This ends the notebook that was finished on December 19, 2016.
infinite regress -> idea of infinite -> infinite intelligible argument
circular regress -> (if necessary -> idea of necessity -> necessary being argument)
(if contingent -> first cause argument)
state of regress -> first cause argument
On 'divine hiddenness arguments': if human reason has an a priori idea of love that can only apply to God, this is evidence of God's existence; if one extrapolates from eminent human love, it lacks the properties divine hiddenness arguments require
deontic, epistemic, disposition, and preferential 'must'
Nations are not arbitrary mereological fusions; not every group of people can form a nation.
"The concept of following is common to all the alternative logics; to that there is apparently no alternative." Blanshard
"The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the body of Christ, and, finally, to give worship to God; because they are signs they also instruct." Sacrosanctum concilium 59
Mary the Prepurification of the Church
Hypocrisy by its very nature is consequentialist (although not usually utilitarian).
faith : ritual :: hope : music
allowed in the sense of 'not always forbidden' vs allowed in the sense of 'may always be done'
a modal logic for possible histories of philosophy
(in a sense this is one semantics for modal reasoning about things like possible influence)
What is to an immaterial angel what time is to us? Learning.
Hell is finite learning.
the interplay between territorial culture and personal culture (i.e., the culture in which one lives an the culture out of which one grows)
A philosophy of mind is not just about the mind; it is about the nature and limits of philosophy.
Something's status as evidence admits of refinement -- this is one of the most obvious facts about the history of science, but is often ignored completely in theories of evidence.
the what-it-is-like of philosophical discovery
the New Testament as the image of the Beatific vision
agency, structure, process, and purpose in argumentation
deontic necessity (necessitas praecepti) as exemplar necessity
Schwerpunkt as rhetorical concept (cp. status quaestionis)
course of doctrine articulation
(1) implicit presence
(2) fog of contentions
(3) consolidation and definition
Privacy is a social effect, and therefore privacy rights involve some measure of negotiation and also consideration of roles.
To be man or woman is to be born into a tradition handed down by prior men and women.
universitas, antiquitas, and consensio as aspects of sanctity
To participate in a humanitarian tradition is to contribute to one of the projects of the whole human race.
radication in Christ
The Electoral College (as originally designed) captures the fact that prudence, not mechanical rule alone, is required to determine the sense of the people.
'Facts point in all directions.'
No duration of mild headache equals a short crucifixion.
Liturgies are structured by circumstances.
curtailing of kin-marriage as a precondition for popular government of a free people, at least in a large society (widening interest and common goods beyond blood ties)
- note, in connection with this, how serious a problem nepotism is for the development of such governments
- also issues of dynastic politics that arise when the top only intermarries with the top
The Old Testament sacraments are types of Christ as He is found in the New Testament sacraments.
The Last Supper is Christ's sacrificial self-giving.
There is no single thing that constitutes expertise.
hermeneutics of suspicion // conspiracy-theory thinking
The Electoral College as supporting the tendency to think of states as communities
subhonesty vs antihonesty
Who receives the Body of Christ should consider what is appropriate to being a member of the Body of Christ.
Kant's *Religion* as an account for the conditions for moral community.
A moral community must be structured for life, reason, and virtue.
As no individual can constitute a moral community of himself, something of it must be received; and a shuman beings must learn moral life, something of this must be traditionary and not dependent on merit.
It ought to be the case that we ought to conform to moral law.
(A relation between two different kinds of 'ought'.)
As moral law demands unconditionally, grace gives unconditionally.
Holiness cannot be fully expressed by law, even by moral law.
To have a relationship with another person requires cultivating a ritual regard for them, an external communication o evaluative behavior, an initiated participation in their life, and a sharing of action by which the relationship may be renewed. Lacking any one of these is a failure to be in full personal relationship.
St. Thomas's continual linking of charity and friendship is a recognition of the polity of God; it is formed by charity as civil polities are formed by friendship.
Even in this life we can find a distinction between purgative and damnative pain.
poena sensus: penalty for inordinate conversion to mutable good
poena damni: penalty for aversion from immutable good
privative vs afflictive penalties
penalty as manifestation of wrongness
extrinsic vs intrinsic
A common error in discussions of punishment i assuming that one can only be punished by misery (and not, e.g., by loss of opportunity by restriction of action).
adequalitas (parisotes)
deux termes inégaux qui enfin produisent l'égalité
Leibniz's law of continuity (Cum prodiiset)
In any proposed continuous transition ending (desinente) in some term, it is allowed to make a general inference (ratiocinatio) in which the final term is included.
(1) transition (2) continuity (3) term of desinence
status transitus as desinit for sequence (point as ending approximates point as such)
the designation of a number by a desinent process; the desinent number and the per se number as extensionally equal, intensionally distinct
In a nonintensional context, one may substitute a nondesinent description for the desinent description of the term.
intensional contexts as insulating negations? intensionality and double negation
utility monsters and 'national popular vote'
The world is not merely external, independent, and continuing, but also efficacious.
If the humorous is incongruous communication for the sake of play, what are the conditions for the agent? (There certainly are some, dealing with appropriateness.)
hagiography as part of the prophetic work of the Church
index-vestments, icon-vestments, symbol-vestments
illocutionary and perlocutionary force of uniforms
Pains are not always commensurable among themselves.
three forms of despair as attitude or mood
(1) the hollowness of nonfulfillment
(2) alienation from oneself
(3) self-imprisonment
Despair is a failure to attain to proper selfhood, for hope is the one-foot-in-front-of-another progress of such attainment.
primary means of handling conflict of interest: disclosure, insulation, review
avoiding evil : matter :: doing good : form [justice]
measures of pain
intrinsic intensive (intensity)
intrinsic extensive (area
extrinsic intensive (effectiveneess)
extrinsic extensive (time)
One draws near to Christ in knowing what to put first and what to put last.
Human reason by its nature must receive its light.
Dance involves: division of time, temporal elaboration of acts, correlation of body and gesture, instrumental coding of the body, interaction between agent perspective and spectator perspective.
Philosophy by its very nature has an intentional structure irreducible to physical process, involving awareness of both the indexical and the abstract at once.
Utilitarians come across as snake oil salesmen remarkably often. This is not, I think, intrinsic to the position, but the looseness with which utilitarians tend to handle arguments -- a lot of approximation, guesstimation, and from-what-we-can-tell-now, encourages sloganish, panacea-offering, pseudo-ethics, especially in the less bright. There is also probably some influence from the fact that some quarters take utilitarianism to be more science-ish, leading the less bright effectively to turn it into an ethical pseudoscience.
hell & preference-satisfaction
forms of utilitarianism that modalize the principle of utility (maximizing possibility as such, or everywhere, or always, or here and now, etc.).
Given that pain is often localized, it's surprising no one has argued for minimizing surface area of suffering. Ethicists are so unimaginative.
