Dashed off notes, to be taken with a grain of salt.
canons of advisability for precedent
to metrion, to prepon, to kairon, and to deon in dialectical reasoning
to metrion, to prepon, to kairon & to deon as aspects of prudential judgment, as aspects of illative sense
All political constitutions depend for their day-to-day legitimacy and effectiveness on the exercise of unenumerated rights.
extended mind // relics of saints
the sublimity of the starry sky as a principle of the history of science
the moral teaching of the Church
(1) preparation for communion
(2) consistency with sacraments
(3) consistency of witness for Christ
bhakti as likely a ripple in Hinduism resulting from Islam
the solidary and meritorious works of charity
(1) preparations for further grace
(2) satisfactions
(3) interpositions on behalf of others
As the Ark of the Covenant was an instrument of union between God and His people and a pledge of divine help, so too is Mary.
the importance of prolegomena and groundwork-laying to long-term philosophy
rhetorical use of pathos to poison or correct philosophical reasoning
philosophical encyclopedia (survey) as a training ground and resource bank for philosophical inquiry
The preservation of destructible good in accordance with its nature is itself a good.
immutable & mutable data in arguments
To ask well is the first step in receiving.
sealing an argument (related to cognition of truth of premises)
attention as the seed of planned action
argument forensics -- e.g., restoring an argument to its original context, considerations of authenticity relevant to interpretation, etc.
Plato's dialogues as memorials and as anticipations
The purpose of the office of the bishop is to preserve the integrity of the sacramental economy.
confirmation character & curation of Christian heritage
the sacrament of confirmation as the binding thread of the liturgical commonwealth
assessing the utility of actions when one considers not merely the consequences of one's actions but one's actions as consequences
maximizing good causes rather than good consequences
Intelligence and final goals are not, pace Bostrom, orthogonal; that would require a bizarrely wide separation of speculative and practical reason.
cognitive anticipations or presentiments
general beneficence, special beneficence, pietas, justice, honesty, mercy, magnanimity as preconditions for society without which it begins to break down
The difference between philosophical strategy and military strategy is the Socratic principle of the former that the truth and the just must win, even at the cost of one's own loss in the dispute. This is not necessarily foreign ot the latter, but it is certainly not integral and essential to it, either.
solidarity as dampening for bad consequences
marriage as foundation-work for society
Even prophets do not always listen to themselves.
Laws protecting marriage can guarantee neither friendship of virtue nor friendship of pleasure, only friendship of use.
two forms of violence/violation: against will and against nature
Politics in every age is often a system of curing symptoms so as to ignore the diseases; this is a problem both Plato and Xenophon tackle.
St. Isidore's etymologies are a kind of approach to phenomenology.
Eleazar in IV Macc. and the death of Socrates
Every vice can be analyzed into a formal aspect, which is to be understood as active disorder, usurpation, arrogation, or pride, and a material aspect, which can be regarded as passive disorder, craving, or concupiscence.
Utopias tend to be stronger as criticisms than dystopias because relative to utopias we are already the dystopia.
sacraments involving promises made to God: baptism, confirmation, matrimony, orders
Philosophy itself is a sort of death, or anticipation of death (Phaedo 67e), in which one separates body from soul through the cardinal virtues (69b-c).
recollection is semiotic (Phaedo 73c)
reason as universal test
reliability specs for reasoning
Some insoluble problems are made insoluble by the state of the problem-solver.
means as defined by circumstances and ends
the instruments of argument
probe arguments
symptom-tests & use-tests
Plato uses analogies, dramatic elements, and contextual juxtapositions to get arguments to perform more than one function at once.
superposition of guesses
intemperance as the chief corruptive of prudence
philosophies of science analogous to might-makes-right in ethics
deus scientiarum dominus est
problem, diagnosis, solution
- problems as always under an at least partial diagnosis
- problems occur within a structure; depending on how the diagnosis relates the problem to the structure, the appropriate kind of solution may be:
reform (consistency-improving)
transformation (reworking structure)
separation (structure-creating)
tolerance
the fundamental vein of philosophy of language: how one may teach by means of language
first principle of practical reason
for individual good: private taste and convenience
for weakly common good: good taste
for strongly common good: custom and law
for most common good: moral principle
clinamen, antinomy, and anomaly relative to a given model
clinamen & the empirical residue for a model
envy as the most orc-ish vice
abstract pattern vs. narrative pattern in dance
Error has no rights, but sometimes it must be tolerated for the sake of the rights of truth.
