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.
Ethics
Deus sive natura — God or nature, one infinite substance, expressed in infinite attributes, of which we know two — extension and thought
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Ethics |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | 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 | Total |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Both |
| Observer · Agency | Both |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Cosmic-ordering |
| 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
Ethics
Spinoza distinguishes duration from eternity (Ethics II def 5; V p23). Eternity is not endless time but the timeless mode of God's necessary being. Particular things exist *sub specie durationis* in temporal succession; their truth can be grasped *sub specie aeternitatis* under the form of eternity. Time is real for finite modes but not a fundamental feature of substance itself — Time Ontological Status is Relational.
Space
Ethics
Extension is one of the two attributes of substance known to human minds. Space is real, infinite, three-dimensional, and substantival in the sense of being a fundamental attribute. There is no Cartesian gap between space and matter: extension *is* the geometrical aspect of nature.
Matter
Ethics
Bodies are finite modes of the attribute of extension. Matter is infinite in extent, substantival as expression of substance, conserved (the total quantity of motion-and-rest is preserved, Ethics II lemma 2), and locally interactive. Individual bodies are temporary configurations of an underlying substantial continuum.
Observer
Ethics
Mind and body are parallel expressions of one and the same modal reality (II p7). The Spinozist observer is finite, embodied (no real distinction from the body), and capable of three kinds of cognition culminating in the intellectual love of God — total knowledge in the sense that one's understanding becomes adequately joined to the eternal understanding. Agency is both active (insofar as one acts from one's own nature) and passive (insofar as one is acted upon by external causes). The metaphysical agency is cosmic-ordering: Spinoza's God is not personal but is the rational necessity of all that is.
Energy
Ethics
Conatus — the striving of each thing to persevere in its being (III p6) — is the energetic principle of the Ethics. It is substantival, conserved across modal transformations, and reversible at the level of substance (substance is eternal and unchanging) while irreversible at the level of finite modes.
Information
Ethics
God's intellect contains the adequate ideas of all things; the substantival informational structure of reality is one with God's essence. Personal information, however, is not conserved across death: the part of the mind that perishes with the body is finite; only the part that conceives things sub specie aeternitatis is eternal, and that part is not individuated in the ordinary biographical sense (V p23, with the qualifications of V p38–40).
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The single most disputed Spinozist tension is what survives death. Ethics V p23 says "the human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains, which is eternal." But this "something" is the part that conceives eternally, not the biographical self with its memories. Spinoza's religious-sounding language at the end of Part V — intellectual love of God, blessedness — sits uneasily with the rigorous determinism and monism of the earlier parts. Pierre Bayle thought Spinoza's system "the most absurd and most monstrous hypothesis"; Goethe found in it "the greatest serenity." Both readings have textual support.