Thought for the Evening: Modal Operators with Multiple Arguments
In modal logic we most commonly deal with Box (strong modality) and Diamond (weak modality) as operators that each take one argument. Thus
□p
◊p
So, for instance, these would be something like "Necessarily, p" and "Possibly, p", or else "Always p" and "Sometimes p", or however we are defining Box and Diamond. And of course these can be negated to get Not-Possibly, or what have you. But there's nothing that really requires us to hold that you can only have Boxes and Diamonds that take one argument. You can make perfect sense of a nullary modal operator, taking no arguments at all:
□
◊
This is in fact pretty much how Top or Verum (⊤, T, or 1) and Bottom or Falsum (⊥, F, or 0) work in certain logical systems; Top, which represents tautology or always-true, is a Box and Bottom, which represents impossibility or never-true, is a Not-Diamond.
One can also have modal operators that take more than one argument. Two, for instance:
□(a,b)
◊(a,b)
(The parentheses are optional, of course, but they are helpful at times if you are dealing with arguments that can be negated.) There is in fact one form of modal logic that is well known that is binary in this way: mereology. If, for instance, you have two things, a and b, that overlap,
O(a,b) or aOb,
depending on your conventions, the overlap functions here as a binary Diamond. Its behavior is a little more complicated than the unary Diamond we usually associate with modal logic (you have to be more careful with how you handle negations, for instance), but the only complications are those arising from having two arguments rather than just one, and not with how the operator itself works. One can even think of overlap in terms of possibility, if one wishes: if a and b overlap, then it is possible for something to be in both a and b.
While there is not as much work done on it, another instance of a binary Diamond would be a compossibility operator -- instead of "Possibly, p" you'd have "p and q are possible together", but we'd obviously still be dealing with possibilities; we'd just have added another argument. Modal logics of compossibility would have analogues in mereologies; indeed, if you think about it, one way to think about compossibility is to think of it by a metaphor of overlapping possibilities.
Nothing in overlap or compossibility requires that you only have binary operators for them. You can have three things that overlap, or four, or a hundred trillion, and likewise you can have multiple things that are all compossible together, as many as you please.
Various Links of Interest
* It's been known for some time that there is a considerable amount of corruption in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Events of the past few years, though, have increasingly suggested that it went much farther than previously thought. At this point I think there's a good argument that the episcopacy of the past fifty to seventy years has been at least as corrupt as it has ever been in the past thousand years, which is saying something given some of the low points. The most recent revelation, of course, has been the release of the grand jury document on clerical sex abuse in six dioceses of Pennsylvania, which serve about one and a half million Catholics. It is harrowing reading -- nearly nine hundred pages, describing about three hundred priests preying on over a thousand victims, each case determined to be at least probable given the evidence. Some of the cases are stomach-wrenching, involving rape of children, desecration of the sacraments, and cover-up. And justice is not going to be found: the report doesn't go past 2000, most of the actual instances deal with things whose time limit under the statute of limitations has already ended, and two-thirds of the priests involved are already dead. But what has really, I think, sparked a fury is that a number of bishops who would have had to have been complicit with the cover-ups have been presenting themselves to the public for years now as especially tough on sex abuse cases -- most notably Cardinal Wuerl, who was Bishop of Pittsburgh toward the end of the nightmare. Wuerl has, of course, disputed this and has said he does not intend to resign, which is rather ridiculous because at 77 he has already submitted resignation to the Holy See (all bishops have to do so at the age of 75); the Holy See just hasn't accepted it yet. Wuerl's case is made all the worse by the fact that he also claims to have known nothing of the evils perpetrated by his successor in the Washington DC see, McCarrick, despite the fact that it is difficult to see how he could not have known. And the bishops in general seem, unfortunately, to be hunkering down, which is not the right move, because words do not convey the sheer simmering fury I have seen among lay Catholics over this. It's increasingly clear that the bishops' feet are going to have to be held to the fire.
In any case, two posts of note on the whole thing:
The Czar of Muscovy at Gormogons
Darwin at DarwinCatholic
(Incidentally, some Catholics have proposed refusing to give to diocesan appeals until the bishops do something. This would, unfortunately, do nothing; diocesan appeals are basically taxes imposed on parishes, and the appeal to the laity is essentially asking them to pay for it so it doesn't have to come out of the parish operating budget. The diocese always gets its money, no matter how much or how little the laity give to an appeal. The only question is whether the parish will have to cut budgetary corners to cough it up or not.)
* How amateur sleuths finally tracked down the burial place of William Blake
* Anthony Madrid, Pop Songs in English, Written by Native Speakers of Swedish
* I have recently been watching the anime show, Cells at Work!, available online at Crunchyroll, and have been greatly enjoying it. The subs have the usual problem of English subtitles for anime, in that they convey the false impression that the Japanese swear at the drop of a hat, but I've seen worse, and the episodic stories about anthropomorphized cells in the metropolis of the human body are quite fun.
