Chuck Norris (1940-2026)

 Chuck Norris died yesterday, having just passed his 86th birthday on March 10. He was born Carlos Ray Norris; he was a shy child who did not do particularly well in either athletics or academics. This would begin to change when he joined the Air Force, when he began learning martial arts in earnest. After he was honorably discharged, he opened a martial arts studio and began competing in tournaments. Being something of a martial arts jack-of-all-trades, it took him a while to start doing so, but once he hit his stride, he began dominating in karate tournaments. This led him to become friends with Bruce Lee, which in turn resulted in his first movie role with Lee, The Way of the Dragon. His significant break began in 1978, with Good Guys Wear Black, a low-budget movie (it cost $1 million) that made relatively good profit and created a demand for Norris as the first major non-Bruce-Lee martial arts actor in America. Then followed a bunch of action movies, most of which did quite well. One of the successes was Lone Wolf McQuaid, in 1983, in which he played a Texas Ranger; this is likely the first glimmering seed of his hit television show, begun in 1993, Walker, Texas Ranger, which throughout its eight seasons was one of the most popular shows on television.

Most people too young to remember any of this mostly know Chuck Norris from 'Chuck Norris Facts':

Chuck Norris was pulled over by a cop once; he let the cop go with a warning.

The one time Chuck Norris was wrong was when he thought he made a mistake.

Ghosts tell stories about Chuck Norris to scare each other.

There is no survival of the fittest, only creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.

Legends live forever, which is almost as long as Chuck Norris.

But, in the context, perhaps the best one is the one Norris himself alluded to a few days before his death:

Chuck Norris doesn't age; he just levels up. 

Habitude XXIX

To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that moral virtue is able to be without the intellectual. For moral virtue, as Tully says, is habitude in the way of nature, agreeing [consentaneus] with reason. But even if nature agrees with some superior moving reason, it is not needful for that reason to be united with nature in the same thing, as is obvious in natural things lacking cognition. Therefore there is able to be in the human being moral virtue in the way of nature, inclining to agreement with reason, although that human being's reason is not completed through intellectual virtue.

Further, through intellectual virtue a human being achieves complete use of reason. But it sometimes happens that those in whom the use of reason is not vigorous are virtuous and accepted by God. Therefore it seems that moral virtue can be without intellectual virtue.

Further, moral virtue makes an inclination to working well. But some have a natural inclination to working well, even without the judgment of reason. Therefore moral virtues can be without intellectual virtues.

But contrariwise is what Gregory says, in Moral. XXII, that other virtues, unless they act prudently in that for which they strive, are not able to be virtues. But prudence is an intellectual virtue, as was said above. Therefore moral virtues are not able to be without the intellectual.

I reply that it must be said that moral virtue is able to be without certain intellectual virtues, like wisdom, knowledge, and craft, but it cannot be without intellection and prudence. Moral virtue is not able to be without prudence because moral virtue is choosing habitude, that is, one making good choice. But for choice to be good, two things are required. First, that there be due intending of the end, and this is done through moral virtue, which inclines the striving impulse to good appropriate to reason, which is the due end. Second, that the human being rightly receive those things that are endward, and this cannot be done save by reason rightly deliberating [consiliantem], judging, and prescribing, which pertains to prudence and to virtues annexed to it, as was said above. Therefore moral virtue is not able to be without prudence. And consequently neither without intellection. For by intellection naturally cognized principles are recognized, both in reflective and in working matters. Thus just as right reason in reflective matters, inasmuch as it proceeds from naturally cognized principles, presupposes intellection of principles, so also prudence, which is right reason for enactables.

To the first it must be said that natural inclination in things lacking reason is without choice, and therefore such inclination does not necessarily require reason. But inclination of moral virtue is with choice, and thus for its completion it needs that reason be completed through intellectual virtue.

To the second it must be said that in the virtuous the use of reason does not need to be vigorous with respect to everything but only with respect to those things that are done according to virtue. And thus use of reason is vigorous in all the virtuous. Thus those who seem to be simple, as lacking worldly wisdom [mundana astutia], are able to be prudent; according to Matth. X, Be prudent as serpents and simple as doves.

To the third it must be said that natural inclination to the good of virtue is a sort of incipience [inchoatio] of virtue, but is not completed virtue. For this kind of inclination is insofar as it is stronger is able to be more dangerous, unless right reason is adjoined to it, through which is made right choice of those things appropriate to due end, just as a running horse, if blind, more forcefully stumbles and is injured the more forcefully it runs. And therefore even if moral virtue is not right reason as Socrates said, yet it is not only according to right reason inasmuch as it inclines to that which is according to right reason, as the Platonists held, but it must be with right reason, as Aristotle says in Ethic. VI.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.58.4, my translation. The Latin is here, the Dominican Fathers translation is here.

Cyrillus Hierosolymitanus

 Today is the feast of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Doctor of the Church. From his Catechetical Lecture 15):

We preach not one advent only of Christ, but a second also, far more glorious than the former. For the former gave a view of His patience; but the latter brings with it the crown of a divine kingdom. For all things, for the most part, are twofold in our Lord Jesus Christ: a twofold generation; one, of God, before the ages; and one, of a Virgin, at the close of the ages: His descents twofold; one, the unobserved, like rain on a fleece ; and a second His open coming, which is to be. In His former advent, He was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger; in His second, He covers Himself with light as with a garment. In His first coming, He endured the Cross, despising shame; in His second, He comes attended by a host of Angels, receiving glory. We rest not then upon His first advent only, but look also for His second. And as at His first coming we said, Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord , so will we repeat the same at His second coming; that when with Angels we meet our Master, we may worship Him and say, Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord. The Saviour comes, not to be judged again, but to judge them who judged Him; He who before held His peace when judged , shall remind the transgressors who did those daring deeds at the Cross, and shall say, These things have you done, and I kept silence. Then, He came because of a divine dispensation, teaching men with persuasion; but this time they will of necessity have Him for their King, even though they wish it not.

In the Brightness of the Sun

From the Confession of St. Patrick (sect. 59-60):

And if at any time I managed anything of good for the sake of my God whom I love, I beg of him that he grant it to me to shed my blood for his name with proselytes and captives, even should I be left unburied, or even were my wretched body to be torn limb from limb by dogs or savage beasts, or were it to be devoured by the birds of the air, I think, most surely, were this to have happened to me, I had saved both my soul and my body. For beyond any doubt on that day we shall rise again in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, as children of the living God and co-heirs of Christ, made in his image; for we shall reign through him and for him and in him. 

 For the sun we see rises each day for us at [his] command, but it will never reign, neither will its splendour last, but all who worship it will come wretchedly to punishment. We, on the other hand, shall not die, who believe in and worship the true sun, Christ, who will never die, no more shall he die who has done Christ’s will, but will abide for ever just as Christ abides for ever, who reigns with God the Father Almighty and with the Holy Spirit before the beginning of time and now and for ever and ever. Amen.

Links of Note

 * Bryan Pickel & Brian Rabern, A Compositional Semantics for Venn Diagrams (PDF)

* Curry Kennedy, A Special Regard for Life, on rhetoric and the moral life, at "Wisdom Speaking"

* Ruth Boeker, Mary Astell on Self-Improvement, Friendship, and Religion (PDF)

* David Oks, Why ATMs didn't kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did

* Eric Snyder, Stewart Shapiro, & Richard Samuels, A strengthened argument to realism about numbers (PDF)

* Mark Windsor, Collingwood's Everday Aesthetics (PDF)

* Hollis Robbins, The Great Syllabus Stagnation, at "Anecdotal Value" and Timothy Burke, How Do Syllabi Align?, at "Eight by Seven"

* Cristina L. Wilkins, Cathrynne Henshall, Amy D. Lykins, et al., The teleonome: a framework for understanding animal welfare integrating adaptive capabilities, affective regulation, agency, and environmental affordances

* Paul Lodge, Leibniz's Justification of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Mainly) in the Correspondence with Clarke (PDF)

* Esther Berry, A Vague Feeling of Unease Will Be the Last Thing You Remember, on trusting your gut, at "The Literate Woman"

* Robin Jean Harris, Baptism as Dramatization, and Baptism as Seal and Spiritual Birth, on St. Cyril of Jerusalem's metaphors for baptism

* Lukas J. Meier, Can Thought Experiments Solve Problems of Personal Identity (PDF)

* Ronald W. Dworkin, Savage care, on the sharp limitations of bioethics for actual medical practitioners, at "Aeon"

Incense Under Trees

 There was no truth, nor sympathy, mercy and love for neighbor, nor knowledge of God in the land. All three are connected with each other and follow one another, with the last as the beginning. Wherever we have the greatest confluence of people, these three sources of happiness are in many ways buried more quickly. In 4:12 it is said: "My people seek advice from a piece of wood and their staff gives them revelations"; it is their prophet, for the spirit of prostitution, of apostasy from God, leads them into these errors. They offer incense under trees, because their shade is good. In gratitude to the shade of the tree, they show it divine honor and forget the living God, his judgments, his name, his prophets.

[Johann Georg Hamann, The Complete London Writings, Kleinig, tr., Lexham Academic (Bellingham: 2025) p. 238. This is a comment on Hosea 4:1, although it actually covers most of this chapter. The reading here is interesting; Hamann seems (more or less plausibly) to interpret the trees comment in 4:13 as giving a general template for how apostasy develops -- finding the protection of something to be good and pleasant, people begin out of gratitude to show it honor that should be reserved to God, and then slowly stop giving such honor to God.]

