(Due to grading and a number of other things, the fortnightly book will be delayed another week instead of coming out tomorrow.)
We do not have introspective acquaintance with credences, nor are any behaviors so closely linked with beliefs as to give us credences indirectly; thus the only reason for accepting the existence of credences is the reason for using probability theory to describe belief.
A schedule should exist for a productive end, not for the sake of having a schedule.
We tend to divide curricula materially (deals with plants, deals with stars), but there are many situations in which it would make more sense to divide formally (applied linear algebra, applied probability theory, etc.).
free will as a transcendental condition of thinking in terms of possibilities (universals as another)
conservation laws as local principles for explicability arguments
felt contingency & the perceived almostness of some failures and successes
Befindlichkeit, Stimmung, and Geworfenheit as features of inquiry
Our entire conception of nature is of nature as being-able.
Inquiries are generally parts of larger inquiries, but there is no infinite regress in inquiries being proper parts of inquiries.
God is both theophany and prior to theophany.
Every mathematician converts to the phantasms in different ways.
Savage limits subjective Bayesianism to 'small worlds' in which all possibilities are known and well defined.
The grue problem is an issue of classification, not induction.
fashion as a cross between sculpture and theater
People are always confusing sincere tribal participation and sincere belief.
Norse mythology shows a recurring interest in the power of leftover things.
architecture : nonliving :: landscape gardening : vegetable nature (Schopenhauer)
"The present *interprets* the past to the future." Royce
Explanatory power is relative to sufficiency of reason.
lying as a failure to express mutual dignity
accounts of 'Nazi at the door' // accounts of how to respond to other evil situations (dealing with evil generally)
autonomy as instrument good (Tollefsen)
One creates a market tending to just price by establishing protections against fraud, duress, and emergency, and by making accurate information easily available.
You are usually not worthy to fight for a moral cause unless you are willing to do so even under the assumptions that your being on the right side is merely a matter of your good fortune, that your opponents outnumber and overpower you, and that you are less intelligent than at least some of your opponents.
An explanation of the predictable is at the same time an explanation of why a prediction can be accurate.
angelology as a theory of teaching
the Church as Christ's project -&;gt; Marian subprojects in the Church
Christ as Sovereign of all ends -> Mary as Mother of many ends
Unintended consequences are the Achilles' heel of most progressive politics.
modeling : conversion to phantasms :: experiment : sensory experience
hagiography as first-approximation hagiology
Constitutional puzzles are often constituted by the difference in answers that one gets extrapolating from similar cases versus deducing from principles.
the sacrament of matrimony as involving intrinsically efficacious signification (ex opere operato signifying) -- we are taught according to the sign even if we do not recognize the sign
ontological argument : contemplative life :: cosmological argument : active life
Sacramental grace is inherently prevenient, although it is not what people usually think of when talking about prevenient grace.
God has dignified human nature in the very creating of it.
"It is hard for us to realize that 'I am' is an active verb." Gilson
the habitude for logic (the 'reserve' or what is available to be actualized by definite logical operations, judgments, and the like)
estimative intentions as significations
Philosophers can reason their way to human rights individually, but widespread acceptance of and respect for human rights requires a religion affirming them.
"Absolutism mainly consists in commanding the purse of others." Rosmini
the 'ownership' most relevant to most rights is that of providential responsibility
"Experience is inherent in the very nature of the mind; experience is possible only in relation to a finality which gives it an orientation." Marcel
Where philosophers of mind say 'consciousness', substitute 'experience' and see the result.
Toolmaking beyond a certain level of sophistication is partly a linguistic skill - a reclassification of an item that can be articulated into requirements and implications.
Christian obsequies : resurrection :: formal betrothal : matrimony
temperance as the virtue of ambience-for-virtue
"Do we ask what cause is? To be sure, it is reason in action, i.e., a god." Seneca Ep 65
The anthropological notion of fetishism was an attempt to conflate Catholic and tribal religion under a diagnosis of primitive 'wishful thinking' or desire-worship (cf. de Brosses, Bosman, etc.).
market value, novelty value, nostalgia value, social value
usury as treating money as 'self-valorizing value' (Marx)
Every contract presupposes obligations that make it possible. These obligations might be derived from other contracts. But it is not possible to have an infinite regress in contracts; thus there must be obligations prior to any contract.
Simultaneity is a form of overlap. Overlap is not transitive.
temporal underlap
The test of civility is what would happen to society under general reciprocation.
For there to be a 'beyond the pale' there must be a definite fence.
Every age produces a form of false sanctity.
Where there is no honesty, there is no republic.
