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.
Theological-Political Treatise
Scripture's meaning is to be sought by historical-critical reading; freedom of philosophising is necessary for the state — anonymous and immediately banned
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Theological-Political Treatise (Early) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Active |
| 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
Theological-Political Treatise
Time is relational in the Spinozist framework (see Ethics II) — the TTP's historical-critical method treats real time of biblical composition as the medium of textual development.
Space
Theological-Political Treatise
Standard early-modern substantival space.
Matter
Theological-Political Treatise
Real and substantival; nothing happens outside natural causal order.
Observer
Theological-Political Treatise
The Spinozist observer is the rational human capable of understanding nature scientifically and religion historically. Embodied, plural, active. Moral authority is reason; metaphysical agency is cosmic-ordering (deus sive natura).
Energy
Theological-Political Treatise
Conatus — the striving of each thing to persevere in its being — is the energetic principle (developed fully in the Ethics).
Information
Theological-Political Treatise
Real scripture preserves historical-cultural information about the religious life of ancient communities; it does not preserve supernatural revelation. Personal information not conserved across death in the strict sense.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The TTP was immediately banned and remained controversial for two centuries. Spinoza himself distanced himself from some of its formulations in his letters. The relation between the TTP's political-practical philosophy and the Ethics's metaphysics has been the central interpretive question — they share a framework but operate in different registers.