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.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Two dogmas of empiricism — the analytic/synthetic distinction and reductionism — are untenable; all our beliefs face the tribunal of experience as a corporate body
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Two Dogmas of Empiricism |
|---|---|
| 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 | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Immediate |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | None |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Non-conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Standard scientific background. The web of belief is revised through time as experience accumulates.
Space
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Standard scientific realism.
Matter
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Real and the topic of our best scientific theory. Quine's ontology is "what science says there is."
Observer
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
The Quinean observer is the embodied human inquirer within a community of inquiry. Active, plural; no metaphysical agency in the working naturalism.
Energy
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Standard scientific framework.
Information
Two Dogmas of Empiricism
The web of belief is relational — no individual belief has meaning apart from its place in the whole. Personal information not conserved across death.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The "no statement is immune to revision" thesis has been criticised as self-refuting (is the thesis itself revisable?) and defended as a methodological maxim about empirical science. The relation between Quine's extensional naturalism and his behaviourist treatment of meaning has been the central interpretive question.