2 Sam 5:1-3: David is made king by agreement with the elders and according to divine promise.
externality of the world & being a part locatable in a whole
hope-sharing and solidarity
Confusing obstinacy with pride is a serious error; they are different failings.
The Apostles did not descend from a mountain with tablets written by the finger of God; they carried Christ in their hearts, and wrote their books from that, or rather, preached from that, and preached by way of written text from that when they deemed written means to be appropriate.
If the indispensability argument works for mathematics, it works for axiology.
That we can know mathematical things establishes conclusively that they are either causally active or involved in some way in other things' being causally active.
Px : x is a part
Pxy : x is a part of y
Pxyz : x is a part of y at z (e.g. time)
Pxyzw : x is a part of y at z at w (e.g., place and time)
(nullary notion of part perhaps universal part?)
There is no one kind of thing that is a state of affairs; and this appears to be so because it is an extrinsic denomination.
A people without honor cannot uphold traditions.
Voting works best as a consensus-building method. It becomes corrupted when it becomes about overpowering one's opponents. This is inevitable, but in a proper election system the design will include ways to limit the effects of it.
dimensions as relations between orderings
color as quasi-geometrical (betweenness & dimensions in the color space)
what would 'relativistic' color-geometry be?
virtue in the people, honor in the elites, respect for law in the rulers
Whewell's Principle of Order seems naturally to suggest a natural law.
In a hypothetico-deductive/covering-law model of causal explanation, abstract entities are the only things that are causal.
moral taste & moral regularities
rule utilitarianism // best systems account of laws of nature
the three elements of moral principles: rules, relations of perfection, dispositions
fallacies // goods of fortune
(Think Boethius CP 2: the imprint of the real good in the appearance of the fake good, combined with the recognition of what makes the fake to be fake)
the courtliness required for the full intimacy of marriage
number (mapping?), symmetry, continuity
permanent possibility of sensation, permanent possibility of intellection, permanent possibility of being
the analogies between various virtues that allow us partially to model a virtue in terms of other virtues (virtues at least loosely reflect each other)
symbol grounding: arbitrary symbols are an advanced feature of reasoning; the ability to construct them arises out of symbols inherent in perception itself (or perhaps rather perceptual experience, accumulated out of perceptions)
ideal gas as a mathematical object
In dealing with natural language, we do not pre-know the relevant logical structure required for reasoning; we reason across many possible logical structures and refine.
Christ as first cause of the Church (apostolicity), as conserving cause of the Church (catholicity), as final cause of the Church (sanctity)
Counting in a full and proper sense is primarily a matter of *recording*. (This is often overlooked in philosophical accounts.)
geometry : space :: arithemetic : population
If we know that X does not err under some interpretation of X, this serves to establish X as a ground of reasoning, even if we do not know the precise interpretation under which it is unerring.
Note that Irenaeus says that Gnostics cannot discover truth from Scripture because they do not have Tradition (Adv Haer I.II.c2n2)
Synoptic summary is a major philosophical skill (think of aphorisms, for instance).
integral parts of prudence & their involvement in synoptic summary
The capacity of physical events to be signs of other physical events is essential to experimentation.
When we have reason to regard an argument as probably right, and it would be useful for it to be so, we have what Ward calls the wish to believe or wish for truth (a wish for conviction that what seems probable is true) -- we are reluctant to throw it all over unless we must, and we look for ways to strengthen it, entirely reasonably.
Paradise is that where in there is no gap between present possession and eschatological fulfillment.
the relation between exemplar causation & conserving causation
Modern press is essentially expected to exercise a prophetic function (speaking truth to power, guiding national conversation) but given its structure and the play of incentives in modern society, it is inevitable that it will usually do it poorly.
ingratitude as subgratitude vs ingratitude as anti-gratitude (Manela, based on Aquinas)
Phantasms underdetermine abstractions. Abstractions underdetermine conceptions.
The history without legend is itself merely a legend.
Who violates the right of one, in some sense violates the rights of all; the right of each is in some way part of common good.
squares of opposition:
evidence-for, evidence-for-not, not-evidence-for-not, not-evidence-for
proof-of, proof-of-not, not-proof-of-not, not-proof-of
'suggestive of' as 'possible evidence of'
square of opposition as sign of modality
Boxed terms have distributed supposition; Diamonded terms have determinate supposition.
common law // casuistics
Sometimes the most rational response to an argument is to go away and think about it.
numeral system : arithmetic :: diagram : geometry
Hume often talks about association as if it only applied to ideas and impressions, but his explanations regularly require that associations also be associated -- resemblances of resemblances, resemblances of causations, etc.
It is strange how many universalist arguments seem to require some kind of tutiorism. Think about this.
reciprocity and the question of when one should avoid giving risks to others
A proof proves to the wise and suggests to those who cannot follow it fully.
Any account of scientific explanation that does not account for mathematical explanation, especially for the kinds of mathematics actually used in the sciences, is defective.
What is true of an idealization is approximately true of what approximates the idealization.
