Evening Note for Saturday, August 23

 Thought for the Evening: Plurative Modalities

Modal operators, as we often study them, are divided into two major kinds: strong (or Box) and weak (or Diamond). Strong modalities are necessity-like: necessary, always, everywhere, obligatory, known. Weak modalities are possibility-like: possible, sometimes, somewhere, permissible. In practice, we often use a third, intermediate between them, which is sometimes just called the null modality, and means (more or less) what is true without any modification. And this is a giveaway, I suppose, since the null is effectively like a strong modality when compared with a weak modality and like a weak modality when compared with a strong modality. Strong modality and weak modality are not really two groups of different kinds; they are comparative. You see this further in  multimodal systems; 'believed' may be a strong modality in a doxastic system but a weak modality in an epistemic system.

In short, there are many intermediate modal operators between absolute necessity and absolute possibility. This is in fact what we would expect on other grounds. Even if we stay with a given kind of modality -- say, temporal modalities -- we can weaken the strong modal operator or strengthen the weak modal operator to get a new modal operator. In possible world semantics, we analogize all other modal operators to quantifiers -- strong modal operators all work like the universal quantifier, weak modal operators all work like the existential quantifier. But you can have different quantifiers as well. Quantity that is weaker than universal quantity but stronger than particular quantity goes by different names in different systems, but one of the names used is 'plurative'. Examples of markers of plurative quantity are things like 'most' or 'few'. Consider the following basic plurative syllogism:

Most of those who will study hard will pass.
Most students will study hard.
Therefore, some students will pass.

This is a valid argument. That's somewhat peculiar, since if we treat 'most' like 'some', we shouldn't get a conclusion (two particular premises), and if we treat 'most' like 'all', we can get a much stronger conclusion (since we could get a universal conclusion), but what we find is that we can get a conclusion, just not a universal one. There's a reason why syllogistic primarily focuses on universal and particular quantity, because these are special in several ways. If we look at distribution, for instance, they both have nice, clean distribution rules associated with quantity: universal propositions distribute the subject, particular propositions don't. If we try to pin down the distribution rule for 'most', we get something more like (this is only approximate, since it depends on some assumptions about how distribution works): the subject term is distributed when, and only when, the subject term is the minor term (or would be the minor term if the conclusion were converted). In short, you can't tell how the quantity works until you know the role of the proposition in the argument. That's a much messier rule. But it's also notable that we can, in fact, give a distribution rule, and, despite its greater messiness, it is one that is practically useful in real argumentative contexts. Similar issues come up when we look at other logical properties.

Plurative modal operators would be modal operators that correspond to plurative quantifiers -- they are about what happens in most (or few) possible worlds, if we use a possible world framework. We can take any kind of Box and 'plurativize' it. The most obvious cases are with temporal modalities, since in ordinary English we often use words that correspond to plurative temporal operators: most of the time, usually, often, almost always. But we can do it with other cases as well, without any real difficulty, even though we don't always have straightforward English terms for them all. Not only is there 'necessary', there is 'nearly necessary'; not only is there 'everywhere', there is 'most places' or 'almost everywhere'; not only is there 'obligatory', there is 'nearly obligatory' or 'usually to be done'. And the same sort of thing can be done from the other side, strengthening weak modalities that correspond to 'some' or 'at least one' so that they correspond to 'at least a few'.

Links of Interest

* John Lawless, Against Acceptance Theories of Social Norms (PDF)

* John Plaice, Pierre Louis Maupertuis and the Principle of Least Action, at "Fiat Lux"

* David M. Berry, Toward a Genealogy of the Concept of "Plate Glass Universities, at "Stunlaw"

* Takuya Niikawa, Consciousness Aesthetics (PDF)

* Estrada González Luis & Romero Rodríguez Christian, How we learned to stop worrying and love tonk (PDF)

* John Hawks, How archaeologists are missing Pleistocene cultures

* Nirmalya Kajuri, An Ode to the Spherical Cow, at "The Spacetime Beat"

Currently Reading

In Book

Maurice Leblanc, The Confessions of Arsene Lupin
Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England
Frank M. Turner, John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion
Brian Kemple, Linguistic Signification
Marc Morris, The Norman Conquest

In Audiobook

Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire
Jim Butcher, Storm Front
Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World
Dorothy L. Sayers, Clouds of Witness

Dashed Off XX

This starts the notebook that was begun in April 2024.

