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.
Fragments and Testimonia
Man is the measure of all things — the founding statement of Western relativism and the first professional educator of Greece
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Fragments and Testimonia |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| 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 | Flat |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Infinite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Matter · Conservation | Variable |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Partial |
| 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 | Relational |
| Energy · Conservation | Variable |
| 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
Fragments and Testimonia
Time in the man-measure framework is relational — it exists as experienced by the human observer, not as an independent substance. What matters is the human present, not a cosmic temporal order.
Space
Fragments and Testimonia
Space is similarly relational — the relevant spatial frame is the human perceiver's situation, not an absolute container.
Matter
Fragments and Testimonia
If man is the measure, then the properties of matter are as they appear to the perceiver. The wind is cold to one who shivers and warm to one who does not (Plato, Theaetetus 152b).
Observer
Fragments and Testimonia
The observer is central — Protagoras is the first philosopher to make the observer the constitutive element of knowledge. The observer is embodied, active, plural (different observers yield different truths), and empirical.
Energy
Fragments and Testimonia
Energy is relational — what counts as forceful or weak depends on the human being who experiences it. There is no absolute energetic standard.
Information
Fragments and Testimonia
Information is not conserved in any absolute sense — it is relative to the knower. What is true for one may not be true for another. Knowledge is situation-dependent and ephemeral.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The central tension is the self-refutation problem: if man is the measure of all things, is the man-measure doctrine itself only relatively true? Plato presses this objection in the Theaetetus, and it remains the standard criticism. A second tension is between Protagoras the epistemological relativist and Protagoras the practical educator — he charged large fees to teach people to argue better, which implies that some arguments are better than others, undermining radical relativism.