This finishes a notebook that takes these notes up to January 2, 2016.
bad moral example : false testimony :: unsafe moral example : unreliable testimony
possible reasons justifying moral imitation
(a) predominance of decency
(b) decency as the norm
(c) social punishing of what is not decent
(d) lack of motivation for what is not decent
(e) social bond creating an expectation of cooperation in favor of decency
(f) antecedent plausibility of goodness of what is imitated
principle of veracity // tendency to act rightly
think about parallels between Hume's principle of sympathy and Reid's principle of credulity (credulity as doxastic sympathy)
"The Church's asceticism knows no other path towards Christian perfection than the lengthy and weary labour of self-denial. Yet time and again in the course of history teachers have arisen who promised the attainment of that lofty goal at much less cost and as it were at one bound." (Ludwig von Pastor)
archival structures of arguments
Vainglory inevitably works itself out into hypocrisy.
sophisms // vices
uncertainty principles of nonmonotonic inferences
evidence/inquiry given a sort of merited right to (a kind of) speculation
condignly 'merited' right to speculation vs congruously 'merited' right to speculation
allegories, quasi-allegories, semi-allegorical narratives
Arguments are for understanding, not for winning.
spiritual life as maneuver warfare
If God recognizes a contrite and humble heart as a moral sacrifice, it has something like sacrificial value: propitiatory, expiatory, satisfactory.
sacrifices // penances
"For those in a state of grace, every act is meritorious or demeritorious." Aquinas (De Malo 2.5ad7)
"To convince someone of the truth, it isn't enough to state the truth; rather, one must find the way from error to truth." Wittgenstein
intrinsic vs extrinsic difficulty of a subject
the prayers God preveniently inspires
the recognition that we are in fact inferior to what a human being, rationally speaking, should be (cp. Malebranche)
To be inspired is to aspire.
empiricist reduction to original // etymologia
[and susceptible of similar criticisms]
Christian inquiry is, first and foremost, Christian charity.
Note that Locke recognizes space, time, and infinity as particular challenges for empiricism because of their remoteness from an empirical original (Essay Bk 2, ch 12, sect. 8).
An air force primarily functions as a hypermobile artillery.
wargaming as a system of analogical reasoning
distortion factors in analogical reasoning
Free markets do not create the conditions for free markets.
justice and its potential parts as the conditions for free and reasonable exchange
Codes by nature are signs of signs.
Principles of War
principal efficient cause: Command
modality of efficient cause: Simplicity
action of efficient cause involving means, prudence of application: Offensive, Security, Surprise
action of efficient cause involving means, application of power: Economy, Mass, Maneuver
final cause: Objective
-- material cause would have to be things constituting combat power (supply, morale, numbers, training, etc.) without being combat power abstractly considered.
the principles of war in providence, qua aspects of divine victory
the principle of celerity (Rosmini) in war
the Transfiguration as the manifestation of Christ qua Savior
"the tendency to multiply festivals of saints will always be found to exert more power, and to command more sympathy, than any plan for reducing them" (Batiffol)
Ps 1:1
in cathedra pestilentiae (Vulg)
in cathedra derisorum (Jerome)
in conventu protervorum (Bea)
Parents, when they mistreat their children, tend to do so in ways similar to the ways people mistreat themselves. (This is quite obvious with overindulgence; it is less obvious, perhaps, but still certainly true, of most darker forms of mistreatment.)
Sir 45;6-7, 47:22 & the perpetuity of David and of Aaron
apostolicity: efficient cause :: unity : formal cause :: catholicity : material cause :: sanctity : final cause (Journet)
The healing miracles of Christ are symbols of our salvation; the work of these healing miracles is of two kinds, by contact and at a distance. Christ in His Mystical Body heals souls by, as it were, contact, and also by direct intervention without intermediary. (cp Journet: "He continues then to make contact with us by His action, but under the appearances of the hierarchy; as, in the greatest of the sacraments, He continues to make contact with us by His substance under the appearances of bread and wine.")
Christ as Priest : power of order :: Christ as King : power of jurisdiction
-- this raises the obvious question of what corresponds to Christ as Prophet; Journet takes proclamation to belong to the power of jurisdiction, as sacrament belongs to the power of order, and indeed argues as if this is exhaustive: Christ as Head acts on the Church in two ways, by hidden influx from within and by doctrine from without. The prophetic power would need to be tertium quid.
