Politicism deadens moral judgment.
validisimilitude
the web of instrument causation
Different kinds of arguments in particular contexts appeal to different characters -- some build on the force of vices, some on the force of virtues, some on a mix, etc;. This rhetorical aspect of arguments is something no one can afford to ignore.
accord of arguments: implicational, convergent, analogical, sentimental
-> There are, of course, corresponding discords of argument
The winds at the end of LOTR that scatter Sauron's darkness & deny to Saruman the West, are the grace & judgment of Manwe; consider also the involvement of the Eagles. Note, too, the involvement, simultaneously more explicit and more subtle, of Varda (Elbereth) in the feats of the Ringbearer. Above the Shadow is Sovereignty and Light.
pity as the sustainer of hope
The Silmarillion as about pride and humility in making
The Silmarillian is a book on the ethics of sub-creation.
Research problems only become fatal problems at the point of insolubility; failure to prove insolubility, at least probable insolubility, shipwrecks many supposed counterexamples & refutations.
Counterexamples do not work with definitions the way they do with nondefinitional claims; definitions are more resilient, for one thing, because the purported counterexample must avoid more pitfalls.
The ants are wise in their preparation, the rock-badgers are wise in their choice of refuge, the locusts are wise in their cooperation, the lizards are wise in their use of their weakness; in each case, despite weakness, the wisdom is a kind of power. We are called to be wise in all of these ways.
propositions as cuts in strings of modal operators
Truth strings are not just infinite but densely so; between every T and T is another T. They can only be represented finitely by abbreviation. Between any two modal operators in a string there is a Truth string. Thus every modal operator is in reality an infinite and infinitely divisible string of modal operators.
Tiny minds, on becoming full, think they know everything.
Arguments unused have no force, as weapons unused do not defend.
religion as the discovery of humanity through sin (Cohen)
messianism as the dominion of good on earth (Cohen)
Except where demonstration is rigorous, a field of scientific inquiry can only place external incentives on other fields, not demands or obligations.
order, relation, relevance
humor as linked to the sublime
humor as giving ugliness place in the beautiful
humor as related to our moral capacity
humor as the aesthetic apprehension of grace
the socializing power of prayer (it creates a common language)
Truth is personalized in truthfulness.
"Aesthetic feeling is love for man." Cohen
Melian is a sort fo counter-Sauron, but the fact that htere is no counter-Morgoth in Beleriand means that there is no hope for the Noldor in the long run.
Thingol's pride seems somewhat misplaced given that he himself is joined to Melian; which surely is as disproportionate a union as Beren and Luthien.
Valor is the bloom of fortitude.
Spouses in the sacrament of marriage signify the love between Christ and the Church by participating it.
Marriage is the most natural treaty of alliance; and it is along the lines of treaties, not property contracts, that its contractual element should be understood.
Promise is the natural language of friendship.
Jn 4:12//Jn 8:53. Together they indicate Jesus' superiority to the two major traditions of Palestinian Judaism, the Samaritan and the Judean.
Most definitions of determinism fail for pointwise deterministic universes. Any account of determinism that cannot handle such universes cannot establish more than a conditional and qualified determinism.
Ecclesiology forces the universalization of political philosophy in the context of Church-state politics.
Nargothrond falls through pride and rashness, Menegroth through pride and greed, Gondolin through pride and treachery; Morgoth's doing, but not Morgoth's arms alone.
When people talk about the grounds of ethics and morals, keep careful track of the modalities.
To live in peace is to learn how to die in peace.
Sins directly opposed to theological virtues cannot be avoided without grace.-->hence original justice
No one manifests the rhymes of doctrine better than Bonaventure.
The fear of death tightens the bonds we have to the goods of fortune.
The One Ring is made possible by the double-heartedness of the Elves, who wish to have both Middle-Earth and the bliss of the West; note that this was also the problem with Numenor.
Of the three abominations of which Christians were often accused -- atheism, Thyestean feasts, and Oedipal intercourse -- we find a confirmation of three features of Christian speech and practice: opposition to idolatry, eucharistic meal, and spiritual fraternity.
Tuor is a man of hope as Turin is a man of despair.
argument weakening: modal, terminal, quantitative, qualitative, inferential
Truth in deed gives credit to truth in word.
Goods encompass goods by ordination of means to end.
Omnis delectatio est ratione proportionalitatis. (Bonaventure)
ideas in the imagination dissociate by distraction (sudden replacement by more vivid), deterioration (the changefulness of imagination itself), and association with the incompatible
Free choice can be evaded by hypothesis for any particular context; it is in general for all contexts that such evasion looks implausible.
Extrinsic denomination identifies a role within a context.
Obediential potency is the full capacity of a thing to be an instrument, for it is the potential of the thing to be instrumenal, direclty and indirectly, to the first cause.
Grave matter is sufficient for making a kind of action a mortal sin; but we must still consider knowledge and consent to determine whether in any particular cause it is fully exemplified as mortal sin, or rather impeded as something fully chosen.
arguments as relics & treasures of mind
argument curation
Truthmaker theory is a crude attempt to capture exemplar causation.
All love requires a sort of voluntary poverty for its completion.
Arguments are constructed by recollection and anticipation.
Debunking is necessarily contrastive, but people often hide the contrastive branch of the argument.
Rigorous theology presupposes a developed literature. (This is actually true of any rigorous discussion.)
Will being that which pertains directly to good, the will of God is the primary concept under which we first come to think through the goodness of God.
If no causation is simultaneous, present actualities precisely as present would be inexplicable.
Enlightenment is the strengthening of our cognitive capabilities so that we may know more.
Kant's philosophy of religion is weak at the point of visible vs invisible church.
Half of wisom is learning how to be foolish in the right ways.
argument-temperament compatibility, argument-mood compatibility
A remote occasion is that in conjunction with which a proximate occasion has a probability of arising that is sufficient for being considered in the attempt to have or avoid the proximate occasion.
the ethnography of positions one opposes
Hegel's criticism of physiognomism generalized to all biological determinisms
Modern theories of truth confuse functions of talking about statements as true for definitions of truth.
Try as one might, one will never convince people that contraception is wrong if they believe there are few or no cases of consensual sex that are wrong.
an economic analogy for Humean constancy
lying & usury & the contraceptive mentality
When we lie we do not merely use false words but express a falseness in ourselves.
Human learning is plagiaristic by default. Going beyond plagiarism requires much discipline and learning itself.
Learning logic is like lucid dreaming.
Since human sympathy is adapated to human intelligence, in human beings nothing foreign to sympathy is genuinely intelligent.
What is perceptible is participable.
Human beings cannot communicate concepts with perfect precision; there is always an uncertainty at the edges of communication.
It is not merely the Law but Israel shaped by the Law that reveals.
Love's flames are flames of God. (Song 8:6)
the link between history and prophecy (1 Chr 29:29)
Nature must have ends because the ends of art build on them.
