Dashed Off XIV

The modern age gets much of its texture from the tendency of people to think pleasure must be pursued unless it is obligatory not to do so. This is why it can seem libertine one moment and intrusively intolerant the next.

It seems plausible that some potential parts of a virtue would have greater affinity to some quasi-integral parts than others. Think about this & whether it would, or could, establish a principle of extrapolation in the classification of virtues.

Note that while John and Mark mostly record different events, the overall narrative chronology of each is very similar (the two major exceptions being the cleansing of the temple and the anointing with oil, with John clearly making a thematic point) -- i.e., the fit of various ministries and missions is quite close.

Wealth seems to lead people to overestimate their quality of life.

evolutionary trees as etiologies of types

Every age overassimilates thought itself to its preferred intellectual genres and formats of intellectual communication.

temperance as the virtue suitable to trying things out

exploitation of workers by government agencies

usurious taxation: taxing without regard to specific service, risk, or expense

Assessing scientific progress requires considering many distinct lines of progress.

true induction as a discovery of the potential through the actual

Whenever someone speaks of free will, substitute (what is really the same) 'love with understanding'. Strange views will sometimes emerge.

intemperance as the overflow of craving

health as a means to effective virtue

statistical pareidolia

Most of statistics is classificatory.

the intrinsic ecclesial responsibility for preserving and reconstructing records

Baptism : baptism :: Transfiguration : confirmation :: Ascension : ordination

The priest is to (1) prepare the faithful to take their place with Christ; (2) intercede for them; (3) administer sacraments by which they may receive grace. Each of these reflects a work of Christ Ascended.

The efficiency of resource allocation is always relative to a goal.

Institutions are structured by expectations.

The veil of ignorance gets us only to the least unhelpful system that operates on the assumption that human beings are interchangeable.

Prediction, and what can be predicted, is always relative to means of measurement.

philosophical systems as interactions of design solutions

Beauty opens out to sublimity.

'Aristotelian propositions' as switches

Medical decisions must not only focus on health as their primary end but must do so realistically, recognizing that health can be subordinate to other ends.

One who is noble does before saying; in doing, says.

Moral luck is weightable luck.

classification as a way of solving multiple problems simultaneously

Descartes's argument can be seen as an argument that the capacity for doubt requires the existence of God (or, what amounts to the same, that the free will required for inquiry into truth requires the existence of God).

Consequentialism is intrinsically biased in favor of those who have the physical and social means of manipulating consequences.

Note that Rashi reads the woman in Pr 31 as Torah: woman of valor = Torah; husband = Holy One; wool & flax = Mishnah & Midrash; food = teaching; dressed in crimson = circumcision or commandments; children = students of Torah.

Rashi glosses the key of the House of David (Is 22:22) as 'The key of the Temple and the government of the House of David'.

Social movements, carried on long enough, always have elements that metastasize.

the twofold primacy of the sacraments and the Life of Christ for liturgy and liturgical law -- note that if the latter is understood broadly to include sacramental anticipation of Christ in OT and Christ as Head of Mystical Body and His anticipated coming again in glory, then the primacy of the Whole Life of Christ

obedience as self-sacrifice (Montessori)

goods capable of encompassing other goods

(1) care for divine things (seek ye first...)
(2) rendering to others what is due to them in the economy of salvation (be perfect as...)
(3) endurance as witness of divine things (take up your cross...)
(4) love of the beauty of divine life (Rejoice...)

It is curious that Whewell's Moral Ideas amount to Justice in the broad sense (Benevolence, Justice, Truth, Order) and Temperance (Purity), particularly given the fact that he criticizes the traditional list for not being complete. What is more his two preferred supplementary principles, for Zeal/Earnestness and Moral Purpose seem to be associated with Prudence.

Hope as the means to victory over pain
victory over ignorance, victory over pain, victory over evil

Revelation 5 as establishing the principles of Christian liturgy

Every gift is a sign of the giver who is principle for it.

Almsdeeds of the Church are signs of salvation.

well-being as participation in a network of positive fulfillment of the needs of human life (successful participation in the active work of being human) -- note convergence of the Aristotelian and the Confucian here

virtues as the principles of the operative networks of human life

Exodus 34:6-7 as the essential nerve of the Old Testament -- it is explicitly referred to in Nm 14:18; 2 Chr 30:9; Neh 9:17; Ps 86:15; Ps 103:8; Ps 111:4; Ps 145:6; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; poss Mic 7:18

Focus on replication emphasizes effect production and minimizes all things not relevant to effect, including normal features and natural invariances. Thus replication is important for establishing that an effect exists and what the effect is -- but it puts us in a weak position for explaining it properly.

