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.
The Copernican Revolution
Astronomy from antiquity to Newton, traced as a developmental whole — the historical study that gave Kuhn the questions answered five years later in Structure
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Copernican Revolution (Early (Kuhn's first book)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| 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 | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The Copernican Revolution
Historical scientific time — the centuries-long unfolding of the Copernican transformation as the medium of conceptual reform.
Space
The Copernican Revolution
The Aristotelian-Ptolemaic spherical cosmos gradually displaced by Copernican-Newtonian infinite homogeneous space.
Matter
The Copernican Revolution
Celestial and terrestrial matter unified under common physical laws in the Newtonian synthesis — the major conceptual achievement of the Revolution.
Observer
The Copernican Revolution
The astronomer-natural-philosopher as the central historical actor — embodied, active, shaped by inherited conceptual frameworks. No metaphysical framework imposed.
Energy
The Copernican Revolution
Implicit; the energy concepts of natural philosophy are part of the transformation traced.
Information
The Copernican Revolution
Astronomical observations preserved and transmitted through institutional practice; theoretical frameworks preserved through pedagogical tradition.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The relation between The Copernican Revolution's historical specificity and Structure's more abstract analytic categories is itself a question. Kuhn himself later said that Structure was a "hasty" elaboration of the framework that Copernican Revolution had developed more carefully. The book has been less widely read than Structure but more widely admired by historians of science.