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.
Either/Or
The aesthetic life of immediate pleasure vs the ethical life of commitment — and the choice that constitutes the self
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Either/Or (Early) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| 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 | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| 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
Either/Or
The aesthete lives in the immediate present; the ethical agent lives in the continuity of repetition and commitment. Time is morally significant.
Space
Either/Or
Lived Copenhagen of the bourgeois nineteenth century. Substantival.
Matter
Either/Or
The material conditions of married, working, civic life are real and significant.
Observer
Either/Or
The Either/Or observer is the choosing individual — embodied, plural, active. Moral authority is the experience of choice itself, though the ethical stage culminates in encountering the religious.
Energy
Either/Or
Not engaged.
Information
Either/Or
Real choices shape real selves across time.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Where the work itself sits in Kierkegaard's authorship has been disputed. Either/Or presents the aesthetic and ethical voices without an explicit religious resolution; the later pseudonymous works (Fear and Trembling, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Sickness Unto Death) push toward the religious stage. Whether Either/Or itself favours the ethical over the aesthetic, or holds them in genuine tension, has been argued ever since.