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.
Fragments and Testimonia
The One is not the Good — mathematical entities, not transcendent Forms, are the primary realities
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Fragments and Testimonia |
|---|---|
| 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 | Implicit |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Mediated |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Both |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Cosmic-ordering |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | not engaged |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Fragments and Testimonia
Time is linear and substantival. Mathematical principles are eternal and necessary but "in" the cosmos, not in a separate realm. The temporal world is less fundamental than mathematical structure.
Space
Fragments and Testimonia
Space is finite (the bounded Greek cosmos) and emerges at the level of geometrical magnitudes — the second tier of Speusippus's ontological hierarchy (after numbers).
Matter
Fragments and Testimonia
Matter is relational: its ultimate constituents are mathematical structures. The One and the indefinite dyad generate numbers; numbers generate magnitudes; magnitudes generate physical bodies.
Observer
Fragments and Testimonia
The observer is both embodied and partly disembodied: the soul has a mathematical nature not reducible to body. "Scientific perception" (epistēmonikē aisthēsis) bridges sense and intellect.
Energy
Fragments and Testimonia
Energy, like matter, is a manifestation of mathematical structure. Conserved and finite within the bounded cosmos. Dispersibility is unaddressed in the surviving fragments.
Information
Fragments and Testimonia
Number is the fundamental informational unit — substantival, discrete, and conserved. Mathematical structure is more basic than matter. Personal information is conserved through the soul's mathematical nature.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The governing tension: by positing separate principles for each level of reality, Speusippus risks making the universe "episodic, like a bad tragedy" (Aristotle, Metaphysics 1075b37). What unifies numbers, magnitudes, and soul if there is no single supreme principle (the Good, the One-as-Good) to hold them together? Whether Speusippus had an answer is lost with his writings.