Dashed Off VI

defining as different in act than predicating
- definition as act vs definition as object
- definition as act is good or bad, definition as object is true or false

philosophical dialogue as "a living being harmonious in all its parts" (Proclus, In Prm 659)

homily, catechesis, and prayer as the natural modes of theology

the link between friendship and wisdom

Much of what is commonly called 'passion' is really just having a mind and will to the task.

Things that affect imputability always affect possible alternatives, and the two are certainly related. (Ignorance, compulsion, passions, etc.)

interwoven aptitudes for friendship

The human mind will ache for story;
glory is a tale well told.

All material being is to human intellectual activity as knife is to cutting.

Philosophy lures more by showing argument than by arguing.

tradition as a method of testing

matter as the principle of measurability

Nothing can be determined about the 'gratuitousness' of particular goods or evils except in light of all relevant ends.

mimesis as the heart of civilization

A philosophy of discovery requires an account of mind-world union.

(1) teaching by insinuation
     (a) to make implausible the false
         (1) indirectly
         (2) directly
     (b) to make plausible the true
         (1) by exciting to pursuit of wisdom
         (2) by assisting the mind in pursuit of wisdom
(2) teaching by explicit instruction
     (a) through ratiocination
        (1) by resolving effects to causes, conclusions to principles, unknown to known
        (2) by drawing general conclusions from particulars
     (b) through exercise of authority
         (1) of the speaker (magisterial)
         (2) of the wise (traditional)

Mortality of Soul	Immortality of Soul
Metaphysical
a priori possibility of thinking matter	a priori impossibility of thinking matter
analogy to matter	association with abstract truth
parsimony (animals and plants)	gradation of being
problems with pre-existence	problems with dissolubility
Moral
nonadaptation to immortality	adaptation to eternal
a priori impossibility of determining relevant divine intentions	disposition to eternal as part of nature
moral inaptness of immortality wish-fulfillment vulgar souls boredom of immortality	moral aptness of immortality natural desire human dignity immortality as fulfillment
moral nihilism of infinite existence	infinite existence as moral destination
Physical
union of mind and body	universality in understanding
analogy to plants and animals	disanalogy with plants and animals
Logical
unreliability of arguments so far	arbitrariness of cut-off
beyond ordinary life	reasoning of ordinary life

propositional negation as predicate negation (Prior Ana 1.xlvi)

wild quantity & antisymmetry

Ps 50:1 El Elohim YHVH spoke and called it earth.

objectival indifference of intellect -> formal indifference of will -> objectival indifference of will -> formal indifference of intellect

* Everything made is made by another. For a thing that comes to be acquires being; but a thing that makes or produces is supposed to have being. Therefore nothing can make itself.
* Every being is either made or not made; but all beings in totality cannot be made. Therefore some being is not made.
* Everything made is made by another; therefore that other by which it is made is itself made or not. If not made, there is something unmade. If it is also made, it will be necessary for it to be made by another, and so forth. Thus we either stop with an unmade being or proceed to infinity or reason in a circle.
* If something is made by another that has been made by itself, it is at least mediately making itself, which is impossible. Likewise, because existence is supposed in a thing that makes another, if it's made to exist, it is therefore supposed that it has already been made. Therefore we cannot regress circularly.
* It is impossible that the whole collection of beings be dependent in its being and operation. Therefore there must be something independent.
* If every being distributively were dependent and made, the whole would be so, by a collection of dependences.
* Everything made is made by another. Thus everything dependent depends on another. If the whole were dependent it would depend on another. Were the whole dependent it would depend on another. But this is the whole, therefore the whole is not dependent.

the seven Socratic dialogues of Aeschines: Miltiades, Callias, Axiochus, Aspasia, Alcibiades, Jelanges, Rhino

All human goodness occurs within the field laid out by understanding and knowledge.

Passions take their moral quality from the loves of which they are a part.