* Riccardo Sabbino, Ibn Sina's Logic, at the SEP
* The works of Aquinas online in Latin and English, in a fairly nice format.
Currently Reading
Frances Mossiker, Napoleon and Josephine
Thomas Joseph White, The Incarnate Lord: A Thomistic Study in Christology
Emmanuel Falque, The Wedding Feast of the Lamb
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
Jules Verne, The Giant Raft
Thursday, August 16, 2018
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
As If Another Jordan
Thou art the beginning, middle, and end of all goods transcending mind, for thy Son in His conception and divine dwelling in thee is made our sure and true security. Thus thy words were true: from the moment of His conception, not from thy death, thou didst say all generations should call thee blessed. It was thou who didst break the force of death, paying its penalty, and making it gracious. Hence, when thy holy and sinless body was taken to the tomb, the choirs of angels bore it, and were all around, leaving nothing undone for the honour of our Lord's Mother, whilst apostles and all the assembly of the Church burst into prophetic song, saying: "We shall be filled with the good things of Thy house, holy is Thy temple, wonderful in justice." And again: "The Most High has sanctified His tabernacle. The mountain of God is a fertile mountain, the mountain in which it pleased God to dwell." The apostolic band lifting the true ark of the Lord God on their shoulders, as the priests of old the typical ark, and placing thy body in the tomb, made it, as if another Jordan, the way to the true land of the gospel, the heavenly Jerusalem, the mother of all the faithful, God being its Lord and architect. Thy soul did not descend to Limbo, neither did thy flesh see corruption. Thy pure and spotless body was not left in the earth, but the abode of the Queen, of God's true Mother, was fixed in the heavenly kingdom alone.
John Damascene, First Sermon on the Dormition of the Virgin.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Voyages Extraordinaires #44: Le Sphinx des glaces
No doubt the following narrative will be received with entire incredulity, but I think it well that the public should be put in possession of the facts narrated in “An Antarctic Mystery.” The public is free to believe them or not, at its good pleasure.
No more appropriate scene for the wonderful and terrible adventures which I am about to relate could be imagined than the Desolation Islands, so called, in 1779, by Captain Cook. I lived there for several weeks, and I can affirm, on the evidence of my own eyes and my own experience, that the famous English explorer and navigator was happily inspired when he gave the islands that significant name.
A number of the Voyages Extraordinaires are sequels to other works in the series, but two are distinctive in that they are sequels to books by other authors, in each case to a book that was an extraordinarily important influence on Verne himself: Le Sphinx des glaces is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and Seconde Patrie is a sequel to Johann Wyss's The Swiss Family Robinson. Each of those works was a travelogue of sorts, and thus anticipated Verne's own approach to storytelling, although in both cases the author tended more to the fantastic than Verne himself preferred. This gives an interesting flavor to Verne's sequels, since the prior works allow a very Vernean narrative for a sequel but also put Verne in a context where, having to respect what has been established by another, he has to stretch himself a bit.
Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, his only novel, is famous for being simultaneously exquisitely crafted and border-line incoherent. Poe seems to have originally intended for it to be a realistic sea-tale, but as the story went on, the fantastic elements seem to have accumulated until the narrative makes it difficult to distinguish what is supposed to be real and what is supposed to be hallucination. The story, which details a trip to Antarctica, is filled with things like ships filled with corpses, and survival-cannibalism, and strange mists, and ends, abruptly, with the survivors seeing a strange figure entirely in white and beyond that no closure about what exactly happened to Arthur Gordon Pym. The novel did not do all that well at the time, but it became a significant influence on quite a few other authors: Melville, Baudelaire, Lovecraft, and, of course, Verne himself, who must have loved the Antarctic voyage aspect when he read the work in Baudelaire's translation.
An Antarctic Mystery, as it is sometimes titled in English, tells the story of an American, named Jeorling, who is wealthy and is using his wealth to study natural history around the world. He is also an enthusiastic fan of the work of Edgar Allan Poe. When the story opens he has spent some time in the Kerguelen Islands and is looking for passage back home, by way of Tristan da Cunha. He finds a ship, with some difficulty, and then discovers to his astonishment that the captain of the ship is firmly convinced that the events in Poe's novel were real. Jeorling originally discounts this as a strange sort of madness, but as the voyage progresses, the evidence that the captain is right begins to mount up until Jeorling, too, is convinced of it, and decides to help the captain to find out what happened to Arthur Gordon Pym. They set out to trace Pym's voyage; their own journey will be nearly as difficult as the one whose secret they are trying to cover. But they will find out what happened to Pym; the mystery is linked to a great rock, shaped like a sphinx, with a mysterious power to destroy ships.
