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.
Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
Three rival modes of contemporary moral enquiry — Encyclopaedic, Genealogical, Traditioned — with the case for the Thomist-Aristotelian Traditioned version
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Late (third volume of the After Virtue trilogy)) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Tradition |
| 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
Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
Tradition-constituted historical time — philosophical traditions develop through historical time, responding to internal crises.
Space
Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
The institutional-social space of philosophical tradition — universities, schools, communities of inquiry.
Matter
Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
Embodied human life as the substrate of moral-philosophical reflection.
Observer
Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
The tradition-constituted philosophical enquirer — plural, embodied, active in enquiry but constituted by inherited frameworks. Personal-providential God in the Thomist framework.
Energy
Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
The intellectual-historical energies of tradition — maintained, criticised, developed.
Information
Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry
The accumulated practical-philosophical wisdom of the tradition, preserved through institutional-textual transmission.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Whether MacIntyre's case for the Thomist-Aristotelian tradition can be made without circularity — isn't the standard of "rational adequacy" itself tradition-constituted? — has been a continuing scholarly question (Stanley Hauerwas with sympathy, Jeffrey Stout with criticism). The book's genre — Gifford Lectures, traditionally focused on natural theology — has its own complicated relation to MacIntyre's Thomist commitments. The relation between Three Rival Versions and the subsequent Dependent Rational Animals (1999) — which qualifies the Aristotelian anthropology — is itself a continuing interpretive theme.