Note that Timaeus begins with number (eis) and ends with being (on).

the receptacle as the 'imagination' of the universe
(imagination as the receptacle of the human person)

thymos-sublimity and nous-sublimity

romance as built out of clues

Love recognizes the preciousness of little things.

What is not Catholic/Orthodox slides slowly into opposition to Christianity.

superheroes as knights errant

symbolism as part of human identity

corporate exercise of religion & the scope of human intellect

Peirce's faith, hope, and love, & the pragmatic vindication of tradition

"Beauty alone can confer on man a social character." Schiller

Not men who are kings but kings involved in prudential practices (not necessarily their own) are sovereign.

Tradition as the natural witness of the Church.

virtue of faith : Catholic Orthodoxy :: honor of faith : Reformed tradition :: profit of faith : Evangelicalism :: tolerance of faith : Liberal Christianity

traditional unity by diffusion, traditional unity by convergence

Recognizing that human beings act corporately and not just individually is one of the bulwarks of a free society.

equity as making law a humanitarian tradition

First Amendment rights as community-formation rights

dance as communication of character

fiction // sports

prudence as the luck-improving virtue

thymos-sympathy vs. appetite-sympathy vs. reason sympathy

wisdom as the greater part of good fortune

hortatory argument in practical reasoning

the social kingship of Christ as a protection of human dignity

failure conditions as the measure of a constitution

habitus as strategic disposition

the philosopher as Hercules fighting the Hydra

nidus & vector in propagation of thought

holiness, prayer, testimony, almsgiving

One of the genuine benefits of the Reformed tradition was the generalizing of certain basic ascetic practices.

trust as an economy of testimony and profession

The teleological structure of practical reasoning is Socrates' most important principle. Classification of ends is what makes everything an occasion for philosophy.

the necessity of preludial work in the act of persuasion

justice as vindication of law

3 modes of cultivation or formation of conscience:
(1) synousia with the prudent
(2) study of moral philosophy and theology
(3) acting from infused virtue

The purpose of government is in part to make to possible for the people to do great things.

Rights require practical strategies of protection.
constitutions as interwoven strategies of protection for rights

the rhetorical ethos of giving arguments for positions

affinity in the classification of philosophical positions

A fortiori argumetns are modal arguments. Are slippery slope arguments modal as well?

presential witness and traditional witness

education as playful practice in attaining the ends of humanity

sweet vs bitter mortification

Civilization arises out of the interaction and sharing of skills.

'uniformity of nature' as a 'no anomalies' principle for nomological explanation

comfort as fortification

Love seeks natural symbols to express itself, and understanding requires natural expressive symbols to understand love. Love is symbol-making.
symbolism as part of love's unifying work

Private revelations have public value only when they clarify greater movements initiated by the Holy Spirit.

free society as a conversation between makers of law and receivers of law (active and passive legislation)

The canonical context of Scripture and its ecclesial setting are not separable.

Scriptures are the viva vox Dei insofar as they are proclaimed by the Church whose Head is the Son of God and whose Spirit is the Spirit of God.

By genealogies, real or invented, we participate symbolically in traditions.

the mitigating function of law (as opposed to the remedial or the preventative)

the grace-throne of God

A sharp-minded man must mind truth in word and work.

The modern tendency is to oversaturate narrative with the dramatic.

poetry & the use of linguistic analogies to discover new analogies of thing and meaning

ablaut meanings

Many of the confusions about the matter and form of marriage in history were due to the fact that marriage has many levels (office of nature, legal office, symbol, sacrament, etc.).

human bodies as the materia circa quam of the sacrament of matrimony

deliberation as preludial to law
rationales as instruments of law

maximizing charity in intensity, duration, certainty, immediacy, fecundity, purity, and extent as an aim of the Church

Pleasure and pain do not suffice to fulfill the intellect.

"What really makes the difference in education -- not only of the young but of ourselves -- is not so much the precepts one gives others as the way one exemplifies the precepts one would give to another." Plato Laws 729

All visions and views of the afterlife speak to a kind of incompleteness in human life.

the importance of the Old Testament as a way for converts from paganism to understand their relation to Christ and the New Testament

Hope is haven had beforehand.

