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.
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
The illative sense — how reasonable persons reach certitude on questions where formal demonstration is impossible, especially religious belief
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Multiple |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Scripture |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| 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
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
Newman's framework is post-Newtonian and broadly Christian-historical: time as the medium of God's providential ordering, of doctrinal development, of individual conversion. Linear, uni-directional. The Essay on Development (1845) treats time as the field in which authentic Christian truth unfolds.
Space
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
Standard Christian-cosmological background; not engaged philosophically.
Matter
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
Created good; not foregrounded in the Grammar. Newman's religious epistemology is concerned with the mind's capacity for real-versus-notional assent, not with material ontology.
Observer
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
The Newmanian observer is the whole person — embodied, plural, actively reasoning through cumulative probabilities under the guidance of the illative sense. Knowledge is immediate (the illative sense operates in the actual case, not at the abstract level) and retainable as certitude. Moral authority is scripture, mediated by the church's development. The metaphysical agency is unambiguously personal.
Energy
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
Not engaged.
Information
An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent
God's knowledge is total and personal; doctrinal development through time is genuine informational gain rather than corruption. Personal information is conserved across death — Catholic orthodoxy on resurrection and beatific vision.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Newman's "illative sense" has been criticised as either too vague to do philosophical work (the analytic tradition's reservation) or as a genuinely deep insight that formal epistemology has only recently caught up with (Plantinga's reformed epistemology, Polanyi's tacit knowing). The relation between Newman's Anglican-period theology of doctrinal development and his post-conversion Catholic loyalty is also disputed: continuous deepening, or substantive revision?