(1) All things are known representationally; therefore idealism or something like it; therefore skepticism allowing idealism or immaterialism.
(2) All material things are known representationally; mind is not known representationally; therefore immaterialism

The Holy Spirit is the author of Church teaching, the witness to Church teaching, and the expositor of Church teaching. By the first we know that Scripture is authoritative; by the second we know what Scripture is; and by the third we know that Scripture may be correctly understood, and what errors to avoid in understanding it.

to be ordered, rational, and restrained

Respect for women derives from respect for motherhood and for virginity, as the schools of this respect. Where neither mother nor maiden is respected, women in general tend not to be repsected -- these are not the whole, but they are the minimal crystals from which the rest grows.

Innocence alone protects only against obvious evils.

Everyone including saints resist God; in this life we all drag when it comes to divine vocation. But we may lessen our resistance.

Human beings construct meaningful relations discursively: being socially rational animals, it is inconsistent with our nature to have meaningful relationships that are instantaneous rather than reasoned out.

Human meaningful relationships are mediated (1) by signs and (2) by institutions and social structures.

For every atheistic argument that is not a priori, ask what kind of history it requires.

Scientific inquiry continually faces new problems of how to go beyond mere trial and error -- as possibilities increase, one needs more.

Proper liturgy is a sacred action of union with God.

The devil's preferred method is to attack the weakness in our strength -- not our bare weakness, nor, head on, our full strength, but that in our strength that can run out of control.

Inquiry is itself a good.

authority as a union of wisdom, power, and goodness (note that in practice any of these three can be indirect and/or derivative -- e.g., the authority of the politician may not be from his own wisdom, power, goodness, but those of the makers of the constitution, or the people, or whatever happens to be relevant)

interpretation, translation, and arbitration networks in teh Chruch

If Epicurean atoms work like dust motes or water droplets, you would in fact expect them to swerve. And it seems likely (cp Lucretius) that this is indeed the root of the idea.

beauty in each part, sublimity in the whole

Safety, like efficiency, is relative to ends.

rule of law, triage, regulated civil service, comity of authorities, solidary practices, honest market, hortatory forum, protections of human dignity, humanitarian traditions, due process

the Church as a seedbed and greenhouse for the formation and cultivation of humanitarian traditions

5 soil-forming factors; climate, parent material, topography (relief) organisms
edaphological concept of soil: medium for plant growth
principles of soil fertility: drainage, tillage, organic matter, lime, fertilizer
relief : statics :: climate : dynamics
perhaps - :: climate : thermodynamics
Time seems to be a soil-forming factor only in the sense that some things deteriorate or transform by inherent factors, or do so by external factors not in the main traceable (as in erosion through occasional wind or deposition through microtremors). These kinds of factors are mostly characterized statistically or by long-term probabilities for the aggregate; thus rates; thus time as the primary hold on this slow but ever-changing bubbling activity of the soil in its immediate environment.

the teleology of a problem within a system of problems

vice filiation as indicating (or paralleling?) high-probability failure cascades in the transformation of ethical positions
- it's certainly the case that the doctrine of the mean indicates areas of potential confusion allowing such shifts.

Paul clearly attributes miracle-working to himself (2 Cor 12:12, Rm 15:18, Gal 3:5) and to others (1 Cor 12:28). Christ identifies miracles as signs of his divine mission (Mk 2:10, 11:2-7; Jn 10:38).

Mk 6:13 establishes oil as a sign of instrumental work in the Holy Spirit

H.E.G. Paulus's account of the life of Jesus makes it even more fantastically astounding than the traditional account. This tends to be true of mistaken-natural-event interpretations of miracles -- they trade small, relatively modest miracles for a truly massive preternatural miracle constituting the life of Christ itself.
Mythological interpretations have an analogous problem, except with preternatural moral miracle rather than a mix of preternatural physical and moral, but it is less obvious because (1) the miracle would be purely moral rather htan an integration, and moral real allows more flexibility; (2) moral miracle is less obvious and apparent simply by its nature and conditions.

quantity & parts outside of parts ('outside' is situal -- relation with respect to whole and other parts -- rathe rthan local)

relatedness (referentiality)
(1) subject in which the reference is present
(2) term to which the reference is directed
(3) foundation by which the reference is constituted truth as the stabilizing and supporting skeletal structure of happiness

Practical philosophy only reaches its natural destination when it contemplates the fullness of civilization.

Overflow (redundantia) reflects purity, and transfigures it.

Jewish purity laws as focused on table, household, and sanctuary

The human mind delights in generic forms combined with distinguishing surprises.

-- jurisdictional overlap and 'overlap in one respect or way but not in another'

To talk only of scientific method overlooks the civilizational factors required to make it viable.