Monday, August 13, 2018
Sartwell on Originality
Crispin Sartwell has a good article on How to Be Original:
In any case, his proposal for how originality works is a good argument for why analysis and classification of real-world philosophical arguments and positions -- one of the major things done by historians of philosophy -- is important for philosophical progress: you cannot see what you are missing until you start seeing that there seems to be a gap in your classifications, and even if the gap turns out to be there because nothing workable can go there, it's sometimes important to know why that gap is a dead spot, rather than just avoiding it because we've always avoided it.
As a philosopher (ahem) my best-known idea is that knowledge is merely true belief: if you believe x and x is true, then you know it. Before I was escorted out of the room, professors tried to decide whether anyone had taken that position before, exactly. Not since before Plato, maybe, was the verdict, and it’s a damn good thing too. It hit me in my epistemology seminar in grad school, where the professor, Jim Cargile, started with the basic idea that knowledge is justified true belief. “Pretty much everybody agrees on that part,” he said, “though some pragmatists [he pointed at the ceiling, which was the floor of his colleague Richard Rorty’s office] want to delete the truth condition, and make knowledge merely justified belief.”
My hand, ever probing for a hole, shot up. “Has anyone suggested taking out the justification condition, or just defining knowledge as true belief?”
“I don’t think so, or at least not quite that baldly, because the position would be ridiculous and evil.” So then I was off to the races.
In any case, his proposal for how originality works is a good argument for why analysis and classification of real-world philosophical arguments and positions -- one of the major things done by historians of philosophy -- is important for philosophical progress: you cannot see what you are missing until you start seeing that there seems to be a gap in your classifications, and even if the gap turns out to be there because nothing workable can go there, it's sometimes important to know why that gap is a dead spot, rather than just avoiding it because we've always avoided it.
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Bright as the Dew-Drop on the Brow of Morn
To Mrs. Coltman of Hull,
October 1772,
by Anna Seward
Bright as the dew-drop on the brow of morn,
Fair as the lily by the fountain side,
Sweet as the damask rose-bud, newly born
On verdant banks, where glassy rivers glide,
Thou, Isabella, in the vale of life,
Far from Ambition's paths art charm'd to stray,
Shunning the haunts of pride and envious strife,
Each Muse, each Grace, companions of thy way.
Thy winter's cheerful hearth, thy summer suns,
May attic wit and virtue still adorn!
Brightning thy destin'd hour-glass as it runs,
Crowning thy night with peace, with joy thy morn!
Long may Hygeia lead thee to her springs,
And with full draughts thy glowing lip bedew
And while Prosperity her garland brings,
May nought that blesses bid thee once adieu.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
HoP and "Generalised Ideas"
Martin Lenz has a truly baffling post on history of philosophy:
Perhaps this is true of Martin Lenz's work in history of philosophy, but this is simply a distortion of history of philosophy in general. Some key points here:
(1) Martin Lenz is doing exactly what he is chiding historians of philosophy for chiding other people about: he is indulging in a generalized idea about the current philosophical state of things (in this case, what historians of philosophy are doing now). His entire argument depends on there being, in fact, a "current philosophical debate" in order for any of his comments about historians of philosophy to make sense.
(2) History of philosophy is, conceptually, evidential in method: it is concerned with evidence for what concepts, positions, and arguments actually have been. And when most historians of philosophy criticize something for anachronism, their criticism is chiefly an evidential one. You can't be anachronistic by merely being wrong, or giving an incorrect generalization; you are only being anachronistic to the extent that the evidence indicates that you have failed to account for some salient historical differences in your inferences about the past.
(3) In the case of "the Middle Ages", we have clear and definite reason to think that it is anachronism-risky, because we know how the category was formed: it is an artificial miscellaneous category. People did not develop it while looking at various philosophical positions and saying, "Hey, look, quite a few of these people in this place and time are exhibiting such-and-such patterns, or are responding to each other by such-and-such means." The very notion of 'middle' here means whatever is not on either side. Thus the classification conveys no information whatsoever about the kinds of historical differences that could matter to interpretation of philosophical concepts, positions, or arguments. It covers a thousand years with several different civilizations with different educational infrastructures, different means of communication, different cultural issues to deal with, and some of these have already been shown, by evidence to make a significant difference. It's not indulging in "generalised ideas" that is the problem: it is disregard for evidence and a lack of critical thinking about the concepts being used.
(4) I have never met anyone working in history of philosophy who did not use a cautious or qualified sense of 'us' or 'we' when contrasting past with present. There is nothing, for instance, in the Adamson rule that takes "we" and "us" to be unqualified. In fact, this is not a natural reading of the rule at all; the "we and "us" in question is given by the rule itself, and it is not universalized: "Instead of assuming that the historical figures we study are motivated by the same philosophical worries that worry us, we need to understand why they care about each issue they raise." What 'we' means here is 'we, who are studying them', not 'we, all the philosophers in the world right now'. What are Adamson's rules, in fact? Suggestions for best practice in studying philosophers historically. People doing this are the 'we'. In other contexts, the 'we' might be more narrow and indirect -- 'we, the people studying mind-body relations with reference to such-and-such theories', or what have you.