Habitude XXVIII

 To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that human virtue is not sufficiently divided according to moral and intellectual virtue. For prudence seems to be some mean between moral and intellectual virtue, since it is enumerated with intellectual virtue in Ethic. VI, and also is commonly enumerated by all among the four cardinal virtues, which are moral, as will be obvious below. Therefore virtue is not sufficiently divided according to moral and intellectual as immediate.

Further, continence and perseverance and patience are not reckoned among intellectual virtues. Nor are they moral virtues, because they do not have a passional mean, but passions abound in them. Therefore virtue is not sufficiently divided according to intellectual and moral.

Further, faith, hope, and charity are sorts of virtue. But they are not intellectual virtues, for these are only five, to wit, knowledge, wisdom, intellection, prudence, and craft, as was said. Nor are they moral virtues because they are not about passions, which moral virtues are chiefly about. Therefore virtue is not sufficiently divided according to intellectual and moral.

But contrariwise, the Philosopher says in Ethic. II that virtue is twofold, the one intellectual and the other moral.

I reply that it must be said that virtue is a sort of habitude completing a human being for working well. Now the source [principium] of human action is only twofold, to wit, intellect or reason and striving, for these are the two movers [moventia] in the human being, as is said in De Anima III. Thus any human virtue should be the completing of one of these sources. If, therefore, it is a completing of speculative or practical intellect for good human action, it will be intellectual virtue, but if it is a completing of the striving part, it will be moral virtue. Thus by elimination [relinquitur quod] every human virtue is either intellectual or moral.

To the first it must be said that prudence according to its essence is intellectual virtue, but according to its matter it converges on [convenit cum] the moral virtues, for it is right reason for enactables, as was said above. And according to this it is enumerated with the moral virtues.

To the second it must be said that continence and perseverance are not completions of the sense-relevant striving power. This is obvious in the fact that, in the continent and persevering, passions super-abound in them, which would not be if sense-relevant striving were completed by some habitude conforming it to reason. Now containing, or persevering, is a completion of the rational part, which holds itself against passions lest it be drawn off. But it falls short of the notion of virtue, for intellectual virtue that has itself [se habere] well about morals presupposes right striving for the end, so that it has itself [se habeat] rightly about sources, that is, ends from which we reason, which is lacking from continence and perseverance. Nor can there be complete working proceeding from two powers unless each power is completed by due habitude, just as the complete action does not follow from one acting instrumentally if the instrument is not well disposed, however complete the principal agent may be. Thus if sense-relevant striving that is moved by the rational part is not complete, then however complete the rational part, the following action will not be complete. So neither will the source of the action be virtue. And because of this, continence from delights and perservance from sorrows are not virtues, but are something lesser than virtue, as the Philosopher says in Ethic. VII.

To the third it must be said that faith, hope, and charity are above human virtues, for they are virtues of a human being so far as he is made participant of divine grace.

[St. Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.58.3, my translation. The Dominican Fathers translation is here, the Latin is here.]

Sufficio is the verb for supplying or providing, so 'sufficiently divides' means that the division, taken together as a division (without overlapping) supplies the whole.

Note that this article doesn't just divide human virtues into intellectual virtues and moral virtues, but also relates them to what is immediately below them (reply to objection 2) and what is directly above them (reply to objection 3). It also deals with the most obvious puzzle case for taking the division to be a strict division, namely, prudence, which seems to fall on both sides; in fact, prudence is an intellectual virtue, but it is the intellectual virtue about the whole field of what moral virtues are about, so it is counted as a moral virtue.

Up and Running

 Let us do penance, brothers, let us do penance right away, because we no longer have any extended period of time, the very hour is quickly coming to an end for us, and the imminence of judgment is already preventing us from the opportunity to make amends. Let your penance get up and running, so that judgment may not outrun it, since the fact that the Lord has not yet come, that he still waits, and that he delays, means that his desire is for us to return to him and not to perish.

[St. Peter Chrysologus, Selected Sermons, Volume 3, Palardy, tr. Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2005), Sermon 167, section 5.]

Dashed Off IX

This is the beginning of the notebook started in November 2024.

 Most explanations involve making assumptions that are justified only in terms of an assessment of what is required for an adequate explanation.

explanandum -> explanant profile -> evidence for explanatory factors -> profile-filling abductions

science fiction and the magical reification of measurements

All human desert presupposes elements of good fortune.

In the long run, taxes seem eventually to undermine democratic governance.

The actual laws of physics must be such that actual physics is possible.

Music as a fine art is concerned with the suggestion of rhythm, rather than metronomic rhythm, with the suggestion of notes, rather than exact notes.

No one can understand political equality before they understand political dignity.

scientific progress as an example of rational tradition

In the virtue of prudence we are provident both for ourselves and for others.

"A quest is always an education both as to the character of that which is sought and in self-knowledge." MacIntyre

Naturalism cannot make specific predictions in the absence of specific natural evidences.

When people say that a field, sociology, say, is about 'is' and not 'ought', what they in fact mean is that the oughts of sociology are second-order.

common law as diffused practical jurisprudence

Critical Legal Studies is fundamentally an exploration of legal systems as interactions of practices, objects (reifications), and values (tilts), albeit one that has not always had honest intentions.

mathematical functions as abstractions of terms, sets as abstractions of formulas (Lorenzen)
"Since sets are abstracted from formulas, and formulas are built up by means of logical particles, corresponding operations arise for sets."

You should always be wary of anything that gives you a satisfying feeling of righteousness; the feeling and the thing come apart easily and even when not, the feeling is often associated with release from what would ordinarily be restrictive -- which may be one's actual moral obligation as to means. This is why it is often associated both with hypocrisy and with immoderation.

prevention, prepared countermeasure, prepared mitigation

the Binding of Isaac as a picture of consecration

Divine reason is autonomous by nature; human reason is autonomous only by participation.

Intersubjective testing of religious experience requires something like a church; it also requires having already determined the conditions of validity of religious experience.

Series, unlike sets, are always something more than just their members. (Note that Edwards in his Eskimo example explicitly depends on a series being the same as a group.)

As the abstract principles governing the behavior of the universe do not share the directionalities of the universe, the directionalities must derive from the moving cause.

Clifford's argument against belief without evidence would, if it worked, also work as an argument against fiction, pageantry, advertisement; the love of fiction increases the risk of being affected in one's belief by them, fictions adoring things unevidenced with tinsel splendor, forming them into cloud-castles, making us half-believe through pleasant plausibilities.

causality > responsibility > complicity > culpability

the dipping method of philosophy -- taking a passage by chance and reflecting on it and the association it brings

Talk of social construction often confuses cases where we construct through social interaction with cases where we are constructed by way of social interaction.

Direct accessibility is a causal notion.

We always in practice take intelligible abstract objects to be part of the common environment shared with others.

learning by co-laboring

When people talk about agreement in the sciences, they generally talk about families of things that are in fact interpreted in very different ways; when people talk about disagreement in philosophy, they usually are talking about very particularly and distinctly conceived positions that include particular interpretations.

stage persons and play persons (e.g., in role-playing games or video games)

To say that God created the world for His glory is to say that He created it for the union of intelligent creatures to Himself.

light as 'the form of first acting body, by which lower bodies act'

sequential causation
(1) simultaneous causation; A causes B in particular respect x
(2) identity through time of B in respect x
(3) simultaneous causation: B in respect x causes C in respect y
-- thus C in respect y preserves a dependence on A despite temporally measurable gap
-- waves seem particularly suitable for an explaantion of roughly this sort

Kant's claim about the sovereign in the MM can only properly apply to God; all human sovereigns have rights because they have duties, and there are conditions under which they can be forced to do the latter, and no human legislation is the highest legislation except secundum quid.

It is pointless to criticize, rather than simply correct, the scientific inaccuracies of the past, because no one who does so is in fact free of scientific inaccuracy, and certainly not free of inaccuracies not yet discovered by the sciences.

extension, intension, limitation (partition from negative complement)

Kant's categories as the logical ways judgments about reality can be related to temporal measurements

"A purely passive being knows not, and cannot know, either itself or any other thing." Cousin
"Kant has fallen into a grave error, in thinking that the questions raised in the antinomies necessarily require teh same method of solution, viz. reasoning." 
"What are the characteristics of a moral law? Necessity and universality. But are not these the characteristics of all the principles which Kant has recognized in the metaphysics, of the principle of contradiction, for example?"

'What begins to exist has a cause' as a condition for applying mathematics to the physical world

An advocate who did not have different arguments for different judges, but only repeated the same thing regardless of court and context, would be incompetent; and pretending that having many reasons for a conclusion makes it less certain, is a sign of stupidity.

the transcendental conditions of consensus gentium and consensus sapientorum

We calibrate individual reason in light of the reason of others.

All of the principles of speculative reason are relevant to practical and moral action, always contextually and sometimes with respect to the practical action as such.

"A merely logical philosophy may die of inanition, and a sensational philosophy of paralysis; but the nature of the disease that killed it matters little to the corpse." Edward Caird

Kant's Humean 'awakening' was only possible because Kant was already tending in that direction, and Hume broke some final restraints.

the co-worldedness of individual substances

Besides space and time, the forms of sense would have to include something like forcefulness/robustness/realness, where this is understood as structuring how we sense things with respect to other things.

