With this I have gone entirely through the notebook I finished on September 25, 2015.
heuristics vs methodized prejudices
the natural education of the languor of youth
the Holy Spirit rolling like the vapor off the wine,
the bouquet of the glory of the Passion of the Vine
saint patronage as moral heuristic; as pedagogical method
For something to be a rule of thumb there must be a more rigorous standard with which it can be compared for appropriateness. (Merely making up rules does not make a rule of thumb, which must in some way get us 'close enough' to true, or be able to do so at least in principle, for some identifiable practical purpose.)
sour grapes as 'postjudice'
(evaluation based on it in some sense having 'already been decided for you', in the way in which prejudice as evaluation is based on in some sense having already decided it oneself, independently of the particulars of the case)
networks of instrumentality relations among people (note that markets are obvious examples, although not the only kinds)
All the discussion of confirmation and disconfirmation in philosophy of science turns out to be a discussion of analogy-breaking and analogy-strengthening between models/theories and experimental indications.
(1) analogy between experiment and theory/model
(2) analogy between experiments
(3) analogy between theories/models (needs ordinary language as intermediary)
A rule of thumb is something easy that provides a solution appropriate for practical purposes to a common kind of problem.
timeless structures undergoing temporal change (music)
the potential-actual structure of music
ought not (metaphysical) > ought not (physical)
- one perhaps can include ought nots of health among the latter
- it complicates the question of the ought not (ethical)
- Note that in Malebranche there is a completely general theory of ought nots (met, phys, eth) -- although as a Cartesian he perhaps does not have well developed ought not (phys). But relations of perfection can certainly handle them all.
miracle arguments // finetuning arguments
(especially noticeable with preternatural miracles)
"The Pathetic Fallacy resounds in all our praise of wine." Waugh
violent and natural motions of reason (one could perhaps also make sense of neutral motion)
the obligatory & the official
axiology : spectator :: teleology : agent
The notion of scientific progress is the overlay of the idea of final cause on the material of scientific works.
(1) scientific progress requires final cause
(2) so scientific inquiry requires final cause
(3) so cognition requires final cause
(4) so at least some life requires final cause
(5) so at least some physical systems require final cause
the argument for scientific progress resting on Christian principles (Jaki) as a fine-tuning argument
The point of the Eucharist is to remember Christ, not (except part of that) the Last Supper.
intercession & occasional causation
'historical' vs 'tropological' readings of Box and Diamond
(related to necessary truths being normative in practical contexts)
This raises the question of whether there are allegorical and analogical senses. If historical is alethic, allegorical would seem to be doxastic. Allegory : belief :: anagogy : tending, so the anagogical would be the practical counterpart of the doxastic: presupposition (to be assumed) and posited goal (to be done) might perhaps be relevant here.
must be, to be achieved, to be assumed, must do
the necessary, the needed, the given, the normative
nec > giv > norm > need
the role of refreshiment of spirit in moral life (allowing oneself periods in which one need not worry about serious moral issues)
the passions as moneychangers in the Temple, making it a den of thieves
the dangers of developing a habit of complaint
True theological conclusions are spiritual formations to which one aspires as one aspires to beauty or virtue.
"Regulating the external is the means of nurturing what is within." Zhuxi
By grace the self is subdued and we are returned to liturgy.
liturgy as heavenly order in measured display
All sacrifice presupposes some kind of presence to that to which the sacrifice is made; and the nature of the presence affects the nature of the sacrifice.
Traditions, even degenerate ones, are always walls against certain kinds of abuse of power.
Accumulating bureaucracy is a sign that there is nothing forcing action, or very little.
subalternation of goods
Fidelity in marriage requires loving not merely the spouse but also loving the love of the spouse.
transitivity of equilibrium
conservation of energy
progression of entropy
minimum of inaction
There are different ways of not being fooled by something.
obligation-networks and sympathy-networks in society and the problem of their appropriate inter-functioning and intermeshing
interactional locking between languages/dialects (through geographical proximity, through common media, through extensive trade)
In confirmation we are conformed to Christ as full of grace and truth.
inborn luminous virtue (Great Learning) // agent intellect
The root established, the Way blossoms; and the root is filial piety toward God and fraternal respect toward Christ in our fellow Christians.
compliance facilitation as a basic principle of good administrative design (it is remarkable how often it is violated)
- this is linked to the engineering principle of repair facilitation
empires and the conversion of military power into economic power
Legality is a form of permissibility.
reiterative redundancy vs variant redundancy
common good and the authority to receive authority
rituals of unity
debts of sentiment
abstract obligations
mutual interests
It is a bad habit to say 'gratuitous' when you mean 'undeserved' or 'without reason'.
