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.
Monadology
The world is composed of simple substances — monads — windowless and active, each mirroring the whole; pre-established harmony coordinates them all
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Monadology (Late) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Non-local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Non-local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Total |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Disembodied |
| 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 | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Monadology
Time is relational — the ordering of compossible states across monads. The pre-established harmony means every state of every monad is determined from creation; Leibniz is a strict necessitarian (subject to qualifications about contingency he debated at length).
Space
Monadology
Famously, Leibniz argues against Newton's absolute space in the Clarke-Leibniz correspondence (1715–16): space is the order of co-existing things, time the order of successive things. Modern relationalism in physics descends from this position.
Matter
Monadology
Material bodies are aggregates of monads — well-founded phenomena that present themselves as material to finite perceivers. Matter is therefore emergent rather than fundamental.
Observer
Monadology
Every monad is an observer of sorts — a perspective on the universe. Rational souls (a special class of monads) have reflective self-consciousness, are active in willing and reasoning, and persist across their states. Observer Number is Plural; the world is many minds, not one.
Energy
Monadology
Leibniz developed the modern conservation principle against Descartes's less general one: vis viva (½mv²) is conserved in collisions. The Monadology's metaphysical equivalent is the continuous activity of monads, conserved from creation.
Information
Monadology
Each monad contains a complete description of the universe from its perspective — substantival information at the deepest level. Personal information is conserved across death: rational souls are immortal (§§82–90).
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The most-discussed Leibnizian problem is contingency: if every monad's complete concept includes every state it will ever have, in what sense is anything possible-but-not-actual? Leibniz's answer (infinite analysis: contingent truths are those whose analysis never terminates in identity) has been read variously as a profound insight and as a verbal evasion. The problem of evil — why this world if God chose the best of all possible worlds — is the existential face of the same tension, mercilessly satirised by Voltaire in Candide (1759).