Dashed Off XIV

This ends the notebook that was finished in March 2025.

 

The best known truths are always amenable to metaphor.

Wisdom possesses in stillness what all other cognitive actions and state approximate in motion.

nest, burrows, and hunting territories as proto-institutions
-- they are materially the sorts of things, playing a relevant role in behavior appropriate for institutions, and could thus be institutions if formally recognized as such

Moral advice is obviously real, and its being moral, and thus is moral fact even if we assume falsely that moral counsels are the only moral facts.

The inability to find silver linings is a grave political debility.

It is common for people who have always had something to fail to grasp the significance of it.

People often confuse artifice-based (constructed) realism with anti-realism.

games as soluble-problem creation

All real persons are also possible fictional persons.

Pretty much everyone is sometimes better and often worse than they think.

"It is crazy to want what is impossible, and impossible for the wicked not to do so." Marcus Aurelius

"I am a rational creature, so I must sing hymns to the God." Epictetus

To be fully understood, arguments often have to be tried out in various ways.

We are not made sick by the presence of a virus but by what the virus does that impedes our bodily functions, directly or indirectly.

You need to develop and maintain minor skills in order to develop and maintain in major skills.

quasi-concordia, quasi-benevolentia, quasi-beneficentia as elements of relationship with a favorite book

All genuine benevolence requires a prior concord.

(concord -> benevolence) -> beneficence

The simpler the field, the easier it is to be an anti-realist about it.

French National Domain in the Holy Land: Church of the Paternoster (Eleona), St. Mary of the Resurrection Abbey, Tombs of the Kings, Church of Saint Anne

practical advisability as an indirectly moral concept

Sovereignty is a form of moral & juridical personality involving a right to legislate that is supreme in its jurisdiction-associated order.

All sovereignty is over people qua some X (as citizen, as tribal member, as creature, as resident, as territorial user, as subject, etc.), where X fixes order and jurisdiction.

A common problem empires have is that they end up training their own military opponents.

Law is a practical matter and heavily dependent on classifications, so it tends to fall out of a structure based on possible classifications of aspects of action:
(1) classification of sources of action: (a) individual statuses, (b) group statuses
(2) classification of circumstantial components of action
(3) classification of norms relevant to action
(4) classification of effects of action.

Document presupposes archive.

Practical inquiries impose standards of admissibility on evidence in light of the practical ends of inquiry.

To do justice to the true, the good, and the beautiful, one must sometimes reflect on the one, the something, and the other.

ens commenticium : ens rationis :: ens artificiale : ens reale

ens rationis: ens logicum, ens commenticium, ends ideale, ens palliolatum

"If I premise that my experience is not merely the production of the mental activity of my own nature; in other words, not merely a dream, in which you are my vision as I am yours, but in which the external as well as the internal has its share in my experience, then everything that is alike in our experience must bear a corresponding similitude in external circumstances." Oersted

No account of scientific discovery is adequate that ignores the joy of it.

"Light is the great proclaiming power of the world." Oersted

Evolutionary explanations often fail to grasp that many things are always happening at once.

weld, woad, and madder

The more intellectual a cause is, the harder it is to fit into a concrete/abstarct dichotomy, because its causal activity suggests both.

the integrity, substantiveness, and distinctiveness of discourse (e.g., of a fictional work)

Lv 19:33-34 and the Christian treatment of non-Christians who live in peace with Christians
-- much of Lv 19 can be seen as identifying specific forms, sometimes symbolic, of general conditions for being the People of God.
-- note that Ex 24:48-49 (cp. Nm 9:14) foresees the possibility of the stranger as participating directly through circumcision and PAssover, but only in becoming in some sense no longer a foreigner (cf. vv. 43-45). [Nm 15:14-16, 29, extends this to sacrifice.] Thus the 'resident non-Christian' may pray with us (sacrifice of sweet aroma), and shall not be barred from Eucharist (Passover) if he is also willing first to be baptized (circumcision), but must follow the laws on all of the these things. Nm 15:25-29 indicates that prayers for the whole congregation extend, at least sometimes, even to the non-Christian residing in the midst of the Christian assembly.
-- this certainly inclues the catechumenate; are there other categories (e.g., non-Christian spouses?)

to consider: bishops exercising divine authority per suffragium

the papal power of suppletio defectuum (power to provide remedies where the need arises from mere lack
-- related to the authority to confirm the brethren

Most of the good anyone does is in exchange for other good.