"Substance, causality, and reciprocity are only imperfect expressions of that conception of unity in difference, which, in a higher form, appears as the idea of final cause, and which ultimately reveals itself as the idea of self-consciousness. In determining inorganic objects, we may not find it necessary to use any but the first order of categories; when we come to the organic world we require, as Kant himself maintains, the second order: and when we react the spiritual world, we can accomplish our purpose of making it intelligible with nothing less than the third." E. Caird
(This seems very strong and defensible *as a reasponse to Kant*; Caird is right that Kant's own principles and approach sometimes suggest something like this.)

Organisms can only be understood in terms of systems of possibilities formed by causal processes and constraints of actually existing things.

Regulation of changing things requires either enduring barrier to deviation or recurring correction of deviations or both.

Our conception of what happens is a conception of something 'being happened'.

Human beings require friendship to solidify their pursuit of virtue.

In roleplaying games, optimizing practices arise from running very specific parties through very generic stories. (This is precisely how D&D structures itself, giving lots of framework for character building and much less assistance to storybuilding, which is largely limited by the DM's ingenuity in using very constraining character mechanics.)

The only way to interpret other human beings is to interpret them as having a generic aptitude to truth, and we cannot inquire without taking ourselves to have it.

the opinion-clashing method of philosophizing

liberalism as rpg politics: 'the most interesting play possibilities to the greatest number of participants for the longest period of time possible' (Gygax)

Some things, like the laws of nature, or the decline of civilization, or the Last Things, belong to frameworks much larger than themselves, and are related to our moral judgments as background context, not as falling under the scope of their authority.

Natural religion diversifies by custom and vow.

vow -> covenant -> grace
(note that each transfigures the previous rather than merely replacing it) (note also that each is a natural candidate for final cause of the previous)

'Encounter' is itself more primitive than vow; it is something that sometimes leads people to vow. Treating it as paradigmatic to the regime of grace is a grotesque error. 'Encounter' is useless unless it is transfigured into the covenant of friendship. Christianity is not an experience but something both more fundamental and higher than any human experience can be.

The argument from moral evil is ultimately a tendentious asking of the question, "Why is it necessary to be carefully and deliberately moral?"

We don't only just have secondary beliefs about secondary worlds (in Tolkien's sense), but also secondary beliefs about the primary world.

We are saved by faith but also inspired by it.

the contingency of philosophers relative to the faith (Gilson)

"In our own lifetime, in the names of how many doctrines, since abandoned by their very authors, have we been summoned to abandon the teaching of the Church?" Gilson
"What is common to Athens and Jerusalem is the human being."
"That a nation experiences the need to promote the development of the arts and sciences does not keep art and science from essentially belonging to an order that transcends that of the nation."
"There is Christendom where there is Christian civilization, and there is Christian civilization where there is Christian thought."

Christendom as a sign and partial healing of the broken commonwealth of humanity

The Socratic approach to philosophy is not a dogmatic commitment to ignorance, and yet this seems lost on some people.

Two Loves

 There are two loves from which proceed all wishes, as different in quality as they are different in their sources. For the reasonable soul, which cannot exist without love, is the lover either of God or the world. In the love of God there is no excess, but in the love of the world all is hurtful. And therefore we must cling inseparably to eternal treasures, but things temporal we must use like passers-by, that as we are sojourners hastening to return to our own land, all the good things of this world which meet us may be as aids on the way, not snares to detain us....But as the world attracts us with its appearance, and abundance and variety, it is not easy to turn away from it unless in the beauty of things visible the Creator rather than the creature is loved; for, when He says, "you shall love the Lord your God from all your heart, and from all your mind, and from all your strength," He wishes us in noticing to loosen ourselves from the bonds of this love.

[St. Leo I, Sermon 90.]

On Just War and Iran

 Cardinal McElroy has an interview on the Iran conflict and just war theory in his archdiocesan newsletter; it's quite reasonable and clear, and since I am very harsh with bishops who unnecessarily muddy doctrinal waters, it's only fair that I note when they are doing the opposite. There are a few quibbles I could make (like most people, for instance McElroy treats 'right intention' much too narrowly, taking 'intention' in the colloquial English sense rather than the original scholastic sense), but in the context of an interview, and with respect to the purpose of the interview, I don't think it necessary to stand on them. It also gives a nice occasion for thinking about just war theory in a real-world context.

McElroy sees the current conflict as violating the principles of just war in at least three particular respects:

(E1) Just cause: McElroy argues that just cause was not met because we were not responding to "an existing or imminent and objectively verifiable attack by Iran", and preventative war is not just.

(E2) Right intention: We lack "clear intention", as shown in the sheer variety of proposed goals, explanations, and reaons that the Trump administration has offered.

(E3) Expectation of good: It's unclear that the war's benefits will outweigh its harms.

Thus, His Eminence concludes, the war is not morally legitimate.

It's interesting to compare this to Ed Feser's recent discussion of how just war principles apply to the Iran conflict. [ADDED LATER: Ed has a new article developing his argument at "Public Discourse".] He also argues that the current conflict violates the principles of just war on (if I understand how his argument is structured) at least two points:

(F1) Just cause: Feser goes through some of the goals that have been proposed -- eliminating imminent threats, destroying Iran's nuclear capability, possible future threats, liberation of the Iranian people, and argues that none of these are plausible. Like Cardinal McElroy, he notes that preventative war is not just.

(F2) Lawful authority: Warmaking authority in the United States ultimately rests with Congress. While Congress has given the President certain war powers and emergency powers, they require Congressional oversight, which the Trump administration has not done much to obtain -- indeed, has apparently deliberately not bothered to obtain.

It's possible to read him as also suggesting (F3) Reasonable possibility of success as a third, depending on which goal discussed in (F1) we take to be dominant.

Fundamentally, just action of any kind is rightful authority rightly disposed to righteous ends, and genuine just war criteria are always applications of this to the specialized work of warring; as I've noted before, you can always derive them from general practical considerations about the things done in war. We have to be wary, however, of a common ambiguity in talking about justice, namely, that it has both a moral sense and a legal or juridical sense, related to each other but distinct. And we see this ambiguity all the time in just war theory; St. Thomas Aquinas's account of just war is specifically an account of how a prince's warring can be an act of the virtue of justice (the moral sense), but later scholastics often are considering war juridically in terms of whether the overall conduct of war is in accordance with natural law and jus gentium. Both are important, but it is possible to have a just war in the juridical sense in which some of the people involved are participating with unjust intentions or goals, and, equally, it is possible to have a war that is juridically unjust but in which some of the people involved are being just in their participation. Indeed, given human failings, every just war (juridical) that has ever been has had some unjust warring (moral) in it. Distinguishing these is usually not a problem if we are considering common soldiers, but it can get very tricky when we are looking at the level of generals or the commander-in-chief, who, in addition to being individual participants are also principal agents organizing the juridical situation.

One weakness in both McElroy's and Ed's arguments is the assumption that hostilities with Iran have recently begun. I don't think this is an accurate assessment of the situation. The United States has been in a state of cold-and-hot hostilities with Iran since 1979, and while military confrontation has not always been direct, when it has not been so, it has been going on by proxy fights, deliberate subversion, economic and diplomatic sanction, assassination attempts, bombing campaigns, and the like. This is not a recent conflict; this is an already existing cold war becoming a hot war. That it has been until now a mostly slow-motion conflict does not make it any less a conflict. What is more, Iran is not an innocent actor in any of this; it has consistently positioned itself as an enemy of the United States and its allies, and attempts to persuade it to take a more moderate posture have repeatedly failed. There is also a reason why our Arabic allies have been remarkably sanguine and nonobstructive despite the fact that the American campaign has resulted in a large number of missiles being shot at them and their civilians; there are very few countries in the region for which Iran has not funded and armed coup attempts, and there are very few whom Iran has not threatened militarily and economically in an attempt to get its way on any number of things. In this sense, the question of whether and under what conditions Iran can be attacked is much like the question of whether and under what conditions the Barbary States could be attacked.

It's worth recognizing that this does not change the framework -- that's one reason I pointed out that it derives from general practical principles, namely, it covers everything -- but I think it does complicate the just cause arguments given by both McElroy and Feser. In fact, I am highly skeptical of both if they are intended juridically. Just cause is the most important component determining whether war is just or not, mostly because it is the reference point for understanding how to apply all the other criteria, but it is (alas) not usually a difficult one to meet, and it is actually quite easy to meet it in the context of Iran. Ed looks at various goals that have been proposed, and is right that they cannot of themselves justify a standalone war; but they are each entirely reasonable goals to have for particular operations in an already ongoing state of hostilities. This, of course, is a distinct question from whether President Trump, or any other officials or commanders involved are themselves operating with a just cause in their own actions in this war. 

To be sure, I would blame no one for going along with the idea that the campaign is morally illegitimate for just cause reasons, since if Cardinal McElroy and Dr. Feser agree on a point of moral theology and philosophy, then it is at least reasonably safe and Catholic. Nonetheless, I don't think those particular arguments work on rational grounds.

