heavens above me, and the moral law within me
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Critique of Practical Reason (Late) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Multiple |
| 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 | 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
Critique of Practical Reason
Within phenomenal time, the moral agent acts; the noumenal self is free in a way that does not violate phenomenal causal closure. The famous compatibilism of the two standpoints.
Space
Critique of Practical Reason
Standard Kantian treatment as form of intuition.
Matter
Critique of Practical Reason
Sensible matter is the field of moral action; noumenal reality is the locus of freedom. Relational in the precise Kantian sense.
Observer
Critique of Practical Reason
The Kantian observer is the rational agent — phenomenally embodied, noumenally free, plural at the empirical level, ideally autonomous. Moral authority is pure practical reason. Metaphysical agency (God) is a postulate.
Energy
Critique of Practical Reason
Not engaged in the moral philosophy directly.
Information
Critique of Practical Reason
The moral law is the substantival a priori informational structure of practical reason. Personal immortality is a postulate.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The relation between the second Critique's postulates and the first Critique's denial of speculative theology has been the central interpretive question. Hegel criticised the postulates as inadequate; later Kantians (Rawls, O'Neill) read them as deliberately limited practical commitments.