 ******

Morality is not a monolith, and has aspects both absolute and relative, the former making the latter possible.

Unfortunately we live in a time in which a man must be wrong often in order to be right enough.

'Day after day sharpens our thoughts, and night after night increases knowledge.'

Our faith is a testimony, a promise, and an inheritance.

Discussion of the sacrament of orders should begin with the apostles, who are the true fullness of order, then to the bishops as successors and vicars of the apostles, constituting particular churches, then priests and deacons who assist the bishops. This (1) clarifies the institution; (2) recognizes the primacy of bishops and their role in the Church qua apostolic; (3) clarifies the sense in which the three grades are distinct sacraments yet the same sacrament; (4) recognizes the permanent role of the Twelve and the relation of bishops to them.

temple-service order
-- proper & per se: apostles
-- -- derivatively
-- -- -- -- vicarious & participated: bishops
-- -- -- -- participatory
-- -- -- -- -- -- representative: priests
-- -- -- -- -- -- assistant: deacons
-- -- -- -- -- -- co-assistant: minor orders

kinds of poetic culture
(1) courtly makers
(2) popular songsters
(3) hymnodists
(4) bohemians
(5) academics/workshopists
(6) dabblers

Both Kelsen and Hart give accounts of law in which law mostly regulates and organizes officials' coercion of the people.

No one can be an official unless we already know what laws are 'legally valid'.

Reason is always one of the sources of law.

The law on a question is never settled on the basis of legally binding sources alone. Law jiggles; people are always fiddling with it in both interpretation and application, regardless of what the sources say.

Hart's criticism of Fuller shows that he doesn't understand what morality is, and has never properly considered what gives rise to legal ethics. (He also exaggerates the extent that Fuller's principles are directly required by efficacy or purposiveness in themselves, because he is in fact implicitly assuming that law requires more than bare efficiency for any kind of purpose. This is the strength of Fuller's position -- legal efficacy for legal purposes does in fact require going beyond bare purposiveness.)

In every form of ethics, tehre are kinds of efficacy conditions that are moral ideals.

Significant portions of law exist to facilitate and protect ethical practices of judges, lawyers, and officials.

"Ritual is poetry in the world of acts." Ross Nichols

Not everything knowable exists before it is known.

(1) Entia rationis are objects of thought whose being consist wholly in being objects of thought.
(2) Suppose no entia rationis exist. Either you know what is thereby said not to exist, or you do not.
(3) If you do not, then the supposition cannot stand.
(4) If you do, then the supposition is that objects of thought existing wholly as objects of thought do not exist when they are objects of thought.

We do not merely use concepts; we stretch them in using them.

There is great value in some of what is derided as 'picture book phenomenology'.

As soon as we can think, we are already in a world much larger than ourselves.

People sometimes say that two things are contradictory when in reality it is only that their minds are too small to relate them.

Human responsibility is a reflection of divine providence into the imperfect human person.

A key theme in many folktales is the small thing that is really large. This is flexibly used:
(a) the physically small that is physically large (ship in pocket)
(b) the physically small that is figuratively large (the help of the mouse)
(c) the figuratively small that is physically large (the troll, ogre, giant)
(d) the figuratively small that is figuratively large (the hero).

[1] Many things are clarified by striving to approximate a 'God's-eye view'.
[2] This is most naturally explained by there being something like a God's-eye view.

The lack of bottle in a bottle is part of what makes it a bottle.

We usually associate 'interests' with life or the capacity for spontaneous action, but even a knife has something analogous, in that there are things bad for a knife being a knife.

The teleology of an artifact is an extension of the teleology of a living thing.

