Strange, Fiery Crowns Crested the Sea-Cliffs Dun

 Tintagel
by Aubrey De Vere 

When first remote Tintagel met mine eyes
 Between its bastions and the setting sun
 Cloud-pageantries of conflicts lost and won
 Rushed madly, so it seemed, through reddening skies:
 The glooming wave was streaked with sanguine dyes;
 Strange, fiery crowns crested the sea-cliffs dun,
 The caves beneath them, black as Acheron
 Blended their widow-wails with onset cries
 From Bostcastle and Bude. There moved in power
 Arthur, the King! No knightly mail he wore,
 No charger strode. Thundered his battle-axe
 Upon the flying Northmen's iron backs.
 Sunlike that long-haired Briton shone that hour;
 Fast fled the heathen o'er that ship-thronged shore!

Links of Note

 * Nicolas Zaks, Plato's Classification of Change (PDF)

* Raphael, The Metaphysics of Plato's Political and Moral Philosophy, at "A Just Logos"

* James Read, Why philosophy of physics?, at "Aeon"

* Brian Niemeier, The Ring Is Not What You Think, at "Kairos Publications"

* Richard Yetter Chappell, Preference and Prevention: A New Paradox of Deontology (PDF). Having read this a few times, I'm inclined to think that most deontologists do not face this particular paradox; it seems to arise only if you assume a deontological theory of moral obligation with a consequentialist approach to preferential value. But most deontologists assume that we are obligated to re-align our preferences in such a way as to give priority to deontic principles ('respect for moral law' and the like); and I don't see that the paradox would arise on assumptions of preferences re-aligned in such a way. That is, the paradox is really due to the fact that if you are going to be deontological, you have to be consistently so. Nonetheless, this is an interesting argument even so, and perhaps there are subtler features to the argument that I'm not seeing.

* Patrick Flynn and Mike Schramm, I am, whether I think or not, at "The Journal of Absolute Truth"

* Mark A. Brewer, Regulatory Kinds: A Metaphysical Framework for Epistemically Stabilized Social Classification (PDF)

* Vanessa A. Seifert, Chemical causal relations across different levels of description (PDF)

* Robert Koons, Warranted Group Belief (PDF)

* Woarna, S4 is Inadequate as a Logic of Formal Provability, at "Lambda Continuum"

* Cameron Harwick, The University in the AI Era

* Fr. Cajetan Cuddy, OP, The Continuity Between the Prima pars and the Secunda pars of the Summa Theologiae, at "A Thomist"

* Conor Feehly, How Much Energy Does It Take to Think?, at "Quanta". As I've noted before, all the evidence is that, while our brains are energy hogs, almost all the energy goes to keeping the brain up and running, and the amount of energy it takes beyond that for the brain to do anything is so miniscule it is difficult to measure. It takes huge amounts of energy to have a brain, very little to use it. The 5%-beyond-resting-energy that they suggest here is very much on the higher side of what I've seen, and I would guess that this is really just the upper limit of what is consistent with well-established evidence. But even if we take the 5% value straight, it's something that only adds up over an extended period of time.

*Jennifer Egan, How Jane Austen Pulled It Off: On Emma, at "The Paris Review"

Corpus Christi

 Pange Lingua
by Thomas Aquinas

Sing, my tongue, of glorious
mystery of the Body,
also of the precious Blood,
in which the price of the world,
the fruit of generous womb,
the King of Nations, flowed forth. 

 For us given, for us born
from the untouched Virgin,
He dwelt in the world
after seed of the Word was sown;
his enclosure ended the wait
with marvelous order. 

 On the night of the Last Supper,
reclining with His brothers,
having fully observed the Law
with the lawful meal,
He as food to the crowd of the Twelve
gave Himself with His own hands. 

 Word made flesh, true bread
into flesh makes by His word
and wine becomes Blood of Christ.
Even if the senses fail,
to establish sincere heart
faith alone suffices. 

 Such sacrament we therefore
reverence, bowing down,
and ancient covenant
gives way to new rite:
Faith stands as supplement
to failure of the senses. 

