the political principles 'no punitive procedure without fair evidentiary procedure' & 'no punitive procedure without procedure for recourse/appeal' & 'no punitive procedure without procedure for self-defense (broadly construed)'
In politics as in chemistry, the dose makes the poison.
As a principle is increasingly seen as necessary, it is increasingly seen as normative, for both theoretical and practical reason.
Sometimes factional politics seems an endless story of people not learning that he who digs a pit falls into it.
"He who reads much and also understands is filled; he who has been filled sheds water upon others." Ambrose, Ep. 15 to Constantius
Scientific inquiry must deal with idealizations because it materially draws principles form particular circumstances of observation and experiment, but teleologically seeks for these principles to be illuminating outside those circumstances. Thus one draws from the motion of a body in the gravitational field of earth an account of how it moves that one wishes to apply to all the motions of heaven and earth, if possible, and as widely as possible if it is not universal; it must be stripped of its local conditions and made into an ideal type, the point particle with mass-information without any particular obstruction or impediment; all situations may then be related to this type, taking the precautions of use required by the local circumstances. (The latter is actually important -- physicists do not generally deal with idealizations as such but with idealizations used with qualifications derived from the evidence of the situation's particular quirks.)
All mediate action must be explained in terms of immediate action.
The one thing we seem to know to give us excellent educational results, in every context, is the student's sense of the value of initiative in learning, active docilitas. We know things that stifle or impede it, we know things that work better once it is had; but we have no method for cultivating it if it is lost or if it is never developed.
People often conflate 'sense of humor' with 'good humor'.
Specific freedoms are traditional privileges.
NB Euler's argument for divine revelation, Letter XVIII to a German Princess
Euler's mechanical definition of a miracle Letter XXXVII
"The words of a language express general notions; and you will rarely find one which marks only a single individual." Euler, Letter CI
"Virtue is the only means of rendering a spirit happy; to bestow felicity on a vicious spirit is beyond the power of God himself." Euler, CXI
"Real happiness is to be found only in God himself; all other delights are but an empty shade, and are capable of yielding only a momentary satisfaction." CXIII
"The holy life of the apostles, and of the other primitive Christians, appears to me an irresistible proof of the truth of the Christian religion." CXIV
"If thou reachest after and seekest nothing but the will of God and the benefit of thy neighbour, thou wilt entirely enjoy inward liberty." Imitatio Christi 2.4
sharp (focused) wonder vs. muddled (vague) wonder
When we attend a ritual, the ritual is the primary thing, and the feelings it evokes a coloring of it.
Note Newman's analogy between Church and Army in the English constitution. This seems confirmed by the parallel vestigiation of both.
"A scientific concept is the more fruitful the more it can be brought into connection with other concepts on the basis of observed facts; in other words, the more it can be used for the formulation of laws." Carnap
Part of the charm of Much Ado About Nothing is that it does well in showing the clever outsmarting themselves -- Benedick and Beatrice talk themselves into love, and John's scheme turns on itself through its own cunning. The foolish things of the world confound the wise.
Translations are not bare translations but always for a purpose.
The Church has the right to:
(1) evangelize (divine commission)
(2) constitute itself through the sacraments (divine commission)
(3) worship the Lord and regulate such worship (priestly authority)
(4) own property, exercise political presence, and exercise patronage consistent with its mission (royal authority)
(5) speak freely as the people of God (prophetic authority)
(6) be in itself independent of the state and have the cooperation of the state in this where it is appropriate (social end)
"Gracefulness consists especially in the excellence of the sensible, as the sublime lies in the excellence of the intelligible." Louis of Poissy (adapted by the Christian Brothers)
the union of the graceful and the sublime as a symbol of the Incarnation
matrimony as pre-eminently the graceful-sublime sacrament
If the Church is to build churches, it must be a patron of crafts; if it is to print Bibles, it must be a patron of printers; if it is to translate the Bible, it must be a patron of translators; if it is to study the Bible, it must be a patron of scholarship; if it is to aid the poor in an organized way, it must be a patron of charities.
"The aesthetic experience of love is expressed in that 'gaze' which contemplates other persons as ends in themselves." Francis, Amoris Laetitia
iconodoulia & the aesthetic experience of love
An ethical system is inadequate unless it is coherent, rooted in personal nature, ennobling, and vast of scope.
"Granted the presence of an all-beneficient providence over things, we can trust in it for assurance that the material error in which we necessarily fall without our intervention is one of the many accidents directed by the all-wise and all-powerful goodness governing all things." Rosmini
"Persons who do not admit a supreme guide cannot reasonably believe they will avoid errors, nor that someone will free them from the harm arising from errors."
the problem of doctrinal positivists who do not recognize customary doctrine
The tendency of civil terror is to bloody revolution or to government terror.
A possibility with regard to the kinds of union: the Church patient lays in the passive/'material' aspect of beatitude, the dispositive aspect, and the Church Triumphant adds the active/'formal' aspect, the perfective. Thus Purgatory is a sort of dispositive beatitude, a beatitude in preparation, and the Beatific Vision perfective beatitude or beatitude proper.
