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.
Dictionnaire philosophique
A portable Enlightenment — short, witty, polemical entries assaulting religious fanaticism and defending tolerance, reason, and natural rights
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Dictionnaire philosophique (Late (composed during the Ferney years)) |
|---|---|
| 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 | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| 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 | Discrete |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Dictionnaire philosophique
The Enlightenment moment of the 1760s — Voltaire at Ferney conducting his European campaign for tolerance and reason.
Space
Dictionnaire philosophique
The European intellectual space — particularly the French and Genevan public spheres — within which the Dictionnaire intervened.
Matter
Dictionnaire philosophique
Religious and political institutions as material objects of polemical critique; the human body as object of the Calas case and other persecutions.
Observer
Dictionnaire philosophique
The rational reader Voltaire aimed to form; the broader Enlightenment-bourgeois public.
Energy
Dictionnaire philosophique
The polemical energies of Enlightenment criticism; the institutional energies of clerical and monarchical reaction.
Information
Dictionnaire philosophique
The 73+ articles as discrete instructional units; the Newtonian-Lockean rational framework as their organising structure.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Dictionnaire's sharpness made it a polemical-political event, not merely an intellectual one — it provoked condemnation, burning, and pursuit. Its enduring philosophical value vs. its dated polemical specifics is a continuing scholarly question; the Voltaire Foundation's ongoing critical edition has been recovering both dimensions.