I also don't think Cardinal McElroy's argument on expectation of good, at least as it stands, works; Ed rightly notes that the mere fact that something could turn out well is not enough to make it just, but it's also true, for much the same reason, that the mere fact that something could go very wrong is not enough to make it unjust. That is, unless we are moral rigorists, which I can hardly imagine Cardinal McElroy intends. War is uncertain, unpredictable, and cannot be done according to a strict plan; and people who forecast wars are virtually always wrong. Further, the idea that we should not act in a way that would create greater harm than the harm we are addressing is concerned specifically with grave evils and disorders directly associated with the use of arms and its natural aftermath. Broader ripples and unpleasant consequences are not the concern here. (The argument also has an inconvenient result for His Eminence's position in that it implies the United States also cannot justly withdraw from the conflict until we can do so in a way that would guarantee that the withdrawal would not gravely harm our allies in the region. This is probably close to true, but it is not, I think, what the Cardinal is intending to suggest.)

I remember Ed having some sympathy with the idea that the Iraq War met just war criteria, when I was skeptical of that. It's interesting here that Ed regards the current Iran campaign as manifestly unjust whereas I am at least much more sympathetic to the general possibility of its being just. Nonetheless, I think, McElroy is quite right that, in terms of what has actually been done there are serious concerns with right intention, and particularly with clear intent or purpose, which is only one part of right intention, but nonetheless one that is sometimes quite important (E2). And Ed's argument on lawful authority (F2) is, I think, likewise a matter of serious concern in this particular case.

Moment of Ripeness

 The beauty of things is in this moment of their ripeness that God waits for. If anyone were to taste the leaves or flowers of a cherry tree, he would make a wrong evaluation of it. If anyone were to judge the cool shade of trees in winter weather and by their appearance in this season, he would make a rather blind evaluation of them. Yet we likewise pass judgment on God's government and its purposes.

[Johann Georg Hamann, The Complete London Writings, Kleinig, tr., Lexham Academic (Bellingham: 2025), pp. 219-220. This is a comment on Ecclesiastes 3:11.]

Links of Note

 * William Vallicella, On the Very Idea of a Cause of Existence, on Schopenhauer

* Jan C. Bentz, Creative Intuition and Being in Art: J. Maritain and E. Gilson on Beauty (PDF)

* Hunter Coates, A Fresh Translation of the Book of Galatians -- exactly what it says on the tin

* Shang Lu, The Demarcation Problem for Error Theory (PDF)

* Dimitra Fimi, When did the fairies become miniscule? (I) Earlier scholarship: Latham and Briggs, and When did the fairies become miniscule? (II): Recent scholarly debates, at "A kind of elvish craft"

* Winnie Sung, A Confucian Account of Trustworthiness (PDF)

* Gregory B. Sadler, What is Aristotelian Prohairesis?

Fortnightly Book, March 8

 After World War II, Louis L'Amour began writing for Western pulp magazines; most of this was originally under pseudonyms like 'Jim Mayo' and 'Tex Burns'. In 1951, however, he began publishing under his own name, and his career was to change forever when in 1952, he wrote a short story, "The Gift of Cochise", which was published in Colliers. In it, a woman named Angie Lowe faces down the Apache warrior, Cochise, with some help from a man named Ches Lane. The story caught the eye of the film producer, Robert Fellows, who had just teamed up with John Wayne and was looking for stories that would work well for Wayne on film. They bought the film rights from L'Amour and hired Wayne's friend and vertean screenwriter, James Edward Grant, to rework it into a screenplay. Ches Lane became Hondo Lane. 

So far, an ordinary story of publication. However, when he sold the film rights, L'Amour cleverly retained the novelization rights to the film. He wrote a novel based on Grant's heavy reworking of the story, with the same title, Hondo. The novel Hondo was published in 1953 on the same day the film came out, and, Wayne and Fellows understanding how publicity worked, did so with a blurb from John Wayne himself on the cover. The movie was a success, which made the novelization a bestseller, which contributed further to the success of the movie. L'Amour, of course, was able to leverage this beginning to become the twentieth century's greatest novelist in the Western genre. 

The fortnightly book, then, will be Hondo, Louis L'Amour's novelization of James Edward Grant's screenplay inspired by Louis L'Amour's short story. I have a copy of "The Gift of Cochise" somewhere, so I will read it as well.

Even Though We Do Not Know It

 You have extended me, made space for me or made me greater than I am, given me more courage, patience, hope and comfort by the cross than what the natural man is able to receive. How mysterious is God in his love! Even though we do not know it, the cross serves to give our high status, our greatness, and our strength.

[Johann Georg Hamann, The Complete London Writings, Kleinig, tr., Lexham Academic (Bellingham: 2025), p. 194. This is a comment on Psalm 4:1.]

J.-K. Huysmans, The Cathedral

 Introduction

Opening Passage:

At Chartres cathedral, on leaving the little square which is swept in all weathers by a surly wind from the plains, a gentle whiff of the cellar, attenuated by the soft, almost stifled scent of incense, blows in your face when you enter the solemn gloom of its cool forests.

Durtal knew it well, that delightful moment when one breathes in again, still dazed by the sudden transition from a stinging north wind to a velvety caress of air. Every morning, at five, he left his rooms, and to reach the borders of that strange wood he had to cross the square; and always the same people appeared, emerging from the same streets: nuns bowing their heads, leaning forward, the edges of their wimples blown back and flapping like wings, the wind swelling skirts that were held down with great difficulty; then, almost bent double, wizened women clutching their clothes around them would make their way, their curved backs lashed by the squalls. (p. 17)

Summary: In En Route Durtal had visited a Trappist monastery, struggling with his temptations and attempting to write a book on Blessed Lydwine, having found a mentor in Abbé Gévresin. In La Cathedral, Gévresin has been reassigned to Chartres, and Durtal has followed him there. He has mostly overcome his temptations, but his momentum on the book has completely collapsed, and he is struggling with writer's block trying to finish even smaller commissions for periodicals. The writer's block is perhaps a bit symbolic of his more spiritual problem, but more on that in a moment. He is spending his time, when not alone, with Abbé Gévresin and two new friends he has met in Chartres, Abbé Plomb and a stern-faced but in fact very pleasant-tempered nun, Madame Bavoil. In Chartres, Durtal has become a bit obsessed with the famous cathedral.

Photo credit: Guy Dugas, via Pixabay.

Much of the novel, in fact, consists of Durtal reflecting on the cathedral and discussing various aspects of its art and architecture with his friends. He has become particularly interested in medieval symbolism and allegory, which he is studying at great length in order better to understand the meaning of the cathedral. (Many of these discussions remind me a great deal of Umberto Eco, especially, of course, in The Name of the Rose.) Besides particular features of the building itself, which has led to the book being a perpetual staple for tourists and pilgrims visting the cathedral, he and his friends discuss the allegorical significance of gemstones, fauna, flora, church architecture, vestments, colors, numbers, odors, and more. You can practically open the book at random and you are likely within three pages of such a discussion of allegory and symbolism. This sometimes gives the book a sense of being more prose poem than novel, But Durtal, of course, was drawn to the Catholic Church because of its art and aesthetics, while also deploring the bad taste and kitschy sentimentalism that was practically universal in French Catholic art in the nineteenth century. He sees this as a grave impoverishment; the very vocabulary for speaking of spiritual and mystical things, a vocabulary that had had to use layers and layers of allegory and symbol, that had to engage all the senses to capture spiritual richness of meaning, has collapsed, and nothing remotely adequate has replaced it. What Durtal finds drawing him into Catholic life can hardly even be stated anymore, and so in learning of how the medieval artists and theologians struggled to convey these things, he is learning a vocabulary for entire realms of the spiritual life of which he had had only an inkling way back in the first book in the series.

However, important as all of this is to Durtal's growth, it is in a sense a secondary matter. Durtal has entered a sort of doldrums, and the real story of the book is how he gets moving again. The writer's block he is experiencing is symbolic of -- perhaps even a symptom of -- the fact that he has a similar spiritual block. He is, so to speak, floating in a sea of possibilities and unable to select any of them; he is writing the story of his spiritual life and has reached the point where either the page stays blank or the scene stalls because it is clearly not going anywhere. Perhaps this ties with the discussions of allegory and symbolism in that the only way to work through either block, writerly or spiritual, is to consider lots of things until something starts working. This means that, as in En Route, little happens physically but much psychologically, and, as in En Route, much of the substance of the action is subtle and indirect. It is a more engaging book than the prior book. There is a tendency to think that struggle makes for the most interesting psychological stories, but The Cathedral's story of reflective rambling is consistently more interesting than En Route's anxious wrestling. Perhaps, though, one cannot plausibly get to an interesting version of the reflection without first having passed through the struggle.

Durtal has an interest in the religious and cloistered life, which he has picked up from his time at La Trappe, although he is very certain that the Trappists are not for him. Despite the attraction, however, he is also reluctant to make any moves in that direction, because he is a writer who loves art, and it's difficult to think of any version of the cloistered life that gives him the kind of freedom that requires. He is reluctant to let that go, and it's not even that he's wrong to be so, since literally all of his spiritual life is interlaced with his love of art. Simply tryinig to rip up one would do incalculable damage to the other. But it is a major contributing component to his stalling out. In fact, over the course of the novel it becomes increasingly clear that he is not merely stalling out but actively stalling. Abbé Gévresin has mentioned to him that, because of his strong interest in plainchant, he should visit the community at Solesme, and a close reader will eventually begin to realize that much of the story of the book is in fact in the negative-space created by this -- Durtal spends most of the book actively not thinking about it. This is the sort of thing that could easily be missed, but the cleverness of the writing, once you see it, is extraordinary. Huysmans has written a psychological novel about someone deliberately avoiding thought about the one topic he needs to consider. Given this, there is only one way the book can actually end, with Durtal actually setting out to visit Solesme as Abbé Gévresin had suggested. But the interest of the book is how Chartres Cathedral, and his discussions with his friends, get him to that point.

