Large-scale mobilizing for political and social causes, as opposed to grassroots organizing or formal advocacy, tends toward the cultivation of purely (and merely) symbolic victories, which are useful for mobilizing. Each form of social action, in fact, tends toward the victories that are useful for itself, and no others.
Every human Self begins as an Other dependent on people with more agency.
"Markets depend on relations of trust which they do not themselves produce." Scruton
"Proper resentment for injustice attempted, or actually committed, is the only motive which, in the eyes of the impartial spectator can justify our hurting or disturbing in any respect the happiness of our neighbour." Smith TMS vi.ii.intr.2
-- note structural similarities and material differences with the harm principle
Duty is a framework or structure for moral life.
"Vice is always capricious: virtue is regular and orderly." Smith
"True peace is only in good men and about good things." Aquinas
charity : internal :: mercy : external
The good of ecclesiastical unity is ordered to the good of divine truth.
To wage war justly requires aiming at peace.
| freedom | immortality | God | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law of Nature | nondeterminism | afterlife | Creator |
| End in Itself | sourcehood | ultimate judgment? | Governor/Teacher |
| Kingdom of Ends | autonomy | messianic community (Cohen) | Judge |
Only charity is truly autonomous.
pleasure as a sense of perfection/completion (Leibniz)
the bain-marie of purgatory
atheism by root-cutting vs atheism by dumbed-down substitute
faith as a sense of truth, as an attitude of adoration, as a deference to God, as a reason for love.
the Myth of Judgment as deus ex machina (Andrea Nightingale)
the church as image of merciful providence (Gregory of Narek)
(1) Justice requires steps toward the orderly raising of children.
(2) Justice to fathers requires steps to guarantee that they can know their children.
(3) Justice to mothers requires steps to guarantee that they are consistently supported in child-rearing.
(4) Justice to all parties requires that education of children be joint and cooperative.
(5) Benevolence requires steps to mutual benefit.
(6) Prudence requires means to unify these in a sustainable, recognizable way.
Hooker on the Lord's Prayer: "the ordinary use of this very prayer hath with equal continuance accompanied the same as one of the principal and most material duties of honour done to Jesus Christ."
land-use acquisition as a check by the people on government
(1) Proper sensibles affect the senses first and per se because they are alterant qualities.
(2) Common sensibles are traceable to quantity in some way.
(3) Per accidens sensibles do not, as such, act upon the senses, but are perceived by a higher power regarding the disposition of the senses.
early modern empiricism as an attack on per accidens sensibilia
Bare carnal desire treats the other as fungible, but a sexualized affection does not necessarily do so.
Disagreement presupposes agreement.
features of healthy inquiry: freedom in inquiry, devotion to truth, truth-focused autonomy of investigation
The graces of marriage are cumulative.
To treat p as an obligation is to treat p as a fixed element, integral to the solution of the problem of what to decide.
Transportation deaths seem to be among the most common deaths in any society.
Note that Rosmini, Certainty 1063n, explicitly identifies his 'idea of being' with the light of the active intellect.
Something recognized by Aristotelian, Ramist, and Cartesian accounts of knowledge is that knowledge is partly a matter of order of cognition.
"Theoretical views, even when only partly true, or even when false, may serve to exhibit clearly and pointedly relations which would otherwise seem vague and obscure; and, with proper warning, they need not pervert our views of facts." Whewell
Skyscrapers tend to be piled horizontals, although the best known such works (e.g., the Empire State Building), do more to have a unified upward flow.
People participate in an election in more ways than just by voting.
Logical validity is the structure of an act.
aphorisms as explicit nodes in an implicit network of reasoning
"The only liberation that endures is that which breaks the chains on the human heart, the chains of sin and selfishness." Oscar Romero
Labor cannot be 'freed' from the market because markets arise out of interactions of labor. There is a naive -- or else dishonest -- strand of socialist thought that treats markets as expressions of captial; this is obvious, and dangerous nonsense, because capital is not the source of market -- labor is, when it is involved in exchange. Capital, if anything, takes control of a market by its power of *leveraged* exchange. (Similarly with views that treat markets as arising out of government action: governments are modifying labor exchanges, not creating them from scratch.)
The mode of purgatory is not to do but to receive.
Doctrine in Scripture
(1) by apparent statement
(2) by logical implication
(3) by prudential implicature
(4) by functional insinuation
(5) by use arising in prayer
(1) The human heart is easily moved from love of the dead to wish them well and pray for them.
