Dashed Off VII

martyrdom as an expression of docilitas (and thus of the gifts of the Spirit)

Greed is not love of gain; it is a grasping after merely apparent gain.

exemplarity as essential to understanding experimentation (planning of experiment, replication of experiment)

abstractions as having a causal role in communication

the right to have a stable order of law and justice

Sacraments are instituted for remedy, instruction, and practice (duty).

Matrimony is the sacrament to which law is essential.

The sacrament of matrimony looks back to Eden and forward to the New Jerusalem. Its matter is implicit in reason itself and its form is the work of grace; in the union of both it signifies glory.

Richard of St. Victor's argument for the Trinity is not from mere reason but is a reflection on the virtue of charity.

"The cause of spatiotemporal representations is nonsensible." (Kant CPR A 494/B 522)

moral law as exhibited in concreto in good character

representation as inherently practical/productive (union or conformity as the speculative/theoretical counterpart)

transitive, presential, and reflexive love

Time travel in science fiction is a pictorial representation of reflection on experienced time, as space travel is a pictorial representation of adapting to new experiences. (That is to say, one builds stories about these tropes by building on these already experienced activities of mind, and the tropes bear the impress of their origins.)

Bentham as an anti-Socrates

Appeal to 'brute facts' is always a rejection of parsimony.

iconoclasm as cultural/social/political die-off

the Decalogue as providing reference points for grave matter

three ecstasies of reason: prophecy, artistic inspiration, ardent love (each extends reason beyond its ordinary bounds)
- note that this supercharging of reason (intensified sympathy, concentration, pattern recognition, ingenuity) does not of itself guarantee that the principles used are right, and thus the need for insight and experience remains

arguments against free will // arguments for omne quod movetur
argumetns against omen guod movetur // arguments for free will
(the asymmetry arises not from structure of argument but from difference in generality)

Disease occurs in nature; it does not follow that it is natural to an animal that it be diseased.

State-focused socialism always devours worker-focused syndicalism.

Romantic comedy depends on the secrecies of sex.

epistles as presupposing or anticipating dialogue (one takes into account possible response, and any prior actual response)

social media as stuttered dialogue

the sign of the cross as the intersection of intercession and icon

icon as instrument of prayer & as instrument of doctrine

Scholarship requires abstract benevolence.

Confirmation carries forward the Messianic ministry in signs; its signs include good works and almsdeeds that signify Christ.

Peter & Paul as higher Romulus & Remus

most-promising-line-of-inquiry reasoning vs. no-alternative-line-of-inquiry reasoning

models // testimonies

Diogenes Laertius attributes to both Aristoxenus and Favorinus (DL 3.37, 3.57) the claim that most of Plato's Republic is ripped from Protagoras's Controversies (Antilogeia).

loci communes as superportable arguments (Cicero De Inventione 2.15.48)

eristic as mistaking product for skill (cf Aristotle)

contiguity, resemblance, and causation in ritual

friendship (love), self-giving, understanding (prudence), rectitude

deictics & empirical anchors in arguments

the Choice of Hercules as implicit in rhetoric

arguments for determinism // arguments for pantheism

Very often by our venial sins we contribute threads to a net making it difficult for others to break free from their mortal sins.

mortal sin, scandal, and cascade failure through populations

Human beings must be governed by symbols.

the transcendental conditions of homiletics, catechesis, and prayer

angels & divine catechesis
'Fear not' as a key element of catechesis

subsidiarity, solidarity, and peace as the governing principles of common good

The divine order is faithful to the truth in faith, built up in hope's justice, and animated by love.

Associations, like individuals, must be rendered their due.

constraints on cosmological study
(1) possibility horizon
(2) time horizon
(3) distance horizon
-- (1) arises from the fact that we have only one cosmos to work with and only limited tools to use in studying it

Hypothesis testing depends crucially on real evidence-conditioned possibilities.

All law suggests an ideal of citizenship.

the corpse as a reminiscence of the living body

Socratic method as a form of good counsel
advice as maieutic

Truth is the first precondition of reason.

the important difference between being an intrinsic and being an incidental means of oppression

Kant on incentives is actually very close to the right way to approach the fortitude of virtue (i.e., fortitude as a general property of virtue).

complex numbers // rotations // alternative possibilities

Socrates as philosophical Daedalus

Quality of work springs from the combination of skill and energetic endeavor.

True judgment with reason can be no more than a sign of knowledge.

Socrates' maieutic as a clue to what knowledge is

the notion of consenting under protest

the picturesque & natural history -- the 'frame' as a device for study and observation

Socrates doesn't say that Euthyphro's account of piety, to hosion, is wrong; he says that Euthyphro has given not the ousia of it but only a pathos of it.