Many fairy tales make use of the principles of a favor economy, because of its amplifying effect -- a small action of help on my part may solve a massive problem for another, which may result in later receiving a favor that is big for me. (Fairy tales also sometimes explore pathologies of this, e.g., putting oneself in a debt one shouldn't by accepting a favor ill-advisedly, or giving careless favors that put on in a vulnerable position. They also sometimes look at the scenarios on the other side, of failing to do favors for others, as well as negotiations over favors.)

existence qua esse vs existence qua ex alio sistere

In terms of what Biblical scholarship can actually study, the Bible is like a large family of musical performances, from which Biblical scholars derive s a score. These 'performances'  are the actual texts in the manuscript traditions, and they have individual 'artistic variation', and are even played on different 'instruments' -- Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and so forth. Of these 'performances', some are more central in terms of their intrinsic attributes and some are more prominent in their external influence. However, Biblical scholars have a tendency to posit a foundational text to which they do not have actual acess, and which, given how different texts were put together at different times and in different contexts, could nto have existed at all, and rather than treating this as merely a type in a typological classification, hypothesize about it as if it were history.

integral richness as a mark of understanding

Every human being naturally builds an 'imaginative realm', each depending on the imaginative capacities and habits of the person; and one of the  most difficult aspects of moral life is disciplining and organizing this imaginative realm so as not to make oneself unnecessarily vulnerable to temptation.

aphorisms as means of thenching

"An enlightened king concentrates on expressing virtue, thus the four barbarians submit to his rule. Thus by propagating virtue one can make those distant submit. What need is there to rely on expanding territory?" Shi Zimei

"The government of the noble causes men to submit with their bodies. The government of the sage causes men to submit with their minds." Huang Shigong

Kant's categories as modes of similitude

In holy orders, the ordained receives consecration to an angelic ministry, (cf. Chrysostom, On the Priesthood 1.3c4; also the letters in Rev), a juridical title in the divine court for graces of help in this ministry, and a holy seal in conformation to Christ as High Priest and King of Angels. They also receive a general mission which is to be specified by jurisdiction, as well as the special patronage of the Holy Virgin as Queen of Heaven.

The Queenship of Mary consists in that her ministry as Mother of Christ does not cease at death.

Augustine on order: "a disposition given his own place to each one of those being equal and unequal" (Civ Dei 1.19 c 13 n1).

The sacramental character seals an interior covenant.

the enceinte of a doctrine
doctrinal development by concentric fortification of principle

Acceptively, God exists as a social entity, and this is true even if (like an atheist) one regards Him as a social fiction. But we tend not to think much about God's existence as a social entity.

The matter of matrimony is the passive contract, which is what is given, and the form of matrimony is the active contract, and thus the mutual giving.

The mutual consent expressed in words in matrimony is the efficient cause; the nature of matrimony is the mutual consent formalized as contractual bond. Thus the sacrament is permanent, not transient.

The priest in matrimony is the minister not of the sacrament itself but of the Church's recognition and benediction.

All genuine marriages are 'sacraments of nature' and have a natural sacredness as instituted by God, being the locus of the humanly appropriate survival of humanity, and foreshadonwing union with the divine (albeit confusedly).

It seems likely that marriage between Christian and unbeliever, if done properly according to the Church, should be seen as a minor sacrament (saramental), even though not as a major sacrament, for the baptized believer.

'Civil marriage' is in some sense a misnomer; it is natural marriage, and the civil power has only authority insofar as is involved in its being part of the civil religion or piety or in its having publicity as a contract.

The primary difficulty with iterated deontic operators is maintaining consistent interpretation.

Identity is a way of thinking about entity.

Being has its first principle in God, and so does distinction; being and distinction alike imitate God.

"The dynamism of our mind proceeds necessarily beyond every finite object, beyond the sum of all possible finite objects, towards the infinite itself." Emerich Coreth
"Every finite being stands in a fundamental relation to the absolute being of God. When we render this relation explicit, we may derive from it a proof of God's existence. Thus demonstrations of God are possible from the finalistic order and harmony of the world, from the finite subject-object relation, hence also from the ontic truth and goodness of being, further from the absolute nature of moral obligation, from the transcendence of human society and history, from the religious experience both of the individual and of humanity as a whole, and so on."

