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.
Short Treatise on God
The early draft of the Ethics — Spinoza's first systematic presentation of his metaphysics, written before the more-Latin geometric form was fully developed
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Short Treatise on God (Early (Spinoza's first systematic presentation of his metaphysics, predating the Ethics)) |
|---|---|
| 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 | 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 | Singular |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Cosmic-ordering |
| 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
Short Treatise on God
The eternal time of substance; the temporal-developmental time of Spinoza's own thinking in the early 1660s.
Space
Short Treatise on God
The Amsterdam-Rijnsburg space of Spinoza's early intellectual community.
Matter
Short Treatise on God
Matter as one of the attributes of substance (extension), alongside thought; particular bodies as modes of extension.
Observer
Short Treatise on God
The philosophical mind seeking intellectual love of God; Observer Number Singular at the metaphysical depth Spinoza reaches.
Energy
Short Treatise on God
The conatus — the striving by which each mode preserves itself in being — as the dynamic of every existing thing.
Information
Short Treatise on God
The substance-attribute-mode structure as the deepest information about being.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Short Treatise's 1862 rediscovery transformed Spinoza scholarship by opening direct access to the development of his mature views. Its relation to the lost Latin original (Spinoza's correspondents are known to have translated it into Dutch) means that the surviving text is at one remove from Spinoza's own composition. Modern Spinoza scholarship treats it as the principal source for the genetic understanding of Spinozism.