Favorite Passage:

..."But why an altar to Saint Columbanus?"

"Because of all saints he is the most neglected, the least invoked by those of our contemporaries who should be praying to himt he most, since according to the attributions of special virtues he is the patron saint of idiots!"

"Nonsense!" cried the Abbé Gévresin, "why, if ever a man revealed a magnificent comprehension of things human and divine, it was that great abbot and founder of monasteries."

"Oh, I'm not suggesting in any way that Saint Columbanus had a feeble mind, but as to why this mission of protecting the greater part of the human race was entrusted to him rather than another, I don't know."

"Perhaps because he cured the mad and freed the possessed?" suggested the Abbé Gévresin.

"In any case," said Durtal, "it would be vain to erect a chapel to him because it would always be empty. No one would come to pray to this poor saint, because the sign of an idiot is that he thinks he isn't one."

"So he's a saint without any work," said Madame Bavoil.

"And one who isn't likely to find any, either," said Durtal, as he left. (p. 213)

Recommendation: Highly Recommended; this is a beautiful book.

****

J.-K. Huysmans, The Cathedral, Clara Bell & Brendan King, trs., Dedalus (Sawtry, Cambridgeshire: 2011).

Dashed Off VIII

This completes the notebook finished in November of 2024.

 

The death that haunts us due to original sin is not merely corporeal, but also moral, jural, and sacral. We are doomed not merely to death, but to deathly death; in dying we truly die.

From the time we are in the womb, others act on our behalf.

Poverty, chastity, etc., are preambles and preparations for charity, each being a discipline that exercises and develops capacities relevant to the ardor of charity, and each being an anticipatory sign of some aspect of charity.

Punishment needs to rehabilitate not only the offender but also the social order.

Most of the concerns about 'AI ethics' arise from thinking of AI as a consequentialist engine.

To say 'X is Y for practical purposes' is to say X and Y are at least approximatey equivalent in matters relevant to the specific practical purposes in question.

"Where reason is lively, and mixes itself with some propensity, it ought to be assented to. Where it does not, it never can have any title to operate upon us." Hume
-- Both ought and title here are peculiar. It is odd to think of reason as requiring title "to operate upon us", when it is us, and it is unclear what 'ought' could actually be established to which this title is relevant.

You have not begun to understand the problem of evil until you have looked in the mirror.

"It is a great misfortune to have learned the catechism *against* someone." De Lubac

"Grace gives us, not ony the freedom necessary for true friendship with God, but also the other condition of friendship, equality." Scheeben
"The natural consequence of the Incarnation is to confer on men the right and power to become children of God."

contrastive juxtaposition as a method of sketch writing

Hope is a sort of alliance with greater powers.

Political borders are always symbolically structured.

Utilitarianism is an ethics of symptoms.

"History is the signature of the soul's intellectuality, for the human soul is an intelligence living by motion at the level of intelligibility found in matter." Pegis

We obviously do not value people only by valuing their interests.

GDH Cole and Harold Laski on pluralism of societies

meanings of "the real world"
(1) all that of which true things can be said
(2) that which is not merely dreamed
(3) that which is not merely fictional
(4) that with respect to which responsibility is possible
-- all of these are distinct, but they are often confused

All stories are capable of enchanting history.

the draw of a tale

Dooyeweerd's criticism of cosmological arguments on the basis of a purported antinomy of causality and normative responsibility, due to the seamless chain, seems to create insuperable problems for Reformed theology of providence, which seems to require not only that God be the Origin of causality but also the ultimate cause actually causing.

existence, causality, purpose

Christianity as co-confession

The first and fundamental task of any apologist is to tell the story.

We propositionalize in order to trust and to communicate trust.

The water flows, the earth to grace,
in driving streams that interlace
like friend with friend in joining hand
to cool and freshen thirsty land.

apologetics
-- the path of theoretical reason
-- -- -- (1) demonstrative (proof)
-- -- -- (2) theoretical-dialectical (theoretical probability)
-- the path of practical reason
-- -- -- (1) practical-dialectical or deliberative (practical presumption)
-- -- -- (2) rhetorical (persuasiveness)
-- the path of reasoned imagination
-- -- -- (1) rhetorical-poetical (plausibility)
-- -- -- (2) poetical (suggestiveness)

Contingent historical truths presuppose eternal truths of reason.

(1) We experience things that are derivatively intelligible by nature.
(2) What is derivatively intelligible by nature requires what is nonderivatively intelligible by nature.
Therefore, etc.

entropy as measure of quantity of microstates associated with a classification

combinatorially possible but causally inaccessible possible worlds

eigenstates : actually possible states :: eigenvalues : probabilities

To think intuitively is to think substantively, to think as a stable being able to be completed by other stable being.

The bodies we actually experience are not merely extensive but also intensive and protensive -- that is, they are clearly not only quantiative but also qualitative and active.

The modern world is a continual chasing after the incidental rather than the substantial.

sacramentum ligni vitae fructus

the feeling of finding as a modality of our sense of novelty

testimony : longbow :: argument : crossbow (Bacon, cf. Johnson)

There is always time for patience.

apparent timelines (as experienced) + effective timelines (causally unified) --> reconciled unified timeline
-- this is a common pattern in historical work, in detective work, in some experimental work, etc.

world-building as machinery for extrinsic consistency

There are very few metrics by which modern Europe or the US are more pluralistic than the Roman Empire.

As being itself, God is exemplar principle both of res and of aliquid, of quiddity and of alterity, of integrity and of diversity.

alethic, epistemic, and deontic models/interpretations of validity

abortion as alienation of humanity, particularly with respect to humanity as situating us in an enduring community of human persons

value for a human-friendly ecosystem and the ethical implications of this value

integral human ecology & the virtue of temperance

Scientific classifications are based on functions in experiment, in model, and in theory.

Many schemes of distributive justice falsely assume that resources and money are always jural goods.

solution-finding by resemblance, by contiguity, and by causation

"People are not bound to do anything beyond their power except in a way made possible for them." Aquinas (Quodl. 2.4.1)

Children are in the moral, juridical, and sacral womb; they remain so longer than they remain in the physical womb.

Children have reason but must learn to use it.

figural goods and human sacrality

Contracts are simultaneously moral, jural, and sacral.

basic facts of human experience that serve as leverage points for apologetics
(1) living in a world
(2) being part of a community of minds
(3) being under authority (e.g., in conscience)
(4) having a sense of one's own mind
(5) the existence of the faith

Humanity is partly instrumental to itself; human nature is self-instrumentating and self-instrumentated, although necessarily it is both only to an extent.

"Fight the enemy with the weapons he lacks." Suvarov
"Train hard, fight easy."

A vow of celibacy begins as a form of honor, develops into a kind of moral integrity, and is perfected into an expression of sanctity. This is common to all religious vows, although it can sometimes be seen with particular clarity in matters of celibacy.

The concept of a field in physics cannot be formulated without assuming that we can determine some facts about the future from some facts about the past, with mathematical rigor.

Reason is the most useful tool of a cursorial hunter hunting large or dangerous prey.

Bishops and priests share the highest power with respect to the Eucharist (consecrating it), but bishops have it in a higher mode.

In civil society there are necessary roles that require *formal practices of fortitude* to systematize -- e.g., hunting, soldiering, enforcing, firefighting, civil defense, etc. The same is true of ecclesial society; hence the sacrament of confirmation.

As the baptismal character in heaven will continue to be a badge of citizenship, so the confirmational character will continue in heaven to be a badge of formal service, as will the ordinational character.

present consciousness as overlap of memory and anticipation
-- memory and anticipation are in fact not sharpy distinct, although we tend to treat them as so; what is happening now is both remembered and anticipated, although in different respects

Aesthetic responses to the problem of evil are entirely adequate where evil is conceived as the difficult or unpleasant.

In the problem of evil, aesthetic evil requires an aesthetic solution,  moral evil a moral solution, juridical evil a juridical solution, and sacrilegious evil a sacred solution. All of these are justifiable in general terms, but they are unified only in Christ.

We tend to think of potentiality in terms of time's positive numbers (after), but nothing prevents considering it in terms of time's negative numbers (before). Things have a back-potential to what they were before.

Conservation laws designate the material subject(s) of things and systems of things in relation to moving causes.

Scripture as such is a symbol of providence, of Tradition, and of Christ.

The person in the present is symbol of the same person in the past and in the future; but interestingly enough, in both ways we tend to see the symbolism as a symbolism of possibilities -- the present adult is symbol of the promise and potential (perhaps tragic potential) of the past child, and of the possibilities of the future self. (This is, I think, what makes this symbolism more than 'A standing in for A'.)

It takes rational work for the human mind to see all the truth even in obviously true things.

