Human traditions are imperfectly wise, but this is very far from saying that they are wholly foolish, or, at times, even foolish at all.
Uncertainty can simplify problems in the sense that things can cease to be options at all when uncertainty is too high.
censure due to import
censure due to expression
censure due to consequences
logic as part of the examined life vs. as a formal system
Krier: civitas = res publica (monuments without streets & squares) + res economica (streets & squares without monuments)
-- the idea is that there should not be single-use zoning but interactive blending at city-level (two systems that overlay each other
"If we were asked for what end, above all others, endowed universities exist, or ought to exist, we should answer -- To keep alive philosophy." Mill
General skepticism of miracles is usually based not on rigorous argument but on a particular myth of progress.
directives, tentatives, and correctives in design
Only transubstantiation gives to God a worship adequate to God.
Aristotle's magnanimity is a virtue that strives to make every situation better because of itself -- e.g., the magnanimous man, receiving a benefit, gives to the benefactor more than he has received; he is selective about projects so that he can do the ones most deserving of honor; he stands on his own two feet rather than being a burden; he is ready to confer benefits and give help; he holds himself to higher standards.
Analytic philosophy all too often turns into very smart people arguing with their own lack of imagination.
four survival needs that are done well in human beings only by converging on the cardinal virtues
(1) paying attention and acting accordingly
(2) interacting with others stably
(3) risk-taking
(4) handling distractions
etiquette and 'justifiability to others on grounds they could not reasonably regret'
Evangelical truth is not merely possessed by the Church; it pervades it, the Church is steeped in it.
The heart's disposition to observe our moral duties as divine commands tends naturally to dogma and observance.
Every enduring community requires handing down, i.e., a tradition.
To conceive the ethical commonwealth as a people, one must conceive morality as handed down. It must in fact be doubly handed-down, both synchronically and diachronically.
There is a human propensity to religion of divine service and thus to faith in statutory divine laws.
The preservation of faith is only adequately provided for through Scripture and Tradition together.
The faith of a religion of service may be servile or it may be filial. Children seek to please their parents with actions and tokens having value only in being proffered for their parents' sake.
It is essential to Christianity that Christ is not just the founder of the Church but, as God, of the very impulse to religion that is found in every human heart.
Every statutory system is a sign and symbol of something beyond itself.
Everywhere in experience we recognize the supersensible object of the world itself.
To say that we cannot be well-pleasing to God unless our service is moral, is true enough; to say this moral aspect of our service is separate from or does not involve our symbolic and ritual acts is a delusion. That something must be done morally does not imply that the bare morality is all that is required, even in light of morality itself, which requires symbolic and social expression.
Ecclesiastical service must be a transfigured and greater temple service.
one : one :: holy : good :: catholic : true :: apostolic : beautiful (or perhaps being itself or res?)
Augustine and inner dialogue as a philosophical method
-- soliloquy vs confession
Moral evil does not arise from the necessary limitations of humanity as a finite nature.
'it seems to S that p'
There is a gap here between the seeming and the 'that p'; the latter is not in the seeming but an articulation of it into the judgment that p.
Sol LeWitt on conceptual art: "The idea becomes a machine that makes the art."
Pejoratives may be made up on the spot; slurs are only formed over time.
possible relations between grace and nature
(1) grace and nature work separately
(2) grace disrupts nature
(3) grace supplements nature
(4) nature supplements grace
(5) grace transfigures nature
The problem with characterizing science as 'what scientists do' is that science is only what scientists do when they are doing science.
pejoration, compliment, and information as the three modes of linguistic communication
three kinds of synthetic proposition: resemblance, contiguity, causation
sublime : numinous :: beautiful : graceful? :: picturesque : cinematic?
the experience of holiness as suggestive of divine simplicity
One matter that Hume does not consider in his account of miracles is the role of flattering oneself that one is more knowing than other people.
conceptual art as philosophical sketchwork
Kant does not sufficiently consider that if reason legislates universally, we (qua sensible creatures) can be said to get the moral law from the reason of other people as well as from our own reason. (This is, however, suggested by the Kingdom of Ends formulation.)
Evidence is recognized as evidence within a story of intellectual progress.
