A bit long, but I wanted to get through this notebook. This finishes the notebook that was itself finished on July 11, 2017.
A right is an element of higher perspective from which it can be seen that you and I, although distinct, are one.
Inference is built on some immutability or invariance (vyapti).
Human moral life is instrumental to a greater moral providence.
necessarily truth-preserving vs necessity-preserving
Easter : love :: Ascension : joy :: Parousia : peace
NB the Maronite qolo on the new priesthood beginning with the Ascension.
Assessment of evidence depends in part on prior assessment of possibilities.
the face as the resume of the person
Free will structures practical reason.
Expeditionary military action is, by the very fact of being expeditionary, structured by logistics.
Frustration is normal in politics; vindictiveness is a sign of corruption.
(1) If there are mathematical relations, they are necessary.
(2) MR's are possible.
(3) If MR's are necessary, there are MR's.
(4) Either MR's are necessary or they are not necessary.
(5) If MR's are not necessary, they are necessarily not necessary.
(6) Thus: Either MR's are necessary or they are necessarily not necessary.
(7) If MR's are necessarily not necessary, they necessarily do not exist.
(8) Thus: Either MR's are necessary or they necessarily do not exist.
(9) Thus: MR's are necessary.
(10) Thus: There are MR's.
The ancient hearth is a sign of common good.
It is noteworthy that Beowulf prevails against Grendel in the hall because he does not use weapons. Grendel is immune to weapons, but Beowulf wounds him by pulling his arm off.
Beowulf's end is foreshadowed by the linking of his name to that of Sigemund son of Waels.
Note that Romanos takes the Baptism of Christ to be what makes John greater than other prophets.
the aspirational and the personalist aspects of magnanimity
Music gets its character in part from the fact that it is very much both in the world and in the mind, and both aspects are clearly part of our acquaintance with music.
Music has a literal sense, consisting of its melody, harmony, and the like in interplay, and immense array of figurative senses, arising out of music as performed in context or for a purpose.
Dance is heavily structured by different kinds of withness.
A facial expression, in and of itself, cannot say profound things, but it can be profound; so too with music.
emotional expression is to music as a character of instrumentality
Doppler shift shows auditory space linked to visible and tangible space.
It is their withness-structures that make dance and ritual analogous.
The fundamental principle of the diplomatic game is to give symbolic concession to gain substantive progress.
All potential parts of justice have a combined aspect of dignity and justice. (Cp. Soloviev on truthfulness.) This structures the moral debt, etc.
Note that Hume's rejection of the double existence view depends entirely on his account of cause (T 1.4.2.47, SBN 211-212).
We may aim at pleasure itself as something pleasant, bu this is a reflexive action, not the normal tendency of acting.
The Tao is, as it were, the reflection of the Word of God on the world and the human heart, the Way reflecting the Way.
Since perceptions may not exist separately, either the conceivability principle or the separability principle or both must be incorrect.
Two objects are not necessarily distinguishable, as we know that the latter can depend on things like quality of perception and fineness of discriminatory ability. And likewise we know that one object can be considered under two distinct descriptions, reduplicatively -- the fact that we reduplicate at all establishes this.
analogy between positions on modality and metaethical positions (J. Chandler)
the focus of trust (designated task, behavior, or role)
All punishments are imitations of death.
A pile of Maybes is a large Unlikely.
noumenal citizenship (Kant's pure juridical legislative reason)
(1) In principle, capital punishment is licit for egregious crimes against the community.
(2) In practice, there are reasons to be cautious about states resorting to it.
(3) It is admirable for Christians to refrain from, and work for the reasonable abolition of, such punishments, where this can be done justly and honestly.
(4) It is an obligation for Christians to be merciful where ever this is not confusable with injustice.
"...the law, not the judge, puts to death so long as the punishment is imposed, not in hatred, nor rashly, but with deliberation." Innocent III
respect for the majesty of law
The mgaisterial authority of the Church can be exercised in its fullness or in a more partial manner, and likewise, even in plenary exercise, can be exercised more or less solemnly, and likewise more or less explicitly. (This follows just from the character of teaching itself.) These three modes -- plenitude, solemnity, and explicitness -- are too often confused, to the detriment of analysis.
Tradition is not, generally, something superadded to reason, but that within which it is formed to be what it is.
Extraordinary action creates ordinary precedent.
Hume's theory of belief as capturing something important about reinforcement of suspicion (I suspect that...).
diagrams as dependent on modal analogies (particularly to spatial modalities)
One determines the points of an opponent's attack by disposition of one's own defenses, with two matters of concern depending on the subtlety of one's opponent: obviousness of target and weakness of defense.
memorative tradition vs recollective tradition vs speculative tradition
Worn-out traditions revive in stylized form as fashions; some of these fashions congeal as traditions. A forest of deadwood burns, but seeds restore a forest. Cells die but some generate new cells on their own template, and the body heals. Decay and revival interlace.
To reform, one must begin with the way things are.
The Tower of Babel is an attempt to make the builders immune to all possible punishment.