In practical matters, a perpetually indulged taste for novelties, uncompensated for by circumspection, inevitably leads you to being bogged down somewhere. There is no reason to think that the same in matters of intellectual inquiry are any different.
factors in philosophical stability over time
(1) philosophical diversity
(2) proportion of population with active investment in philosophical system
(3) prior history of philosophical change
(4) system dominance
The failure to distinguish kinds of evidence is a weakness of Bayesian accounts of evidence.
Advocacy is too often confession gone wrong.
plot convenience // merely verbal argument
the gift of receiving (e.g., parents regularly give their children the gift of receiving gifts from them)
Neither remission fo sins nor deification can be properly understood except in light of the other.
practical wisdom & means simplification
proof simplification // means simplification
perspectival mereology // dynamic mereology (the difference is whether change is by space or by time)
To use traditions as sources of easy answers is always a way of subordinating traditions to other ends.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit in baptism and in confirmation unify us as the Father and the Son are united, to the exent that we can be unified in the likeness of that unity.
order, unity, and manifestation as aspects of mission
beauty & mission
rhetoric and poetics as missions of reason
the motherhood of charity // the motherhood of the Church
(the link is the motherhood of Christ upon the Cross)
'Friendship' is said in many ways, according to the many ways, literal and figurative, that people may dwell together.
Charity is itself a virtue while natural friendship is not because the mutuality of friendship is possessed in the very possessing of charity within oneself; whereas natural friendship cannot provide such a guarantee, since the natural friend is not properly within us. In other words, the with-dwelling of charity, unlike that of natural friendship, is an indwelling. Cp. 1 Jn 4
Charity does not merely give us a new end; it gives us new means.
S is part of P [-S+P]
S is part of R [-S+R]
Therefore S is part of P and R. [-S+<+P+R>]
Therefore P overlaps R. [+P+R]
'I promise' as 'I oblige myself to give' (in the anon text On Significant Words)
tenses in mereological propositions
A was part of B -- A may be presently existing or past or both, but B must be at least in the past
A will be part of B -- A may be presently or futurely existing or both, but B must be at least in future
A is part of B -- A and B must both be at least presently existing
-- Think about how this works on the perspectival // dynamic analogy
overlap conversion only works in present tense
size (comparative) as a matter of what can be part of what
vestment // sign
index : mere covering :: symbol : fashion statement
(What would correspond to icon? Costume, perhaps? But that seems strong. Uniforms seems symbols as well.)
When a philosopher says 'at time t' think it through instead as 'with respect to a measurement by a given change'.
Causal reasoning is necessary for humor in order to distinguish humorous incongruities from mere discrepancies.
words of institution : Annunciation (Incarnation) :: epiclesis : Baptism
archaeology as a natural history of civilization
Scientific physics does not replace folk physics, although it may (and does) modify it; the two do not perform the same functions in intellectual life. Even physicists still use folk physics when (e.g.) interacting with apparatus.
exemplarity, contact, efficacy
One should not denigrate quiet fidelity simply for not being enthusiastic excitement.
Aim at good is always the final causation for any kind of obligation or law.
Love is that whereby knowledge and understanding pervades and permeates our lives.
The minister is part of the signification of the sacrament.
Virtues require a regime of friendship within which to thrive in full bloom.
Arguments from evil based on the concept of gratuitous evil necessarily make assumptions about explanation as at least a necessary condition for applying the notion of gratuitous evil at all.
Rowe's df of gratuitous evil: instance of suffering that omnipotent omniscience could prevent without the loss of greater good or permission of at least equally bad evil.
- Since omnipotent omniscience can guarantee responsive goods of arbitrary greatness of goodness, the class of gratuitous evils in this sense is empty: for any evil, God can guarantee a good depending in some way on that evil that is as great as you please. (The Incarnation and theosis from it shows this in a clear light.)
