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.
On Duty (Fragments, via Cicero)
Duty humanised — the four personae, appropriate action, and the practical ethics that shaped Rome and modernity
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | On Duty (Fragments, via Cicero) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | not engaged |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | not engaged |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | not engaged |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Cosmic-ordering |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | N/A |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | not engaged |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
On Duty (Fragments, via Cicero)
The work presupposes Panaetius's linear, non-cyclical Stoic cosmology. Practical duty unfolds in historical time — each moral situation is unique and unrepeatable, unlike the Stoic eternal recurrence that Panaetius rejected.
Space
On Duty (Fragments, via Cicero)
Space is the social and political world in which duty operates: the Roman Republic, the Greek polis, the household. The text is practical, not cosmological.
Matter
On Duty (Fragments, via Cicero)
The material world is the domain of appropriate action. Panaetius retains Stoic corporeal materialism as the background metaphysics but focuses on ethical conduct within it.
Observer
On Duty (Fragments, via Cicero)
The four-persona theory places the observer at the centre: each person is a unique intersection of universal nature, individual character, circumstances, and choice. The observer is embodied, active, and morally responsible. Plural observers share universal reason but differ in their individual duties.
Energy
On Duty (Fragments, via Cicero)
The Stoic creative pneuma sustains the cosmos without cyclical conflagration. Energy is conserved and irreversible — a permanent, one-directional cosmos.
Information
On Duty (Fragments, via Cicero)
Moral wisdom is transmissible (the work is itself a transmission of ethical knowledge), but personal information is not conserved after death. Panaetius was apparently sceptical of personal immortality.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The work inherits the tension between Stoic universalism and Panaetius's individualism: if duty is determined by universal nature, why does individual character matter? The four-persona theory resolves this partially — universal reason is refracted through individual nature — but the relationship between the universal and the particular remains philosophically under-determined. Additionally, the Ciceronian medium introduces the question of how much of De Officiis is Panaetius and how much is Cicero's own elaboration.