Dashed Off XVI

If factual statements can tell us what is possibly and necessarily true, they can tell us what is permissibly and obligatorily true.

Exact resemblance is not an ontological free lunch; it requires conditions for possible comparison (e.g., to distinguish it both from mere identity and mere resemblance).

As field values in physics may be scalar, vectorial, or tensor, there seems reason to deny that 'field' is strictly univocal.

Tropes always make more sense as part of a theory of the phenomenal than as a theory of the real or mind-independent.

compresence as teleological

tropes : terms :: compresence : syntax

the Transfiguration as the emblem for iconography (it raises the question of whether similar emblem-isms are possible for other sacred artforms; it seems plausible to take the Ascension as emblem for music, for instance,and Annunciation or Nativity for painting or sculpture)

The sacredness of art in any medium is directly related to its suitability for public prayer.

the internalization of honor as converging on virtue

The central concept of honor is victory in the sense of overcoming.

"The word of God is addressed to all people, in every age and in every part of the world, and the human being is by nature a philosopher." John Paul II

It is an error to treat philosophy of language as if it were epistemology.

The final end of things is a convergence of equitable justice, restoring grace, ordering providence, and sovereign creation.

Church Militant : Tabernacle :: Church Triumphant : Temple

Law should favor widespread ownership: (1) universal destination of goods; (2) subsidiarity; (3) human dignity.

the inherent tendency of philosophical inquiry to universal community
the inherent tendency of philosophical inquiry to reason-based morality

sequential vs. spiraling curricula of philosophy

Antiquities are preserved through long ages by accident or by tradition.

Democracy is most attractive to those who cannot imagine any reasonable and honest person disagreeing with their most cherished beliefs.

anticipatory trial and error as a mark of skill

the Eightfold Path and knowing happiness by remotion

Nobody starts with experience; experience must be built on a basis of prior capacities and resources, which themselves only come to be known in learning other things.

ceremony & the principle that one should do good things on receiving good things

Medicine is of all areas of human life the one in which everyone is most naturally inclined to think in ways leading to superstition. (Indeed, one sees this even in religion itself -- superstitious practices are most likely to grow up where religion meets matters of health and sickness.)

Etiological accounts of function only give us a species-function -- to wit, the function of the thing in preventing the traited population from going extinct.

Given a function, one can always distinguish esse from bene esse with respect to that function.

The wetness of water is not just 'there'; it is an internal activity of water, composed of interacting smaller internal activities, involving the causal capacities of water-components.

Life functionally incorporates drift and chance.

luck as a component of inquiry

Truth is sign of itself.

the intrinsically deontic character of truth -- the true as partially characterizable in terms of what ought not to be regarded as false

the obligatory character of the principle of noncontradiction

Zwinglianism is implicit liberal Christianity.

In a fully democratic society, checks and balances mean nothing more than people stopping other people.

Anything can look epiphenomenal to one who has only a partial causal explanation.

Anticipation of nature can distort our experimental reasoning, but it is our capacity to anticipate nature that makes experiment possible.

language (vestment of thought) // clothing (vestment of body)
sincerity of speech // modesty of clothing

The background of every experiment is an abstract classification of possibilities.

shared beauty as the root of the importance of fine art

"Symbolic figures are a valuable adjunct to philosophy: they help men to integrate and bear in mind the essential meaning of complex issues." Rand

component strictly necessary for function (esse)
component quasi-necessary for function (bene esse)
component redundant under strict necessity
component redundant under quasi-necessity
component incidental for function
-- is quasi-necessity indirect strict necessity? (i.e., the result of strict necessity for a related function)

Newton's argument against vortices
(1) Celestial motions are (a) more regular than if they arose from vortices and (b) observe other laws so that vortices do not regulate but would disturb celestial motions.
(2) All phenomena of the heavens and the sea follow precisely from gravity acting in accordance with the laws of gravity.
(3) Nature is simple.
Therefore: (4) Other causes than the laws of gravity are to be rejected.
Therefore (5) The heavens are to be considered without matter as far as possible, lest the celestial motions be impeded or rendered irregular.

Descartes's discussion of gravitas can be turned upside down to form an analogical argument for final causes.

