In organizing themselves instrumentally as states, civil societies incorporate elements derived from their history and heritage, including various kinds of particular powers and restrictions.
All societies have to deal with people inimical and corrosive to them, and the decisions about how to do so are always difficult.
Social contract theory grows out of thinking that civil society membership is a form of servitude; servitude of adults outside of the family is either penal or contarctual. (Cp. Rosmini)
"It is necessary to test experience not in one way but according to all circumstances, that it be truly and correctly a principle of acting." Albert (Ethica VI tr 2 c25)
One should not merely read but read and compare to experience. It is this kind of reading whereby (eg) the novels of Austen or Dickens or Eliot help to improve us morally.
energy, momentum, etc. as having dispositional being (esse intentionale) in things, as if transferred through a medium
'so bad it's good' in art as arising from harmless but extreme incongruity
The existence of final causes is what makes physics possible.
"The definition of an organic body is that it is a body, every part of which is there for the sake of the other (recirpocally as end and, at the same time, means)." Kant OP 21:210 (cp OP 21:181, 22:548)
We experience some systems of moving things in such a way that to unify our experience requires positing the being of reason, 'empty space'. Thus empty space is an object of possible *experience*, namely, by perceiving privation of medium through the model of being. This is in the same way that a hole can be the object of possible experience, and a constant one even if the repletive medium for it is changed or even taken away entirely.
Freedom gets its value from truth.
the internal almsgiving of the Church
If I say, 'X appears to be Y', I can mean:
(1) As appearing, X is Y.
(2) X is Y-like enough that one could confuse them under relevant conditions.
(3) X, despite being not very Y-like, under the circumstances could be mistaken as having Y-like features.
(4) No distinguishing features of X as opposed to Y appear.
We are already on the threshold of hell; it is a proof of, and way to, heaven that we need.
It's dangerous to have no conception of excellence except comparative.
To be human is to have potential for roles in deontic frameworks.
artificial vs natural federalism
Much of paleontology consists of translating fossil contexts into abstract representations -- maps of fossil locations, timelines, diagrams of fossils, records in archives for the use of other researchers, etc. It is this that makes the material evidence useful for scientific purposes.
The mystery is not why spirits and the resurrected live with their choices. The ystery is why we do not necessarily have to do so. We have a power of probationary repentance; it is tied to our mortality. In salvation, then, God uses our mortality to save us from everlasting death.
Kant's practical postulates are concerned with the gap between human will and holy will.
the external world as arena for moral action, as a practical postulate
"The experience of community is the presupposition of understanding." Dilthey
The only real critique of system is a more powerful system.
the categorical imperative & not treating conditional goods as unconditional
possibilities -> structure of possibilities -> change in structure of possibilities -> moving and efficient causes
In the long run in a democratic politics, people do not vote for the most reliable instrument but for the blade most dangerous to those they see as opposing them.
ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments for the external world
doubt: subject-object
experience: act-potency
hope: agent-patient? agent-field of action?
externality/outness as a kind of systematically differentiated readiness to appear
the integration of anomaly into nomality/nomicity
externality as a limited form of nomality/nomicity
external world as
(1) instrumental power
(2) immediate object
(3) mediated object
(4) arena for action
(5) standing reserve
(6) intersubjective medium
(7) system of harm/benefit, safety/danger
Most social evils are the daughts of pride and fashion.
Punna, often translated as 'merit', should be translated as 'happy act' -- it indicates not desert but beneficial karmic fruitfulness, auspiciousness with respect to karma, fortunateness with respect to becoming pure. Thus the Sangha is the 'field of punna', the most fruitful place to plant a gift. Punna is a treasure that cannot be lost. There are three major kinds: almsgiving (dana), virtue (sila), and meditative self-cultivation (bhavana); btu there are arguably many others, like teaching and learning Dharma or showing respect to the good or empathizing with another's good deed (anything, in fact, that can affect karma positively).
doing good on another's behalf or in another's name
ariya-sacca ('Noble Truth')
sacca: truth, reality, genuine existent
ariya: noble, ennobled, socially superior
thus sometimes understood as 'true reality for those who are ennobled'
perhaps: reality for (or as seen by) those with superior achievement, i.e., for those who are enlightened.
Thus: reality is fudnamentally dukkha, tanha, nirodha, magga -- pain/suffering, thirst/craving, nirvana/cessation, path.
"This, monks, for the noble, is the painful (dukkha) reality (ariya-sacca)."
In democracies, people become more crass in order to fake being democratic; in aristocracies, people become more hoity-toity in order to fake being aristocratic.
