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.
Inquiry
Stalnaker's 1984 monograph — propositions as sets of possible worlds, assertion as adding to common ground
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Inquiry (Mid-career) |
|---|---|
| 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
Inquiry
1984. Stalnaker's mid-career.
Space
Inquiry
MIT philosophy department — Stalnaker's longstanding institutional base.
Matter
Inquiry
Single-volume philosophical monograph (~170 pages).
Observer
Inquiry
Mid-Stalnaker — the theorist of propositional attitudes and pragmatic context.
Energy
Inquiry
Programmatic-systematic energies of the analytic-metaphysics 1980s. The book consolidates and systematises a decade of papers.
Information
Inquiry
Single book, systematic and tightly argued. The introduction sets up the propositions-as-sets-of-worlds framework; subsequent chapters apply it to belief, assertion, presupposition, inquiry, and counterfactuals.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The single most concentrated statement of Stalnaker's possible-worlds programme. The common-ground model of conversation it introduces has become standard across analytic philosophy of language, formal pragmatics, and dynamic semantics; its theory of propositions as sets of possible worlds has been a major target of structured-propositions theorists (Soames, King) but remains influential.