(5) This is shown in another way. Lenz is right that one thing that causes historians of philosophy to contrast past and present is that philosophers in the present sometimes want to know why the arguments are relevant. Most academic philosophers, in my experience, have a purely utilitarian conception of argument, for instance; they see arguments as things to be used. They don't have the love of arguments themselves, as beautiful things to be studied in their own right, that is necessary for serious history of philosophy. But they are our colleagues, and we have to explain ourselves to them, because that is what a great part of academic life is, explaining yourself to your colleagues. Thus this kind of contrast is quite often an attempt to bridge between one's own work and the work of specific colleagues, or else an indefinite but not very large group of them. This is not uncommon. Again, the 'we' is not unqualified.
(6) 'Synchronic anachronism' is an oxymoron; if he wants a label, a better one is needed. We are not 'anachronistic' beings except in the sense that we can move with the times; having a bunch of heritages traceable to different times is not what anachronism is. The fact that the heritages are there and are traceable is in itself evidence that they are relevant (in some way) to the time in which we are, which is precisely what you don't characterize as anachronistic, outside of maybe polemical contexts that are not particularly relevant to the ordinary practice of HoP. What Lenz is concerned with is ordinary hermeneutics, and doesn't depend on anything to do with times or anachronism.
Historians (of philosophy) often like to mock people who indulge in generalised ideas about past periods such as the Middle Ages. “You wouldn’t believe”, they will say, “how diverse they were. The idea that all their philosophy is in fact about God is quite mistaken.” But then they turn around, saying that the medievals were quite different from us, where “us” is indexing some unified idea of a current philosophical state of the art. What I find funny, then, is that historians will chide you for claiming something about the past that they are happy to claim about the present. Last time I checked there was no “current philosophical debate”.
Perhaps this is true of Martin Lenz's work in history of philosophy, but this is simply a distortion of history of philosophy in general. Some key points here:
(1) Martin Lenz is doing exactly what he is chiding historians of philosophy for chiding other people about: he is indulging in a generalized idea about the current philosophical state of things (in this case, what historians of philosophy are doing now). His entire argument depends on there being, in fact, a "current philosophical debate" in order for any of his comments about historians of philosophy to make sense.
(2) History of philosophy is, conceptually, evidential in method: it is concerned with evidence for what concepts, positions, and arguments actually have been. And when most historians of philosophy criticize something for anachronism, their criticism is chiefly an evidential one. You can't be anachronistic by merely being wrong, or giving an incorrect generalization; you are only being anachronistic to the extent that the evidence indicates that you have failed to account for some salient historical differences in your inferences about the past.
(3) In the case of "the Middle Ages", we have clear and definite reason to think that it is anachronism-risky, because we know how the category was formed: it is an artificial miscellaneous category. People did not develop it while looking at various philosophical positions and saying, "Hey, look, quite a few of these people in this place and time are exhibiting such-and-such patterns, or are responding to each other by such-and-such means." The very notion of 'middle' here means whatever is not on either side. Thus the classification conveys no information whatsoever about the kinds of historical differences that could matter to interpretation of philosophical concepts, positions, or arguments. It covers a thousand years with several different civilizations with different educational infrastructures, different means of communication, different cultural issues to deal with, and some of these have already been shown, by evidence to make a significant difference. It's not indulging in "generalised ideas" that is the problem: it is disregard for evidence and a lack of critical thinking about the concepts being used.
(4) I have never met anyone working in history of philosophy who did not use a cautious or qualified sense of 'us' or 'we' when contrasting past with present. There is nothing, for instance, in the Adamson rule that takes "we" and "us" to be unqualified. In fact, this is not a natural reading of the rule at all; the "we and "us" in question is given by the rule itself, and it is not universalized: "Instead of assuming that the historical figures we study are motivated by the same philosophical worries that worry us, we need to understand why they care about each issue they raise." What 'we' means here is 'we, who are studying them', not 'we, all the philosophers in the world right now'. What are Adamson's rules, in fact? Suggestions for best practice in studying philosophers historically. People doing this are the 'we'. In other contexts, the 'we' might be more narrow and indirect -- 'we, the people studying mind-body relations with reference to such-and-such theories', or what have you.
(5) This is shown in another way. Lenz is right that one thing that causes historians of philosophy to contrast past and present is that philosophers in the present sometimes want to know why the arguments are relevant. Most academic philosophers, in my experience, have a purely utilitarian conception of argument, for instance; they see arguments as things to be used. They don't have the love of arguments themselves, as beautiful things to be studied in their own right, that is necessary for serious history of philosophy. But they are our colleagues, and we have to explain ourselves to them, because that is what a great part of academic life is, explaining yourself to your colleagues. Thus this kind of contrast is quite often an attempt to bridge between one's own work and the work of specific colleagues, or else an indefinite but not very large group of them. This is not uncommon. Again, the 'we' is not unqualified.
