film as based on motion-grounded vagueness between frames
Intellect, that sacred faculty, is desecrated when it finally terminates in anything other than God.
Inquiry must be consistent with reason, but while evidence is important, reason does more than work with evidence.
"in physical things the form is the end" (Albert the Great)
Co-opting presupposes a prior teleology to be integrated into.
The post-medieval world has shown itself to be have the knack of transforming technical problems into moral problems.
the relation between in-play conditions and execution conditions for imperatives
- Often they will go together. Do they ever come apart?
- Is there anything to 'in play' beyond or different from executability?
- It seems you could say a command is not in-play because it is not executable, and it seems something could be executable for a reason other than being in-play.
- note that many things other than imperatives have execution conditions (proposed actions, recommendations, etc.)
- Recommendations can be 'in play' together despite not being co-executable; this is not true for imperatives (in play option vs in play requirement).
Every truthmaker is truthmaker for infinite truths.
"The vocabulary of flattery and insult is continually enlarged at the expense of the vocabulary of definition." (C. S. Lewis)
place value as a notation for cycles
Liberty of conscience and worship is not purely an individual right; it is communal. Nor is it a liberty without a teleology.
"it pertains to the dignity of judicial power to have certain signs that induce people to reverence and subjection" (Aquinas)
the laity as the Holy Virgin's Heel
All compositional unity presupposes relational unity.
Gratitude presupposes humility.
support for induction
(1) inductive self-consistency
(2) transcendental argument from deduction
(3) practical requirement
(4) self-evidence of general guiding principles
As probabilities are measures, they presuppose inductively discovered truths about the measurements in questions; thus Bayesianism alone cannot justify induction.
the indelible character as a being-for
the death penalty in Torah as a symbol of excommunication
To make consent the standard of morality in a domain of interpersonal relations is to make persuasion the standard; persuasion is how one obtains consent between persons. Thus the question of importance is the Socratic one.
We have no fundamental physics, only things that are somewhat like a fundamental physics, which do not quite agree.
evidence adequate for suspicion, adequate for structuring inquiry, adequate for conclusion
calculus as a mathematical description of potentiality
We usually think of words as being physically embodied in the form of sounds or marks, but we also find them in somatic manipulations -- sign language the obvious case, but also silent mouthings, letters written in air, body shapes.
role model -> abstract role model (profile, cp the Analects) -> guidelines for moral behavior
the pseudo-literati conception of literature: opinion journalism in flashy rhetorical dress, as gaudy as an Elvis impersonator in a fake-classical building in Las Vegas
metascientific vs contextualizing philosophy of science
three domains of any inquiry: the existent, the intelligible, the causal
Liberty and authority mutually support each other; separate them and they are undermined.
modern politics as the active manufacturing of discontent
different kinds of equivalence in different kinds of modal value schemes
- note that equivalence <T F> is weaker than equivalence <T F Box Diamond>
Kant's snide comment about history of philosophy in Prolegomena makes two errors: assuming that one does history of philosophy without drawing from the wellspring of reason and assuming that involves saying only what has already been said, both of which are directly contradicted by the actual evidence, and were so even in Kant's day. It should be seen as what it is: a rhetorical attempt to persuade readers that certain kinds of objections to Kant's claims are irrelevant and dismissable out of hand.
perversion of: | considered in itself | considered as communicative
rational | sophistry | lying
reproductive | contraceptive sex | unnatural parenting
nutritive | perverse eating | ?
the BEAUI conception of fallacy (Woods): bad, error, attractive, universal, incorrigible
- as Woods notes re begging the question, this is more restrictive than usually recognized
- part of the issue is that it tries to straddle too many things if you are also considering traditional lists of fallacies
- the universal (or widespread) component seems irrelevant
rhetorical tactics of defense
(from reasoning playing a less extensive role to playing a more extensive role)
(1) repetition
(2) assumption as if true
(3) favorable redescription
(4) immersion in a narrative where true
(5) argument
- note that all of these are sometimes reasonable, and none, not even (5), is always reasonable in every particular context
- (3) and (4) are plausibility-based
- A situation in which (1) is the right move is when people are overlooking or getting distracted from the essential point or just ignoring it. So arguably (1) and (2) are governed by standards of salience or clarification.
diffuse vs condensed states of argument
- much argument analysis consists of condensing a diffuse argument and much commentary consists of diffusing a condensed argument
the 'preestablished harmony' of rational arguments
Hume's comment on Descartes's 'unexpected circuit' fails to grasp the rational necessity of each step in it.
To practice is to play a character in a partly fictional scenario.
To say that moral deference is problematic is to say that there are no moral authorities.
That we recognize the existence of moral heroes, saints, and sages, establishes that some kind of moral deference is reasonable.
Everyone engages in a kind of moral deference in their use of moral vocabulary.