Being is the instigator and object of wondering.

"In a generalized sense, a horizon is specified by two poles, one objective and the other subjective, with each pole conditioning the other. Hence, the objective pole is taken, not materially, but like the formal object *sub ratione sub qua attingitur* (under the aspect whih the activity specifically regards); similarly the subjective pole is considered, not materially, but in its relation to the objective pole." Lonergan

Our capability for the sublime is itself sublime.

A pope who teaches something explicitly as an innovation is by definition not teaching it as the successor of St. Peter.

Merit by its nature involves a note of incompleteness and probation.

There is almost always more than one possible strategy.

co-prayer as a central component of the communion of saints (prayer with and prayer for)

Nothing is as contagious as confusion.

James Chastek on baptism of vicarious desire (JT 4/17/24)
Given: At least some unborn humans are persons.
(1) People have rational souls and so are ordered to the beatific vision.
(2) Where there is order to beatitude, something is responsible for attaining this beatitude by its proper means, which in the ease of beatitude is baptism or some intentional act with the force of baptism.
(3) For the young, the parent is responsible.
(4) One cannot be responsible for doing something that cannot be done.
(5) Since baptism of the unborn is impossible, the parent must be capable of, and responsible for, some intentional act with the force of baptism.

The unborn in a Christian family are within the enclosure of the domestic church. Welcoming into the domestic church begins well before birth, being virtually present in the marital sacrament itself.

Lived experience is susceptible to critique for the same reasons lived action is.

topology as a sort of algebra of measurables

Metaphysics begins with being even before any affirmation or negation, being as the precondition for any affirmation and negation.

"...those objects are metaphysical which have the absolute properties of generality and necessity." Marechal
"We do not really overcome an error until we can point to a contradiction."
"Every error contains a part of the truth."
"The conditions of possibility which determine the essential structure of the object of thought a priori are precisely what we term 'faculties of knowledge'."
"In every object of thought, whatever it may be, we affirm absolute being implicitly and contingent being explicitly. Outside of this simultaneous dual affirmation there is no possibility of objective thought."

being as presupposed in inquiry, as constitutive of the object of inquiry, as regulative of the imquiry, as that to which the inquiry tends

the history of philosophy itself as intrinsically a dialectical, rhapsodic, eclectic interaction of minds

Every error relates to truth
(1) as including (presupposed by) truth
(2) as included in (corrected within) truth
(3) as resembling truth.
These interact and come apart in various interesting ways.

Being we discover both phenomenally and noumenally.

two moments of transcendental method (Muck)
(1) retorsive -- shows the necessary ground of object of thought and knowledge of it
(2) operative (act-analytical) -- shows the structure of the act whereby the object of thought is known

Potential being and counterfactual possibility are inherent in the very concept and nature of experimentation.

To Muck's two moments of transcendental method we should perhaps add a solutive or illuminative moment where one uses the retorsive and operative results to solve or reduce problems, or possible problems.

Method begins not with pure abstract consideration but with purported successes and diagnosis or analysis of them as successes.

experiment --> ensemble --> analytical formulas --> laws of nature --> cosmos

You can't form a method without already knowing how to succeed, at least in principle.

science as structured not by a method but by a system for creating methods

imaginative association as a symbol of intellectual reasoning

Somehow human beings never seem to learn that politics is not puppetry.

To fight requires anticipating the future.

rule in claim, rule in name, rule in domain

Particular injustices can be observed; systemic injustice must be inferred by reasoning.

catechetical similes

There's a Smile on the Fruit, and a Smile on the Flower

 The Gladness of Nature
by William Cullen Bryant 

 Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground? 

 There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren, 
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by. 

 The clouds are at play in the azure space,
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale. 

 There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,
There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,
There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea. 

