This completes the notebook finished in April 2023.
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A significant difficulty with mechanization, from a practical point of view, is that you are often replacing a multi-function person with a single-function machine.
axiology : natural-historical classification :: aesthetics & ethics : botany & zoology
Axiological structures are quite distinct from deontic structures.
Intrinsic value is not aseity.
"Human activity is cultural activity. Man's task is to create and develop culture, to obtain permanent cultural values, thus producing a new abundance of forms which shall be as a second creation, in juxtaposition to divine creation." Josef Kohler
"The chief error in Kant's philosophy lies in this, that the difference between subject and object is exaggerated until it becomes monstrous."
"The totality of humanity's achievements is called culture, and in this culture, it is the part of the law to promote and to vitalize, to create order and system, on the one hand; and, on the other, to uphold and further intellectual progress."
"To the right corresponds the claim, that is, the power to call upon another to perform something."
'intellectual property' vs. 'rights in immaterial things'
While inheritance is often in practice connected with death, nothing in the concept itself requires that it always be.
"The State is a community organized into a personality which, by virtue of its own law, takes upon itself the task of promoting culture and opposing non-culture; and it aims at performing this task not only in certain respects, but in all the directions of human endeavor and development." Kohler
--> This is certainly how modern states are structured, but the second clause in fact and on close examination contradicts the first, the totalitarian conception being inconsistent with the promotion of culture. The state is not the realization of the rational idea, and must always be asked its warrant. The earlier 'legal' conception of the state, despite its limitations, was closer to true than the totalitarian 'culture' state, and much more coherent. What you actually get in this totalitarian state is the use of culture as an excuse for destroying the rights of others and devouring other institutions, even when those rights and institutions play a key role in actual culture. In a proper conception fo the state, the state serves the insight of the citizens, and not vice versa; it is the citizens who promote culture all directions, and the state is a means to reduce friction in doing so.
"the twofold basic lawfulness -- causality and motivation -- operating together within one sentient subject with a sensuous-mental essence" (Edith Stein)
"The real causality of the sensate manifests itself in the phenomenal causality of the experiential sphere."
You can't learn anything by being timid about it.
Expansion of the possibility of doing precedes the actual doing.
hero protagonists vs MacGuffin protagonists
public sector unions as part of checks & balances
"Every human being who comes to share in some virtue by firm habit, certainly participates in God, who is the substance of all virtues." Maximus Confessor
practical sign in mode of proposal, in mode of guideline, in mode of standing rule
Why was the entropy low at Big Bang? (possible structures of answer)
-- (1) It had to be.
-- -- -- (a) lottery in infinite (inevitable chance)
-- -- -- (b) causal intitiation
-- -- -- (c) recurrence
-- (2) It happened to be.
-- -- -- (a) lottery in finite
-- -- -- (b) causal possiblization (nondeterministic cause)
-- (3) It wasn't.
-- -- -- (a) at all: no Big Bang
-- -- -- (b) distinctively: relativity of entropy
Why do we observe such-and-such? vs. Why does such-and-such exist to be observed?
How can this happen given such a causal setup? vs. How does this happen at all? (How is there any causal setup such that this can happen?)
the change of one change into another kind of change
field : space :: measurement-history : time
statistics as inference from exemplate population (of measurements) to exemplar population (of measured things)
beam-splitting experiment as physical representation of alternative possibilities
"Unperformed experiments have no results." Asher Peres
All phenomena are signifiable phenomena.
Paths are relative to beginnings and endings.
The human being by nature propels itself into what it does not yet understand.
By cooperating, human beings do things that would be literally miraculous for a human being alone.
laxism, tutiorism, probabilism, and probabiliorism in exegesis and interpretation of texts
Every proposition picks out a set of possible causes of truth for that proposition.
We are connected to our fellow human beings not merely intellectually but also by human tradition.
tradition as a dispositive cause of human powers
What the Gnostics got somewhat right about Christian truth was the vastness of it; but the light poured down and their jars for holding it broke.
The world will never not be hazardous to the Church, until Kingdom come.