The unknown can have a recognizable structure. By contrasting it with the known we can know something of the way in which the unknown is unknown.
sophistry as consequentialism of argument evaluation
sophistry as conflation of dialectic and rhetoric
Implicit arguments can be seen in the practice of rejecting them by explicit arguments.
the fourth wall in philosophical argument
- Berkeley in PHK masterfully (and selectively) makes use of fourth-wall-breaking (PHK 8, 22, 23, 24 indirectly, 38, 45 indirectly, 50, 70, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 150, 156 indirectly)
first-wall-breaking in philosophical argument
two kinds of explanation: causal and blank-filling
-historical explanation requires both to be interwoven
We know moral virtues better than intellectual virtues (incl. knowledge), and the former prepare us for the latter.
In magnanimity, desire for honor becomes architectonic, just as in magnificence, openness to giving becomes architectonic.
respects of relevance
- a is relevant to b in such-and-such respect
operation, collection, and definition as the fundamental concepts of mathematics
the nearly universal link and analogy between office/role and clothing
the relation of alienans expressions to metaphors and similes and also to irony (could one perhaps say that alienans : irony :: simile : metaphor?)
As we are distracted from real good by pleasure, and from real understanding by the feeling of being clever, so we are distracted from real power by the feeling of empowerment.
One of the things Milton certainly gets right about sin is that Eve trades real truth and power for the feeling of being wise and powerful.
PSR as a principle of classification: if x is A, there must be something assigning it to A; if x is ~A, there must be something assigning it outside of A.
One wants a way of saying, "For all temporal Box...." or "For all deontic Diamond...."
Excessive attachment to a particular logical system is a major cause of misuse of logical systems.
the privation theory of weakness
Survival is a kind of proto-procreative good (cp Plato Symposium 207d-e); study or rational care is a kind of a super-procreative good, being for the mind both its survival through time and its procreative character.
Dionysus of Halicarnassus, On Lit Comp 25, says that Plato revised his dialogues throughout his life.
the Piraeus in the Republic as Hades
The Greeks did not think of a symposium as pellmell but as governed by a symposiarch, whose responsibility was to proportion water and wine, and who was subject to no law, but could impose even crazy laws.
Phalerum : Symposium :: Piraeus : Republic
The layers of narrative are so thick in the Symposium that they must be essential to the point: note the beginning, and the constant 'he said that he said' (cp. Brann).
Proculs (Comm. Parm.): the proemia of Platonic dialogues allegorically figure their metaphysical substance.
The value of persuasion lies wholly in its social character.
The modern free world has claimed to be peaceful on grounds that rather show it to be passive aggressive.
Standardization of measurement arises out of scientific correspondence.
category theory as a theory of deductive systems (Bell)
success in ritual // success in proof
Discrete elements arise by using continuities to measure continuities.
The primary purpose of most philosophical argument is exploration, not persuasion.
NB De Morgan's argument for external world on the basis of other minds
other-minds arguments for external world
(1) intersubjective medium
(2) coordinating cause
(3) revelation
nonzero as a number
Aristotle on existential import: Categories ch. 10
What is possible relative to a power is determined by a limiting maximum.
Hanukkah // Sukkot (2 Maccabees)
The Trinity is known in charity. (cp. Augustine DT 8.8.12)
Augustine on the style of Scripture: Letter 137.18 to Volusian
the importance of a 'cognitive state' as related to its aptness for being a symbol or type of the Beatific Vision as antitype
Meinong: As measurement is part-comparison, only divisible magnitudes are directly measurable; indivisible magnitudes are only indirectly measured, by their relation to divisible magnitudes.
'R explains p & q' is very different from 'R explains p and R explains q', even though they are relevant to each other.
Our minds grow up as objects of perspectives not our own -- not merely as it happens but as part of our experience itself.
Flashy reform is often overcompensating reform.
Developmental hypotheses in literary interpretations almost always tend toward elaborate systems of epicycles.
Assertion is often not assertion to anyone other than the asserter.
Empathy is the root of a great deal of cruelty.
It is an indictment of modern liberalism that what it calls freedom always involves someone being bossed around.
the laity as foremost in the royal mission of the Church, the clergy as foremost in the priestly mission of the Church
Historical reconstructions tend by nature to epicycles.
Open borders arguments sometimes make the mistake of assuming that there is no need for a process of becoming accustomed to a society.
humility as the purifier of virtues
Often in argument people are arguing as much against themselves as against anyone else.
politics as the art of bridging the gap between the convenient and the conscientious
decency, virtue, heroic virtue, virtue in friendship, virtue formed by charity
Of all human beings, the virtuous are most justified in building political factions and least inclined to do so.
communion: reciprocal knowledge with mutual love
assessment of arguments
moral:(practical:(structural + evidential))
Exodus 3:14 as spoken by the Son:
Justin Apol 1.63
Basil Adv. Eun 2.18
"philosophy is its own time apprehended in thought" Hegel
Periodization is a form of symbolic interpretation of history.