Literature and experiment both make extensive use of our ability to hypothesize.

forms of play in common RPG's
(1) rollplay
(2) roleplay
(3) GM narration
(4) GM-player negotiation
player experiences: competition, argument, negotiation, discovery, narration

joint attention --> referential overlap

conditions of participating in a class, of being recognizable as being in a class, of classification change

forms of game success: diversion, victory, story formation

Sun - pride; Moon - envy; Mercury - avaraice; Venus -lust; Mars - wrath; Jupiter - gluttony; Saturn - sloth

"A device is easy to use when there is visibility to the set of possible actions, where the controls and displays exploit natural mappings." Donald A. Norman
"The designer must assume that all possible errors will occur and design so as to minimize the chance of the error in the first place, or its effects once it gets made. Errors should be easy to detect, they should have minimal consequences, and, if possible, their effects should be reversible."

People have difficulty with mathematics because mathematicians do not design it for general users but for themselves.

subgames in RPG's: FIND, FIGHT, FLEE, HIDE, TRADE

Kant holds that reference to the beautiful as the symbol of the morally good is something "every man postulates in others as a duty."

Cave paintings are often of big, striking animals; herd animals and majestic predators tend to be heavily represented in comparison with all others. This suggests to me that they were either memory-recordings (that great time we saw the huge herd of horses) or storytelling instruments. The relation between paintings and cave wall structure, suggesting a pareidolic origin, perhaps indicates the latter in at least many cases, and at least in teh sense that connection to memory is only generic.

Painted hands in caves are of all kinds, and one can occasionally find children's hands on ceilings -- which is suggestive of a parenting practice we can recognize today.

force : charge :: distance : voltage

Considering trade-offs requires first establishing a point and measure for comparison.

the social intellectual power of conversation/dialogue

"One should not give assent lightly to doubtful things." Aquinas (QQ 3.4.2)

officious metonymy as a way of organizing abstractions

the poetic apparatus of a culture (e.g., Renaissance use of Greco-Roman mythology, modern use of superhero tropes, the material of national epics, the Matter of Britain, etc.)

Much modern paganism is organized on a principle of hospitality, a making-hospitable for powers and effects.

The ancient Israelites shared many customs, including religious customs, with the surrounding nations. The Torah did not forbid them all, but only the groves, the idols, the necromancies, and the sexual disruptions.

social ontology as an expression of human viceregency

Responsibility for life begins with physical union, prior even to conception.

"Only a man can develop the properties of men; ony a person can develop the properties of persons." Rhonheimer

Evidence is generally not precisely focused enough to pick out all the options in a way to give precise probabilities; for any piece of evidence, there are usually distinctions among options that are not legible in terms of it.

It is a fundamental part of any serious relationship to and wtih a person to recognize that they are more than your experiences of them.

It is friendship that teaches us how to respect human dignity.

Act in such a way as to treat every person as someone with whom one could in principle have a friendly relation.

a moral person in a moral society in a moral world

A word with an incoherent definition may be used to refer to something real.

problem compressibility: a problem that is very complex may be solved by 'compression' into simpler problem(s)
methods of problem compression:
(1) analysis into subproblems
(2) analogy to solved problems
(3) idealization (removing the secondary and minor)
(4) guess - check - rigorously examine success or failure
(5) postulation of simplifying assumptions

The human mind loves exploring systems of things; we are drawn to the combination of system and discovery.

Perception involves an already-cognition and a to-be-cognition, a receiving into memory and an anticipatory readying for response.

The pope both succeeds Peter and assists under him, being Peter's vicar in the militant service.

One of the means by which society shapes the mind is by selectively raising and lowering the cost of enunciation.

The right of vicinage primarily works by restricting the abuse of jury selection by the state and its prosecution.

Memory is always the first and most basic bureaucratic record, and much of bureaucracy is the externalization of aspects of it, for regularizing procedures and review.

The Immobility of the Angelic Will

 There was a dispute among various scholastics about whether the angelic will was 'immobile' -- that is, whether angelic choices could be undone. St. Thomas says yes, a number of others, like Scotus and Suarez, say no. I think St. Thomas is right, for a number of reasons both philosophical and theological; I think the 'no' side over-assimilates angels to human beings when in reality, despite the things we as rational beings have in common with them, angels would have to be very alien to us.

What is this immobility like? Whenever we get beyond a very general framework, there is always a speculative element in thinking about angels, but I think of the immobility of the angelic will as being like tree rings. Angels, being intellectual creatures, have free will; but every angelic choice is a choice of what to be. Angels don't undergo constant change the way we do; the change they do have is intellectual and volitional -- their only changes are learning and choosing.  The scholastics expressed this by saying that we are temporal, but angels are aeviternal. Every change for an angel is a new age or era or epoch, an aevum. But all of this means that all angelic change is cumulative. Like a new ring in a growing tree, every angelic choice is, when added, just part of what the angel is, the angel's adding of a new aevum to its being. Wheels within wheels: every choice is a newly selected circle added to the circles that have already been selected -- a new way it is, added to the ways it already is. When an angel chooses, it chooses what it always will be. Every choice becomes part of every choice after; every choice is a choice of what kinds of choices the angel will ever make.

We have stories of angels sinning; we have none, of any value, of angels repenting their sins. When an angel falls, it has chosen to be fallen, and because it is a purely immortal being, its being fallen is contained in every other choice it will ever make.

This is not our own experience, but it is perhaps just imaginable that human beings could also have been this way. The story of the Garden gives us a sort of picture of how it could have happened. God puts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and allows them full rein, except that they cannot eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the center of the Garden, because if they do, they will die. The words are put very strongly; we could translate it as "Dying, you shall die" or "You shall die dyingly" or "You shall really die" or "You shall die to the utmost" or "You will absolutely die".

Then, we are told, Adam and Eve did eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Lord God said, "Man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil." (Note the 'us'.) But lest man should put out his hand and eat of the Tree of Life and live forever, God drove man out of the Garden. 

A punishment, to be sure. But also salvation. Fallen angels do not repent their sins; their choices are as immortal as they are. But we are mortal, and we are always dying, and our choices can die in our dying. That does not mean it is easy. But if we ate of the Tree of Life and became like the angels not just in knowledge but also in life, our sins would inevitably be part of us forever, like tree rings.

It is a point that St. Thomas very, very occasionally notes, getting it ultimately from St. John Damascene: our salvation consists in God using our mortality against our sinfulness. We can repent because who we are in our choices can die and be buried. We can be saved, and raised to glory, because we can die with Christ and be raised to walk in newness of life. At least, we can until we either reach our utmost death or receive everlasting life, until we have the immobility of will that comes with spiritual death or with the completion of rebirth into undying glory. Then we will be like the angels.

I Got Your Letter, and the Birds

 Dear March—Come in— 
by Emily Dickinson

 Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—

 I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare - how Red their Faces grew—
But March, forgive me—
And all those Hills you left for me to Hue—
There was no Purple suitable—
You took it all with you—

 Who knocks? That April—
Lock the Door—
I will not be pursued—
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied—
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

 That blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame—

The Honest Pleasure of Developing Knowledge for Oneself

 It seems as if Infinite Wisdom delighted in adopting with human beings the process known as the Socratic Method, by which the most difficult truths are easily elicited from the lips of illiterate persons and of children; the secret simply consisting of a few interrogatives skilfully arranged in a certain order. In this way, I believe, does God act towards His creatures. He ordains that things which are marvellous, and wholly at variance with their modes of thinking, should happen before the eyes of men, that being struck with wonder at the novelty, they may feel prompted to direct their attention to investigating the hidden causes of things. He does not wish to say everything Himself, because, being good, He does not wish His beloved creature, man, to remain idle and inert, or to be deprived of the noble gratification and merit which he can gain by instructing himself in many things. To this end, He has endowed man with the faculty of knowing, that he may enjoy the honest pleasure of developing knowledge for himself, of being in part his own teacher.

[Bl. Antonio Rosmini, Theodicy, Volume 1, p. 7.]

Links of Note

 * Gregory B. Sadler, What Precisely Is Anselm's Single Argument in the Proslogion?

* Virginia Weaver, you are the celestial love song, at "Overlong Memories"

* Fr. Christopher Poore, Who was Raïssa Maritain? The Spiritual Mother Behind Vatican II, at "Drawn from the Chalice"

* Michael Pakaluk has a brief but nice discussion of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching (scroll down).

* Raphael, Truth and Selfhood in Augustine's Thought, at "A Just Logos"

* Rhishi Pethe, How packaged salads took over America, at "Software is Feeding the World"

* Manuel Dahlquist, Temporal Propositiones and the Logic of Possibility in John Buridan (PDF)

* Danielle Coon, Sigrid Undset on the compulsion of conversion, at "Strange Veritas"

* The Austen Family Music Books -- an online collection of eighteen music books owned by the Austen family.

* Barnes, The Adjacent Case, on what it is like to be a bat and similar questions

* Edward Feser, Xenophanes and natural theology

* James Chastek, Agents are instruments of ends, at "Just Thomism"

* Dr. Andrew Higgins, Exploring Invented Languages: The Invented Tongue of Angels in In Tenga Bithnúa, at "Elvish Musings"

* Juan Garcia Torres, Leibniz on the PSR as a Regulative Principle of Rational Inquiry (PDF)

* Brad Skow, Iambic Pentameter as Chicken Sexing, at "Mostly Aesthetics"

* Jacob Allee, Till We Have Faces, at "Study the Great Books"

* Robert Keim, Gerard Manley Hopkins: Priest, Professor, Poet, at "Poetic Knowledge"

Habitude XXVII

 To the second one proceeds thus. It seems that moral virtue is not distinguished from intellectual virtue. For Augustine says, in the book De Civ. Dei, that virtue is the craft of rightly living. But craft is intellectual virtue. Therefore moral virtue does not differ from intellectual virtue.

