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.
Reason, Truth and History
"Internal realism" — Putnam's 1981 major book, the systematic statement of his middle-period position between metaphysical realism and relativism
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Reason, Truth and History (Mid (the major mid-career book, the systematic statement of internal realism)) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Partial |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| 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
Reason, Truth and History
The temporal structure of conceptual-scheme development; the historical conditioning of knowledge.
Space
Reason, Truth and History
The conceptual-philosophical space of the realism-relativism debate.
Matter
Reason, Truth and History
The material world as known within conceptual schemes; the brains-in-vats thought-experiment.
Observer
Reason, Truth and History
The rational philosophical observer within a conceptual scheme — plural, embodied. No metaphysical-providential framework.
Energy
Reason, Truth and History
The rational-epistemic energies of inquiry and conceptual-scheme adoption.
Information
Reason, Truth and History
Knowledge as preserved within conceptual schemes; truth as rational acceptability under ideal conditions.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Putnam himself substantially modified internal realism in subsequent decades — his 1994 Dewey Lectures ("The Threefold Cord") developed natural realism, abandoning the internal-realist apparatus while preserving the critique of metaphysical realism. Putnam's career-long philosophical trajectory has been a major reference for late-twentieth-century analytic philosophy. The relation between Reason, Truth and History and Putnam's subsequent natural realism is the central interpretive question.