To say that evidence is intrinsically inference-guiding is to say that the reasons it gives for inferring or not inferring soemthing is independent of the inferrer's desires or purposes. Evidence as a to-be-considered-ness to it; the universe takes sides in a matter of inference; evidence is as real as trees and as practical as advice. Intelligent and well-meaning people often disagree about what the evidence is; but this is not subjective. Truths about evidence itself are never necessary for the best explanation of a non-evidential fact, but the best explanation of something itself evidential; some evidential claims do not need to be inferred but are evident from experience. In all of these ways, evidence is like moral quality on precisely the points on which some have argued for skepticism or error theory about the latter.
Since we can and do make at least some moral rules, "There are moral rules" is obviously true.
"The Church is loved for the sake of our neighbor, but God for the sake of God." Augustine
Note that Irenaeus says (1.3) that Sophia corresponded to Judas Iscariot in the Apostle/Duodecad parallel of the Valentinians.
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses
the Valentinians "disregard the order and connection of the Scriptures" (Adversus Haereses 1.8) -- thi sis the step of argument in 1.1-9
1.10-31 is an argment contrasting the unity of the doctrine of the Church with the disunity of the Valentinians.
Bk 2 is then concerned with direct refutation by arguing there is but one God who created the world (2.1-11) and by arguing that the Valentinian scheme is incoherent and confused (2.12-35). Bk 3 argues against them on the basis of Scripture as intepreted by the united tradition of the Church, as to Christ; Bk 4 continues this as to the Father; Bk 5 continues this as to resurrection and immortality.
Philosophy is not about asking questions but finding answers; it is just that the philosopher knows that in reasoning answers create new questions.
Hank's mistake in A Connecticut Yankee is thinking that institutions are mere vestments on the substance that is the people; this leads him to underestimate the extent to which those institutions express the people, and to think he is working with an infinitely malleable material. (Twain also plays up ways in which Hank does not see that his own culture has similarities to the Arthurian one, most chillingly represented by the modern-style war that results.) Despite Hank's democratic values, his attitude to most of the people is always paternalistic; he is always The Boss.
Apocalyptic visions do not have singular interpretations but open a region of possible interpretations. The tendency of academics to impose 'the' interpretation on allegedly scholarly grounds is a sure sign of the attempt to peddle wares. It is of course a different matter when communities appropriate them on the basis of their shared presuppositions; this is in a sense what apocalyptic works are 'for'. But scholars swooping in and pretending to pronounce clearly have no respect for deliberately polysemic and occulted texts.
In the Gospels, the Pharisees and scribes are usually right about principles but wrong about application to Christ, while the disciples are usually right about application to Christ but misunderstand the principles involved.
"Cognizers are elevated above noncognizers in this way, that they can receive into themselves that which is of another as it is of the other, or insofar as it remains distinct in the other, so that they are not only what they are in themselves, but they can become other than themselves." John of St. Thomas
"Scientia in nobis est sigillatio rerum in animabus nostris." Aquinas DV 2.1 ad 6
impressed species as vice obiecti
-- We know we have species in general because we dream the likenesses of things we experience. They are formations of our cognitive power, but similitudes of their objects, being relative to the thing and presenting it after a particular manner, which is why we call them 'likenesses' or 'similitudes'. They are not wholly separate copies but presentations in an aspect. "In the species itself, the representation formally contains intelligibly and intentionally the immediate object itself of which it is the species" (John of St. Thomas, CP Phil Nat 4q11a2). The impressed species does not just happen to be like the thing; it is the formal similitude of the thing itself, by its nature a formal agreement with its form, the very quiddity itself insofar as it is transferred representatively to the mind.
instrumental cause : efficient cause :: objective cause : formal/exemplar cause
The impressed species represents the object intentionally, which is formal causation, but is also a concurrent efficient cause, with the cognitive faculty, in eliciting particular cognitions; this however does not belong to the object as object or the species as species but to the presence activating the cognitive power. This concurrence of presence is not by parts but a union; the cognitive act proceeds from faculty and species as one act of them both.
The external senses do not form a copy of what is sensed, but are invovled in a process and activity whose term is the thing sensed, which moves the senses to be related to it. Thus we do not experience copies but the things themselves.
express species = phantasm = how the internal senses take the object as sensed (e.g., memoratively, imaginatively, extimatively, etc.)
The impressed species is the present principle of which the expressed species is the term; this expressed species then represents in absence the object of the impressed species.
"The object of every sensitive power is a form as existing corporeal matter." Aquinas
A means is something that borrows its finality from another.