Zero is better understood as equilibrium or rest than as nothing.
sets as possible answers to particular questions (empty set as corresponding to question that returns no answer)
- obv. the particular kind of question is important to this kind of account
introspective, endoxastic, and philosophical approaches to critical thinking
The poet moves language as the beloved moves the lover.
The poetic art is in a way excellence of language.
mathematics as concerned with the immutable in the material
1 Tim 6;20 and the task of a bishop
"The true doctrine is that, though the people are indeed sovereign, they are so only as civil society, in which the sovereignty, under God, inheres; that is, the sovereignty vests in the civility, not in the popularity, and popularity must be civility before the people are sovereign." Brownson
history as a long discourse on the Image of God and the Fall of Man
2 points by Ross that deserve more consideration than they usually get:
(1) the general sense that sometimes things are right because of what has happened, not what will happen
(2) the general sense that one duty may be 'more of a duty' than another
In a strict sense, prima facie duties shouldn't be seen as conflicting -- they just have different forces of application in different circumstances.
prima facie duties // officia
realist vs anti-realist interpretations of myths (e.g., euhemerism vs nature allegory)
mutual personation in marriage (note that mutual personation indicates a flaw in Hobbes's understanding)
The will of the people is not expressed by adding numbers. It is expressed by their causal agency through civil instruments.
"When the idea of family becomes vague, indeterminate, and uncertain, a man thinks of his present convenience; he provides for the establishment of his next succeeding generation and no more." Tocqueville
"The most natural privilege of man, next to the right of acting for himself, is that of combining his exertions with those of his fellow creatures and of acting in common with them. The right of association therefore appears to me almost as inalienable in its nature as the right of personal liberty." Tocqueville
voluntary representative sorting (e.g., the voting part of the population as representing politically the whole population)
"The idea of right is simply that of virtue introduced into the political world." Tocqueville
unifier arguments for God's existence
unity (Plotinus)
cosmic (Jaki)
temporal (Whitehead)
spatial (Newton-ish)
epistemic (Malebranche)
sensory (Berkeley)
- a particular kind of cosmological argument
- related to Box and to mereological whole (condition for the possibility of a certain kind of Box or whole)
association and abstraction as the two routes of symbol-grounding
association : constancy :: abstraction : coherence ??
Nostalgia takes endlessly many creative forms.
To fail to provide the laity the means for self-governance in their own contribution to Catholic life is a terrible episcopal error.
A Church that cannot dialogue within itself cannot dialogue with the world.
Vincent of Lerins & consensus of doctors (Comm. ch 38)
All necessary truths have a penumbra of probable truths approaching them.
The Fathers of the Church teach by their diversity as well as by their unanimity.
the Epoch of the Fathers, the Epoch of the Enlighteners, the Epoch of the Defenders (each overlaps at beginning and ending)
Sayings of the Fathers may be more or less obscure, more or less safe, more or less appropriate to various purposes, more or less thorough, more or less loose or strict, without being in any way unequal in intrinsic propriety or orthodoxy.
Even the wicked may pleasantly surprise you.
Fascism is a statist attack on popular governance that treats violence for state interest as a means of progress in order to make the state the central pillar of society.
Church architecture is an expression of the royal authority of the Church (indeed, all ecclesial patronage, including of arts and charitable organizations, is).
The philosophical principles of an experimental science are the conditions making its experiments possible.
A general sense of honor among the people is the surest shield against despotism.
Risibility is a potential part of rationality.
three kinds of skepticism
(1) doubt modulating acceptance
(2) suspension of judgment
(3) doubt expressed in rejection
plan-sharing and group intentionality
instrumental causation and group intentionality
the common and constant opinions of the scholastic saints as a compendium and summation of the teaching and preaching of the Fathers and the Church, especially when the reasons are shared
traditio instrumentorum as a specification of the significance of imposition of hands
Could one think of minor orders (or at least some kind of possible minor orders) as granting delible character? (As opposed to being only an office of support.)
The relative authority of one ecumenical council compared to another is partly a matter of the explicit affirmations of relations by the councils themselves (recognition and dependence), partly a matter of topic, partly a matter of the kinds of actions exercised by the council, partly a matter of the kinds of responses the council affords.
sacramental character 2 Cor 1:22; Eph 1:13
Sola Scriptura effectively makes Scripture invisible -- no reading of Scripture is Scripture itself, but only an attempt to conform to it, as the notion of an invisible Church makes the visible Church not the Church itself but an attempt to conform to it.
Politics is regimented by principle, but principle is not its substance.
computers as subordinate logical agencies
software as instrumental skill
Argument-objection-response is positional like Go.
The picturesque often arises out of the ruin of the sublime.
One thing feelings do in reasoning is flag possible sorts and kinds of biases -- for instance, a man of irritable temper can learn when his settled habits of mind might be leading his reasoning astray, by his sense of irritation. This is not always straightforward; since each person has a different temperament, it must be learned anew by each person what his or her own feelings are likely to be conveying. But doing so is utterly necessary for serious rational thought.
The history of Israel shows that God works through both an ordinary and an extraordinary ministry.
the history of philosophy as intrinsically aporetic
the planned obsolescence of pop intellectualism