(6) 'Synchronic anachronism' is an oxymoron; if he wants a label, a better one is needed. We are not 'anachronistic' beings except in the sense that we can move with the times; having a bunch of heritages traceable to different times is not what anachronism is. The fact that the heritages are there and are traceable is in itself evidence that they are relevant (in some way) to the time in which we are, which is precisely what you don't characterize as anachronistic, outside of maybe polemical contexts that are not particularly relevant to the ordinary practice of HoP. What Lenz is concerned with is ordinary hermeneutics, and doesn't depend on anything to do with times or anachronism.
Friday, August 10, 2018
Dashed Off XVIII
All of Peirce's theory of signs is base din some sense on ◊, T, □; for instance, qualisign : Diamond :: sinsign : True :: legisign : Box. This raises questions about the exact interp. of the modalities in question, also of the appropriate logic & its interp. For instance, in some sense delome implies dicent implies rheme, but this is by reduction, it seems, and not nec. in the sense that a delome should be considered a rheme. (But then again....) The issue is complicated by Peirce's pragmatism, since it suggests that the interpretations should always be pragmatic: e.g., in terms of possibility, actuality, or generality (necessity of some kind) in the context of inquiry.
signification by community, by opposing relatedness, and by imputation
- commonality, correspondence, convention
NB that in 3Dialogues III, Berkeley has Philonous argue on the basis of the independence of sensible things on my mind, as well as continuous existence. (Their independence & continuity is due to their grounding in an independent and continuing Mind.)
"...the element of the wondrous in the structure of the world picture increases with the discovery of every new law." Planck
"...a bit of fun helps thought and tends to keep it pragmatical." Peirce (EP 2:12 [CP 5.71])
"Analogy suggests that the laws of natures are ideas or resolutions in the mind of some vast consciousness." Peirce (EP 2:13 [CP 5.107])
formalized arguments as iconic signs
formulae as diagrams of operational sequences
Something is only evidence in a context; change the context enough and you change the status of the evidence.
Natural rights cannot be arbitrary but by nature must be with respect to natural common good.
Royce's error argument is obviously strongest if you have a coherence, rather than a correspondence, theory of truth; modifying a coherence theory to avoid the argument starts turning it into a correspondence theory.
One can obviously have analogues to the error argument based on evil, ugliness, bad design, and the like.
The absolution that Symeon the New Theologian attributes to the illuminated seems to be, if he is not merely mistaken, intercessory and invocative rather than sacramental -- a child's speaking for his father rather than a magistrate's speaking for the Crown.
Most arguments against natural law can easily be adapted to arguments against natural rights -- unsurprisingly, since the latter can only be rights under the former. But this is often overlooked.
responsible participation in the liturgical commonwealth
(1) as coming together for support of sacramental life.
(1.a) patience with each other
(1.b) truthfulness
(1.c) amiability
(1.d) moderation in manner of action
(1.e) sociability
(1.f) indignation against abuses.
(2) as organizing resources for support of sacramental life
(2.a) generosity to those in need
(2.b) supporting the Church splendidly
(3) as overcoming challenges
(3.a) self-discipline in action
(3.b) striving to be greater and better, and honoring those who are
(3.c) not compromising with the world or settling; seeking honor only before God
(3.d) fortitude even unto martyrdom
"It is an eternal law in heaven that the lesser shall share by means of the greater in what lies beyond being." Palamas (Hom 53)
Box: sameness across differences; Diamond: differences
the Divided Line as semiotic
image as sign of body as sign of mathematical object as sign of Form as sign of Good
ascent from sign to signified
The question of the deposition of popes
(Cajetan): Divine law requires that if anyone is heretical, they be avoided; avoiding a pope under divine law would require an exercise of authority; it cannot be an authority higher than that of a pope; therefore it must be a ministerial rather than a jurisdictional power. There is a relevant ministerial power, the one whereby the man is joined to office. (A power causing union so as to generate may equally be a cause of corruption.) It would work by causing in the person a disposition inconsistent with the papacy -- publicity of pertinacity, or some such.
(Suarez): The Church cannot possess a true power of jurisdiction over the pope (only Christ can); but it can declare heresy in the name of Christ; by virtue of this declaration, Christ takes back the papacy; at which point the man becomes subject to the Church.
(Bellarmine): The pope will not in fact fall into such heresy, but arguing solely from principles, a notorious heretic is ipso facto no longer a member of the Church; one who is not a member of the Church cannot be pope; therefore the matter depends on the conditions by which one can say the pope is in notorious heresy.