All explanation ultimately traces back to infinity.

Pleasure and pain are quite loosely correlated with survival and reproduction; they are relevant to them but also don't track them very tightly.

Every society has a mythological (imaginative), an aspirational, and an actual structure.

Reading is itself a kind of fine art.

We anticipate the wills even of people we don't know -- often badly, but inevitably.

Natural history fundamentally depends on the notion of goodness for a population of living things.

Mysticism is the hardest road to truth; it is the challenge of the climb and the triumph of overcoming it that is the attraction.

We trust most those whom we trust both from a recognition of their trustworthiness and from a recognition of the need to trust.

Every person projects a sake/behalf/cause qua person and bearer of value.

"Just as we would never see our face were it not for a mirror, so, too, we would never see our own inner life opposite us -- were it not for the mirror of art." Landmann-Kalischer

beauty as the value that reflects all other values

"The world is a collection of mutable things that are next to each other, follow upon one anotther, but which are overall connected with one another." Wolff
"The knowledge of the reason of things that are or occur is called philosophy."
"Philosophy is the science of the possibles insofar as they can be."
"If the reason of that which belongs to a species is contained in the notion of the genus, then things which we know philosophically are applied to more problems of human life than things which we know only historically."

To know many things, the human mind must first be wrong about many things.

Every liberty has a teleology.

"By *example* we mean a representation of something more determined which is supplied to clarify the representation of soemthing less determined." Baumgarten

Allegiance is not something human beings can deserve.

To the mission of the Church, we are all expendable; for the substance of the Church, we are each of infinite and everlasting value.

The very living of a human life posits some goodness to cosmos.

Comfort is an insatiably devouring god.

We should strive for what would be pleasing in a virtuous version of our society.

It is because we do not merely cognize but conceive that we can shape our judgments and reasonings.

Names are given by special fixation; it does not follow that they then only refer, nor even that there is anything special about their reference in itself.

'A new gunslinger comes to town; he's smooth-shaven, so we call him The Kid. The Kid is staying at The Royal Flush, having arrived by a riverboat, the *Far Horizon*. The Royal Flush is at the intersection of Pine and Red Oak Farm, which is where Red Oak Farm used to be. The Kid's actual name is Elwin, which means 'elf-friend'. He shouldn't be confused with the other Elwin in town.'
-- Any theory of names that cannot make sense of every sentence and proper name here is already wrong.

Theories of names often involve confusion of properties and predicates.

(1) Some beings are not real beings but rational beings.
(2) A being has properties in the way it has being.
(3) Quantifiers can be ampliated beyon the domain of real beings.
(4) We can reer to any being that can be an object of thought.

The aesthetics of sexuality can only connect to real sex by way of secrecies and privacies; this is one reason why pornographic cultures and subcultures so often seem weirdly sexless.

Never trust the feeling of empowerment.

'One person, one vote' obviously cannot apply to every person (people are not advocating that babies or juridical persons be given votes), nor can it apply to every vote. For it to apply, we must first coordiante the kind of person with the kind of vote. When we are talking about different kinds of vote (e.g., votes in Norway, votes in California), we change the persons to be consdiered; when we are talking about different kinds of person (e.g., citizen of Canada, citizen of Mexico), we change the votes to be considered.

People generally amp up public displays of sexuality to compensate for feelings of disorer, confusion, or even lack in actual sex.

The recognition of some sense of being 'self-made' is essential to the existence of a free society; and one notices whenever people attack the notion, that they are always trying to justify forcing people to do something.

Every instrumentalism is a realism about something else.

In ethics as in other things, unusual outliers can throw off our reasoning.

You will never find a democracy without fools.

patience as the maintenance of reserve forces

the integral, the real, the richly diverse

Genius by its nature makes use of lesser skills, and is limited or expanded by the lesser skills it has available.

Most politicsdoes not occur by persuasion, and most persuasion does not occur by rational justification.

