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.
Phenomenology of Perception
The body is the medium of perception — neither pure consciousness nor pure object, but the lived body engaged with the world
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Phenomenology of Perception |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Space · Curvature | Curved |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Immediate |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Experience |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Emergent |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Non-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
Phenomenology of Perception
Time as lived temporal extension of bodily engagement. The "temporal field" of perception is a major analysis.
Space
Phenomenology of Perception
Lived space is oriented from the body — bodily space is logically prior to geometric space. Relational and curved by bodily comportment.
Matter
Phenomenology of Perception
Real material world but mediated through bodily engagement. Relational ontology of the body-world pair.
Observer
Phenomenology of Perception
The Merleau-Pontyan observer is the lived body — plural, active, fully embodied. Moral authority is experience.
Energy
Phenomenology of Perception
Bodily energy of engagement is the practical principle.
Information
Phenomenology of Perception
Perception is the relational informational structure. No commitment to personal-conservation across death.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Merleau-Ponty's late work — especially The Visible and the Invisible, unfinished at his 1961 death — moved toward a different ontology of "flesh" that has been read as either deepening or breaking with the Phenomenology of Perception's embodied-subject framework.