--- The whole deposition problem is in the inconsistent triad: (1) The Holy See is judged of no one; (2) The pope may be deposed for heresy, under the right conditions; (3) Deposition for heresy requires judgment by a superior. One of these must be weakened or distinguished. Bellarmine distinguishes (c) by holding that in extraordinary circumanstances one may be ipso facto deposed. Cajetan weakes (c) by saying that if conditions are met, it actually requires only a declaration. Suarez takes the declaration to be dispositive to Christ's deposition, and thus distinguishes (a).
--- The common opinion that in a matter of deposition the declaration could be issued by the College of Cardinals seems to me to be completely worthless and without foundation. The College is entirely an instrument of the papacy and has no authority beyond what is given to it by the papacy. It is not like an ecumenical council, or even a general council, which has full and intrinsic authority even sedevacante.
--- Note that Vatican I strickly speaking says only that (1) No ecclesial authority surpasses the authority of the Holy See; (2) the Holy See's judgment is not to be disclaimed; (3) no one may judge the Holy See's judgments; (4) No one may appeal to an ecumenical council, as if to a higher authority, from the judgments of the Holy See. This is more limited than one might expect. However, safeguarding this seems to require that the person of the Pope is also in some way and to some extent exempt for any tribunal less than divine. (Note, for a traditional view, the Apology of Ennodius from the Synod of Palmyra 502.) A question remains, though, of how far this goes. It is clear that the office itself cannot be judged, nor the man in office to the extent he exercises the office. It is also clear that the man can be rebuked without any formal judgment of this kind. And it is less clear, even if probable, that the man cannot be judged in other respects. Note, however, Unam Sanctam, and the question becomes how much the man can actually be distinguished from the office.
--- The usual appeal to canon 1556 is irrelevant to the problem; an ecumenical council (or even less!) also has authority over canon law, for instance, and the canons must anyway in unusual circumstances be interpreted appropriately to the situation, which is precisely the point at issue.
"If we pray in a properly Christian way, we cannot say more than what is contained in the Lord's prayer." Sheptytsky
Every experience is an experience of cause and effect.
act & potential -> cause
act & potential & intellect -> sufficient reason
act & potential & will -> proper value
"all the instruments we use for knowing and speaking are signs." John of St. Thomas
The truth of the problem of induction is that we have only a very vague sense of our rational powers; we know our rational capability mostly indirectly.
the importance of low-probability, high-leverage lines of inquiry
What is predicated analogically is predicated in some way according to an ordering of sign to signified.
Thinking requires a thinker because thinking and thinker are one thing, not separated, in the actual thought.
thinking requires a thinker, obligation requires an obliger (law requires a legislator), design requires a designer
Descartes in effect identifies sin and ignorance (letter to Pere Mesland 1644, AT IV, 117)
'individuality includes infinity' (Leibniz)
Sets presuppose possible variations.
Life is what gives death meaning, not vice versa.
All knowledge of fact involves knowledge of the consequence of one affirmation on another.
Hobbes's God is literally an indestructible, invisible, homogenous fluid.
Hobbes's Church is simply the nation as required by the dictator to assemble in a profession of faith as an act of loyalty.
"Were there no God, the idea of an absolutely or infinitely perfect Being could never have been made or feigned, neither by politicians, nor by poets, nor philosophers, nor any other." Cudworth
Determining 'degrees of belief' by betting behavior is like measuring creativity by salary.
"Theology is thought, whether we agree with it or not. Mythology was never thought, and nobody could really agree with it or disagree with it." Chesterton
It is remarkable how many human capabilities depend on interaction -- human individuals are undeniably more in community than they are alone, even setting aside what human beings achieve cooperatively.
Herder opposes the divine origin thesis for language for the same reason he opposes root innateness of language: it is inconsistent with infinite perfectibility because it sets limits to human progress. Note that all of his more general objections are analogous to objections to divine arguments: rudeness of the early, God of the gaps, unpromising for inquiry, inability to know divine purposes, unfittingness to the divine.
occasionalism (impotentism) // immaterialism
pleasantness, usefulness, and nobleness as the primary families of value in itself
market value, sentimental value, and dignity as the primary families of value with respect to use
What begins to be has a cause.
What begins to be understood has a perceived sufficient reason.
What begins to be loved has a perceived and "felt" natural value.
The question of how much evidence one needs to draw a conclusion is an axiological question, not a logical one.
Devotion requires reflection or meditation.
Devotion constructs its own duties.
The evidential relation is ternary: E is evidence for H in the context of inquiry I.
The concept of evidence depends on the concept of truth. Any account of evidence that is divorced from the account of truth is untenable.
kinds of art culture
talent-expressive, deliberately wide appreciation: Classical
talent-expressive, deliberately narrow appreciation: Technical
taste-expressive, deliberately wide appreciation: Popular
taste-expressive, deliberately narrow appreciation: Gated
Confucian ethics can be seen as in some sense pluralistic: we have, as it were, four basic morality systems, based on sympathy, on shame, on deference, and on standards, which are as it were integrated into a fifth, concerned with a fully human life that balances the other four in a sustainable way.
icon : word in letters :: saint : word in speech :: Christ : word in mind
uses of episode
(1) character establishment
(2) plotline linking
(3) plausibility building for plot points
In the sacraments, Christ is Weaver, Loom, and Tapestry all at once.