 To Begetter and Begotten
praise and jubilation be,
strength and honor, might as well,
and also blessing be;
and to the one who proceeds from both
equally be the praise.

My very rough translation. 

Whewell on Theory Change

 ...[W]hen a prevalent theory is found to be untenable, and consequently, is succeeded by a different, or even by an opposite one, the change is not made suddenly, or completed at once, at least in the minds of the most tenacious adherents of the earlier doctrine; but is effected by a transformation, or series of transformations, of the earlier hypothesis, by means of which it is gradually brought nearer and nearer to the second; and thus, the defenders of the ancient doctrine are able to go on as if still asserting their first opinions, and to continue to press their points of advantage, if they have any, against the new theory. They borrow, or imitate, and in some way accommodate to their original hypothesis, the new explanations which the new theory gives, of the observed facts; and thus they maintain a sort of verbal consistency; till the original hypothesis becomes inextricably confused, or breaks down under the weight of the auxiliary hypotheses thus fastened upon it, in order to make it consistent with the facts. 

 William Whewell, "Of the Transformation of Hypotheses in the History of Science" in Selected Writings on the History of Science, Yehuda Elkana, ed. U Chicago P (Chicago: 1984) p. 385.

Antonio Rosmini, The Philosophy of Right (Index Post)

 Here are the posts for my recent look at Blessed Antonio Rosmini's The Philosophy of Right:

I: The Essence of Right

IIa: Rights of the Individual (Connatural Rights)

IIb: Rights of the Individual (Acquired Rights)

IIc: Rights of the Individual (Transmission of Acquired Rights)

IId: Rights of the Individual (Other Modifications of Rights)

III: Universal Social Right

IV: Rights in Theocratic Society

V: Rights in Domestic Society

VIa: Rights in Civil Society (The Essence of Civil Society)

VIb: Rights in Civil Society (Free Concurrence and the Sanction of Civil Rights)

Related Posts:

Person as Subsistent Right

Rosmini on the Proximate End of Civil Society

Antonio Rosmini, The Philosophy of Right VIb: Rights in Civil Society (Free Concurrence and the Sanction of Civil Rights)

 VIa: Rights in Civil Society (The Essence of Civil Society)

In civil society, governmental right and communal right have a particularly close relationship, so Rosmini decides to consider them at the same time. In order to approach the difficulty of rights in a civil society that has already been constituted, he also decides to start by looking at injustices, "in the way that the dark areas of a painting make the light areas stand out" (p. 254).

Civil society, we have already learned, is an individual subject of rights; that is, it is "a collective person, jurally equal to individual persons" (p. 255), but to consider the relevant social rights, we need to consider how civil society differs from other jural persons. In individual right, it has jural equality with every other jural person, with that jural person is a single human being or a society. But in social right, as with other societies, civil society is not the equal of other jural persons; the way Rosmini puts this is that it "has jural but not constitutive equality with all other persons" (p. 255). We find the inequality between civil society and other societies when we consider the injustices that are peculiar to it, which have to do with society, government, form of government, and individual persons associated with the form of government (cf. p. 257).

1. Injustices of society. "For example, we may think that civil society can dispose of everything as it likes, and that everything must be sacrificed to it..." (pp. 257-258). This results in "tyranny by society", when people are unaware of the bounds of civil society as a society, confined to the regulation of the modalities of rights. The injustices of society can be toward non-members -- Rosmini counts slavery as an example, since one is deliberately excluding someone from civil society in order to exercise unjust dominion over them -- or toward members -- as when the civil powers legalize excessive servitude by which citizen can oppress citizen.

2. Injustices of government. These arise when people are ignorant of the means used by civil society, or fails to recognize that civil society is jurally equal with other jural persons, or something similar. This results in "tyranny (and sometimes indolence) by government" (p. 258). The governing powers can be directed to an inappropriate end, for instance by violating the rights of other societies.