- As Alan Rhoda notes, it is odd to confine the df to suffering.
Rhoda's preliminary df.: An instance of evil that omnipotent omniscience could prevent in such a way as to make the world better.
- The obvious problem with this is: better in what way? Are we considering the evil alone (all evils would be gratuitious then)? Or with responsive goods that omnipotent omniscience could guarantee? The introduction of 'the world' is a degeneration from Rowe's df, not an improvement.
Socrates' first city // Adam Smith's system of natural liberty
The unity of truth is not the unity of a set or class.
Sets, as united diversities, presuppose transcendental unity.
Bodily integrity has a hierarchical structure, being itself an ordering of goods.
bodily integrity & the harmony of body and reason
While there are definite boundaries both kosher and Sabbath law are more concerned with thinking through reasons than with particular results.
rhetorica & the quasi-material causes of actual human reasoning
Where do you find holiness in this world? In the repentance of the penitent.
the integrity, the clarity, and the proportion of the sacrament
Calvin on virginity as a gift (commentary on 1 Cor 7)
invisible church views that are based on secret grace
invisible church views taking it as a forensic fusion
integral ecology // temperance
Christian Rosetti & the construction of poems out of suggestions
ministerial cause: that which takes the place of another in order to execute an actin
microfauna as instrumental causes
edaphiology and the soil as an instrumental cause
double effect in theodicy
just war criteria and theodicy
Nothing is called rational except that which has truth for its end or that which conforms with what has truth as its end.
seek good / avoid bad structures in the quasi-integral virtues of the cardinal virtues
thesis -> suggest possible contradictory position that might be taken -> aporetic development of arguments for and against each side -> resolution -> new thesis
Symbolic gestures are useful only for solving problems of symbolic communication.
remotion & palaetiology
faith : beliefs :: hope : plans :: charity : desires
To talk of 'last resort' presupposes that there is a natural division and ordering of possibilities.
Pain and pleasure are not simple impressions or simple experiences.
Maritain's Sixth Way and its corresponding external world argument
Civilizations are based on the keeping and using of records.
sensation as inferential shortcut
Frodi's mill as emblem of technology in general
Box : constitutional/organic law
True: statutory law
Diamond: allowed by constitutional law
(note that Box implied Diamond but Box and True are trickier to relate. Should constitutional law be treated as a case of statutory law?)
religions as establishing environmental niches for philosophical systems
conjunctive, disjunctive, and sequential lists
trees as sequential lists with disjunctive sublists
There is a general issue with how to distinguish kinds of lists.
All of S except P is part of Q
Therefore some of S is part of Q
dispositions as signs (disposition as signification)
Belief tends naturally to witness.
"The mind that is not baffled is not employed." Wendell Berry
"Christianity is the only front which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism." Chesterton
chastity as school of the gift of the person (under the influence of charity)
"Self-mastery is ordered to the gift of self."
We sometimes cannot do for money what we can do for free because monetary gain (or similar) can introduce conflicts of interest.
A thesis: Every Platonic myth is concerned with the distinction between being and seeming. (Certainly true of Atlantis, Cave, Sun, Divided Line, Theuth, Er, Judgment. Look at Chariot, which is at least not an obvious case.)
Sacramental analogies are constrained by
(1) divine revelation
(2) relation of sacrament to sacrament
(3) other analogies
Any adequate account of fiction will need to have connections to an adequate account of dreaming.
Any textual reconstruction is always partly a philosophical endeavor.
Socratic method as the natural method for uncovering assumptions
A significant amount of engineering is an exercise in defining.
As a primitive in mereology, overlap has the advantage of being easily n-ary for n greater than 2. But parthood can also be such for parts within parts. Both admit of reduction, e.g., Oxyz to Oxy, but the asymmetry of parthood requires care.
etiquette as a means of living in society given that there will be terrible people
the artist as the curator for the Muse
knowing the lessons of history & anticipating the lessons of the future
parallels arising through
(1) interpretation
(2) coincidence
(3) convergence (structural)
(4) causation (influence)
-- identifying convergence and causation requires counterfactual reasoning.
