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.
Democracy in America
Equality of conditions is the providential fact of the modern age — and democracy's greatest danger is the tyranny of the majority
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Democracy in America |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-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 | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Total |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Tradition |
| 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 | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Democracy in America
Real historical time. Democratic equalisation is the irreversible providential tendency of the modern age. Standard nineteenth-century historicism.
Space
Democracy in America
The geography of America matters — the frontier, the town meeting, the township. Substantival.
Matter
Democracy in America
The material conditions of equality — small property, broadly distributed — are essential to democratic society.
Observer
Democracy in America
The Tocquevillean observer is the citizen — embodied, plural, active in associational life. Moral authority is tradition (the customary self-government of townships) tempered by reason.
Energy
Democracy in America
Not engaged.
Information
Democracy in America
The press, voluntary associations, and religious congregations preserve and transmit democratic culture. Personal information conserved (Christian framework).
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
Tocqueville's "soft despotism" analysis has been read in opposite directions — as a warning prophetic of twentieth-century totalitarianism, or as an aristocratic distrust of mass democracy. His chapter on the three races (Native, Black, White) is one of the more difficult passages for modern readers; modern Tocqueville scholarship (Mansfield, Wolin, Boesche) has worked to contextualise it.