Cause and effect are one and not the same, distinct but not separate, because each thing has reference to another in causation.
"Jesus Buddha, who is the most powerful and compassionate person in the world, forgives my sins." -- from the "Praise Jesus Text" in the Xiabuzan (British Library S.2659), a Chinese Manichean hymn scroll from the Tang dynasty (perhaps somewhere between 8th and 11th century)
Much of what is seen as genius by others is in fact simply successful confidence.
asymmetric cooperations in which A is cooperating with B, although not vice versa
(1) anticipatory cooperation
(2) qualified coopeation with the resistant or uncooperative
reason as objective cause of motivation
Hume's account of causation is so broad that reason must have influence on acting and affection if anything does.
'Something is to be done' as self-evident practical truth
the external world here and now vs the external world in a general point of view
It is more obvious that there is safety and danger in the world than that there are planets or atoms; and such safety and danger can continue to exist independently of, and distinctly from, the mind's perception of them.
'Metaphysics of race' is just philosophy of classification with race as an example.
Everything is a normative standard to some kind of judgment.
energy as a measure of instrumentability
the vicarious and the objective aspects of the sign
"Since you cannot act without reasons and your humaity is the source of your reasons, you must value your own humanity if you are to act at all." Korsgaard
"Obligation is the reflective rejection of a threat to your identity. Pain is the *unreflective* rejection of a threat to your identity. So pain is the *perception* of a reason, and that is why it seems normative."
We do not pursue pleasure for its sake, but for our sake. (cp. Balguy)
intimations of free will in the products of artistic skill
the Incarnation as the election of Israel within the election of Israel
Out of the nations, He calls Israel; out of Israel, He calls the nations.
kitschy vs non-kitschy uses of kitsch
Hohfeldian incidents as relations between persons and jural goods
Every person has a right to law; that is, law is itself a jural good.
All legal systems have moral, judicial, and ceremonial aspects.
puzzles, debts, challenges, enticements
All virtues in the justice family call forth rites for their communication, coordination, facilitation, and protection.
deferential responsibilities -> ceremonies and rituals and formal procedures
All rights a person may have are participations in eternal right, that is to say, divine sovereignty over creation.
To have a right to X posits others having an obligation to you with respect to X, which requires that they have a power relevant to that obligation.
The order in which good law contributes to making men virtuous is different from the order in which (eg) self-discipline does; law prioritizes duties, especially more obvious duties, especially more obvious duties concerning harms in social interactions.
There is no such thing as a 'total body of evidence' except with respect to this or that end.
pricing as a general theory of proportioning mesurable means to measurable ends in the context of exchanges
profit as an ability of one exchange to make possible other exchanges
"The only appropriate way to love God is as a good infinitely shareable." McInerny
Moral action can only be conceived as a sort of cooperation with the world at large.
"To have an emotion is to stand *in the presence* of a normative fact: to feel fear is to stand in teh presence of the dangerousness of danger, to feel grief is to stand in the presence of the infinite loss of death." Korsgaard
Every civil freedom presupposes a right.
All of creation is a juridical good for God, for all of it is due to Him. In creation, God posits the created world not only ontically (as being and metaphysical goodness) but also juridically and liturgically. The created world is good and very good.
the eye glinting with glances
To love a person is to know them as bigger than death.
Common possession is limited by the limtis of the friendship it presupposes.
Totalitarianism arises from trying to have without friendship what comes only from civil friendship.
organisms as making themselves normative for themselves
Blameworthiness gets its importance from its limitations, and especially from forgiveness.
concrete crime scene -> abstract crime scene -> interrelations of abstract crime scene as effects -> causal context
the 'word' as a pedagogical unit
-- We first learn words as words in being taught segments of language as children.
The underlying principles of the Turing Test are the same as those of many design arguments.
Reason, being social, requires communication with other reason, and therefore testimony.
scenic aesthetic // problem-focused approach to philosophy
generative mediation -- e.g., time-lapse photography allows perception (generates perception) of what could not be perceived without that mediation
natural law, natural title: human right
natural law, conventional title: moral right
positive law, natural title: social right
positive law, positive title: privilege
The way we attribute vice and virtue always implies (1) that there is more of character than is found in the attribution, since the attributions are indirectly grounded, through signs, and (2) that such attributions can be wrong, even if made collectively, for the same reason.
What is, sometimes expresses what ought to be, and sometimes does not. This is different from the two being separate.
modal operators as diagram construction instructions
