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.
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
There are no traditionless standards of rationality — only tradition-constituted enquiries. Four traditions of practical rationality, with the Aristotelian-Thomistic the most adequate
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Mid-late (the second 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
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Traditions develop through historical time; rational inquiry is essentially diachronic. Time is the medium of philosophical progress.
Space
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
The polis as the space of practical rationality; the community as the site of tradition-constituted inquiry.
Matter
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Embodied human life as the substrate of practical reasoning; the body and its needs as constraining the possible ends.
Observer
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
The rational agent as essentially tradition-formed; plural, embodied, active in inquiry but constituted by inherited frameworks.
Energy
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
The intellectual-practical energy of tradition maintained, criticised, extended.
Information
Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Tradition as the storehouse of practical wisdom; continuous in its transmission, accumulating through generations of internal debate.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Critics (Stanley Hauerwas with sympathy, Jeffrey Stout with criticism) ask whether MacIntyre's claim that the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition is the most adequate can itself be made without circularity — isn't the standard of "adequacy" itself tradition-constituted? MacIntyre's response is that traditions can be compared in terms of their resources for overcoming each other's internal crises, which gives a non-circular ground for ranking. The relation between MacIntyre's pre-conversion Aristotelianism (After Virtue) and his post-conversion Thomism (Three Rival Versions, Dependent Rational Animals) is an internal interpretive question.