Still not quite up to July of 2013. As always, they are what it says on the tin; take with a grain of salt.
Finnis's basic goods as constituents of tradition (civilizational tradition, perhaps)
Individual rights are part of common good, and this includes human dignity generally.
private good of human persons as subordinate to common good, which however itself is the good they share in common and which itself requires recognizing the value & dignity of human persons and the importance of their private good (considered generally)
The Magisterium serves Scripture by teaching Tradition. (DV 210)
the choirs of angels as being pure cases of ministries found in the Church
theology of providence : angelology : ecclesiology
Communion with Rome organizes the liturgical commonwealth as a society in the world.
Naturalizing Kant:
(1) Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become universal law.
-> Universal law in natural law theory: rational ordering to common good (promulgated by caretaker) (of all who are rational)
-> Act only according to that dictate that can be a rational ordering to good common to all who have reason.
-> Seek what is common good for all who are rational and avoid what is inconsistent with it.
(2) Act in such a way that you treat humanity whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means.
-> Humanity itself (rational nature) as our common good
-> Seek the good of humanity and avoid what is inconsistent with it.
(3) Act in accordance with the maxims of a member giving universal laws for a merely possible kingdom of ends.
-> realms are constituted as such by civic friendships
-> Seek to do that which is consistent with friendship of virtue and avoid what is inconsistent with it.
[the particular concepts of autonomy and law of nature in Kant's formulations add some complications]
to seek the greatness of little things
the study of negatives -- i.e., what would be required for things definitely true to be false
Suspension of judgment is a practical matter.
Matrimony claims eternity, or at least its reflection.
Classification is not explanation, but it may be an essential component of explanation.
Poetry is based on the transformation of sign into sign, taken in their physical expressions, by associative means. This may be by significant sound, or by the look of the word, or by its bodily expression (as in ASL).
There is a continuous spectrum of arts from dance to poetry and from both to painting and sculpture, when characterized in terms of the kinds of sign they involve.
No language allowing for revision is immune to being used for dissimulation.
The time when you do well to let yourself be led by the blind is the time when your own eyes must be shut.
Human beings have thought of immortality as rebirth, or as continuing unconquered by death, or as joining with all things; but all are in some way true.
nature as this -> aesthetic -> beauty -> nature as cosmos
nature as this -> aesthetic -> sublimity -> nature as cosmos
nature as this -> teleological -> purposiveness -> nature as cosmos
Christianity in the form of free subjectivity, in the form of objective authority
Restoration after wrongdoing always requires the innocent to endure much; and forgiveness itself is an endurance of difficulty.
preparation for sacraments: personal disposition, instituted preparation
Eucharist as spiritual presence (Owen)
1. by representation
1.a. of Christ as food for our souls
1.b. of Christ as suffering for our sins
2. by exhibition
2.a. for incorporation
2.b. for nourishment
3. by obsignation (seal of covenant)
satisfaction as satiation of due or debt
In the Eucharist Christ is present both outwardly and inwardly.
"verses, however masterly, cannot be translated literally from one language into another without losing much of their beauty and dignity" Bede, Ecc. Hist. IV.24
People are inveterate rationalists; they are constantly trying to find their views written in the logic of things.
Causal considerations are necessary to distinguish epicyclical from non-epicyclical modifications to a theory.
Sustainable inquiry presupposes the coordination of common self-interest and means of discovery.
All explanation has a normative or deontic component. (We see this especially when we consider analysis of it in terms of explanandum and explanans: it has a problem-solution form of end-means structure.)
The preservation of rights and powers enshrined in customary law is the greatest and most important preventative against tyranny and oppression.
poetic eustochia
-> all the parts of prudence have their role in the poetic
common law as customary law regularized according to reasoned precedent
customary law as formative of national character
Customary law both unites and diversifies the liturgical commonwealth.
In the Eucharist the Church offers herself as sacrifice by joining with Christ as His sacramental body. (cf. Augustine De Civ 10:6)
Law not only protects common good but creates new constituents of it.
the Eucharist as signifier and signified in indissoluble unity
integral human fulfillment as ordering of good to good
the Church as itself the Temple service
baptism as the rite of liminality, eucharist as the rite of sublimity
The promise of confirmation is that God will do more with us than we know.
a natural law theory of inquiry and experiment
the Five Ways as reflected in the sacraments and in sacramental grace
vestiges of ancient truth, vague presentiments, fugitive tones, momentary flashes
Human corruptibility is necessarily as great as human perfectibility.
