Cultures allegorize themselves.
Christie's *The Clocks* as a reflection on detective fiction
What Malebranche gets right about causality is that there is something suggestive of the divine about it.
'Evidence' is said in many ways; it should not be assumed always to be used univocally.
The expressiveness of music is not based on a posited and hypothetical persona; but the expressiveness of music does let us posit a hypothetical persona. Likewise, it is this expressiveness that allows music to be used metaphorically, not vice versa.
Well disciplined imagination is a more powerful cognitive tool than generally recognized, and with some basic critical caution can often approach the level of proof.
the intellect & will as active unity, active truth, active goodness
Evil is the beginning of hell, and those who lack a doctrine of hell never have an adequate account of evil.
the suggestion of word by word under the driving impulse of intent
the world itself as the 'unconscious'
language as the handle for the blade of thought
It takes skill to grasp the naked blade.
Newman's notes of development & kinds of sameness considered in reconstruction
(1) Is the reconstruction of the same type as the reconstructed?
(2) Does the reconstruction respect the origination of the reconstructed?
(3) Are extrapolations and approximations derived from what is known of the reconstructed?
(4) Is there a reasoned path from what is known of the reconstructed to the elements of the reconstruction?
(5) Are there things in the reconstructed that suggest what is in the reconstruction?
(6) Is the reconstruction formed with the attempt to reconstruct the reconstructed?
(7) Does the reconstruction have the potential to play a similar role in mental life to that which was played by the reconstructed?
original-or-image as transcendental distinction
the interplay of ingenuity and plausibility in literature
bilocation // action at a distance
drama as exploration of limits
substances that are also systems
'World peace' is nto something that could be established by merely refraining from war, which always on its own leads to worse outbursts later, but by relations of mutual benefit.
"Those who struggle for the liberties of the human mind have first to believe in the dignity of the human mind and to trust in its natural energies." Jacques Maritain
life as formative of deontic structures
When we Christians are as we should be, our actions have the fourfold sense.
Faith thinks Being; it stands on sacred ground and hears the I AM.
All activity is experienced as an extension of actuality.
There are many different existential quantifiers, since each is defined relative to a particular system.
Being is only understood correctly when it is recognized in its most eminent form as Light and Love.
the sacrament of ordered ordering
confirmation : the unction of crucifixion :: unction : the unction of resurrection
matrimony as simultaneously moral, covenantal, and sacramental sign of cooperation of God and humanity
"There are as many different kinds of good books as there are different kinds of good writer." Lord David Cecil
consecration
(1) personal
(2) social
--- --- (a) without vow: Society of Apostolic Life
--- --- (b) with vow: Institute of Consecrated Life
--- --- --- --- (1) religious/regular
--- --- --- --- --- --- (a) order
--- --- --- --- --- --- (b) congregation
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- (1) clerical
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- (2) lay
--- --- --- --- (2) secular
--- --- --- --- --- --- (a) clerical
--- --- --- --- --- --- (b) lay
religious orders: canon regular, monastic, mendicant, clerks regular
The particular illustrates and expresses the universal, as the contingent does the necessary, as the temporal the eternal, as the prudent the obligatory. They do so both directly and figuratively by a sort of alleogry, and both in presupposition and by suggestion.
field as ens rationis, the mapping of physical quantities to each point in space and/or time
What can be considered formally can also be considered finally.
entitative possibility (intrinsic possibility): grounded in God with respect to divine essence
objective possibility: grounded in God with respect to divine intellect
causal (extrinsic) possibility: grounded in God with respect to divine will
Virtue expands rather than narrows our options.
physical propagation as a propagation of similitudes
the council of philosophical predecessors
Only through prudence and justice and liberty, equality, and fraternity be united.
Every inquiry considers what is consistent (one), what is evident (true), and what is excellent (good), from the point of view of the inquiry.
A puzzle-mystery can be expressed, as to structure, as an incoherent (and thus impossible) proposition, and its solution as a minimal modification of its terms that results in a coherent proposition.
'own' of property vs 'own' of responsibility
The dignity of philosophy reflects human dignity itself, which is why one should be wary of attempts to downgrade the former.
By baptism Christ grasps us; by confirmation, Christ lends us His strength so that we might grasp Him.
confirmation as the sacrament of Christian freedom
I.
(1) definition of sign
--- --- (a) in itself
--- --- (b) parts of sign
(2) divisions of sign
--- --- (a) formal/instrumental
--- --- (b) natural/positive
(3) significant functions
--- --- (a) index/icon/symbol
--- --- (b) qualisign/sinsign/legisign
--- --- (c) rheme/dicent/delome
(4) semiotic causation
--- --- (a) per se: objective
--- --- (b) per accidens: suggestive
--- --- (c) signscape/occasion/communication
(5) signs as practical
--- --- (a) as action-guiding: incentive/motive/regulative
--- --- (b) as means to end: dispositive/provocative/template
II.
(1) definition of sacrament
(2) the sacramentesque
(3) covenantal sacraments
--- --- (a) from Election of Israel
--- --- (b) from Election of Christ
(4) Christ as cause of all sacraments
--- --- (a) old covenant sacraments as prefigurative
--- --- (b) new covenant sacraments as figurative
--- --- --- --- (1) directly (major)
--- --- --- --- (2) indirectly (minor)
--- --- (c) Christ as efficient, exemplar, and final cause of sacramentality
III.
(1) definition of grace
(2) divisions of grace
(3) old covenant and minor sacraments as dispositive
(4) major sacraments as perfective
(5) the economy of grace
--- --- (a) Church as means of grace
--- --- (b) seven sacraments as whole
Philosophy is often done without showing forth the rules according to which it is conducted.
Everyone accepts things as existing or obligatory that nonetheless they do not understand or clearly comprehend; believing otherwise is delusional.
the postmedieval period as the hypertrophy of the state
The state's primary purpose is to serve civil society, and thus to lead, guide, and counsel the willing citizen. Its compulsive power exists to protect the willing citizen.
the principle of original peace as a principle of international law (peace and not hostility is the default)
Symbolism is a never-ending fountain of philosophy.
All human beings take morality to exemplify broader principles and symbolize a broader context than itself.
True learning is a kind of asceticism, and requires occasional leavening with the beautiful, the comic, and the sublime.
It is in the family that children learn how to live as citizens in a civil society; over and over one sees that in school they only learn how to be subjects of the offices that hold the powers of lordship and compulsion.
The important thing to understand about everything is that it is also in a way something else.
ritual as the outer imagination
"It is part of the power of a poem to generate meanings from what may originally be meaningless." Nemerov
Civilizations themselves are philosophical units.
As digestion involves mixing one's juices with food, so learning involves mixing one's thought and imagination with doctrine, i.e., what is learned; and as nutrients must be absorbed and distributed, so the elements of what one learns have to be drawn out and allowed to diffuse and percolate through the mind.
the external world as doctrinal; it is always already teaching us
moral, jural, and sacral agency from another
Chance is a relation between distinct ends.