Theoretical confirmation is an effect of how evidence converges.
physiological end, populational end, ecosystemic end, cosmic end
There is no liberty without teleology; every kind of liberty is defined by its teleology.
the vignettesque -- that which expresses that peculiar kind of beauty agreeable to a literary vignette -- that which pleases from some quality capable of being expressed in a vignette
-- literary sketches : vignettesque :: pictorial sketches : picturesque
-- basic sketch (like in a journal entry), adorned sketch (polished up)
-- memoirs : vignettesque :: travelogues : picturesque
-- vignettesque : time :: picturesque : place
-- the spot: that which, without being a story, suggests a story; a germinal vignette
-- memorability : vignettesque :: composition : picturesque
-- a few connected details : vignettesque :: line : picturesque
-- 'intimate strikingness'
-- striking : vignettesque :: rough : picturesque
'Mechanistic' accounts of human action are virtually always idealisms of motives and impulses.
pets as fictive minors/wards
"A world of corporate persons is a world of free association: it is the antithesis of collectivism, which imposes a world of conscription, where all association is centrally controlled, and all institutions are things. Collectivism involves a sustained war, not on the individual as such, but on the *person*, whether individual or corporate." Scruton
'Cognitive bias' is not the same as 'cognitive error'; most common biases have situations in which they would be biased toward right answers.
It takes an effort not to read behaviors as evaluations.
propositions implying the intelligibility of questions
(1) by term, e.g., 'John is kind' implies the intelligibility of "Who is kind?", "What is John?", "Is John kind?"
(2) by presupposition, e.g., "John is kind" implies the intelligibility of "Does John exist?", "Are these kind people?"
(3) by analogy, e.g., "John is kind" implies the intelligibility of "Is Mary kind?" given an appropriate similarity under comparison
An idea is a seed of a whirlwind of ideas.
So much of philosophy consists of trying to achieve tasks for which there are no adequate instruments.
Christ underwent baptism of blood as well as water (cp. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 39).
writeable-as (in mathematics, e.g., algebraic representations of numbers) as a binary modal operator?
Every obligation must be specified by something that is distinct from itself but sufficient reason for it.
"Just as the perfections of all natural things preexist in God as their exemplar, so was Christ the exemplar of all ecclesiastical offices." Aquinas
"A priest represents Christ in this, that He fulfilled a certain ministr per se, but a bishop in this, that He instituted other ministers and founded the Church."
"...the episcopate is an order in relation to the Mystical Body."
"Orders are sacraments from their relationship to the greatest of the sacraments...."
"The episcopate is more a dignity than it is an order."
"...in relation to the Real Body of Christ there is no order above the presbyterate; but in relation to the Mystical Body of Christ the episcopal order is above the sacerdotal order."
"Since the episcopate does not add anything to the presbyterate in relation to the Real Body of Christ, but only in relation to the Mystical Body, the Pope by reason of being the greatest of bishops does not have the plenitude of power in relation to the Real Body of Christ but only in relation to the Mystical Body of Christ."
Holtum: episcopacy pertains truly to orders, not per se like priesthood, but propter aliud (because of the priesthood and with it); it is a complement of the order of priesthood.
Christ works in the Church through two ordered instrumentalities: the sacramental (structured by reference to the Eucharist) and the social (structured by reference to the Mystical Body). These are themselves ordered: sacramental grace in the Mystical Body comes from the Eucharist, which organizes the Church as a Mystical Body.
--the bishop has a more sublime elevation than priesthood (Peter Damian)
-- "the power which has already been given is amplified" (Bonaventure)
--the bishop's power respect to the Mystical Body has a power hierarchically related to conferring sacraments and sacramentals (power of orders in a broad sense) and a power of ruling (power of jurisdiction)
Durandus: episcopacy both sacrament and order, but forms one sacrament with priesthood, as imperfect and perfect; just like consecration of both bread and wine make one sacrament.
Capreolus: analogy to bread and wine too loose -- they have one end, priesthood & episcopacy have distinct ends; and by virtue of what is episcopacy actually more complete -- the episcopacy adds a power ordered to a less perfect act than the act of priesthood.
Aureolus: bishop receives neither new power nor augmentation of power but removal of an impediment to power
Capreolus: this is contrary to the words used to consecrate, which refer to conferring power and not to impediment removal
Gonet: Episcopal consecration completes and extends the priestly character by causing a new, real, natural, modal entity, which is indelible like the character // power to absolve -- a modality of the character, indelible, directed to the Mystical Body
-- the episcopacy contains the priesthood both eminenter and essentialiter-formaliter; the priesthood contains the diaconate eminenter
Weak roles, confused duties.
It is difficult to have a coherent consequentialist account of repentance as a moral good.
prohairetic // operative
origines gentium of Genesis 10 as teaching the unity of humanity (Saadia, Maimonides)
the articulation of extensive and intimate familiarities
PSR (requirements) --> PSR (obligations) --> PSR (rights)
laws of nature as forms of unity