3. Injustices of the form of government. These arise when the form of govenrment is imprudent or when people go about claiming that one form of government is absolutely the best without qualification, thus trying to force everything into the same mold. This leads to "impotence, uncertainty, or even tyranny by the form of government" (p. 258). In this we are concerned with whether the powers being used are actually established for a given civil society, by way of appropriate titles and legitimate institution by a relevant authority. Ultimately everything has to traced back to what Rosmini calls autocracy, which in his sense is the foundational power by which a society governs itself.

4. Injustices due to individual persons who are part of the form of government. These are the most obvious in some ways -- people using official power arbitrarily, or selling public offices, or engaging in immoderate partisanship. This can lead to "tyranny or indolence by persons" (p. 258). In this we are concerned with whether power has been legitimately invested or used rather than abused.

These injustices are something of a many-headed hydra, but Rosmini thinks that they can all be cut off in a single stroke. There is one basic principle that, if realized in civil society, prevents the civil society from falling prey to any of these four kinds of injustices. If we return to what the authority of civil society is, we remember that its function is to regulate the modalities of rights so that they are consistent in practice with other rights. We can prevent all injustices of society, then, by preventing civil society from 'crossing the line of modality'. Then all citizens maintain their jural freedom, which in the specific context of civil society we can call civil freedom. This civil freedom is itself a protection from the other injustices. 

Thus the principle that renders civil society just is the principle of free concurrence. Every jural person, whether an individual human being or a society, can acquire any right as long as it is just in the way it acquires it. If civil society does not arbitrarily interfere with this, this is free concurrence. For instance, suppose we are a civil society and someone asks to become a citizen. There are times when we would reasonably refuse -- for instance, if they have already shown themselves to be dangerous to civil society -- but where the person requesting has the basic qualities appropriate to being a citizen and has asked in a reasonable way, free jural concurrence for the state of being a citizen involves giving them citizenship. If someone is a bond-servant and they negotiate a reasonable price for their emancipation, free jural concurrence for the state of freedom requires us to back their emancipation. If someone meeting the requirements of eligibility and suitability for a given public office goes through the appropriate process, free jural concurrence for social offices involves not denying them the office. In short, we, as a civil society and all its parts, do not deny jural persons any justly constituted freedom for which they meet the necessary requirements or to which they have right by just title. We defend civil society from developing injustice against any by upholding the civil freedom of all. This, of course, will not shut down all injustices; but it will prevent civil society itself from being unjust.

There are two major forces that provide sanction for the social rights of civil society: material force, which belongs to the governing part of society, and public opinion, which belongs to the governed part of society. These powers of sanction expand and develop over time, and civil society necessarily grows and develops with them. Historically, there have been attempts by the governors of societies to use material force, of various kinds, to try to break up public opinion; this violates the rights of the governed, who have the right to use all reasonable means to develop uniformity of opinion, and is foolish in general, since the work of developing public opinion is part of how civil society develops. The government also contributes to this development, e.g., by informing the public of the facts and reasons available to it and by punishing those who maliciously spread falsehoods. But it takes some work to find the proper balance; fundamentally, the government must not interfere with free discussion and must not try to pretend that its task, as civil government, is to teach rather than just to inform and act as a check on malice. Civil society can only develop properly if both the material force and public opinion are in balance: "It will be the sacred, supreme duty of government to rule civil society according to prevalent public opinion, not according to particular theories" (p. 297). If a government rules according to prevalent public opinion, it is stable and strong, and (whatever its limitations) has at least the capacity to fulfill its functions well. In the short term, imbalances cannot always be avoided; but almost everything that can dangerous disturb a society consists in an ongoing opposition, either real or imagined, between these two sanctions. Only when there is a general balance between the two can all rights be protected.

There are seven classes of governmental acts by which power is applied, and the rights to which are involved in the effectiveness of government:

(A) Direct material actions by the one with power. These are in general quite limited, and become more limited the larger society becomes.

(B) Commands given to members of society or to ministers.

(C) Acts of judicial power.

(D) Legislation. Civil society must be directed primarily by laws, not by orders, and the right to legislate is restricted to matters concerned with the end of the society and to what is consistent with moral law. And, of course, in a civil society, these ultimately mean that the legislator only imposes law to regulate the modalities of already existing rights, intervening only when jural persons in the society are unable or unwilling to agree among themselves. Penal laws must be only established as necessary, and in every case an eye should be had to the minimum punishment required to resolve the problem.