-- a possible correspondent power to Christ as Prophet might be found in cases that are neither precisely sacramental nor precisely doctrinal, although linked to both -- e.g., intercession and penitential practices. (Although Journet takes indulgences to be jurisdictional.)
-- power of order operates, according to Journet, in the way of infallible and purely instrumental power, while that of jurisdiction operates in the way of partly infallible, partly fallible secondary ministerial power; in addition, power of order is indelible power of spiritual priesthood, while that of jurisdiction is a delible "moral authority, mission, and power." Also, the sacramental power is transmitted by consecration (in Baptism, Confirmation, or Orders), but the jurisdiction by injunction (designation, commission, or mandate). A corresponding prophetic power would have to be tertium quid with these as well.
-- Note, though, Journet's comment that jurisdictional power is "kept on the line of truth and preserved from error by providential and involving various prophetic graces ranging from oral and scriptural inspiration, the privilege of the Apostles, to the graces of assistance given to their successors", which suggests a prophetic power of some kind.
The consecrated hands of a priest participate in that which the hands of a stigmatic show only by sign.
Baptism of desire works by a sort of participation in the baptisms of those with actual sacramental baptisms.
"the soul of the Church is not sanctifying grace pure and simple, as found in those who remain ignorant of the Church in good faith, but sanctifying grace as transmitted by the sacramental power and ruled by the jurisdictional power" Journet
the analogues of the principles of war in research -- concentration of research ability, maintenance of objective, economy of research, flexibility of research, taking advantage of serendipity, maintenance of morale, sustainment, thoroughness. (Any analogues of security or surprise would have to be highly figurative.)
accumulation of good, celerity, and germ (cp. Rosmini) in inquiry
casuistics of strategical/operational/tactical options
rigorism, probabilism, probabiliorism, and laxism in strategy etc.
We see nicely the problems with rigorism (highly conservative) and laxism (recklessness) in matters of war.
seizing the initiative as a major element in rhetoric
possibility as overlap (usually with unique fixed reference point)
Unprincipled benevolence is nonsacrificing benevolence.
entry into catechumenate : conception :: baptism : birth
"It behooved that our Head, by a notable miracle, should be born, after the flesh, of a virgin, that He might thereby signify that His members would be born, after the Spirit, of a virgin Church." Augustine (De Sanct Virg)
birth as naturally connected with hope
By failing to recognize in deed and life the image of God in man we reenact the Fall. For who would be tempted by "You shall be like god" who truly lives in recognition of the fact that human beings were created to God's image? And who would shirk responsibility as Adam and Eve did who acts so as to treat themselves as being to the image of God?
sacramental character as permanent instrumental faculty
sacramental character as moral title to grace
sacramental character as moral title to martyrdom
investiture // receiving grace
impossibility as a contradiction with conditions of a domain
Christ's passion works in baptism in the manner of generation, but in other sacraments in the manner of sanation.
herd immunities against heresies
orders of machinery and their limits (ropes & knots; steam & gears; electricity & circuits)
Marriage is built through humble offerings.
Drama arises from conscience.
reference // testimony
testimony as socially extended reference
Paul's sermon at the Areopagus, without making a fuss about it, rejects both henotheism and pantheism while accepting what is right in both.
Henotheism reaches toward what it misses in order to be fulfilled as true monotheism; pantheism drifts from true monotheism, missing something that it needs in order to be anchored. Henotheism must be pushed forward to what it does not know; pantheism must be called back to what it has forgotten.
Faith perfects reason not by mere addition but by adoption, transfiguration, and vocation to vision of God.
Order in the world follows from the unity of God.
Polytheism tends toward monotheism by intellectualization; pantheism tends from monotheism by skepticism-induced vagueness.
It is an important difference between the Bible and the Quran that the Bible is diverse of modality.
the temptation to improve the world by might rather than by right
Rigorous scientific measurement generally in practice involves folk-scientific measurement with correcting procedures.
"Belief is born on the wing and awakes to many tacit commitments." Santayana
An animal capable of spontaneous locomotion is an animal capable of thinking in terms of multiple points of view.
"A pleasure is not a programme: it exists here and not there, for me and for no one else, once and never again." Santayana
Hume's philosophy would have a very different feel if impressions and ideas were instead called adventures and reenactments.
aesthetic infinite: sublime
ethical infinite: eternal law
metaphysical infinite: God
physical infinite: mathematics
political infinite: sovereignty
"For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned." Santayana
