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.
Context
Stalnaker's 2014 monograph — the common-ground model of conversation, refined and applied
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Context (Late) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | NDet |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | Curved |
| 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 | 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
Context
2014. Stalnaker was 74 and had retired from MIT teaching but remained philosophically productive.
Space
Context
MIT / Oxford analytic milieu. The book is the product of a long career at MIT (since 1988) with continuing engagement with the Oxford and broader Anglophone analytic-philosophy community.
Matter
Context
Late-career systematic monograph (~190 pages). Form is sustained philosophical argument across eight chapters integrating the common-ground framework with adjacent philosophical topics.
Observer
Context
Late Stalnaker. The observer-philosopher is positioned at the close of a four-decade research programme, integrating its principal results in a final systematic statement.
Energy
Context
Late-systematic energies of a four-decade research programme. The book is the final major statement of the Stalnakerian philosophical-linguistic programme.
Information
Context
Single book consolidating the common-ground theory. The Sleeping Beauty engagement (Chapter V) and the iterated-common-ground analysis (Chapter VII) are the most technically novel material.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The mature late-Stalnaker statement of his pragmatic-philosophical programme. The common-ground framework has been continuously productive in formal pragmatics, dynamic semantics, and philosophy of language; the integration with self-knowledge and Sleeping Beauty-style epistemological problems shows the framework's continued generative power.