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.
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays
Quine's 1969 lecture-essay volume — 'Epistemology Naturalized' and the indeterminacy of reference
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (Mid-to-late) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Curved |
| 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 | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Passive |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Impersonal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| 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 | 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
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays
1969 publication. Quine was 61, at the height of his mature philosophical influence.
Space
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays
Columbia (Dewey Lectures venue) / Harvard (Quine's permanent base). The intellectual space is American analytic philosophy at its peak post-positivist period.
Matter
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays
Lecture-essay collection (~165 pages). Form is sustained philosophical essay rather than tightly technical argument.
Observer
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays
Mid-to-late Quine. The observer-philosopher is the naturalised-epistemology Quine, the philosopher whose 'Two Dogmas' (1951) and 'Word and Object' (1960) had already shaped two decades of analytic philosophy.
Energy
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays
Programmatic energies — naturalisation of epistemology. The Dewey Lectures' venue is itself significant: Quine positions his programme as a continuation of Deweyan pragmatism rather than (as critics suggested) as a radical break from traditional epistemology.
Information
Ontological Relativity and Other Essays
Two Dewey Lectures plus five further essays. 'Epistemology Naturalized' is the most-cited individual entry.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Founding statement of naturalised epistemology and ontological relativity. The 'Epistemology Naturalized' paper has been continuously productive — it founded the naturalised-epistemology programme that Goldman, Kornblith, and many others developed in the following decades; the indeterminacy-of-reference thesis (Dewey Lecture II) has been continuously contested by structured-propositions theorists and externalists.