Arguments tend to have a certain symmetry -- ponens can be tollensed, apparent demonstration parallels apparent reductio, etc. Truth breaks the symmetry. But even abstracting from truth, asymmetries can arise through differences in generality or in circumstances. Genus-species introduces a privileged direction of relation, and circumstances can introduce exceptions (the things that do not fall under 'for the most part'). (Perhaps there are also asymmetries linked to the privilege of First Figure and analogously of modus ponens?)

change as a precondition of testing
actuality and potentiality as preconditions of testing

Statistical sampling is used to cross modal differences: different times & places, counterfactual possibilities

one-or-many as a transcendental disjunction (ST 1.30.3)

icons as memorials of real presence and anticipations of sacramental presence

structural works of mercy (hospital, school, recovery house, hospice) -- the infrastructure of alms

a mereotopological analysis of food entering a city from outside its circumference and distributing over its area

"he who prefers the common good before what is proper to himself is above all acceptable to God." Josephus

To translate well into English requires that English be able to bear what is translated, and this cannot always be guaranteed. Sometimes one must wait centuries for the right fashion, the right consensus, , the rediscovery that builds the right vocabulary to translate some aspect of a text. And sometimes, having had it, one loses it and must endure the inadequate again.

Philo on the doctrine of the mean: Migr xxvi.147; Immut. xxiv.163-164

"What is commonly asserted by all, cannot wholly be false." Aquinas (De etern 2.34)

It is an error to assume that mind and body are only related in one way.

Aquinas's probable arguments against the eternity of the world:SCG 2.38; SCG 1.3; SCG 2.31

Hume and Malebranche on pride

Chrysostom's contrasts between the apostles and the Cynics (in Ep I Cor 35.4)

academia and the collection of career-tokens

It makes little sense to treat the human body the way Kant treats the physical world; the body is, as it were, not mere phenomenon, but already in some fashion transcendental subject.

"the church is the primary work of the Holy Trinity" Turretin

colors as actions (flavors would also obviously be analogous)

It seems there has to be a level of authority between individual bishops and the college of bishops; this is synodal, and in particular is a local gathering of bishops representing, formally and functionally, the whole college. This contrasts with (for instance) episcopal conferences, which do not have this representation of the whole, being administrative conveniences for the parts.

Rights of conscience are indirect rights of God.

(1) Heaven and earth are finite.
(2) What is finite cannot have infinite force.
(3) Infinite force is required for infinite duration.
(4) Therefore heaven and earth have beginning and end.
(Saadia Gaon)

The greater the love, the less changeable it is.

A republic, more than any other government, must insist on the value of deliberation if it is to avoid fatal corruption.

"Comedy is music. It has a rhythm and a melody." Sid Caesar

All love strives toward impassibility. (Thus the lover's emphasis on stability, purity, eternity, certainty, the impossiblity of lessening; thus also the attributes of I Cor 13.)

Grace is our personhood reflecting divine personhood.

Family always suggests something of the eternal.

Reasons for polytheistic competition naturally drive polytheism toward henotheism; reasons for polytheistic cooperation naturally drive polytheism toward theomonism (although the latter tendency seems weaker, or at least slower, than the former).

the conditions for interpretatio graeca

the analogue of the Euthyphro dilemma for mathematical necessity
-- Note that there are several strong modalities (Always, Everywhere) in which it would make sense to say that they are so because God makes them so.
-- Note that we can even find such for ourselves (Proven, which is so because we have made it so). - Cartesian creation of eternal truths as constructivism at the limit.

love is makrothymei (cp Ex 34:6; Nm 14:18)
love is chresteuta
love is not zeloi or perpereuetai, nor physioutai
aschemonei, paroxyneta ou logizetai to kakon (It does not log/inventory what is bad)
sygchairei te aletheia (it celebrates the right)
panta stegei (it is restrained with all)
panta pisteuei (it has faith in all)
panta epizei (it has hope in all)
panta hypomenei (it endures all)

Literacy can be partly domain-specific because part of reading a text is recognizing its rhetorical features, which can often vary from domain to domain.

To think of belief entirely in terms of external action is to lose sight of the functioning of belief under conditions of abeyance of action.

Arguments usually convince only by clarification.

the responsibility for mutually beneficial discussion

mereological fusion and transcendental unity

shared humanity and the right to ask for reasons

Love hopes because the one who loves treats those he loves aspirationally.

Exchanges are externalizations of reasoning.