"These are those who cause divisions, animal men, unspiritual." NB v. 18: "follow their own desires for ungodliness"
"The world is not an accident of divinity, for in it conflict, privation, and alteration, all contraries of the determinations of divinity, are encountered." Kant
artistic adaptations as interpretive analogies
"It may be said then that the three main senses of 'grace' are first 'beauty', secondly 'favour', and thirdly 'gratitude'. But these are not equivalents: the word 'grace' combines these meanings in itself, and it has an aura that is all its own." Paton
"The specific cause of history is nothing but the hylomorphic composition of spatio-temporal beings." De Koninck
"If all is absolutely predetermined, there is no history proper. On the other hand, if all is absolutely novel, then all is pure chance. To remain within reason, we must hold that historical situations be both different and similar."
A remarkable number of attempts to develop atheistic arguments from evil imply that benevolent totalitarianism is the social ideal.
the human race as a sui juris entity
Violation of the rights of children violates the rights of their parents as well.
"All hypothetical propositions assert what would be or what would not be if something or its contrary were posited; and consequently, they assert that the simultaneous assumption of two things in agreement with one another is possible or impossible, necessary or indifferent, or they assert that one single thing is possible or impossible, necessary or indifferent." Leibniz
Leibniz's infinite analysis account of contingent propositions thinks of them along the lines of real numbers compared to rational numbers. Contingency is based on incommensurability of concepts, shown in the inability to reduce to identities.
the necessary truth that not all possible truths are necessary
New Testament exegesis regularly talks about NT communities as if they were isolated rather than (as the NT actually shows them) in active correspondence.
To be wrong often is the human method of learning.
Performance art works by structuring the leisure time of its audience.
Historians are often inclined to underestimate the difficulty of getting good information as things are happening, and the more they veer toward moralism, the more they seem to underestimate it.
There is nothing shameful or wrong with sometimes reasoning for reasoning's sake, nor with sometimes following a line of reasoning just to follow it or see how it goes, on any topic.
A great many social improvements fundamentally depend on a general environment of well-wishing.
"extension is the order of coexisting possibilities and ...time is the order of inconsistent possibilities." Leibniz
- while this would be nice and neat, there are serious problems. Perhaps instead substance as the order of coexisting possibilities and relation as the order of inconsistent possibilities.
force as principle of action and passion
"A substance is a being capable of action." Leibniz
the PSR as structuring the nature of possibility
What is a particular possibility? Something such that if it is there can be a reason for it rather than otherwise; the reason is how the character of this possibility is identifiable and how it is distinguishable from other possibilities -- the 'can be' is the possibility itself.
-- It seems very plausible that this can be generalized to all Diamond modalities.
What are archeologists call 'culture' is in general an artifact-complex, a classified bunch of associated artifacts.
'Knowing what X is like' is a causal notion.
expressive punctuation (xoxo, emojis, lol, ugh) and interjections
Experiments in living can only concern means; they must presuppose ends so that one can interpret the result of the experiments.
learning as evidence of angels
rhetoric as rational defense-in-depth
within living tradition // within living memory
"There is no one of any nation at all who cannot arrive at virtue, when they have found a guide." Cicero
'Putting cruelty first' inevitably leads to having no adequate context for understanding and responding to cruelty.
To be charitable to all is not the same as to be a busybody in everything.
love of neighbor : love of God :: image of God : God
materialism as a thesis about the medium of thought
Leibniz's account of actions and passions (Monadology 49-52) arguably describes how we take ideas to act on other ideas.
rational/real/artifical as a transcendental disjunction (cp Caramuel)
Proof is deduction resulting in ordered knowing.
We take ourselves to have ordered knowing without qualification when we think we know that one which a thing depends, precisely as it depends on it.
Art, science, wisdom, prudence, and understanding each capture an aspect of the true, and any theory of truth not capturing them all is incomplete.
The more clearly soldiers are able to see their activity as protecting their homes and households, the better they are able to endure it. Likewise, the better the public understands those activities, the better the soldiers are able to reintegrate into society afterward.
To dabble is a good way to find things, but eventually you must find something for which you can buckle down.
A language like Latin or Classical Greek or the like is not really a dead language; there is a continuing and continual life in them, but the living activity has subsided to a low level. This contracts with wholly reconstructed or rediscovered languages, which really are dead.
That someone is unjust does not cancel your obligations to them.
respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, in the treatment of workers
respect for the judgment of the worker (deriving from subsidiarity) -- includes recognizing the authority of the workers over their own time so long as they fulfill the requirements of their employment
respect for the safety of the worker
Reichenbach's common cause principle goes from probabilities to causes, but it would perhaps be more right to say that assigning a certain probability to sets of events requires positing a common cause to screen things off properly.
We identify common causes in part to sort out the accidental from the real.
"This is, indeed, the metaphysical significance of the erotic gaze that it is a search for knowledge - a summons to the other person to shine forth in sensory form and to make himself known." Scruton
Great literature in a sense arises above all likes and dislikes.
A canon is always relative to a tradition.
Foreseen unintended consequences are always relevant to the evaluation of an action; but they don't specify the action itself.
positions on human dignity
1. positivist (externally conferred)
-- -- divinely conferred
-- -- socially conferred
2. naturalist (intrinsic)
hope as a power of focus
Conscience is properly formed by the cultivation of virtue.
eternal recurrence // universalization
(They differ, however, on (1) the interpretation of the Box modality and (2) the aspect of the action to which they are applied.)
We cannot understand an experiment without understanding the human actions of the experimenters.
It's remarkable how many attacks on 'civility policing' are forms of civility policing.
Ornament is a leaflet that always requires organic growth from a stem.
Discussions of consent need to distinguish cases that are consensually dispensable and those that are relatively indispensable.
ex convenientia and convergence at the limit (this would be a broadly Leibnizian account)
three kinds of 'consumer loyalty': (1) habit of use (2) habit of liking (3) active participation
Virtues are capable of being symbols for virtues.
Our relationship with the external world is mereological; we recognize ourselves as part of a larger system.
A problem with many discussion of dreaming and skepticism is the assumption that there is no veridical dreaming. But nothing prevents a dream from being at least partly veridical (it is a common experience, in fact) and the only question is how far this can go.
Dreaming is partly built on the vague feeling of one's own body interacting with its immediate environment (pressure, temperature, texture, falling).
variables as unfilled lists, constants as filled lists
world-building as a system of problem-solutions
"The Church moves as a whole; it is not a mere philosophy, it is a communion; it not only discovers, but it teaches; it is bound to consult for charity, as well as for faith." Newman
"Slowness in decision, tenderness for weaker brethren, are first principles in the exercise of Ecclesiastical authority."
All skepticism grows in the soil of a particular tradition.