 And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;
Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

Last of the Fathers

 Today was the feast of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church. From a letter to the Cardinal Deacon Peter:

From this blindness, then, it follows that we frequently love and approve that which is not for that which is; since while we are in this body we are wandering from Him who is the Fulness of Existence. And what is man, O God, except that Thou hast taken knowledge of Him? If the knowledge of God is the cause that man is anything, the want of this makes him nothing. But He who calls those things which are not as though they were, pitying those reduced in a manner to nothing, and not yet able to contemplate in its reality, and to embrace by love that hidden manna, concerning which the Apostle says: Your life is hidden with Christ in God (Cor. iii. 3). But in the meantime He has given us to taste it by faith and to seek for by strong desire. By these two we are brought for the second time from not being, to begin to be that His (new) creature, which one day shall pass into a perfect man, into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. That, without doubt, shall take place, when righteousness shall be turned into judgment, that is, faith into knowledge, the righteousness which is of faith into the righteousness of full knowledge, and also the hope of this state of exile shall be changed into the fulness of love. For if faith and love begin during the exile, knowledge and love render perfect those in the Presence of God. For as faith leads to full knowledge, so hope leads to perfect love, and, as it is said, If ye will not believe ye shall not understand (Is. vii. 9, acc. to lxx.), so it may equally be said with fitness, if you have not hoped, you will not perfectly love. Knowledge then is the fruit of faith, perfect charity of hope. In the meantime the just lives by faith (Hab. ii. 4), but he is not happy except by knowledge; and he aspires towards God as the hart desires the water-brooks; but the blessed drinks with joy from the fountain of the Saviour, that is, he delights in the fulness of love.

Method and Common Sense

 I've recently needed a new pair of eyeglasses. My glass lenses had been (very slightly) scratched a while ago, and what this ultimately began leading to was for the protective film on the lens to begin a slow process of infinitesimal flaking and cracking. Because the process was so slow, it wasn't generally noticeable. However, not long ago I was finding myself a bit bothered as to how my lenses were catching the light, and I remembered that I had an old pair of back-up glasses from a previous prescription and dug them out to see how they would work, and it was extraordinary. I had been seeing through what was effectively a cloud; now, everything was much clearer.

The interesting thing, of course, is that the prescription on the back-up glasses is an older, less adequate prescription. The lenses I had been using are a somewhat better fit for my eyes than these older glasses, and under very specific circumstances (the lighting just right) this can be seen. But in general, the cloudiness created by the deterioration of the lenses makes the better-prescription glasses worse than the glasses with a less adequate prescription.

This strikes me as an analogy for how methods of inquiry often work in practice. Just as the more defective lenses with more adequate prescription can be less effective than the less defective lenses with less adequate prescription, so too a more adequate method that is used in a way involving inadequate understanding can be worse than a less adequate method that is used with good understanding. In fact, I think that, when people talk about 'common sense' in arguing and reasoning, they are often talking about this phenomenon. A method might be very powerful, but used badly might be worse than a much simpler, more modest method used well. Many people obviously go wrong by applying methods they only poorly understand, and in many fields you get people who develop elaborate structures on sophisticated methods that are less adequate than simpler structures built on less sophisticated methods, even where the methods used in the elaborate case are, considered in themselves, better methods. 

There are obvious constraints about how this would work, some of which can be seen in the analogy. For instance, it's obvious that one reason you can have this result in the eyeglass case is that the eyeglasses are doing the same thing and have the same purpose, so they can be directly compared. In appealing to 'common sense', people sometimes err by directly comparing things that in fact have different ends in inquiry; this is not an error exclusive to common sense (people do it with massively more sophisticated and expertise-requiring methods, as well), but it's a possible error that has to be kept in mind.

Another condition is that we are dealing with a matter in which approximation, in a broad sense, can be practically useful. That is, in fact, what we are talking about, really; lacking a perfectly understood perfect method, we are comparing methods that have imperfections, or at least limitations, and that are therefore already might not be adequate for high-precision, high-accuracy work. Neither the defective better-prescription glasses nor the effective worse-prescription glasses get me out of having to get an eye exam and new glasses; it's just that in comparing these two glasses, neither of which is perfect, the unclouded weaker prescription is an improvement over the clouded better prescription. Likewise with methods of argument and reasoning.