(2) We have scriptural example, and word of this as pious, in Judah Maccabee.
(3) It is appropriate to the communion of saints.
(4) It is found, of old and in all, throughout the solemn liturgy of the Church.
By the sacrament of matrimony, the Church constantly evangelizes.
The principle of union with Christ that characterizes the Church Militant is sacramental. That which characterizes the Church Triumphant is Beatific Vision and glorious communion. This raises the question of the principle of union for the Church Patient. It is supersacramental but not yet beatific. (The role of the sacrifice of the altar suggests that there is a sacrificial aspect.)
Good service provided by a reliable business is of more value than good service provided by an unreliable one.
The education of children is doubly considered in natural law, for not only is the education of children part of the common good, but so is the parental interest in education of children.
intrinsic title to educate (parent) and extrinsic title to educate (community)
Rosmini's criticism of Kantianism: "They arbitrarily and hypothetically restrict the power of the mind, and on the basis of these arbitrary assumptions declare the facts connected with the mind to be appearances."
sacraments
from Christ to us: mysteries
from us to Christ: signs of allegiance
from Christ and us to the world: signs of witness
"But you are the God of the lowly, helper of the oppressed, upholder of the weak, protector of the forsaken, savior of those without hope." Judith 9:11
Acts 20:35 as insinuating unwritten tradition
The historical lines of evidence strongly suggest that the Comma Johanneum had a North African origin (Cyprian, Council of Carthage 484, Fulgentius).
The comma outside the Latin West: Mogila's 1643 Confession of Faith, the Armenian Synod of Sis 1307
over-authority, behalf-authority, self-authority
Even the most elaborate treatise is but a few slices of thought.
"No Education can be liberal which is not also religious." Whewell
"The character of a true philosopher is, not that he never conjectures hazardously, but that his conjectures are clearly conceived, and brought into rigid contact with facts." Whewell
The philosophy of liturgy of most Catholics in the 20th and early 21st centuries falls into one of two categories: romantic aestheticism and hortatory moralism. Neither is wrong as far as it goes, but both are inadequate if taken for the whole.
strictly truth-conducive reasons vs loosely truth-conducive reasons
causation by concentration (Marco Nathan): "a causal relation that is multiply realizable, probabilistic, and 'qualitatively' redundant, since the effect is triggered by changes in the concentration of actual or potential causes"
impeding vs impediment-removing vs condition-supplying causation by concentration
kenning as condensed analogy
whale-road -- road : human : ocean : whale
raven-wine -- wine : human : blood : raven
kenning as category shift
Odin's cuckoos -- ravens
All poetry is partly found poetry.
In polytheistic systems, gods have power by (1) nature/birth (2) office (3) bestowal (4) possession, depending on the situation. Thus Odin is divine by birth (1) and Allfather (2) and wise with Mimir's well (3) and his ravens Thought and Memory (4). Hercules has hsi divine power by apotheosis (3). Aphrodite has power by birth (1) but also has her girdle (4).
point, occasional recurrent, regular recurrent, continual forms of duty or obligation
"...likeness is the only concept by which we understand how things are true and false." Rosmini
The exemplar is articulable as rules, and exemplarity as regulation. But the exemplar arguably exceeds any set of rules, in that no articulation exhausts it.
inquiry as structured by the decomposition of propositions into questions
e.g.: The box is red.
(1) What is the box?
(2) What is it for it to be red?
(3) How does redness pertain to the box?
Monarchical/aristocratic societies seem to develop 'high church' approaches to religion (regardless of whether the government is itself interested or even benevolent to it).
Church Militant : Baptism :: Church Patient : Transfiguration :: Church Triumphant : Ascension
Bayesian accounts of evidence generally assume that evidence is always evidence, but this is not so, as we can see from cases of fraud, as well as cases in which evidence is contaminated in other ways.
You can often tell when social or political movements have become consumed by hubris: their language becomes confused, and they name things in misleading ways on a regular basis.
Many forms of liberal society depend on healthy traditions, the health of which they cannot guarantee.
pilgrimage vs Christian tourism
A good formal argument is one that, structurally, can easily be tollensed -- that is, the reasons for accepting it over its rivals should be evidential, not structural. It should, in effect, give one a formal choice among alternatives, which can then be assessed by evidence.
First principles are common notions in the sense that they are shared in common: common notions // common good.
the epistemological analogues of positivism (see, e.g., Rosmini's criticisms of Reid and Lamennais in Certainty)