Poetic flow under immense pressure becomes rigorous rational structure.
Clitophon as establishing that even if philosophy begins in wonder (thaumaston) it is not enough to have wonder (407e)
the priest in confession as a defender of common good (Alphonsus Liguori)
The confessor must help the penitents dispose themselves to absolution, not just try to absolve them.
Nonfulfillment of preferences is not identical to frustration of preferences.
The Church as Mother, in union with Christ, brings forth souls unto salvation and light.
A symbol requires a frame within which its symbolism can be seen.
Decadence makes stagnation look like peaceful prosperity.
health, power, safety, usefulness, prosperity, refined by Socratic elenchus to reality of Good as such (cp. Republic, Gorgias, Eryxias)
general differences between indefinite quantities
(1) the corruption of the idea of triage
(2) the deterioration of the understanding of medicine as a humanitarian tradition
(3) the collapse of the moral economy of medicine as a moral economy
modal logic as following naturally from kinds of hypothetical reasoning
philosophical tasks requiring many contributors
objection-collecting
Ex 40:34 // Lk 1:35
the miracle of loaves & fishes as teaching about faith & the gospel
locative operators that work like epistemic and doxastic operators (e.g., localizability from a reference point0
Peirce & workable-in-a-tradition
to thaumaston & miracles
the poetics of miracles
development of ascetic practice -> generalization of ascetic practice in qualified form for larger audience -> new development of ascetic practice
(but this is complicated by the fact that ascetic practices, being difficult, are constantly deteriorating)
Catholicism is not a theory but a civilization: the universal civilization of the Word made flesh.
To say that there is an external world is to say that our minds are potential to an actual independent of us.
Stable trade requires stable ceremony.
Military disasters arise by convergence of many factors; rarely if ever through some single great mistake (but many small mistakes, or a great mistake as a contributing factor, are not uncommon).
"The pain that gnaws at the heart as a result of sinning against love is sharper than all other torments that exist." Isaac the Syrian
philosophy as attention to the soul (and its part in all else)
latreia to the god (Apol 23c, 30a)
principles of reasonable deference
- seem to require a notion of fields of (presumptive) authority and to be related to principles governing that authority
- note that one defers to judgment, qua exercise of authority / expertise / right of determination
Hume's account of property & exchange as an account of ceremonial interaction
causal, public trust as essential to the health of society
fear as sense of vulnerability
kami in Shinto as manifestations of natural affinity
Human beings themselves are the evidence of ethics.
sublimity as a ground of hope
remotion, causation, & eminence in understanding the external world
postulates of deliberation: free decision, universal concepts, ground of possibility
the sublimity of the first principles of speculative reason
Sensible affinities presuppose intelligible affinities.
God as first principle or ground of affinity
prose as indefinitameter
arguments formed from mists of aphorisms
Ruth : Gentile :: Naomi : Jew
The difference between suggestive and conclusive evidence is everything else.
Natural law as the general structure of human society: people surviving, reproducing, educating, living in society, seeking truth about the most important things, as human beings.
The miracles of Christ practically beg to be used to generate a vocabulary for rightly framing life.
Snark shades into spite with dangerous ease.
"Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen." James Garfield
'is part of' vs 'is a part of'
time as the metric mereotopology of clocks
ordinary language philosophy as ordinary evidence philosophy
The concept of evidence is clearly separable from that of justification.