A third condition is that the difference cannot be very extreme, as measured by its relation to the end in view. Obviously glasses that are so scratched up nothing can be seen are bad glasses whatever the prescription; obviously glasses whose prescription is so off that they are useless are bad glasses whatever the condition of the glasses themselves. As we approach either, we are getting worse; it's just that the approach to each is distinct, and therefore one is not always worse than the other. Of course, if you have a method used with complete incompetence, it does not matter how good the method itself is; and if you have a method too simplistic to get even in the neighborhood of the right kind of answer, it does not matter how competently you use it. Examples of failures on each score are easy to find in almost any intellectual field; you can go on internet forums and find examples of each with remarkably little difficulty. How things go down in between these is the more interesting and less straightforward matter.

Nonetheless, these conditions are not especially difficult to achieve. There are lots of intellectual situations in which you will get farther with a simpler approach than a more adequate approach, as long as the simpler approach is still adequate enough, simply because the simpler approach is less 'in the way' and fiddly than the more adequate approach. Sophisticated methods often come with the weakness of having hidden restrictions, hidden limitations, hidden assumptions that have to be satisfied, like cracks and flakes in the protective coating of a lens, which cannot really be seen but make the whole thing give a clouded result -- and, indeed, the clouded result might not even usually be noticeable despite always being there. How many analytic philosophers have gone wrong simply by mistranslating things into and out of the predicate calculus, making mistakes they would have avoided entirely just by using basic syllogisms or natural-language rules of thumb? More than a few. This is not an indictment of the best methods of analysis used well; but the best methods of analysis can in various ways be harder to use well than simpler methods that will get you close enough. What's more, even in using the stronger method, you might need to check your results using the weaker method; this is a common thing in fields like mathematics, and there have been times, like the early development of the calculus, when entire subfields operated entirely under this regime of always checking the more powerful and precise approach by looser or less rigorous or more approximate means.

The Heat Is Like Some Drowsy Drug

 Reverie in August
by Clark Ashton Smith

The heat is like some drowsy drug
Laden with honey-foundered dreams. . . .
Again the pagan forest seems
To couch and roof our pagan love, 

 Alone I wait . . . but not alone:
For something of you lingers yet,
Something returns, and subtly tells
Of all the beauty made our own. 

 Across the days that intervene
I breathe the fragrance of your hair,
One with the pine-embalsamed air:
Its warm oblivion covers me. 

 Again some gently murmured word
Lights the great fire in my blood . . .
Till rapture like a singing sun
Is in the riven spirit stirred. 

 And leaning thirstily and fain
On earth and air that burn with drouth,
I find again your pagan mouth --
Half-palpable, like dreams that fade.

Reasonable Self-Love and Just Benevolence

 As human nature is not one simple uniform thing, but a composition of various parts, body, spirit, appetites, particular passions, and affections; for each of which reasonable self-love would lead men to have due regard, and make suitable provision: so society consists of various parts, to which we stand in different respects and relations; and just benevolence would as surely lead us to have due regard to each of these, and behave as the respective relations require. Reasonable good will, and right behaviour towards our fellow creatures, are in a manner the same: only that the former expresseth the principle as it is in the mind; the latter, the principle as it were, become external, i. e. exerted in actions. 

 And so far as temperance, sobriety, and moderation in sensual pleasures, and the contrary vices, have any respect to our fellow creatures, any influences upon their quiet, welfare, and happiness; as they always have a real, and often a near, influence upon it; so far it is manifest those virtues may be produced by the love of our neighbor, and that the contrary vices would be prevented by it. Indeed, if men's regard to themselves will not restrain them from excess, it may be thought little probable, that their love to others will he sufficient: but the reason is, that their love to other's is not, any more than their regard to themselves, just, and in its due degree. There are, however, manifest instances of persons kept sober and temperate from regard to their affairs, and the welfare of those who depend upon them. And it is obvious to every one, that habitual excess, a dissolute course of life, implies a general neglect of the duties we owe towards our friends, our families, and our country.

Joseph Butler, Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, Sermon XIII, "Upon the Love of Our Neighbour".