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 Elementary Structures of Kinship
Kinship as a system of exchange — the incest prohibition as the threshold between nature and culture
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The Elementary Structures of Kinship (Early (Lévi-Strauss's breakthrough work; the foundation of structural anthropology)) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | 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 | Mediated |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Partial |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Constructed |
| Observer · Theological Method | N/A |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| 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 Elementary Structures of Kinship
A-historical structural time; the same kinship structures operate across millennia.
Space
The Elementary Structures of Kinship
Standard substantival physical space.
Matter
The Elementary Structures of Kinship
Standard substantival matter; kinship operates over biological-material persons.
Observer
The Elementary Structures of Kinship
Plural human observers whose mental structures Lévi-Strauss takes to be universal.
Energy
The Elementary Structures of Kinship
Standard physics.
Information
The Elementary Structures of Kinship
Relational; meaning is positional within a structural system.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Subsequent feminist anthropology (Gayle Rubin, "The Traffic in Women" 1975) challenged the patriarchal framing of women-as-exchanged-objects. Post-1970s social anthropology has moved away from rigid structural-systemic kinship analysis toward more flexible, practice-oriented approaches. The structuralist method survives the specific kinship analyses.