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.
Lectures on Jurisprudence
Smith's 1762-64 Glasgow lectures on jurisprudence — the missing systematic-philosophical link between Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Lectures on Jurisprudence (Middle) |
|---|---|
| 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 | 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 | Active |
| 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 | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Lectures on Jurisprudence
1762-64 student-note reconstructions (Smith's actual Glasgow lectures had been delivered since 1752; the surviving notes are from his final two years before the move to France).
Space
Lectures on Jurisprudence
Glasgow University — Smith's Professorship of Moral Philosophy 1752-64. The intellectual space is the Scottish Enlightenment at its peak (Hume in Edinburgh, William Robertson at Edinburgh, Hutcheson before them at Glasgow, John Millar Smith's successor at Glasgow).
Matter
Lectures on Jurisprudence
Student-note reconstructions (~600 pages in the Glasgow Edition). Form is lecture-derived: each lecture covers a specific topic in jurisprudence or political economy.
Observer
Lectures on Jurisprudence
Middle Adam Smith. The observer-philosopher-professor is delivering lectures that he intended to expand into systematic books; his promised jurisprudence book never appeared, so the student-note reconstructions are now our principal source for Smith's jurisprudential thought.
Energy
Lectures on Jurisprudence
Scottish-Enlightenment-systematic energies. The four-stages theory is Smith's distinctive contribution to Scottish-Enlightenment historical sociology and the conceptual seed of later stages-of-development theories.
Information
Lectures on Jurisprudence
Two sets of student notes (1762-63 and 1763-64). The two sets overlap significantly but each contains material the other lacks; together they constitute our best reconstruction of Smith's lecture course.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The systematic-philosophical missing link between Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations. Smith ordered his manuscripts burned at his death (and they were); the Lectures survive only because student note-takers preserved them. They are the principal source for Smith's jurisprudential thought, his historical-sociological views, and the philosophical foundations of his economic work.