(E) Organization into social offices.

(F) Nomination to social offices. In a dominion, the master can simply appoint whomever he pleases, but in a civil society, an administrator is governed by an obligation to name to office those whome he judges to be best suited for it.

(G) Social vigilance and inspection.

All of these seven governmental powers are contained in what Rosmini calls autocratic power, that is, the fundamental power, whether held by a single person or by a body of persons, that makes possible the governance of the society. Fundamentally, the essential powers of autocracy are "supreme command, supreme judgment, supreme legislation and supreme inspection" (p. 401). They can be partly delegated, but cannot be given up without destroying the autocratic power. Other powers, including lesser versions of these, are exercised through social organs in a ministry.

And thus ends Rosmini's discussion of civil society, having covered the whole outline of it. However, he notes that there is another aspect to the philosophy of right, in that it has to connect up with the philosophy of politics, despite the fact that the two are distinct. "Justice is the object of Right, prudence the subject of Politics" (p. 403). In attempting to build a just civil society, there are many different paths that can be taken, and therefore one should aim at "that particular one which best protects justice from disturbance and more easily facilitates the progress of human happiness" (p. 404), which Rosmini calls the "regular state" of civil society. This requires two fundamental conditions: justice and balance. Justice is required for the preservation of civil society in a form that is appropriate to its ends. Balance depends on conjoining in a reasonable way goods that naturally fit together in human choices and pursuits: population and wealth (which when imbalanced disrupt the family), wealth and civil power (which, when balanced, make it so that wealth defends the right to govern and the right to govern defends wealth), civil power and material force, civil power and knowledge, knowledge and virtue. When these goods are stripped away from each other, or joined in a way discordant with each other, we get problems, consistently enough that Rosmini thinks we have here a law of politics: "Every movement or action, regular or irregular, arises from the effort made by two forces endeavouring to attain the balance they lack" (p. 414). Given justice and balance, there is a third condition for the construction of the regular state of civil society, social inequalities not arising from arbitrary choice, that is, from wealth, knowledge, and virtue. 

These three conditions so far can be summarized in terms of distribution of goods: "1. everything is distributed justly; 2. in each of the different kinds of goods, inequality is relatively distributed in a uniform way to ensure their balance; 3. the degree of inequality depends upon the indications given by the very nature of things in different nations" (p. 421). A fourth and fifth condition can be added to these, namely, that wealth, virtue, and knowledge must have a lower limit in what is required for membership of the society, and all goods must have a higher limit determined by what is necessary for virtue (the one good that has no upper limit).  When all five of these are found in a civil society, it is in its regular state and is stable and strong. It is possible to have a just society (which respects rights) that is irregular, but Rosmini thinks that societies that respect rights will usually tend toward the regular state. A key element important for actual progress in this direction is to keep a distinction between the government as deciding matters and as administering them, and attempting to direct both to justice. But again, while this has to look back to the philosophy of right, and the philosophy of right has to look forward to this regular state of civil society, this is properly a matter for politics.

****

Antonio Rosmini, The Philosophy of Right, Volume 6: Rights in Civil Society, Cleary & Watson, trs., Rosmini House (Durham, UK: 1996).

When Every Leaf Is on Its Tree

 Summer
by Christina Rossetti 

 Winter is cold-hearted,
Spring is yea and nay,
Autumn is a weather-cock
Blown every way:
Summer days for me
When every leaf is on its tree; 

 When Robin's not a beggar,
And Jenny Wren's a bride,
And larks hang singing, singing, singing,
Over the wheat-fields wide,
And anchored lilies ride,
And the pendulum spider
Swings from side to side, 

 And blue-black beetles transact business,
And gnats fly in a host,
And furry caterpillars hasten
That no time be lost,
And moths grow fat and thrive,
And ladybirds arrive. 

 Before green apples blush,
Before green nuts embrown,
Why, one day in the country
Is worth a month in town;
Is worth a day and a year
Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion
That days drone elsewhere.