Schlegel's philosophy of life as a tracing of the image of God
'the threefold divine principle or moral classification of historical philosophy' (Schlegel): the Word, the Power, the Light
The method most proper to natural law theory is Socratic dialectic.
The 'sufficient reason' of the PSR can't possible be univocal.
Hypothetical imperatives presuppose a categorical imperative of some kind.
A question insufficiently considered in philosophy of science is that of large-scale cul-de-sacs. It is generally assumed that cul-de-sacs are minor, so that returning to scientific progress is relatively easy. But there is no reason to expect this to be universally the case -- there may be cases where getting any further requires going back to a much more primitive level and rebuilding from there.
All human beings are signs of God.
The standard form of argument in most politics is the political cartoon or caricature.
Note the repeated theme in Bede of people journeying to Rome and there learning things about the Church that they had no means to learn about in their own countries.
3 aspects of common good: existence, animal life, rational life
Discovery lies more in sublimity than in clarity.
liminality as the principle of practical discovery
To look forward to the resurrection of the dead is to look forward to living always with Christ in heaven and Christ with us on earth.
the Ascension as the mystery of hope
ethical monotheism as the most effective deontology
-> history at least suggests that it is the most natural form of it, and also the form with the widest persuasive appeal
The rise of the Encyclical is an important theological phenomenon that has not properly been studied; it is as significant as the Decretals, or the Glosses, or the Sentences.
a totality of consistently interacting changing things
As John leaped in Elizabeth's womb at the coming of Christ, so we leap in the womb of the Church at His presence.
Greek hyperdiversification & the cradle conditions of philosophy (cp Schlegel)
reality shows as freak-viewing packaged for the masses
The purpose of a human juridical order is to unfold human dignity.
The mere fact that some people stumble over it does not make a thing a stumblingblock; otherwise everything is a stumblingblock.
Considering new data fully requires arguing for a position.
satisfaction as the natural work of charity
Prima principia, quorum cognitio est nobis innata, sunt quaedam similitudines increatae veritatis. Aquinas DV 10.6ad 6
Happenings cannot be though without endurings.
Goodness alone is creative.
wisdom as narrative rationality
Dialectic search crystallizes into analytic structure within the field laid out by the mind's poetic play of representations; this is all applied rhetorically in communicative actions.
poetics: analogy :: topics : search :: analytics : proof :: elenchus : diagnosis
Tradition as Scripture in motion
A theology of Scripture is a pneumatology.
Scripture as an icon of the Holy Spirit (He has spoken through the prophets.)
Debates about what is 'the' species concept are debates about natural classification, and would be benefitted by a bit of Whewellian insight about the distinction between artificial and natural classifications.
We come to understand positions by recognizing prima facie problems and their deeper solutions.
The natural tendency, or a natural tendency, in argument is to try to argue for a position simply by restating it in more general or generic terms. This is legitimate, as far as it goes, but incomplete: argument for differentia cannot easily proceed this way, and it is the differentia that usually are the core of the dispute.
cladistic principles in analyzing traditions
Mutations are harmful or beneficial only relative to functions by which the organism may be harmed or benefited, which vary from species to species based on physiological differences, and sometimes within a single species based on stable behavioral differences.
Reconciliation is reintegration.
Hume's vision theory & cellular automata (cp also Berkeley)
Berkeley's divine language as operational and performative
Arguments require upkeep and updates.
Scripture as the regulatory instrument of the Spirit
the holophrastic character of liturgy
penance as the sacrament of conscience formation
penance & anticipation of the four last things
Being in the image of God, we are capable of God according to grace.
the notion of miracle (IV Sent d17 q1 a5 q1 a1)
(1) an effect above the power of the created nature of the agent
(2) where there is no natural order but only obediential potency for the effect
(3) occurring in a way outside the normal order for effects of that kind
(3 is why infusion of rational soul or justification or upholding the world are not, properly speaking, miracles)
The obediential potency of a thing is even more fundamental and natural to it than its natural passive potency. The latter is more 'natural' with respect to the agent, not the potency.
