The usual caveats. I'm behind on putting these up, so there will probably be a couple more in the weeks to come.
rhapsodic vs systematic search
It is especially appropriate for the Church to be called Mother, for mothers are first teachers.
paradigmatic families of arguments // bureaucracies
Great literary compositions have meaning not only in ordinary syntax but also in juxtaposition, opposition, and rotation.
Kant's schemas (the schema of......is)
magnitude......number as successive addition
reality........intensity as successive diminution and augmentation of experience
substance......permanence of real in time
cause..........succession according to rule
community......coexistence
possibility....agreement of representation with the conditions of time in general
actuality......existence in some determinate time
necessity......existence of an object at all times
quantity.......successive apprehensions (time as a series)
quality........synthesis of sensation with representation of time (time as contentful)
relation.......connection of perceptions according to rule (time as ordered)
modality.......correlate of determination of whether and how an object belongs in time (time as having scope)
the natural ought: X ought to happen in system S, in that the internal resources of S, without outside interference, yield X
-> This is related to our notion of anomaly, which is deviation from apparent natural ought
Strong modalities can be derived by higher-order summations of null modalities.
artillery as a form of mathematical argument
a fortiori argument as a way of establishing a protective perimeter
Experience prepares for understanding through coherence and constancy.
Kant's schema for causation covers reasoning (premise-conclusion relations) just as easily as mechanical causation.
In the field of pure reason, polemic exists as a hypothetical, as a posit, as a structure.
Locke's philosophy as a noogony (Kant)
Perception by its nature is an effect of an actual cause.
It is in our nature not merely to try to survive but also to try to deserve to survive.
Every sacrament has indirect benefits accruing even to those who do not receive them. This is perhaps most clear with ordination and the eucharist, but it is true of all.
It is tempting to think of taste as extending beyond genius -- Shakespeare can be appreciated by people of less taste than he genius. On the other hand, full appreciation of Shakespeare perhaps requires a genius for reading and acting him.
temporal simultaneity as requiring reciprocal interaction (Kant)
Note empirical foundation of Kant's criticism of ontological argument: A225/B272.
Kant's attack on idealism is a defense of mediate realism on empirical grounds. B274
Where you are is something remembered, not known.
liturgy as symbolic providence -- both providence of symbols and symbol of providence.
The existence of sin is known by nature, but the nature of sin we understand very inadequately without the assistance of revelation.
Satan's choice as being to become what cannot repent
the devil's 'mendacious seduction' as spreading through the human race (note transmission: serpent -> Eve -> Adam; Adam never actually talked to the serpent); Christ begins to counteract this by revealing what it is and providing redemption
Original justice is a gift for all the human race through the generations. (Note importance of generations in Genesis.)
When someone promises, they set an end for themselves. This is not the whole story, but it is important.
predication, inference, division -- these are what Kant's categories of relation really are
(1) All that is predicated must be united in subjects not diversified by predications themselves.
(2) Every conclusion presupposes something upon which it follows according to a rule.
(3) All parts existing in a division are related by the division.
On Kant's account all modalities are epistemic, consisting of ways of being related to cognitive faculties.
As darkness splintered at the dawn I woke;
the mists of fog were curling in the tree.
I shook off remnants left from scattered dream,
began to build my day be force of rote,
to cast my bones and trace out fortune's path
by walking it like one who walks in sleep....
experience of permanence -> substance; experience of alteration -> cause
Plato as concerned with schemes of civilization more than particular arguments.
By being interwoven with the story of the plagues, the story of the passover becomes a story of redemption from death, the final plague.
All of our afflictions are made power in the cross.
The fundamental principle of jurisprudence is prudence.
universe of discourse as foundation of the possibility of assertive reasoning -- deduced a posteriori from experience or hypothesized/supposed for the sake of argument
An account of inquiry that has no room for muddling is defective in its very foundations.
Liberty requires system.