'the roll, the rise, the carol, the creation'

existence, coexistence, succession, resemblance

the etiology, deontology, and teleology of human action

Events have probabilities only under description, i.e., intentional understanding.

The seeds of usurpation are almost always themselves legal; seizure of power begins to unfold under technicalities.

Emma's Swearing

In Jane Austen's Emma, Emma Woodhouse keeps swearing. Obviously it's not the sort of thing that would normally stand out to us as swearing, since we live in a much more deliberately vulgar society, and it wouldn't even usually be noticed as swearing by us, but it's there nonetheless. (Several of Jane Austen's novels have people using the name of the Lord profanely -- and in American editions this was often censored for New England sensibilities, since in Puritan-heritage New England all of the expressions would have sounded much stronger than they probably sounded to Austen herself. I'm not sure of the history of the American editions of Emma in particular, but I'm sure someone somewhere knows.) It is almost certainly not accidental that Emma swears seven times in Volume III, Chapters 10 and 11. It is perhaps a bit surprising, though, that she's the one almost always doing it throughout the book -- Mr. Elton does it once, and I'm not sure there's any other examples unless you account an occasional "Thank God!" that might be meant to be taken literally.

Volume III, Chapter 4: And secretly she added to herself, "Lord bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton a piece of court-plaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about! I never was equal to this."

Chapter 10: "Break it to me," cried Emma, standing still with terror.—"Good God!—Mr. Weston, tell me at once.—Something has happened in Brunswick Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it is."

Chapter 10: "Your word!—why not your honour!—why not say upon your honour, that it has nothing to do with any of them? Good Heavens!—What can be to be broke to me, that does not relate to one of that family?"

Chapter 10: Emma even jumped with surprize;—and, horror-struck, exclaimed, "Jane Fairfax!—Good God! You are not serious? You do not mean it?"

Chapter 10: "Good God!" cried Emma, not attending to her.—"Mrs. Smallridge, too! Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself—to suffer her even to think of such a measure!"

Chapter 11: "Harriet!" cried Emma, after a moment's pause—"What do you mean?—Good Heaven! what do you mean?—Mistake you!—Am I to suppose then?—"

Chapter 11: "Good God!" cried Emma, "this has been a most unfortunate—most deplorable mistake!—What is to be done?"

Chapter 11: Harriet was too much agitated to encounter him. "She could not compose herself— Mr. Woodhouse would be alarmed—she had better go;"—with most ready encouragement from her friend, therefore, she passed off through another door—and the moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous burst of Emma's feelings: "Oh God! that I had never seen her!"

Chapter 15: "Poor Jane Fairfax!"—thought Emma.—"You have not deserved this. You may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment beyond what you can have merited!—The kindness and protection of Mrs. Elton!—'Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax.' Heavens! Let me not suppose that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!—But upon my honour, there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman's tongue!"

Chapter 18: "I mean that he has done it," answered Mr. Knightley, with smiling but determined decision, "and been accepted." "Good God!" she cried.

Lent XXII

Sometimes, indeed, patent vices are overcome by other and hidden vices, which are reckoned virtues, though pride and a kind of ruinous self-sufficiency are their informing principles. Accordingly vices are then only to be considered overcome when they are conquered by the love of God, which God Himself alone gives, and which He gives only through the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who became a partaker of our mortality that He might make us partakers of His divinity.

Augustine, City of God, Book 21, Chapter 16

Beauty and Sweetness

The sense of beauty may be analysed in a manner very similar to the sense of sweetness. It is an agreeable feeling or emotion, accompanied with an opinion or judgment of some excellence in the object, which is fitted by Nature to produce that feeling.

The feeling is, no doubt, in the mind, and so also is the judgment we form of the object: But this judgment, like all others, must be true or false. If it be a true judgment, there is some real excellence in the object. And the use of all languages shows, that the name of beauty belongs to this excellence of the object, and not to the feelings of the spectator.

Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Essay VIII, Chapter 4.

Lent XXI

The proper and direct cause of sin is to be considered on the part of the adherence to a mutable good; in which respect every sinful act proceeds from inordinate desire for some temporal good. Now the fact that anyone desires a temporal good inordinately, is due to the fact that he loves himself inordinately; for to wish anyone some good is to love him. Therefore it is evident that inordinate love of self is the cause of every sin.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2-1.77.4. [Added Later: I suppose it should be noted that the word translated by the Dominican Fathers here as 'inordinate' would probably be better translated as 'disordered': the claim is that all sin is caused by loving oneself in a disordered way.]

Lent XX

Let us then not be ashamed to confess our sins unto the Lord. Shame indeed there is when each makes known his sins, but that shame, as it were, ploughs his land, removes the ever-recurring brambles, prunes the thorns, and gives life to the fruits which he believed were dead. Follow him who, by diligently ploughing his field, sought for eternal fruit: "Being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure, being defamed we entreat, we are made as the offscouring of the world." If you plough after this fashion you will sow spiritual seed. Plough that you may get rid of sin and gain fruit. He ploughed so as to destroy in himself the last tendency to persecution. What more could Christ give to lead us on to the pursuit of perfection, than to convert and then give us for a teacher one who was a persecutor?

Ambrose, Concerning Repentance, Book II. Ambrose is talking, of course, of St. Paul.

Maronite Year XXVII

One of the formative events in the history of the Maronite Church was the rise of the Maronite movement, as people flocked to the mountains of Syria and Lebanon in order to follow the example of St. Maron. This movement flourished for quite some time, but the area was heating up greatly with the constant struggle between the Roman (Byzantine) Empire and the Persian (Sassanid) Empire, the two main Eastern powers. The worst and most terrible of these struggles was the Byzantine-Sassanid (or Byzantine-Sasanian) War, from 602-628, a vast and terrible war over almost the entire Middle East. In the midst of this, the Patriarch of Antioch, St. Anastasius II, died in 609. Because the entire area was in turmoil, the Patriarchs of Constantinople began choosing a titular patriarch of Antioch, who would reside in Constantinople, and just technically keep the title open. This was extraordinarily unpopular throughout Syria.

At some point, the bishops in the area just began choosing their own patriarch. This is a very murky period in history -- as one would expect from the all-out war throughout the region -- so it is difficult to get any precise evidence about how this occurred. However, it's widely thought that John Maron was chosen as the first Maronite Patriarch of Antioch in 685. There is a long tradition that the Maronites received approval for their move from Pope St. Sergius I; and it in fact would not be wholly surprising if they did seek the confirmation of Rome -- seeking out, at some point, some sort of recognition from other important sees would have been natural, and they certainly wouldn't have received any confirmation from Constantinople. In any case, it was John Maron that moved the primary see of the Maronites from Syria to Lebanon, one of the most significant events in Maronite history. It would be in the mountains of Lebanon that the Crusaders and the Maronites would meet, in the reign of Youssif al Jirjissi, the twenty-fourth patriarch from St. John Maron, the first. St. John Maron is on the universal calendar, so his feast day of March 2nd is shared by Latin Catholics and Maronite Catholics.


Feast of St. John Maron
Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 5:13-17

Where is the shepherd to watch over the flock?
The Lord would not forsake His little lambs!
Thus the Merciful One raised up a shepherd,
John Maron, loving father, faithful light;
diligent, his heart was set upon the Lord.
On the altar he offered Christ to Christ;
He was a priest and image of his High Priest.

Antioch's honor is its faith in Christ;
may they shine with bright rays, all the splendid stars,
the lights you have kindled for your people.
Our Lord Jesus calls out to His disciples:
"I will make you fishers of men; follow."
You are a great fisher of men, John Maron,
a template for all who would succeed you.