Newman's notes of development should apply not only from time to time but also, mutatis mutandis, from place to place; that is to say, they should still approximately apply if you are the one moving -- there should be constant principle, anticipation, etc.
spiritual authority vs spiritual credit
oddness minimization in everyday explanation
Freedom of religion must include, among other things, the freedom to exercise one's rights in a specifically religious way.
symbolic deference as part of checks and balances
-- An advantage of the British system is that the one who in practice exercises power must do so in a state of symbolic deference to one who in principle represents the greater whole.
"Society and government have two needs: justice and utility. If the government is so organized as to truly render justice to all, and at the same time it promotes the utility of all, then it is perfect." Rosmini
"The Catholic religion does not need dynastic protections, but freedom. It needs its freedom protected and nothing else." Rosmini
rites as moral entities in something like Pufendorf's sense, on analogy with time
"Caprice is the characteristic vice of miscellaneous assemblies." Bagehot
"A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people. In proportion as you give it power, it will inquire into everything, settle everything, meddle in everything." Bagehot
The Bayesian approach to evidence, taken as an account of all evidence, is nothing other than a new form of attempt to construct a universal rational language.
few/many/most as ordering of modal operators that are otherwise structurally similar
In perceiving something we generally already recognize it as becoming past.
The families of possible objections to any given argument are necessarily very limited.
empiricist account of ideas // ostensive account of language
-- a detective story involving elaborate and incredible disguises, unpredictable motives, the supernatural, discoveries made by mad scientists, elaborate and bizarre machinery, and a superhuman detective
detective fiction as narrative causal inference
In detective fiction, the primary action is a system of inferences.
Interviews in detective fiction work like letters in epistolary fiction.
- confession in detective fiction as primary confirmation (hence the often elaborate methods for inducing it)
- opportunity as causal access (contiguity in space and time)
"What is done by rule must proceed form something that understands the rule." Berkeley
(1) Divinely revealed principles
(2) Defined articulation
(3) Intrinsic principles of liturgy and catechesis
(4) Patristic consensus
(5) Common positions in liturgy, catechesis, or the Fathers
(6) Rigorous implications of common positions or principles
(7) Probable implications of common positions or principles
(8) Useful plausibilities
"The ceremonial law itself is a kind of living script, rousing the mind and heart, full of meaning, never ceasing to inspire contemplation and to provide the occasion and opportunity for oral instruction." Mendelssohn
In politics as well as art, to observe and see how it is done is one thing; to do, is another.
Infinite dabbling will eventually stumble on something substantive.
Murder is always by instrument, even if organic like a hand. Thus:
(1) Instrumental Possibility
--- (A) Formal: Access ('Opportunity')
--- (B) Material: Relevant possession ('Means')
(2) Agential Possibility ('Motive')
* One must consider motive, at least in investigation, because agents with access and possible possession of means are often legion. One needs to know which to consider first, and how closely.
In practical undertakings, ends reasonable individually may be unreasonable in combination.
Three linked doctrines -- Creation, Incarnation, Judgment -- combine to make all human history a family history.
Republics are often stingy in rewarding good, when they reward it at all.
Some things can only be approached by multiple lines of inquiry.
verbal etiquette and the implicit morality of language
It is a moral error to judge guilt by effect alone, and yet it is one of the most common things.
A crime is a violation of the rights of the community.
Linguistic structure requires sameness across time and causal interaction.
Every political position whatsoever allows the possibility for irrational excess and defect. Many stupidities in politics arise from refusing to accept that a given position does not and cannot confer immunity from this.
A man must have an Idea if he is to live greatly.
There is no fullness of love without memory, for love must dwell.
To evangelize the world properly, we must evangelize it many times over.
miracles of saints as symbols of holiness and its characteristics
Perception has a sort of dual referentiality, to self and world.
It's best not to think of our consciousness of ourself as a feeling of ourselves but as the referentiality of perception itself.
In transition from evidence to conclusion, risks of error are of different kinds, making it difficult to reduce the risk of error to a single probabilistic measure.
infallible teaching authority as structured according to the gifts of the Holy Spirit
The gift of understanding is the highest form of remotion.
penitential practice as the warfare of the Church
Translation is a form of commentary.
the human delight at inversion
What kind of evidence, or whether any evidence, shows up for 'updating one's prior' depends entirely on the kind of inquiry being conducted. Bayesians often talk about evidence as if it just showed up at one's doorstep; in fact, it is always formed within distinct lines of inquiry.
responses to argument from desire for immortality
(1) realism
(2) anti-realism
-- (a) expressivism
-- (b) illusionism (error theory)
(3) skepticism of the existence of such a desire
From every fact a great many necessities may be deduced, for every fact depends on many necessities for its existence.
Arguments from desire really conclude immediately to possibilities, and only thereby to actualities making those possibilities to be.
markets as the sensoria of society
Evolutionary explanations, outside purely physiological cases, too often do not properly adequate cause and effect.
Sanctity carries with it a sort of sovereignty.