All human interaction has a political aspect because all human interaction involves lines of influence.
Every symbol presupposes a prior representation; symbols are signs of signs.
terms -> propositions -> arguments -> theories -> systems -> schools -> discursive communities -> civilizations
Mary as icon of new birth
Epiphany as bestowal of Israelitica dignitas on the nations (the epiphanic aspect of the Incarnation)
Baptism as the epiphanic sacrament
'Truth-tracking' is a term indicating the appropriateness of a means to an end. It therefore admits of more and less.
Coherent and practicable legal rights are signs of natural rights, although not always straightforwardly.
general intercessions as aspirations
The sacramental life of the Church, properly understood, contains the Scripture in sign and proclamation alike; the Scriptures, properly lived, contains the sacramental life of the Church in practice and intimation alike.
Probabilities are highly sensitive to changes in the universe of discourse.
Bodily integrity is not a physical state but a moral one.
Analogous problems do not necessarily have analogous solutions, particularly across disciplinary lines.
Matrimony as sacrament effects the union of Christ and the Church in being the sign thereof.
Mary as special patron of marriage (Jn 2:1ff)
The matter of each sacrament is necessary first, because it indicates that the physical as well as spiritual condition of man is included; second, for the sake of human knowledge, since we know the intelligible in the sensible; and third, for there to be a correspondence of causes.
the Gorgias as an argument that pleasure is only an instrumental good
Scandal is an issue arising from our prudential recognition of our status as occasional causes.
How many would-be defenders of orthodoxy shipwreck themselves by not understanding that the authority of the Church is a teaching authority!
Parents never stop being first teachers.
the doctrine of tradition
(1) Scripture was received within a context of Apostolic preaching and practice, to be interpreted within that context. Gal 1:8; II Thess 2:14; 2 Jn 3; II Tm 1:14; II Tm 2:2
(2) This context of preaching and practice has been handed down in perpetual succession. I Tm 3:15; Eph 4; Mt 16:18; Acts 1; Mt 28; Lk 22:32; Jn 20; Jn 21:17
(3) consensus of Fathers
Church : building :: Peter : rock Mt 16
Church : family :: Peter : steward Mt 17
Church : ship :: Peter : captain Lk 5
Church : net :: Peter : fisher Mt 13
Church : kingdom :: Peter : steward Mt 16
Church : flock :: Peter : pastor Jn 21
Church : fraternity :: Peter : confirmer Lk 22
Scripture -> Apostolic Tradition -> Teaching Authority of the Church -> Preeminence of the Councils -> Authority of the Fathers -> Petrine Primacy
three forms of preaching: speech, writing, sacramental sign
the ideal structure of an indefinite extrapolation
There are no levels of Church teaching authority, which is simple, but there are gradations of accuracy, precision, definitiveness, in documentary formulations of the teaching of that authority. The sculptor make use different instruments to achieve diverse effects, but it is all one skill; and, more to the point, the teacher teaches in many different ways, but the authority of her teaching is not itself diversified merely by the use of these different means and instruments. And the Church is of all teachers the one with the most singular and simple authority to teach.
- look more closely at Hume vs Malebranche on pride
modality blindness as the flaw of empiricism
"A body remains in a state of absolute rest, unless it is disturbed to move by some external cause." Euler (Prop 7) -> he establishes this on the basis of a principle of sufficient reason
We get from dynamics to statics (or vice versa) by counterfactual reasoning.
Godhead withstands all winds of change; the divine is never compelled to bend.
marriage as the sacrament of home
If knowledge is apprehension of the truth of propositions, knowledge is not justified true belief.
consent : marriage :: repentance : reconciliation
Without conviction there is no friendship.
The integrity of sex in marriage does not and cannot depend only on what is done at the precise moments of sex, or, indeed, only on what is done around that time. It depends on the character of the marriage itself, and our sexuality is likewise not something that is only operative during sexual acts.