(there needs to be a proper analysis of 'respect for evidence')
breach of loyalty vs conflict of interest vs abuse of position
obligation // proof
tradition, personal experience, and chance circumstances as joint determinatives of what counts as a live option, a forced option, a momentous option
scientists guiding inquiry according to assessments of live, forced, and momentous paths
Mk 2:27-28 is a fairly daring interpretation of Gn 1.
resurrection and fiat lux Mt 28:1; Mk 16:2; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1 (cf Justin Martyr 1 Apol 67)
the structure of Sunday
(1) natural law: distinct identifiable time for the community to recognize the universal beneficence of God
(2) customary law (apostolic tradition): memorial of Resurrection as surpassing Sabbath (Sabbath as type)
(3) positive law: precept of Church
Marriage is itself a specific manifestation and form of ecclesial communion.
piety and friendship as two grounds besides legal justice for corporate action (but all virtues associated with justice contribute something to corporate life and solidarity)
voodoo refutation using toy model arguments
We see people through our sentiments.
three grounds of healthy customary law (cp Laws VIII): reverence for divine things, love of honor, preference of noble attributes of soul over goods of body
Baptism : baptism :: Transfiguration : confirmation :: Passion : orders
(But note, of course, that our understanding of each already depends in some ways on each of the three parts of the Life of Christ)
the sacrament of confirmation strengthened by the witness of Moses (Law) and Elijah (prophets)
Baptism ; faith :: Transfiguration : hope :: Passion : charity
All of Bostrom's existential risks are only limit cases of things we deal with all the time in institutions.
Jus ad bellum criteria, properly understood, are also jus in bello criteria, and both, properly understood, are just post bellum criteria. This is because the criteria are specifications of issues arising from the very structure of large-scale policy actions.
equity, benevolence, and prudence as concerned especially directly with the good of persons considered as persons.
The more essential lawyers are to a society, the weaker the poor and the outcast are.
The cultivation of stable goods is a key element of good citizenship.
The witness of the Church is an act of the Holy Spirit.
Strategies are not mere conglomerations of tactics and operations, but higher standpoints.
Jacob's Ladder and Christ Ascended
li & the Urphenomenon
Just cause must directly pertain to common good.
HoP as guard against equivocation
The calendar of saints helps to guarantee that, in the long run, the philosophy that assists teaching is not merely theoretical but is rooted in the practice of Christian life.
the panoply of Jewish heritage: adoption (election), Shekinah, covenants (patriarchal and Davidic), Torah, Temple worship, Divine promises, patriarchal history, Messiah
All genuine criticism involves teleological analysis, some examination of means and their relations to ends.
aridity in light of the cross as a purification from pride and a study of humility
When suspension of judgment is required, the rational response is to develop all branches, not to stop. Suspension of judgment is not a stopping rule but a change of strategy.
The altar signifies (1) the human heart (2) the Church, including the Virgin Mary (3) the Incarnate Word (4) the table of the Last Supper (5) the throne of God
John the Baptist & icons as pedagogical
metonymic and metaphoric quasi-definitions
points of eminence (Durandus)
baptism - efficacy
eucharist - sanctity
matrimony - signification
confirmation & orders - ratione conferentis
peccatum
original, mortal, venial
of cognition, of locution, of perpetration
of fragility (weakness), of simplicity (ignorance), of malignity (malice)
sacramental guardians & curators of the sacraments
philosopher as witness
(1) We can experience a world outside us.
(2) To be able to experience a world outside us is to be potential to something actual that is not ourselves.
(3) We experience a world outside us.
(4) To experience a world outside us is to be actualized in some way because of something that is outside us.
There is nothing wrong with ad hoc reasoning as an exploratory strategy; but it cannot substitute for principled reasoning.
attestation -> affinity
The rule of law is founded on regard for virtue, for only virtue can find genuine common good.
rule of law as friendship-building
Catechesis is a practical endeavor whose ends are drawn from those of the whole Church.
Both the Election of Israel and the Incarnation imply that contributions will inevitably be extraordinarily diverse, in all the natural hues of human life.
The abstract structure of civilization is the same as that of prudence.
eucharistic communion as communion with martyrdom
Pragmatism always must presuppose a received context.
orders the sacrament of tradition
Our capacity to think of possible alternatives is of itself a reason for thinking determinism false.
'the madness, the Bacchic frenzy of philosophy' (Symp 218b)
the personation of philosophical ideas (Socrates, Confucius, etc.)
gifts of ideas laid at the altar
To understand the excellence of work of a genius artisan one must first understand the competence of a good artisan.
the intrinsic link between eros and fecundity: Symposium 206c and following.