All error well-argued is just incomplete truth, a part of a complex (error, diagnosis, and correction) that is true.

simultaneity as co-actuality (which is a way it often used to be understood) vs simultaneity as common measure

Apology-Crito-Phaedo as an account of piety

quod movetur as essential to the notion of experimention (which is always a moved being moved by movers)

elenchus as a protection of the rule of law

Snark, even when crafted rationally and for good reason, is not argument.

divine maternity as "the first principle of the nobility and dignity of Mary" (Lawrence of Brindisi)

"History has a way of resembling 'myth': partly because both are ultimately of the same stuff." Tolkien

valor may vanquish, or avail not

the permissible vs the expedient in liturgy

mood as a networking of signs

names as instruments for instruction
names as having dialectical appropriateness or inappropriateness (foundation of taxonomy)

Parenting is a lending of prudence.

"even the gods love play" (Cratylus 406c)

"self-deception is the worst thing of all" (Cratylus 428d)

The Cratylus argues that language is needed for serious inquiry, and able to be used for it, but that it is not the terminus of it.

penance as a drive to truth
penance as a restoration of symbolism

(1) Participation in the sacramental life of the Church is a precondition for participation in the sensus fidei, because sensus fidei is to participate the mind of Christ, who is sacramental Head of the Church.
(2) Participation in sensus fidei is according to sacramental character.
(3) The primary elements of participation in sensus fidei according to baptismal character are articulated in the creeds.
(4) Sensus fidei lies primarily in the living of a truly Christian life according to confirmational character, the specific characteristic of which is teachableness, in service of Christ, by the Holy Spirit working directly in the teaching of the Church and the guiding of intellect and will.
(5) Evaluation of authenticity of alleged facets of sensus fidei belongs to ordinational characer and particularly to the bishops in college, and of priests and deacons as instruments of bishops in college, because by orders they are the protection of the sacramental life of the Church.
(6) Sensus fidei is not private judgment but confidelity.

The Pope and bishops obviously have a temporal jurisdiction in that all who are baptized have an obligation to lend reasonable temporal assistance and protection to the sacraments, whose primary guardians are the bishops.

natural law as the expression of human dignity
the Decalogue as the expression of human vocation

the tutorial or pedagogical character of law
Of every law it should be asked, "What does it teach?"

the gifts of the Holy Spirit as forms of conversion

the Church as nomothetic for theological vocabulary

factors in conciliar authority
(1) ecumenical convocation
(2) papal cooperation
(3) catholicity of participation
(4) catholicity of relevance
(5) reception of Scripture and prior councils
(6) liturgical incorporation afterward
(7) freedom from external interference

There is no nonmagisterial Church, and no nonmagisterial part of the Church; different parts of the Church merely play different roles in the Church's teaching.

Sensus fidelium is not separable from theology and Magisterium.

The marks of an authentic council and the marks of the authentic Church are the same.

Tradition is the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Tradition reminds (Jn 14:26), bears witness (Jn 15:26), guides (Jn 16:13), and makes divine things known (Jn 16:15).

Consent of the governed cannot be taken to imply that the government has no genuine authority, nor that governance is an optional extra.

Sophistes as an argumetn for universes of discourse

the verbal & the physical action registers of ritual
-- standards establish the abstract form that is 'filled' -- thus one may have incomplete ritual -- and sometimes disrupted by errors
-- every participant has verbal and physical action registers
-- these person registers may conjoin and separate

consciousness as exhibiting more and less

The mean in art lies in the product's tending to its end rather than the choice.

Humility takes on extraordinary importance because it is the compliment moral virtue pays to theological virtue.

Plato's metaphilosophical dialogues

Each gospel is a unification of viewpoints.

baptism as the sacrament of personhood

marriage & the uplift of law into grace

ethical closure principles

trust-building activities in marriage and solidarity-building activities in liturgy

the intrinsic aspiration of inquiry and human vocation to God (cp Descartes)

the philosopher as a sign of possible harmony

loyalty, piety, propriety, and reciprocity as the lines of authority
ritual propriety & the exemplar influence of virtue
ritual as a language for teaching virtue

philosophy as a preparation for the reception of grace and, when such, already the work of grace

merit as recompense owed under common good

Sloppiness in legislation drains the authority and effectiveness of a legislature.

models (paradigmatic cases) as being to division what example is to induction as such
myths/likely stories as ways of checking divisions
cutting at the natural joint Phaedrus 265e1-3; Statesman 262a8-11

Statesman and the comparative value of particular metaphors (e.g., is statesmanship better characterized metaphorically by herding or by weaving)

hospitality to Christ in the sacraments

a divine legacy to replace the legacy of sin
-- needs to overcome sin and replace its legacy on ongoing basis

due measure between extremes as having a role in analogical reasoning

the production of fit analogies as a liberal art

Legal justice is the virtue directly concerned with common good as such.

The papacy is not a sacrament, of course, but it is an argument for protecting sacraments.

canons of good taste and common (i.e., non-idiosyncratic) beauty

to metrion, to prepon, to kairon, to deon

In moral debt, payment of the debt is generally symbolic (tokens of respect, etc.) rather than an actual complete exchange of specific good.

the problem of philosophy without pietas (which necessarily is already degenerating into sophistry)