No artificial formal language has ever had to serve the sheer diversity of rational ends served by natural languages every day.
Pronouns are not mere placeholders; they also classify, and this classificatory use is often important.
It is only through the analysis of action that we can attain an insight into the structure of our thought.
"For man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles." Victor Hugo, Les Miserables.
-> This is the key to the power of novels.
liturgical calendars as social memories
the saints as representing in memory the work of the Church -> note that this representative function, saints as signs of the work of the Church does not depend on strict historicity
Interpretation is governed by deontic structures.
contrapunctal arguments: independent but 'fit' well together (analogy, associational links)
Newman's seven notes of true development
(1) preservation of type
(2) continuity of principles
(3) power of assimilation
(4) early anticipation
(5) logical sequence
(6) preservative additions
(7) chronic continuance
-> Brownson argues that (2) and (6) are reducible to (1), that (3) contradicts original sufficiency of type, that (5) is not relevant to development, that (4) is inconsistent with development, and that (7) does not distinguish true development from corruption
The difficulty of metaphysical 'thought experiments' is determining when they describe the really possible and when they describe the possible only in the sense of not-yet-ruled-out-by-what-is-available.
the Gorgias as arguing that democracy requires moral traditions if it is to survive
calm discussion & greatness in peace as requirements for good governance
Rhetoric is concerned more with means of persuasion than persuasion.
syncategorematic terms as operations + encapsulated kinds of reasons
To claim that the structure of the world is to be discovered empirically is a metaphysical claim legislating that the world must have a structure discoverable by empirical means, and since empirical means are defined in terms of sensory effects, it requires that the world's structure be discoverable by its effects.
Peirce: nouns substitute for pronouns
the Gorgias as an argument for the unity of the cardinal virtues
Tone and gesture carry logical information.
morals : Box-Box :: taste : Box-Diamond
Coherent regard for due process requires that something at least analogous to natural law be presupposed. The right to due process of law does not constitute due process, nor does any particular legislation concerned with process of law; they presuppose it, and laws must deliver the process of law that is already due.
"It is never possible to predict a physical occurrence with unlimited precision." Planck
Talking about resemblance across time requires that memory involve more than resemblance.
Although we often talk about arguments, we don't often talk about deployment of arguments. This is considered in the Organon (Topics, Sophistics, Rhetoric, Poetics), but rarely anywhere else.
wagering as an assessment of options for inquiry (Pascal)
To be refuted is sometimes the path toward demonstration.
Ask yourself the question or you might not know the answer.
It is the mind that hunts, not the bow or the gun.
To understand a geometrical diagram requires not merely understanding that which is represented in the diagram but also the mind's domain-specific freedom in constructing it. It is an error to think of diagrams as inert; they are things done.
Pieper's account of leisure as an answer to Nietzsche's account of the will to power
Fortitude is the protection of justice; temperance prepares one to take joy in justice.
the pre-understandings in tradition
There are two ways to be philosophically ambitious: scholastically systematic and romantically aphoristic. The ideal, perhaps never fully attainable, would be to be and have both.
tradition as gift, tradition as loan
tradition as learning by participation in authority
self-reference problems are usually non-termination problems
Since body is the matter of bodily change, it must have some conservation principles governing it; conservation principles as defining quasi-material causes.
juxtaposition of ideas held together as an aggregate
mixture of ideas held together by affinity
composition of ideas held together by purposive structure
doctrine, dogma, discipline, devotion
Part of being a historian of philosophy is coming to be able to predict what a thinker in a period might say, prior to investigation, based on knowledge of the period. Obviously this will be fallible, but one learns most by being able to identify why the unanticipated deviations happened.
Humean account of sympathy and general rules as giving a type of rationality that is neither instrumental nor epistemic in the usual sense
For morality to be important, you don't have to care for morality as such, only something morality covers
Many things called uncivil are not uncivil, just stupid; and many things that are not called uncivil poison civil relations.