Phantasms are illuminated by the intelelct to make them handy for abstraction; this illumination is a rendering of the phantasms as instruments for the intellect's formation of the impressed intelligible species. The phantasm, however, is an objective, not an effective, instrument in this process -- more like a book than a hammer -- and it is not itself made the intelligible species but given an incipient power towards intelligibility, as a book has when one takes it up to read. This makes the phantasm suitable for abstraction, which gives the intelligible species.
We think on behalf of the world.
expressed intelligible speces = intention intellecta = concept = formal sign of object = mental word
(these equalities are extensive rather than intensive -- these are different functionalities of the same thing)
The impressed intelligible species is the principle of which the concept is the term. The word proceeds from the intellect insofar as it has the impressed intelligible species.
The concept makes the object intellectually present by formal sign, is the object as actually understood, and is that which we manifest by further signs like written and spoken words.
The concept has the nature of the thing understood insofar as it intelligibly contains it.
Sacraments contain objectively and cause instrumentally.
The internal word is both the efficient and the final cause of the external word; it is simultaneously the sign of the formal concept and the sign of the objective concept.
Our understanding is called conception insofar as we are considering 'formal concept' and apprehension insofar as we are considering 'objective concept'.
We do not have a direct way to assess our understanding of something. Therefore we do it indirectly by
(1) evidence that it is true to the thing understood
(2) consistency with general principles
(3) consilience & the power to incorporate other insights
(4) internal coherence
(5) confirmation by newer insights
(6) consistency with experience
(7) reslience in practical use
The will can in some sense and to some extent redirect our vigor from one thing to another, as when we rouse ourselves to do something.
We often use 'everywhere' and 'always' as symbols of necessity.
"The perception holds an object before itself, in incarnate self-presence; but the memory or the daydream merely represents its object." Stein
The principles of association to which Hume appels are best suited to recollective memory (cf. Aristotle, Coleridge), and one could indeed interpret the entire system of Treatise Book One as an exploration of how things show up in recollection, which is confused for the whole of the mind.
conservation laws as quantitative specifications of a more general natural coherence
'accompaniment' as a new form of penitential practice
priestly life as structured by the sacrament of Order and the office of Mission (the latter of which includes jurisdiction)
upholding the honor of the human species as a species
"Every fully constituted object is simultaneously a value-object." Edith Stein
"We find communities 'out there in life.' But we find them *within* us as well, for we live as their members."
"Just as the requisite conditions for geometry as exact theory are not sufficient for its determination, and allow room for different possible 'geometries', so too the conditions for the possibility of an exact psychology allow some latitude for the particular qualities of the psyche, its components and connnections."
Bradshaw's interpretation of Aquinas errs by taking res to mean 'reality' in an ordinary sense.
Names are generally used as part of a network of other names.
The entire universe is taken in as part of human society and thus has roles and sets of functions within human society.
The sign presents itself, a relation, and an object, the object by way of the relation by way of itself.
When we are integrated into a system of highly valued values, our interests are given focus and that seems to free up energy to act; this is especially the case when we have a sense of being supporte din according to those values.
'Spacetime points' cannot be identified nominalistically.
ambient signs, intuited signs, evidential signs
In practice, nominalism is always realism at slightly farther remove.
Much of evidential work involves looking at the 'range of signifiability' for particular pieces of evidence and seeing how the ranges overlap. But actually drawing a conclusion often requires a holistic jump, a leap to a synoptic view.
The feelings of solidarity that Christians often feel with respect to hearing the public reading of Scripture or participating in the Eucharist are important forms of consolation, refreshment, and encouragement, but it is important to recognize that such feelings are mere signs of the actual solidarity, which is much greater.
Communicative signs have peculiarities arising from being both signs and means.
food & fuel as 'para-material causes'
signs as para-material causes of learning
Final causation enters directly into the semiotic situation by way of the interpretant.
object : extrinsic formal causation :: representation : intrinsic formal in itself, extrinsic formal relative to interpretant :: interpretant : final causation
People often confuse human rights and substantive opportunities; the former are (among other things) preconditions for *construction of the frameworks* for the latter.
All animals are very often wrong in inductions.
our presential self-knowledge as question-raising
A model is a system of signs that is used as a tool for reasoning about something other than itself.
The framing effects often associated with metaphors are available for literal discourse as well, even if harder deliberately to access.
