Truth is the seed of freedom.
"angels take part in all our good works" (Aquinas)
Politics is healthier when it is about cooperation than when it is about persuasion, and healthier when it is about persuasion than when it is about compulsion.
"The ruler must not reveal his desires; for if he reveals his desires, his ministers will put on the mask that pleases him." Han Feizi
"When names are correct, things stay in place; when names are twisted, things shift about."
"The best rewards are those which are generous and predictable, so that the people may profit by them. The best penalties are those that are severe and inescapable, so that the people will fear them. The best laws are those which are uniform and inflexible, so that the people can understand them."
experiment // theatrical performance
-- this is confirmed by the actual history of experimentation, which is heavily linked to anatomical, chemical, and electrical demonstration
-- it might be worth considering Carroll's erotetic theory of movie comprehension here, since experiment is also erotetic
logic as a realm of whimsy
interestingness as aptness for attention
cuteness as protection-inspiring
Novelty is often beauty to the glad and cheerful heart.
That which perfects our nature also serves as penance for it.
St. Joseph, last and chief of the Patriarchs
The intellect, in itself indeterminate with respect to its own act, elicits that act and through that act specifies the will's options.
The intellect can determine itself with respect to levels and foci of understanding.
Inquiry is structured by suspecting.
The intellect can understand a thing positively or negatively, as it were in true color or as a photographic negative.
the correctness of loving God as included virtually in the concept of God (Scotus)
If one assumes that 'moral standing' is based on sentience, it is virtually impossible to prevent the account from implying the that things that *might* be sentient have moral standing, and difficult to prevent it from implying that things that *will* be sentient have moral standing.
"every willing-against presupposes some willing" (Scotus)
Nill assumes prior will.
The spatial counterpart to our sense of temporal flow is our sense of spatial spread. (They are in fact related.)
In manual grasping, the hand and the object are partially assimilated; the same is true of intellectual grasping.
After all is said and done, the argument for the claustrum as the center of consciousness is no different from the argument for the pineal gland being so.
All encryption presupposes a decryption situation.
No one is more inclusive and welcoming than a scammer; con games are welcoming and inclusive indeed.
naming as a form of gift-giving
"Some first principles we see by induction, some by perception, some by a kind of habituation, and others in other ways." Aristotle, NE 1098b
Virtue extends and intensifies virtue.
Law has no authority to compel acts of vice.
Equity requires understanding the assumptions of the law, not just the law itself.
Rational choice requires not merely thought but character.
"Every skill has to do with coming into being, and the exercise of the skill lies in considering how something that is capable of either being or not being, and the first principle of which is in the producer and not the product may come into being." Aristotle NE 1140a
sophrosyne & sozein phronesis (NE 1140b)
You can show your skill by failing to hit the target; this is not true of virtue.
Virtue produces eudaimonia not as medicine produces health but as part of health produces health.
Safe interfaces must be: determinate, prominently visible, and spatially oriented.
"No reasonable person can believe that we are obliged to treat the moral and immoral, the prudent and the imprudent, the law-abiding and the criminal with equal consideration." Kekes
"In mathematics, it is not reason that teaches first principles, nor is it actions; rather, it is virtue, either natural or habituated, that enables us to think correctly about the first principles." Aristotle NE 1151a
virtue, skill, taste
Kings and shepherds care for those in their charge with a view to their well-being. NE 1161a
Fathers and ancestors confer existence, nurture, and education.
Common good is sustained by friendship.
the need for laws not to dissolve reasonable friendships
"Argument and teaching, presumably are not powerful in every case, but the soul of teh student msut be prepared beforehand in its habits, with a view to its enjoying and hating in a viable way, like soil that is to nourish seed." Aristotle NE 1179b
To know God as God, we must love God.
In coloring, a child must have a sense of space and of cause (crayon making color on a surface).
"Many more principles than you think are required to demonstrate what no one doubts." Malebranche
When people say they don't like organized religion, they most often mean either that they don't like politics or that they don't like ethics -- or, in other words, that they don't like working with people at their worst or that they don't like being told that they themselves are in the wrong. Neither dislike is surprising, but neither provides much of a good reason.
The serious pursuit of justice will often require sweetening a bitter pill. To expect people to swallow without resistance a severe penalty or massive inconveniences, even for manifest justice, is not love of justice but a sign of stupidity.
Inclusiveness is a purely procedural concept, not a substantive one.
The deontic structure of parenting is such that the obligations of children gestate within the obligations of the parents.
All human action posits at least a minimal deontic structure based on ends and means.
methods as articulations of principles implicit in skills
PSR & the fact that there must be some difference between the actual and the merely possible
No state can have authority unless there is a moral order higher than it, whence its authority can be derived.
modalities given
(1) only general invariance
(2) relations of differentiation
(3) metric with respect to a reference point
"The essential enunciation of an equation is always this: that a certain number is zero." Schrodinger
Only entities of exactly the same type can be added or subtracted or put equal."
current & charge as densities
gravitational field: geometry + affinity (constraint on motion)
possibilities in excess of representability (these would seem to be introduceable as limit-concepts)
'but' as exceptive conjunction
Tying possibility to representability makes it like the picturesque.
representability as involving a frame and a composition
apostolicity as an inherent quality, as a causal relatedness, as a communal system
-- these are related to three ways of being one
-- there are analogues for sanctity & catholicity, as well
effect as nondifferent from cause, accident as nondifferent from substance
cases of conscience // geometrical diagrams
catechetics, ascetic, and heroic phases of philosophical training
The existence of the mirandum establishes the possibility of the sublime.
victory as an attribute of God
People take coolheaded capacity to distance oneself as a sign of competence, whether or not it is.
the nature of the obligation incurred when someone saves your life: obv. gratitude is an issue, but there is a sacredness/solemnity issue as well -- something analogous to pietas
(1) Freedom being founded on truth, civil society must uphold truth in order to uphold freedom.
(2) Civil and social authority are obligated to defer in an appropriate way to divine authority.
(3) Revelation cannot be treated as irrelevant to political and social life without effectively denying it to be revelation.
(4) Legislation depends for its wisdom on divine wisdom.
Vocation is not like choosing a cable subscription.
Marriage is the natural perfection of the person, and vocation to priesthood only transcends this by transfiguring that in the individual which marriage perfects. To be a man is to have a natural vocation to be husband and father; to be a priest is not different except that this natural vocation is stamped with a new Christlikeness, as something to be sublimated to a higher calling. And the same is true of religious life in general.
No form of moral discourse is immune to being highjacked by vainglory, envy, and wrath.
We are to immerse all nations, by baptism, by preaching, and by practice.