"It is reciprocal action governed by proportion that keeps the city together." Aristotle

the prudent as that which tends to reasonable friendship in a way appropriate to friendship

All the evils of utilitarianism are tied to its obliteration of all consideration of the kind, mode, and order of means.

Jer 33:20-21 and the parallelbetween creation (physical nature) and covenant (social nature)

You get out of an educational institution what you put into it.

"Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods." Aristotle

Friendship is the foundation for shared good.

Exalted Above the Heavens

In some calendars, today, as the Thursday after Pentecost, is the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest. 

 Now there have been many of those priests,
since death prevented them from continuing in office;
but because Jesus lives forever,
he has a permanent priesthood.
Therefore he is able to save completely
those who come to God through him,
because he always lives to intercede for them.
Such a high priest truly meets our need—
one who is holy, blameless, pure,
set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.
Unlike the other high priests,
he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day,
first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people.
He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness;
but the oath, which came after the law,
appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.

[Hebrews 7:23-28, NIV]

Whose Death Is the World's Desire

The Hunting of the Dragon
by G. K. Chesterton 

When we went hunting the Dragon
In the days when we were young,
We tossed the bright world over our shoulder
As bugle and baldrick slung;
Never was world so wild and fair
As what went by on the wind,
Never such fields of paradise
As the fields we left behind:

For this is the best of a rest for men
That men should rise and ride
Making a flying fairyland
Of market and country-side,
Wings on the cottage, wings on the wood,
Wings upon pot and pan,
For the hunting of the Dragon
That is the life of a man. 

For men grow weary of fairyland
When the Dragon is a dream,
And tire of the talking bird in the tree,
The singing fish in the stream;
And the wandering stars grow stale, grow stale,
And the wonder is stiff with scorn;
For this is the honour of fairyland
And the following of the horn; 

Beauty on beauty called us back
When we could rise and ride,
And a woman looked out of every window
As wonderful as a bride:
And the tavern-sign as a tabard blazed,
And the children cheered and ran,
For the love of the hate of the Dragon
That is the pride of a man. 

The sages called him a shadow
And the light went out of the sun:
And the wise men told us that all was well
And all was weary and one:
And then, and then, in the quiet garden,
With never a weed to kill,

We knew that his shining tail had shone
In the white road over the hill:
We knew that the clouds were flakes of flame,
We knew that the sunset fire
Was red with the blood of the Dragon
Whose death is the world’s desire. 

For the horn was blown in the heart of the night
That men should rise and ride,
Keeping the tryst of a terrible jest
Never for long untried;
Drinking a dreadful blood for wine,
Never in cup or can,
The death of a deathless Dragon,
That is the life of a man.

Links of Note

 * Eliyahu Rotenberg, Some Thoughts on the Philosophy of Law in Judaism, at "Ignatius of Zion"

* Katie Curtis, The Creative Retrieval of Aquinas in W. Norris Clarke, at "Chasing Logos"

* Chester H. Sunde, Psy.D., Plato Never Said 'Forms'

* Chris Fraser, The Limitations of Ritual Propriety: Ritual and Language in Xunzi and Zhuangzi (PDF)

* T. Benjamin White, I Read the Steinbeck Werewolf Book So You Don't Have To, at "The Composted Book Review"

* Hillel Wayne, Points are a weird and inconsistent unit of measure, on typographical points, at "Computer Things"

* Denis Kambouchner & Louis Rouquayrol, Descartes' Ethics, at the SEP

* Ahmed Alwishah & David Sanson, The Liar Paradox in Arabic and Islamic Philosophy, at the SEP

* B. A. Clarke, Pre-decimal Currency Was Mostly Fine, at "Clarke's Corner"

* Rob Alspaugh, The Point of ST I-II Q8 a2, at "Teaching Boys Badly"

* Casual Physics Enjoyer, The Particle Comes Alive, looks at the physics of particles in fluids

