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.
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
"The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, said 'this is mine'..." — Rousseau's philosophical anthropology of the conjectural state of nature and the historical genesis of social inequality
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Mid (between the First Discourse and the Social Contract)) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Both |
| 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
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
Long historical-anthropological time as the medium of human development — from the hypothetical state of nature through the historical emergence of property and inequality.
Space
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
The natural and social spaces of human life — forest, field, enclosure — as the changing theatres of human existence.
Matter
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
The embodied life of natural and social humans — the body shaped by social conditions of labour, comparison, dependence.
Observer
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
The natural human (in the conjectural state) and the social human (in historical society) as two modes of the same observer. Plural, embodied, naturally good and historically corrupted.
Energy
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
The natural energies of self-preservation and natural sympathy; the social energies of amour-propre (vanity, comparative self-regard) that drive inequality.
Information
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
The conjectural-philosophical reconstruction of human development; the historical record of social institutions.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Second Discourse's status as "conjectural history" — neither pure speculation nor proper empirical history — has been a continuing methodological question. Modern anthropology has substantially complicated Rousseau's picture of the state of nature (humans were never solitary; sociality is as primordial as individual existence). The relation between the Second Discourse's pessimism about historical-social development and the Social Contract's constructive political proposal is itself a continuing interpretive theme.