The most perfect human fulfillment requires fulfillment of our specific obediential potencies.
Numbers are things that can themselves be numbered; a great deal of mathematics hangs on this.
Sacraments all secondarily symbolize the Church itself, although matrimony in a sense does so primarily as well.
The priesthood is chiefly and primarily a symbol of the Christ, but in such a way as also to be a symbol of the whole Church as apostolic.
chrematistics, ars pecuniativa
making reason sacramental
We experience mere sensing as incomplete.
Tolkien's greatest strength is in the fact that the underling linguistic structures are themselves works of art.
sacraments as expressing the mind of Christ
Poets do not work with sound as such but the aptitude for it, and this insofar as it is a form of aptitude for beauty.
Love is the coherence of eternity.
the fruits of the Holy Spirit as the manifestation of the inner life of charity
the two dimensions of orders
vertical: Christ as appearing before God on our behalf (Hebrews 9:24-28)
horizontal: apostolic succession (Acts 1:1-11)
the Ascension as a mystery of priesthood
Military growth follows lines of commerce and trade.
For creatures, love is by as-it-were part and as-it-were whole.
The consent of the Church is the act of the Holy Spirit.
To be self is to be related as a self.
3 aspects of justification
(1) reputation (bare imputation) Ezk16:37, Rm 2:13
(2) doing what is just Rm 2:13
(3) receiving justice Rm 5:1
The Gentiles did not sin by not observing the ceremonial law; a fact recognized by the Jews themselves. But they did not receive the help and formation God gave through the ceremonial law.
Faith is given to us as the first part of justice.
Note that Aquinas says that in judgment the just will see Christ in the glory of His Godhead, the wicked in His human form.
In the Mass we relive in remembrance that which we maintain in our actions, by God's grace.
Matrimony, like orders, contributes to personal holiness entirely through service to others.
existential instantiation as construction of an individual (cp Hintikka) -- as the string version of a geometrical diagram construction
--> conversely, geometrical diagrams as existential instantiation
The exemplar cause of justification is divine justice itself; but the proper formal cause of it is also divine justice, considered as active and energizing, which we receiving within us.
intensive and extensive progress in inquiry
intuitions as first approximations
intuitions as prioritizations of conditions for inference to the best explanation (what makes the best explanation the best)
intuitions as inferences to the best explanation
detective fiction as a study in causes and causal inferences
the first principle of practical reason as structuring what it is to be a hero (or a villain)
sea commerce and fisheries as the basis of sea power
production -- shipping -- markets
(Mahan assumes too easily that 'markets' means 'colonies'.)
Bread ministers to being alive, and wine to living well.
Ordination is received, but the essence of the sacrament is to be imposed, not to be received -- imposition, not reception. It is an attaching to the sacramental ministry of Christ, as minister or assisting minister or supporting minister.
It is a perpetual temptation to advocate one barbarism as a cure for another; most barbaric things are advocated precisely in these terms.
Ordination, as a sign of sanctifying grace, is gratuitous, given.
moods of rationality
(1) free play
(2) structured search
(3) proof
(4) diagnostic check
(5) communication
Schiller's play drive as a facet of reason
challenge as imperative problem
Anything that can be negated can be modalized with Diamond or Box, because Negation is itself a basic modal operator.
the Gettysburg Address as taken up by the customary law of the United States
It is the responsibility of citizens to form the national character; perhaps the first responsibility.
To do what is required is sometimes a very terrible thing.
the computer programmer as the smith of design implementation (not wholly there yet, but we seem to be tending in this direction)
The primary limitations and constraints on a military are economic.
preserving the highest fraction of possible new discoveries (in inquiry)
challenge as search proposed as an obligation of discourse
Not just the question but also the manner of questioning is important for inquiry.
sea power as a network, maintenance or destruction of links (edges) in a graph
The whole Christ receives the Eucharist together; but husband and wife can receive it together in a special way, as directly representing the whole Christ.
laminas of reasoning
Rhetoric concerns itself with what may be suspected.
truth itself as the gadfly, midwife, etc.
Rhetoric prepares for dialectic by its capacity to engage the nuances of many perspectives.
In the realm of ideas, some seeds require long germination.