Further, most put knowledge in the definition of moral virtues, just as some define that perseverance is knowledge or habitude of those things that must be held or not held, and holiness is knowledge making us faithful and serving in things just before God. But knowledge is intellectual virtue. Thus moral virtue ought not to be distinguished from intellectual.

Further, Augustine says, in Soliloq. I, that virtue is right and complete reason. But this pertains to intellectual virtue, as is clear in Ethic. VI. Therefore moral virtue is not distinct from intellectual.

Further, nothing is distinguished from that which is put in its definition. But intellectual virtue is put in the definition of moral virtue, for the Philosopher says, in Ethic. II, that virtue is choosing habit existing in the mean determined by reason as the wise would determine it. Now this sort of right reason determining the mean of moral virtue pertains to intellectual virtue, as is said in Ethic. VI. Therefore moral is not distinguished from intellectual virtue.

But contrariwise is what is said in Ethic. I, that virtue is determined according to this difference, for we call some of these intellectual but others moral.

I reply that it must be said that the first principle of all human work is reason, and whatever other principles of human works are found, in some way obey reason; but in diverse ways. For some obey reason wholly under its authority [ad nutum], without any contradiction, like bodily members, if it is consistent with their nature, for immediately at the command [imperium] of reason, hand or foot is moved to work. Whence the Philosopher says, in Polit. I, that soul rules body with despotic principality, that is, as lord over slave who has no right to contradict. Thefore some have assumed that all active principles that are in a human being have themselves to reason in this way. Were this true, it would suffice that reason be complete in order to act well. Thus, since virtue is habitude by which we are completed for acting well, it would follow that it is in reason alone, and thus there would be no virtue save the intellectual. And this was the opinion of Socrates, who said that all virtues were prudences, as is said in Ethic. VI. Thus he held that the human being in whom knowledge existed was not able to sin, but whoever sinned, sinned from ignorance. 

But this proceeds from a false supposition. For the striving [appetitiva] part obeys reason not wholly under its authority [ad nutum], but with some contradiction; thus the Philosopher says, in Polit. I, that reason commands the striving with civil principality, to wit, that by which one presides over the free, who have the right to contradict in something. Thus Augustine says, on the Psalms, that sometimes understanding precedes and a slow or no affect follows, inasmuch as sometimes this is done inasmuch as passions or habitudes of the striving part act so that the use of reason is impeded. And according to this, it is somewhat true what Socrates said, that knowledge being present, one does not sin; however, only if this is extended to use of reason in particular choice [in particulari eligibili]. 

So, therefore, in order for a human being to act well, it is required that reason not only be well disposed through habitude of intellectual virtue, but also that the striving impulse be well disposed through habitude of moral virtue. Therefore, just as striving is distinguished from reason, so moral virtue is distinguished from intellectual. Hence, just as striving is the principle of human act according as it participates reason in some way, so moral habitude has the notion of human virtue, inasmuch as it conforms to reason.

To the first therefore it must be said that Augustine commonly uses 'craft' for any right reason. And so under craft is included prudence, which is right reason of enactibles, as craft is right reason of makeables. And according to this, what he says, that virtue is craft of rightly living, is essentially appropriate to prudence, but by participation to other virtues, according as they are directed by prudence.

To the second it must be said that such definitions, by whomsoever they are found to be given, proceeded from the Socratic opinion, and are to be explained in the way that was previously said with respect to craft.

And likewise this must be said to the third.

To the fourth it must be said that right reason, which is according to prudence, is put in the definition of moral virtue, not as part of its essence, but as something participated in all moral virtues, inasmuch as prudence directs all moral virtues.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.58.2, my translation. The Latin is here, the Dominican Fathers translation is here.]

Quick Note

 As some have heard on the news, there was a mass shooting here in downtown Austin in the early morning, in which three people died and a number of others are injured. It took place at a popular bar on West Sixth Street. The FBI says there are indicators of terrorism, and it does seem to have been politically motivated in a very general sense. The shooter (who is one of the three who died) currently appears from the news to have been a Senegalese man who lives in the area, acting on his own in response to the current American bombing of Iran. Beyond that there's not much known at the present.

Love of Truth and Virtue

 Whenever philosophers have determined to separate systematic knowledge from moral virtue and pretended that knowledge should stand on its own feet as self-sufficient, the result has been disastrous. Knowledge, like a human body from which the blood is removed and replaced by, say, the blood of a goat, has languished and perished at the reckless hands of those who subjected it to such treatment. It is in fact easier to create a living, intelligent being by chemically tossing together physical components than to create philosophy without love of truth and virtue. 

 [Antonio Rosmini, Introduction to Philosophy, Volume I: About the Author's Studies, Cleary & Watson, trs., Rosmini House (Durham 2004) 153.]

Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament

 I've talked previously about Jean-Marie Odin in the context of talking about the French Legation in Austin, Texas, and the aftermath of the 'Pig War' of 1841:

The French Legation building had been sold to Fr. Jean-Marie Odin, a member of the Congregation of the Mission, a Vincentian religious society. The Holy See had established the Apostolic Prefecture for Texas -- essentially a pre-pre-diocese -- in 1839, and Odin had been assigned to that as Vice-Prefect. When in 1841 the Apostolic Prefecture became an Apostolic Vicariate -- essentially a pre-diocese -- he was named Apostolic Vicar. Apostolic Vicars are generally titular bishops, so he was consecrated titular Bishop of Claudiopolis in Isauria. He was not in the building very long, because the Holy See formed the Diocese of Galveston in 1847 and chose Odin to be its first bishop. The area under his jurisdiction didn't actually change much -- the Diocese of Galveston covered the whole of Texas -- but he moved to Galveston and did quite extraordinary well in that position. He would later be named Archbishop of New Orleans as the nation began to be overtaken by the Civil War.

He happens to come up -- obliquely, and without being named -- in Huysmans's The Cathedral. Durtal is considering possible topics for writing about, and one of the topics that has been suggested to him is the life of Jeanne Chezard de Matel. She was born in 1596 near Lyon, and when she got older she decided that she wanted to go into the religious life. She had considerable difficulty finding anything suitable; over a period of about six years, she considered multiple possibilities, all of which ended up not panning out. So she eventually decided to start a religious order with a couple of other women who were also trying to figure out how to get into religious life. Thus was the seed of the Order of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament. The Archbishop of Lyon seemed cautiously supportive, but he died soon after the order was started, and the new archbishop did not like any of Jeanne de Matel's ideas for the order at all. Since the community's boarding school for girls was doing reasonably well and quite a few women were joining the community -- Jeanne's problem of not finding any of the extant religious orders suitable for her spiritual needs or practical abilities, despite an intense interest in the religious life, seems to have become a common one -- this set up an escalating series of confrontations. The order was eventually approved by Rome, but quite late; Jeanne de Matel, who had deferred the order's planned habit and religious profession until approval, was only able to take the habit and make her profession a few hours before her death in 1670. Durtal notes that she was not canonized, which is still true, although in 1992 she was given the title of Venerable by John Paul II, in part due to the Order beginning actively to take up her Cause for Canonization.

The order was by then doing quite well. They were, like all French-based orders, hit hard by the French Revolution and the dissolution of religious orders in the Decree of 1790, but they were able to reform again in 1817. The intersection with Texas, which is mentioned in passing as Durtal is running through the difficulties of Jeanne de Matel's life, came in 1852, when Bishop Odin, finding the Texas-sized Diocese of Galveston a bit unmanageable, started trying to get some help from his native France. The Order of the Incarnate Word answered his call, and St. Claire Valentine (the 'St.' is part of her religious name, not a title, so she's often known as 'Mother St. Claire' to avoid confusion) organized a group of sisters to take the three-month trip to Galveston. There they studied English and Spanish, and then caught a ride to Brownsville. More sisters arrived from elsewhere, they established a school for the poor, and then began to found other communities and engage in other projects throughout Texas. The communities still exist -- they run a number of schools and retreat centers throughout Texas, and a few (due to later requests by other bishops) in Mexico and Ohio, as well.

Dashed Off VII

 a recurring pattern in analytic philosophy -- defining a technical concept, someone gives it a name of convenience, then a double action occurs: people discuss the technical both in terms of the original technical point *and* as if its name were effectively a definition -- e.g., possible worlds, divine hiddenness, skeptical theism, justification

the phenomenon of talking at someone by talking to someone else in their presence

Human cognition requires marvels on which to work.

Man is the animal who sees himself as weird and funny.

Every divine revelation is through sensible or imaginative appearances, either directly, or by further mediation of angels.

Good conscience posits a higher judgment according to which conscientious judgments are vindicated. The tribunal of conscience is authoritative because it is under authority.

Bentham gets his version of utilitarianism in part by treating communities as nothing but an aggregate (cf. IPML c1, sections 4-5).

Pleasure and pain are intrinsically instrumental.

