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.
De Anima Intellectiva
Siger's 1273 'De Anima Intellectiva' — partial retreat from strict Averroism in the wake of Aquinas's 1270 attack
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | De Anima Intellectiva (Middle (post-Aquinas-attack)) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Finite |
| 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 | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Singular |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Limited |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Infinite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| 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
De Anima Intellectiva
1273. Three years after the 1270 Tempier condemnations; four years before the 1277 Tempier condemnations.
Space
De Anima Intellectiva
Paris arts faculty — Rue du Fouarre. The intellectual space is increasingly hostile: the 1270 condemnations had already targeted the Averroist circle, and the 1277 ones would do so much more comprehensively.
Matter
De Anima Intellectiva
Single scholastic treatise (~80 pages in standard editions). Form is the medieval-academic quaestio with substantial philosophical apparatus.
Observer
De Anima Intellectiva
Middle Siger under philosophical-political pressure. The observer is the Parisian master in the moment of methodological retreat: more careful about the philosophy/faith distinction than in earlier works.
Energy
De Anima Intellectiva
Defensive-rationalist energies. The treatise's distinctive character is the explicit recognition that philosophical arguments may reach conclusions that conflict with faith, without thereby being false in the same sense.
Information
De Anima Intellectiva
Single treatise. The proto-double-truth formulation is the most-discussed material; it became the principal target of the 1277 condemnations' anti-double-truth propositions.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The text that gave rise to the 'double-truth' label later attached (tendentiously) to Siger's school. Siger and the other arts-faculty Averroists did not in fact hold that two contradictory propositions can both be true; the 1277 condemnations' anti-double-truth formulation simplified what was actually a more nuanced position about the different domains of philosophy and faith.