Every contract, to be fully just, must involve a regard for common good, deference to that which lends the contract authority, and fairness in exchange.
All grace is, seen as from the Father, favor; seen as from the Son, assimilation to Christ; and seen as from the Spirit, communion.
Just as baptism can be done in incomplete (emergency) and completed form, preserving the essence in both, so it makes sense to say that marriage too has an incomplete and completed (formally recognized) form. Think about this.
signification by community, by opposing relatedness, and by imputation
- commonality, correspondence, convention
NB that in 3Dialogues III, Berkeley has Philonous argue on the basis of the independence of sensible things on my mind, as well as continuous existence. (Their independence & continuity is due to their grounding in an independent and continuing Mind.)
"...the element of the wondrous in the structure of the world picture increases with the discovery of every new law." Planck
"...a bit of fun helps thought and tends to keep it pragmatical." Peirce (EP 2:12 [CP 5.71])
"Analogy suggests that the laws of natures are ideas or resolutions in the mind of some vast consciousness." Peirce (EP 2:13 [CP 5.107])
formalized arguments as iconic signs
formulae as diagrams of operational sequences
Something is only evidence in a context; change the context enough and you change the status of the evidence.
Natural rights cannot be arbitrary but by nature must be with respect to natural common good.
Royce's error argument is obviously strongest if you have a coherence, rather than a correspondence, theory of truth; modifying a coherence theory to avoid the argument starts turning it into a correspondence theory.
One can obviously have analogues to the error argument based on evil, ugliness, bad design, and the like.
The absolution that Symeon the New Theologian attributes to the illuminated seems to be, if he is not merely mistaken, intercessory and invocative rather than sacramental -- a child's speaking for his father rather than a magistrate's speaking for the Crown.
Most arguments against natural law can easily be adapted to arguments against natural rights -- unsurprisingly, since the latter can only be rights under the former. But this is often overlooked.
responsible participation in the liturgical commonwealth
(1) as coming together for support of sacramental life.
(1.a) patience with each other
(1.b) truthfulness
(1.c) amiability
(1.d) moderation in manner of action
(1.e) sociability
(1.f) indignation against abuses.
(2) as organizing resources for support of sacramental life
(2.a) generosity to those in need
(2.b) supporting the Church splendidly
(3) as overcoming challenges
(3.a) self-discipline in action
(3.b) striving to be greater and better, and honoring those who are
(3.c) not compromising with the world or settling; seeking honor only before God
(3.d) fortitude even unto martyrdom
"It is an eternal law in heaven that the lesser shall share by means of the greater in what lies beyond being." Palamas (Hom 53)
Box: sameness across differences; Diamond: differences
the Divided Line as semiotic
image as sign of body as sign of mathematical object as sign of Form as sign of Good
ascent from sign to signified
The question of the deposition of popes
(Cajetan): Divine law requires that if anyone is heretical, they be avoided; avoiding a pope under divine law would require an exercise of authority; it cannot be an authority higher than that of a pope; therefore it must be a ministerial rather than a jurisdictional power. There is a relevant ministerial power, the one whereby the man is joined to office. (A power causing union so as to generate may equally be a cause of corruption.) It would work by causing in the person a disposition inconsistent with the papacy -- publicity of pertinacity, or some such.
(Suarez): The Church cannot possess a true power of jurisdiction over the pope (only Christ can); but it can declare heresy in the name of Christ; by virtue of this declaration, Christ takes back the papacy; at which point the man becomes subject to the Church.
(Bellarmine): The pope will not in fact fall into such heresy, but arguing solely from principles, a notorious heretic is ipso facto no longer a member of the Church; one who is not a member of the Church cannot be pope; therefore the matter depends on the conditions by which one can say the pope is in notorious heresy.
--- The whole deposition problem is in the inconsistent triad: (1) The Holy See is judged of no one; (2) The pope may be deposed for heresy, under the right conditions; (3) Deposition for heresy requires judgment by a superior. One of these must be weakened or distinguished. Bellarmine distinguishes (c) by holding that in extraordinary circumanstances one may be ipso facto deposed. Cajetan weakes (c) by saying that if conditions are met, it actually requires only a declaration. Suarez takes the declaration to be dispositive to Christ's deposition, and thus distinguishes (a).
--- The common opinion that in a matter of deposition the declaration could be issued by the College of Cardinals seems to me to be completely worthless and without foundation. The College is entirely an instrument of the papacy and has no authority beyond what is given to it by the papacy. It is not like an ecumenical council, or even a general council, which has full and intrinsic authority even sedevacante.
