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.
Time and Modality
The future is open, the present is uniquely real — tense logic as the formal vindication of presentism
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Time and Modality (Early (Prior's first major synthesis of tense logic, derived from his 1955-56 Oxford Locke Lectures)) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Mediated |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| 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 | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Time and Modality
Tensed time: the present is uniquely real, the past was, the future will be. Open future.
Space
Time and Modality
Standard substantival space.
Matter
Time and Modality
Standard substantival matter.
Observer
Time and Modality
Plural finite reasoners; mediated knowledge through formal-logical analysis. No metaphysical agency.
Energy
Time and Modality
Standard physics.
Information
Time and Modality
Information conserved at the world-scale; the past is fixed in its having-been.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The mid-century B-theoretic consensus (McTaggart, Russell, Smart) treated tense as a feature of language to be eliminated rather than a feature of reality to be respected. Prior's tense logic and its presentist motivation reopened a debate that had seemed closed; the presentism vs eternalism dispute is now one of the principal questions in contemporary analytic metaphysics.