Too much emphasis on expression turns poetry into pompous opinion-giving.
You do not understand what is attributed to God when we attribute power, wisdom, and goodness to Him, unless you can understand that any two of them necessarily entails the third.
Human inquiry always takes place in fragmented form, and there are many fragments.
Sometimes one must try out an idea before one comes to understand it.
Who thinks that prophecies have only one sense does not believe in prophecy.
the transmarine argument and breakaway Catholics
Separation of Church and State only works in the US to the extent that citizens are given considerable scope for self-governance.
the three post-medieval blows against the Church: Renaissance secularization, Reformation, French Revolution
Eco's account of the interpretant loses all sense of the "to something".
Heraldic symbolism involves the use of icons and symbols to perform an indexical function.
Eco's attach on iconism repeatedly confuses the actual signifying factor with the interpretant modalities (like conventions of stylization, conventions of expectation, convential salience), which do not constitute but only modulate.
Understanding may be informed by convention, and draw on conventions, without appealing to convention.
Death by its nature involves eternity, whether positive or negative, whether ever or not ever.
Labeling presupposes reference and thus cannot ground it. We use a lable to communicate a reference we recognize.
Science, art, and religion all share the principle that the surface appearance is neither all nor enough.
Every attempt to build a utopia is blocked by a confusion of tongues.
the simurgh as a metaphor for the Church
interpretivist, constructivist, and realist accounts of the external world
Much historical change seems to involve drift of ideas into uselessness -- subtle changes until they are unintelligible or (more often) inadequate for their primary function, or too difficult to teach given the infrastructure, or an impediment to highly incentivized practice.
We do not suppose substance to be something besides extension, etc., but what is extended, etc.
In argument, nothing comes from nothing; it must come from something that formally or eminently is adequate to it. This is obvious in formal logic, but should also be a leading principle in informal logic.
Whenever Hume speaks of fiction, think less skeptically of 'forming a hypothesis' or 'constructing a concept'.
The magisterium in the extraordinary magisterium and ordinary magisterium is a different exercise, not a different magisterium. Kleutgen, who gives us the terminology, understood the constitutive act of extraordinary magisterium to be definition, and the constitutive act of ordinary magisterium to be organic transmission. The former is ecumenical-conciliar or papal; the latter is more broadly ecclesial. This is the distinction to which Pius IX appeals in Tuas liberiter.
line as path not considering width
signs made by/in: cognition, recognition, ostension, replication, evocation
a possible sign situation:
painting -- model object -- purport object -- alluded object
(for instance, a painting of a local model to represent Justinian as embodiment of law)
Freedom of speech is to deliberative self-governance as protection of legislators from penalty for what they say in the legislature is to deliberative lawmaking.
Etiquette is an inevitable part of the structure of language because language is used to address other people. (Philosophers of language rarely consider language as addressing anyone at all.)
Rationality must involve the subject as well as the objective, the sketchy as well as the thorough, the holistic as well as the specifically defeasible, the obscure as well as the clear.
relations between philosophical problems: common origin, shared solution, structural analogy, consequential analogy, inclusion
Even the extremely biased are right on occasion, which is one reason why biases can be difficult to eliminate; by a sort of consequentialism of inference, people give credit even to accidental results, or results only slightly better than chance, and ignore method, means, and intrinsic end.
"The love of system, and of that unnatural kind of uniformity to which system is so much attached, as done immense mischief in the theory of evidence." Wilson
"Much of the evidence in natural philosophy rises not higher, than that which is derived from analogy."
general pressures on the reasoning of an age
(1) logical (e.g., arguments available)
(2) ethical (e.g., what is shameful to say)
(3) pathetical (e.g., normal human passions and cultural avenues for their expression)
(4) infrastructural (e.g., what time, money, manpower is available for various ends)
Even those who know better often speak of molecules as if they were solid little motes linked extrinsically, when in reality they are intrinsically integrating when they combine.
History does not vindicate; it only moves on.
What is dependent is dependent on another, with respect to: change, being, enduring, causing, measure, order.
In the Meno, the slave boy shows a more rational and teachable mind than Meno does.
Ex 18 as type of papacy
Christian love does not depend on prior relationship-building; it must be prior to it in finality and is itself only a source of relationships, while it must also be applied to those with whom one can't form a relationship.
genus-species approach to defining modal operators vs causal approach to defining modal operators
The modern era of rights-thinking began when rights were no longer seen as particular solutions to particular problems but as general solutions to problems hypotheticalized to all limits that could be imagined. That is, it began on the transition from factual response to full-scale counterfactual response, from local reaction to problems to the attempt at complete global anticipation of problems.
Berkeley's Siris as concerned with primacy of mind (cp. John Russell Roberts)
It took a thousand years for the Church to stamp out dueling, more or less, in Christendom,, using its most extensive means of pressure and persuasion, and even then progress was achieved only by combination with other factors that changed the incentive-structure.
It is easier to criticize oneself as We than as I -- and easier to evade criticism, as well.