Hume tends to talk as if what was external, continuing, and independent were primarily the sensible content; but Shepherd is surely right that it is primarily efficacy. And Hume's agnosticism about the causes of impression eliminates sensible content as well as efficacy from any certainty on this matter.
-- Does this cause a problem for Hume's account of constancy, which is certainly content-focused?
the combinatorics of possible philosophical positions + causal-epistemic account of development of philosophical positions (constraints & contributions) + analysis of structural and functional analogies = abstract history of philosophy
Toulmin's model as the model of a philosophical position
abstract HoP as higher-order metaphysics
concrete HoP: historical -> classificatory -> nomological/counterfactual
HoP = abstract + concrete + metaHoP
etiological, nomological, and teleological aspects of HoP
"All evidence may be referred to four titles, Consciousness, Perception, Testimony, and Inference." Ferguson
Ferguson's response to the problem of evil is interesting: perceiving physical evil is just part of being active in the physical world, and perceiving moral evil is just part of being progressive in the moral world.
We tend to think of moral progress as linear, but it is expansive and multidimensional.
"The means of acquiring any right may be referred to four principal heads: Occupancy, Labor, Convention, and Forfeiture." Ferguson
"The safety of the people consists in the secure employment of their rights."
The apostles are unique not merely in the sense of being most proximate to the original revelation, but in the sense of being commissioned by Christ as part of the original revelation.
the three primary magisterial acts of the Church: definition, organic transmission, counsel
Note that violation of the original contract was explicitly the theoretical justification for the Glorious Revolution.
sources of normal divergences between stories with shared root
(1) attribution shift
(2) narrative extrapolation
(3) teleological reordering
(4) simplifying paraphrase
(5) simplifying reduction
(6) narrative melding
(7) divergence of understanding
a very crude taxonomy of science funding
(1) open
---- (a) for prestige of discovery: patronage
---- (b) for interest of solution: subscription
(2) centralized
---- (a) for social/political end: subsidy
---- (b) for directed profit: investment
'felt value' as presential awareness of inclination to something as good
Ages of fraud follow ages of violence, and violence fraud; throughout history, humankind wars against the Truth and the Life by which we are in the image of God.
Animals live; but to be human is to have a life that in some way proceeds from understanding.
artistry vs artisticism
science vs scientisticism
romanticism vs romanticisticism
poetry vs poeticism
religion vs religionism
"people are shy of granting what an opponent's case really requires." Aristotle Top VIII.1
"do not be insistent, even though you really require the point, for insistence always arouses the more opposition"
"a learner should always state what he thinks"
"some people bring objections of a kind which would take longer to answer than the length of the discussion at hand."
four kinds of objection (Aristotle)
A. solution finding
---- 1. demolishing premise
B. obstacle creating
---- 2. objecting to the questioner
---- 3. objecting to the question
---- 4. protesting time
Interpretation of a major thinker begins with details and coalesces them into a unity only by gradual steps, which is why interpretations by competent interpreters can differ in significant ways.
Note that Simplicius indicates that Aristotle's Categories were sometimes titled, 'Introduction to the Topics', among other titles used for the work.
The aporetic method works precisely because perplexity is due to lack of resources.
Agriculture is the conversion of otherwise wasted energy into food.
If something comes to be, there must be something that is coming to be and something from which it is coming to be.
idealism of inference (the position that one can only infer to and from propositions)
The intellectuals of a small enclave are not radically different from those of a big population, but with lots of small enclaves, one will occasionally by statistics have an extraordinary excellence, the right people connecting in the right numbers in the right ways.
The exchangeability of money is one reason why it can virtually never be on its own a reason for denying otherwise reasonable care: there are almost always less important things from which the money could be taken, so it is only when this is genuinely impossible that mere cost could be a reason. This contrasts with (e.g.) actual medical supplies tha tneed to be extended as far as possible, thus sometimes creating a rationing situation.
Sometimes we need to see a truth stated to see how obvious it is.
- the possibility of an Epicurean objection to Benthamism
- in general, Epicurus does in fact seem to be superior to Bentham on the subject of pleasure
Standing armies get their attractions from their usefulness for (1) garrison, (2) frontier work, and (3) expedition. They run the risk of (1) alienation from what is to be defended, (2) excessive expense, and (3) numbers inadequate for defense.
The force with which the people are entrusted is a measure of the actual value they have in a political system.
alienation as a problem of involuntary exchange with an other not interested in common good or mutual benefit
the worker as an end in himself
(((production + possession -> distribution) + communication of needs) -> exchange -> money) + regulation -> circulation -> market -> economy
Freedom in America is not a good intention but an interlocking set of freedom-systems, many inherited from England, some homegrown: sheriff system, jury system, militia system, electoral system, etc.
The miracle argument for scientific realism would also be an argument for axiological realism with respect to values of scientific inquiry.
"The most equitable laws on paper are consistent with the utmost despotism in administration." Ferguson
Liberal institutions tend to treat themselves as universal rather than as the subsidiary supports they are.
the epistemologically fundamental character of the familiar
catechesis as perambulation (beating the bounds)