Things endure longer in folk physics, folk logic, folk epistemology, folk psychology, etc., if they give the appearance of practicality -- even if this appearance is in fact illusory.
scaling problems in welfare provision
hypocrisy as a folk-politics explanation
Historical comparison is often a normative judgment by its nature.
responsibility qua owner vs. responsibility qua principal agent
Often we classify things as 'prediction' when they are really just investigation of abstractions that could be used to predict.
no hidden taxes // no secret laws
Sometimes in talking about the passions we are talking about the feeling (what is sensed) and sometimes about the valuation (abstracted from the feeling).
St. Joseph is dikaios, righteous or just, because he is willing to do good to another even in response to being apparently wronged.
To marry is to take on a communal responsibility.
the analogy of the Nativity and the Dormition in the legends of the latter
Evangelism on the level of the whole Church is like forest-cultivation: many upfront cost and difficulties for rewards that are usually relatively very far in the future, although those rewards are very great.
diversification & long horizon as risk management approaches in inquiry
"A has a privilege to phi iff A has no duty to phi" can be right only if we have a duty not to do impossible things (i.e., impossibility, physical or otherwise, implies obligation not). 'A has a claim that B phi iff B has a duty to A to phi' is true only if ;claim' has nothing to do with recourse or appeal -- i.e., if you can have a claim even without means to claim it.
freedom from being obligated, being object of obligation, power to obligate (being subject of obligation), immunity from being obligated
A privilege to use a hammer is a claim for others not to use it in a way excluding your use.
It is obviously not true that to *say* 'P is true' is the same as to *say* 'P'; thus the deflationary approach has to be about what is asserted regardless of the words used, and to make assertion always and intrinsically concerned with truth, in the sense that what you have in asserting P is already to assert P to be true. This requires privileging 'true' over other modalities (e.g., asserting things to be possible or impossible). Thus the deflationist about truth must be a nondeflationist about assertion.
The equivalence scheme in deflationism presupposes that we already know how to assign truth values.
NB that Dooyeweerd does not assume that his fifteen modal aspects are exhaustive.
Orthodoxy is not merely an absence of heresy but immunity from it, an active resistance to it.
Dooyeweerdian aspects are related by
(1) dependence
----(a) functional: A requires B for its own full function
----(b) anticipatory: B gets its full meaning in facilitating C
(2) analogy
Spatial requires quantitative (spatial hasfunctional dependence); quantative requires spatial for full understanding of irrational numbers (quantitative has anticipatory dependence).
Petitionary prayer requires us to reflect on our lack.
the Aristotelian argument for action-by-contact for locomotion:
(1) All locomotion is by pushing, pulling, twirling, or carrying.
(2) Twirling and carrying are reducible to particular combinations of pulling and pushing.
(3) Both pulling and pushing require contact.
'Property dualism' is not a well-defined position, in part because there is no generally accepted account of properties.
Besides form and experimental matter, scientific theories may be distinguished by their manners of getting conclusions.
The notion of a field gives us reason to think activity is more fundamental than contact in the explanation of change.
Thought experiments in physics seem primarily to be a consistency guide.
"fashionable climates of thought are apt to be rationalised in metaphysical systems" Hesse
Determinism always requires an error theory.
the concept of wasting oneself in doing X (e.g., wasting oneself in pursuit of frivolous pleasure)
natural ends and the distinction between frivolous and nonfrivolous pleasure
the importance of distinguishing odd moral reasoning from bad moral reasoning
- some moral reasoning is right but pathway-odd; that is, it treats as central what is low priority
- some moral reasoning is odd because it is almost right but drops something important or relevant
- some moral reasoning is only odd because it is very unfamiliar and/or contrary to expectation
fictional entities with foundation in real things
Prediction is a very specialized form of gap-filling.
Civility arises out of authority.
experiments that confirm to be possible vs. experiments that confirm to be actual (these often seem conflated in psychology)
standard post-war reconciliation: Victors were right, defeated were admirable.
soul ) body ) honor ) property ) access rights
(1) A probability presupposes a division of possibilities.
(2) A division of possibilities requires a justifying ground.
(3) The justifying gorund can be a priori (rational) or a posteriori (empirical).
Punishment naturally raises questions of intercession.
technological artifact as extending mimesis of organs (Kapp)
"The principle of the factory system then is, to substitute mechanical science for hand skill, and the partition of a process into its essential constituents, for the division or graduation of labour among artisans." Andrew Ure
Machinery does not replace unskilled workers; it replaces workers because of their skills.
resemblance, contiguity, and causation as legal relations governing precedential reasoning