One of the difficulties faced by the Renaissance reforms was confusion over the appropriate authority for organizing it. A second was failure to find feasible means adequate to the ends of reform.
composite-or-noncomposite as disjunctive transcendental
-- noncomposite has priority due to
(1) avoiding infinite regress
(2) Scotus's rule
(3) While relative priority is consistent with composite, proirity simply speaking is only consistent with noncomposite, because composite presupposes composition.
(4) coherence with practices of explanation
(5) composition as mark of contingency
Law of Nature formulation of categorical imperative : duty :: End in Itself : dignity :: Kingdom of Ends : autonomy
reconciliation a re-initiation rite
contrition : separation :: confession : transition :: satisfaction : incorporation
sophistical syllogisms syllogized on the basis of seemingly probable premises vs. sophistical syllogisms seemingly syllogized on the basis of probable premises
"Just as some proposition is necessary, another impossible, another possible, and still another contingent, so some proposition is true, another false, another known, another unknown, another spoken, another written, another conceived, another believed, another opined, another doubted, and so on." William of Ockham
"God indeed made David king, as he had promised, but by means of the consent of the people." Bellarmine
The divine hiddennes argument presupposes that the evidence for theism is weak. (This is quite explicit in Schellenberg's Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason; it's part of how he originally motivates the argument.) -- It is a form of argument based on the idea that weakness of evidence can be evidence against.
"Any sentient property can be a bearer of value: sensory susceptibility, memory, understanding, as well as responsiveness to moral value." Stein
volunary associations as important to societies in which individuals are not treated as mere means
All human relationships are shifting hierarchies, some more shifting than others.
The human person projects the structure of personhood in various ways on the rule, including on the groups to which he belongs. Thus in various ways the person serves as the model for groups of persons.
(1) Scripture structures our life in a sacred way.
(2) Theological reflection is usually of Scripture insofar as it does so.
William of Shyreswood holds that res permanens incipit is per positionem presentis, removing the existence in the past, while desinit is per remotionem presentis, positing existing in the past; for res successiva, incipit is per remotionem presentis, positing future existence, and desinit is per positionem presentis, removing future existence. Okham criticizes this and tries to replace it with a unified theory based on the mode for the intrinsic boundary.
minimum : maximum :: incipit : desinit
'Cutting edge' research deals more with possibilities than definites.
boundary -- limit (adds directionality) -- maximum and minimum (adds relationality) -- desinity and incipit (adds relation of relationality)
Many of our moral practices are concerned with 'unprivating' and thus undoing or at least minimizing evils.
Parental rights arise from the needs and rights of the child; the only question is who is to exercise them.
Presence is a more fundamental idea than location, which requires relation to boundaries.
God is present *as such*, in a way on which location depends, rather than in a localized way.
All things that are capable of being premissible are permissible to God; all things that are capable fo being possible are possible to God.
God is eternal (as regards presence itself), atemporal (as regards to how this presence itself is related to clock measurement), and omnitemporal (as regards how temporal things are related to this presence itself).
The New Testament has two themes, Jesus and the Church. This is built into, and explicit in, its very structure.
The status of our knowledge varies according to our and its relation to God as truth.
the counterserpentine principle in political philosophy: rejection of tendencies structured as 'You will be like God'.
Phenomenological descriptions are organizations of metaphors.
What is or is not oppressive can only be determined with respect to an account of good character.
Every doctrine of divine revelation is under a sort of pressure to take the revelation itself, or some core of it, to be eternal and in some way itself quasi-divine. For divine revelation itself in some sense is both God Himself and not God Himself.
Human beings unite with other human beings by signs; signs are our adhesive. As atoms give and take electrons, we give and take signs, and by that means bond.
Genuine military innovations largely arise out of the ingenuity of making a virtue of necessity.
Human beings act even in ordinary situations in ways that show their sacral potential, their capacity for the sacred.
A relation can be realized as long as one of its terms is real.
three aspects of order: priority & posteriority, distinction, ordering notion (e.g., place, dignity origin).
"order is always said by comparison to some principle" Aquinas (ST 1.42.3)
"All the divine attributes are principles of production in the efficient exemplar mode, as all goods imitate goodness and all beings essence, and so for others." Aquinas (1 Sent 1.10.15 ad4)