Magnifica Humanitas

 Pope Leo XIV recently released the encyclical letter, Magnifica humanitas. It explicitly positions itself as a sequel to Pope Leo XIII's Rerum novarum, but is also, I think, a deliberate sequel to Pope Francis's Dignitas infinita. Unfortunately, it has a lot of the problems that seem endemic to Church documents these days -- the things that suggest that perhaps it should have been thought through a bit more carefully. The claim that Nehemiah "did not impose solutions from above" is baffling; Nehemiah spends a significant part of the book giving orders, rebuking nobles and officials, and appointing people to be in charge. It is true that he works to reforge the community identity of the Israelites, and it is true that the Israelites respond well to his plans, which seems to be what is primarily in view, and I very much like the appeal to Nehemiah (who provides a good example of a laity-driven approach to reform), but the characterization of Nehemiah's work seems oddly selective.This is a recurring problem, as, again, has been common in Church documents recently.* Some people have noted that the writing, ironically, has a lot of stylistic similarities with results of AI programs, probably not because AI was used but because AI also tends to slide into this vaguely inspirational now-this-now-that committee-speak, of which Church officials have been the masters for years now.

Nonetheless, the encyclical is a nice summary of the social teaching of the Church. And contrary to the way it is sometimes being presented, it is largely positive about AI research, and just lays down exactly the sort of moral principles for such research that one would expect it to give. As some have noted, it doesn't even call for a ban of autonomous weapons systems -- it just insists that they "must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms" (section 197). This is remarkably weak.

What seems to be the intended point -- it could be clearer, but a number of things converge on this interpretation -- is that matters like the ethics of AI research require a significant amount of initiative on the part of the laity in general, distinct from any direct interference by the clergy; it thus reiterates the general principles that the laity need to keep in mind when dealing with any matter, like AI research, that can affect our understanding of human dignity. Read in that light, it does this very well. I just wish we were out of the era of throw-everything-in-somehow document-writing.

----

* One of the more interesting ones here is when it says that "the 'just war' theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated" (section 192), but all the things it explicitly rejects are common modern modifications of the traditional just-war view, while it repeatedly says things that have commonly been said in traditional versions of just war theory. (For instance, one might think that it was proposing a pacifist approach, but then it goes on to give, sections 197-200, a discussion of how military decisions in war should be made, which explicitly appeals to principles of just war theory!)

Two Poem Drafts

 Nightfall

The evening, creeping now
on shower-watered fields,
builds in depth; the sun bows;
wonderfully to night it yields.

I sit alone in shadowed room,
still as stone, and wait
as fate is woven on the loom
with gloom; and there I ruminate.

The outer black, a sheet
like doubt, now covers all
and falls the night, complete,
against all light a wall.

The clouds are hiding stars,
the wide world is hid away,
yet night neither hides nor mars
the glory of light of day.

A dawn will come, will burn,
upturn the rule of shade,
and I will coolly yearn
and sigh for hope remade.

Connection

On page unmarked I mark a line;
I draw it straight and true
from mine to yours and yours to mine,
made even, as is due.

In silent air I draw a word
to reach through time and space
and on your ear alight, thus heard
with harmony and grace.

By light I speak, from eye to eye,
with glistening tear and hue;
to make a circuit, photons fly
between my heart and you.

I fold the world and make it small
to hold us both in bound;
within this O, I compass all:
here infinity is found.

The Power of Ideas

 It is the business of education to wait upon Pentecost. Unhappily, there is something about educational syllabuses, and especially about examination papers, which seems to be rather out of harmony with Pentecostal manifestations. The Energy of Ideas does not seem to descend into the receptive mind with quite that rush of cloven fire which we ought to expect. Possibly there is something lacking in our Idea of education; possibly something inhibiting has happened to the Energy. But Pentecost will happen, whether within or without official education. From some quarter or other, the Power will descend, to flame or to smolder until it is ready to issue in a new revelation. We need not suppose that, because the mind of the reader is inert to Plato, it will therefore be inert to Nietzsche or Karl Marx. Failing those, it may respond to Wilhelmina Stitch or to Hollywood. No incarnate Idea is altogether devoid of Power; if the Idea is feeble, the Energy is dispersed, and the Power dim, the indwelling spirit will be dim, dispersed and feeble -- but such as it is, so its response will be and such will be its manifestation in the world. 

[Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, HarperCollins (New York: 1987) pp. 112-113.]