Metaphor and declamation, while not the foundation of moral science, have much to contribute to its development and improvement.

The botanist does not study merely this leaf but this leaf as representative of a whole class of possible leaves.

Time travel stories are fundamentally stories about choices.

Ideas are precious, but they are a difficult currency to convert.

Every serious personal relationship creates its own personal mythology, the imaginative iconography of commitment and devotion.

calibration problem (e.g., in arguing on another's premises) --> possibility of calibration --> participation in First Truth (cp. Aquinas, QQ X, 4, art1)

Trust is built by letting yourself be proven.

The first work in building and maintaining a free society is preserving age-old liberties; it is remarkable how often this is forgotten.

Nothing intensifies sorrow so much as beauty, and some beauty is seen more clearly through sorrowful eyes.

specific versions of the Third Way with the cosmos, with the rational soul, with angelic spirits

There is no opposite to divine goodness; evil is opposite only to the effects of divine goodness.

emotional responses to fictional characters and emotional responses to imaginative fictionalization of the real world (e.g., when people imagine those they have not met yet, or what it would be like to meet a certain kind of person)

The Second Way more easily blocks pantheism than the Third Way; the First Way more easily establishes providence than the Fourth Way.

kinds of argument people use to rationalize unjust actions
(1) normality
(2) advantage
(3) superior value
(4) necessity

Whewell's consilience could well be influenced by Johann Bernoulli's work on the problem of fastest descent -- Bernoulli explicitly notes that he is simultaneously solving an optics problem and a mechanics problem.

'Righteous Peace, Godly Glory' as a name of the Church (Bar 5:4)

experiment: a relatively bounded system involving change intended to allow representative causal inferences for the ends of inquiry

No experiment can possibly rule out the possibility that things exist for the end of being understood, by the very structure of experimentation.

Much of mathematics is concerned with virtual containment -- e.g., divisors in numbers, or triangles in polygons.

Analogizing between very different fields is often misleading, but not always, and few things are more fruitful for inquiry when it even approximately succeeds.

plot integrity in historical explanation

Poets construct their themes, but historians have to draw them out, in effect working out the plot, i.e., story, of events, classifying such plots, and in the best classification is discovery.

poet : historian :: mathematician : physicist

Quite a few personality disorders seem to involve defective capacity for introspection. Think about this.

The more we understand, the more beauty we find.

As our understanding is most often discursive, our loves are most often mobile and composite. Even those things and people we love most, we often love in a piecemeal and successsive manner.

Some kinds of imperfection are defects of competent execution, but some kinds of imperfection are badges of personal endeavor.

"That which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by nature intended to be lord and master." Aristotle
"The power of speech is disposed to set forth the expedient and inexpedient, and tehrefore likewise the just and unjust."
"Things are defined by their working and their power."
"A possession is spoken of as part of something else."

The household is concerned with the natural supply of human everyday wants and needs. The village goes beyond everyday wants and needs, and the city to the point of self-sufficiency appropriate to good life.

Human beings become godlike insofar as they contain in themselves the incipience of all civil society.

The principle of order in civil society is administration of what is right.

parts of oikia (Aristotle): husband-wife, parent-children, master-slave, art of acquisition
-- the Confucians seem right that fraternal older-younger and friendship are also essential part; and king-minister is part of royal oikia

As we are instruments capable of our own work, God does not want us as slaves.

Aristotle explicitly takes the natural master-slave relationship to be a form of friendship for common good; the master cares for the slave, he says, as part of his own body, and vice versa.

That we may merit what God promises, we must come to love what He commands.

The Church Militant works for Truth, the Church Patient waits for Truth, the Church Triumphant dwells in Truth.

All election systems are structured by the arguments for them.

cascades and material transport explanations (Ross) as generalizable historical explanations (both the generalizable and the historical seem to play a role)

The plurality of forms thesis makes the mistake of thinking that because a substance has many explanations in the order of formal causes, it has many substantial forms, i.e., forms that properly make it this substance.

Reflective equilibrium is janitorial work, not construction. That is to say, given a framework, it cleans it up; but the framework is never established by reflective equilibrium. The framework establishes what judgments can be made with confidence, what judgments are considered, how cases are understood; parts of the framework are then adjusted, but only by holding other parts fixed, with the aim of making the building more convenient for janitors by making it more or less self-cleaning, or as close to it as possible.

Wide reflective equilibrium is not a method but an aim such that people use very different methods in the attempt to reach it.

If you understand cases as systems of possible rules, reflective equilibrium will lead you one way; if as systems of sources for consequences, another; if as the materials of human life, another.

diagrams as philosophical technology

"There is an urge in the human being toward beauty, truth, and goodness, which entails and demands freedom, joy, and peace." Raimon Panikkar
"Rhythm combines in a unique way at least four fundamental elements of human awareness: time, space, objectivity, and subjectivity."

sorrows are breaking
like waves on the shoreline
as I am a-whirl in the foam

design defective as design vs deteriorated good design

As creatures have providential meaning, Scripture has spiritual senses.

Limit interpretations of the derivative are related to infinitesimal interpretations in terms of the derivative characteristically representing (as the slope) the tangent line recognized as the best linear approximation of the function for a value, that exists; the limit interpretation emphasizes the linear part, the infinitesimal interpretation (using the standard part function) emphasizes the approximation part.

It is not the acceleration of progress that matters so much as its jerk and jounce.

When written in a senary number system, all primes except 2 and 3 end in either 1 or 5. (Sequence A004680)

the actual as the maximally distant from the impossible

We see the intellect as free power in dialectical syllogisms, rhetorical persuasions, and poetic designs.

modal supernaturality
(1) in manner of efficient cause: the natural directly used as instrument by what is prior to itself (supernatural intervention)
(2) in manner of final cause: the natural used as instrument for what is beyond its power (supernatural vocation)
(3) in manner of formal cause: the natural as receiving an accident that is beyond its natural accidents (supernatural capacitation)
(4) in manner of objective cause: contemplation

The Trinity is a mystery so rich that all of the gifts of grace in a sense have it as formal object quod, but in inexhaustibly many different ways.

We must imitate Christ not merely morally but also sacrally and spiritually. He must be not merely our precedent but the light reflected in us.

What pleases us is in some way in harmony with us.

Our soul and body have a native unity but also a practiced unity.

Many explanations appealing to natural selection presuppose a fundamental asymmetry between benefit and harm.

An intellectual discipline cannot survive ignoring its past.

Voting is not a political action that is able to be very sensitive to counterfactuals.

Reason is relentless, and human minds can only follow her until they tire.

People have an odd tendency to say that something has no meaning when what they really mean is that its meaning is inconvenient.

Every form of society has a dystopic possibility; sometimes many.

Unearned moralism often poisons what it touches.

Neurath's boat requires that doctriens be, partially or wholly, self-sustaining (the boat must keep floating); this is never established.

syllogisms as relation-multiplications (DeMorgan, cf. Lorenzen)

Every angel has, so to speak, a map of the entire angelic world, carrying intentional species of all other angels as to their natural being. Through this map they also have natural knowledge of the physical world, insofar as it pertains to some angels naturally to order it. Beyond this map, they also receive knowledge from their epistemic presence to themselves, from divine revelation, and from angelic communication.

"The usual character of human testimony is substantial truth under circumstantial variety." Paley

Serious historical work is a kind of semi-tesselation. It is as if one were completing a jigsaw puzzle, but rather than doing it with the pieces themselves, one were doing it with projections of the pieces from different angles and distances, so that the pieces have to be re-sized, speculatively rotated in three dimensions, shifted to account for distortion, etc.

"The philosophers themselves cannot divest themselves of their nature." Balmes
"Consciousness is an anchor, not a beacon."

In the Beatific Vision, truth, goodness, and beauty are seen in perfect unity in their principle.

To be a rational being is to be a being continually completed by being.

The sensory systems are not formal means but instrumental means, which is why modifying the sensory organs can change their suitability.

the wager for realism

Knowing is a species of co-being.

We tend to take the sensible for the real because the sensible is the relatively easy.

The concept is both formal sign and formal similitude; it is of its object and it has a kind of sameness with respect to it, so that the object is in the sign, formally.

Understanding the Gospels starts with enjoying the stories.

Mark's colloquialism often seems deliberate -- i.e., the author often seems to be deliberately not trying for the more formal.

Dance often has a spiritual quality in it because it is the fine art whose artifact is sensible activity as object.

One cannot be intimate with what has no nature.

"Sense does not cognize actual being save under here and now, but intellect apprehends actual being absolutely and with respect to every time." Aquinas

All our loves are lovelikenesses.

our experience of beauty as charm -> innner integrity -> gracefulness

enkapsis of sign in sign

The myth that all scientific explanation is mechanistic has obscured many things.

Actuality relates fuzzily and dynamically to the manifolds of possible worlds.

quantum entanglement and the information implicit in the context itself -- possible analogies between quantum entanglement & how we learn certain things in conversation?

the 'being drawn in' aspect of aesthetic experience

harmonious, stable, systematic intelligibilities

All sacraments require something of the minister and something of the recipient. The former, however, is essential to the sacrament as such, and the latter to its application.

All grace we receive sacramentally flickers within us, at least in effect, not because of its weakness but because of our own.

If sin could receive nothing but human medicament and repair, then (as in bodily medicine) the inevitable result is deterioration, at most deferred.