--- Note that Vatican I strickly speaking says only that (1) No ecclesial authority surpasses the authority of the Holy See; (2) the Holy See's judgment is not to be disclaimed; (3) no one may judge the Holy See's judgments; (4) No one may appeal to an ecumenical council, as if to a higher authority, from the judgments of the Holy See. This is more limited than one might expect. However, safeguarding this seems to require that the person of the Pope is also in some way and to some extent exempt for any tribunal less than divine. (Note, for a traditional view, the Apology of Ennodius from the Synod of Palmyra 502.) A question remains, though, of how far this goes. It is clear that the office itself cannot be judged, nor the man in office to the extent he exercises the office. It is also clear that the man can be rebuked without any formal judgment of this kind. And it is less clear, even if probable, that the man cannot be judged in other respects. Note, however, Unam Sanctam, and the question becomes how much the man can actually be distinguished from the office.
--- The usual appeal to canon 1556 is irrelevant to the problem; an ecumenical council (or even less!) also has authority over canon law, for instance, and the canons must anyway in unusual circumstances be interpreted appropriately to the situation, which is precisely the point at issue.
"If we pray in a properly Christian way, we cannot say more than what is contained in the Lord's prayer." Sheptytsky
Every experience is an experience of cause and effect.
act & potential -> cause
act & potential & intellect -> sufficient reason
act & potential & will -> proper value
"all the instruments we use for knowing and speaking are signs." John of St. Thomas
The truth of the problem of induction is that we have only a very vague sense of our rational powers; we know our rational capability mostly indirectly.
the importance of low-probability, high-leverage lines of inquiry
What is predicated analogically is predicated in some way according to an ordering of sign to signified.
Thinking requires a thinker because thinking and thinker are one thing, not separated, in the actual thought.
thinking requires a thinker, obligation requires an obliger (law requires a legislator), design requires a designer
Descartes in effect identifies sin and ignorance (letter to Pere Mesland 1644, AT IV, 117)
'individuality includes infinity' (Leibniz)
Sets presuppose possible variations.
Life is what gives death meaning, not vice versa.
All knowledge of fact involves knowledge of the consequence of one affirmation on another.
Hobbes's God is literally an indestructible, invisible, homogenous fluid.
Hobbes's Church is simply the nation as required by the dictator to assemble in a profession of faith as an act of loyalty.
"Were there no God, the idea of an absolutely or infinitely perfect Being could never have been made or feigned, neither by politicians, nor by poets, nor philosophers, nor any other." Cudworth
Determining 'degrees of belief' by betting behavior is like measuring creativity by salary.
"Theology is thought, whether we agree with it or not. Mythology was never thought, and nobody could really agree with it or disagree with it." Chesterton
It is remarkable how many human capabilities depend on interaction -- human individuals are undeniably more in community than they are alone, even setting aside what human beings achieve cooperatively.
Herder opposes the divine origin thesis for language for the same reason he opposes root innateness of language: it is inconsistent with infinite perfectibility because it sets limits to human progress. Note that all of his more general objections are analogous to objections to divine arguments: rudeness of the early, God of the gaps, unpromising for inquiry, inability to know divine purposes, unfittingness to the divine.
occasionalism (impotentism) // immaterialism
pleasantness, usefulness, and nobleness as the primary families of value in itself
market value, sentimental value, and dignity as the primary families of value with respect to use
What begins to be has a cause.
What begins to be understood has a perceived sufficient reason.
What begins to be loved has a perceived and "felt" natural value.
The question of how much evidence one needs to draw a conclusion is an axiological question, not a logical one.
Devotion requires reflection or meditation.
Devotion constructs its own duties.
The evidential relation is ternary: E is evidence for H in the context of inquiry I.
The concept of evidence depends on the concept of truth. Any account of evidence that is divorced from the account of truth is untenable.
kinds of art culture
talent-expressive, deliberately wide appreciation: Classical
talent-expressive, deliberately narrow appreciation: Technical
taste-expressive, deliberately wide appreciation: Popular
taste-expressive, deliberately narrow appreciation: Gated
Confucian ethics can be seen as in some sense pluralistic: we have, as it were, four basic morality systems, based on sympathy, on shame, on deference, and on standards, which are as it were integrated into a fifth, concerned with a fully human life that balances the other four in a sustainable way.
icon : word in letters :: saint : word in speech :: Christ : word in mind
uses of episode
(1) character establishment
(2) plotline linking
(3) plausibility building for plot points
In the sacraments, Christ is Weaver, Loom, and Tapestry all at once.
Every contract, to be fully just, must involve a regard for common good, deference to that which lends the contract authority, and fairness in exchange.
All grace is, seen as from the Father, favor; seen as from the Son, assimilation to Christ; and seen as from the Spirit, communion.
Just as baptism can be done in incomplete (emergency) and completed form, preserving the essence in both, so it makes sense to say that marriage too has an incomplete and completed (formally recognized) form. Think about this.
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