Friday, February 25, 2022

Dashed Off V

Clothing works best as a metaphor when both transitive causation and extrinsic measure are in view.

onomatopoeia as a kind of metaphor

Sanctity gives a higher aspect to anything it directly touches, even genius or good taste.

The mind never perceives any existing thing without relation to another.

All of our perceptions blur or blend into each other in various ways.

The meaningfulness of life is related to the lovableness of life.

Structures rule out possible functionalities, histories do not treat all functionalities as equally salient.

the self-deceptive dream of the infinitely manipulable body

helping the body heal itself or removing what impedes its doing so, versus imposing an artificial form on the body

consensus gentium argument for natural ends

links between propositions
(1) symmetric on the part of the propositions
(2) asymmetric on the part of the propositions
(3) symmetric on the part of the mind holding them
(4) asymmetric on the part of the mind holding them

Llull's method as based on the assumption of the consistency of good

political offices as alienable rights (cf. Rosmini)

The human will adapts and reshapes ends; it does not create purposes out of nothing.

"Watch and pray: there you see prudence and simplicity reconciled." Rosmini

equitable process vs equitable outcome approaches

common carrier // public accommodation

constraints on language
(1) from nature of sign
(2) from nature of media
(3) from requirements of human life
(4) from functioning of senses
(5) from limits of memory
(6) from features of the world

Ps 23 & sacraments (Cat Hodge): still waters - baptism; restores soul - penance; guides  - confirmation; fear no evil - unction; rod and staff - orders; table - eucharist; anoint with oil - orders; cup - eucharist; goodness and mercy - matrimony; dwell -unction
-- Think of this in terms of reading Ps 23 in the person of the whole Church

the virtue of faith as interpretant for signs of divine work, including grace

prudence, art, etc., as interpretants

In survival of the fittest, victory goes to the one who cheats.

compenitence with the souls of purgatory

The last task toward sainthood is enduring.

three facets of being: naturae, intentionale, objectivum

By knowing the physical universe, we raise it to greater Godlikeness.

similitude as successful representation

cause: quality, action, passion
measure: quantity, when, where, situs

People obsess about being smart because it is easier (and also easier to fake) than being good or holy.

Thomson's violinist has horrific implications if read as an allegory of Germans and Jews rather than of mother and child -- which it can be, because it is in fact an argument that it is morally permissible to kill even those with a right to life, if they are seen as a particular kind of burden on your choices.

The ground of the sign is what manifests.

"For we are all collectively his temple and individually his temples, since he deigns to dwell both in the concord of all and in each individual." Augustine (CD 10.3)

Lumen gentium: bishops are
(1) the visible
(2) source
(3) and foundation
(4) of unity
(5) in their own particular churches
(6) which are constituted after the model of the universal church.

We are all in some way pro statu exeuntium, but we are most properly so in sickness that highlights our mortality by making clear the danger of our actual death.

purgatory & gratia perfectae sanationis spiritualis

Sacramental unction completes (consummates penance and also the whole Christian life qua penitential.

"When he was creating the world, he looked to adorn it with icons of himself." Ephrem

the pattern of inference [only possibility discovered -> probability]

'Spiritual but not religious' is like 'citizen without a society' or 'soldier without an army'. We can make sense of it, but there is something inherently off about it.

Prayer is spiritual warfare; there is vigilance-and-self-defense prayer and minor skirmish prayer, but there is also full-scale battle prayer, and you do not want to find yourself alone in the midst of the latter.

presumptive liberty, due process, limited power to punish

The reasons for moral and political equalities are always God, reason, and (on occasion) practical compromise. All others fail, but indeed few others are rarely even proposed.

Clothing can easily be a sign because it already has a triadic relational structure.

disciplina as system of objects

Oral traditions are in general not purely oral; they are intertwined with material traditions that extend them.

firms as beings of reason marked by legal or customary signs so as to be virtual quasi-property

Error non habet ius because there must be a connection between right and true.

Dt 16:16 & pilgrimage

Christ's resurrection as exemplar cause of our resurrection

"Sovereignty is to the state as freedom to the person." Edith Stein

Christ: unity of divine nature and human nature in the Word
Church: unity of divine person and human person in the Word

'The People' as citizenry, as militia, as represented

The external Church is the internal Church working itself out into the world with the gospel; the internal Church is the external Church working its way inward to God.

There is an irony that goes with teaching; we see this clearly in both Socrates and Confucius.

Better truth from a hypocrite than lie from an angel.

"Nothing comes into existence by virtue of a logical ground, but only by a cause. Every cause terminates in a freely effecting cause." Kierkegaard

Much of the secular world is still drawing on gifts it only has due to infant baptism and half-forgotten early catechesis.

Much existentialism displaces features of faith onto natural will and reason, and thus misplaces them.

Every kind of determinism, when fully pressed, eventually introduces a swerve.

Only in Christ is the separation of external and internal in teaching wholly overcome.

In the nature of every thing lie implicit its possible relations to all other things.

In the Church, the opposition of teacher and student is overcome, as the students become incorporated into their Teacher.

Autonomy is something that can only be had within a divine order.

baptism of water: Christ's Baptism
baptism of blood: Cross
baptism of desire: approaching the Baptist
baptism of vicarious desire: Christ's Circumcision

A bishop could become the successor of St. Peter
(1) by appointment (e.g., Linus)
(2) by election (as usual
---- (a) diocesan (the old election by deacons of Rome)
---- (b) global (collegial)
---- ---- (i) of Cardinal bishops (our current form)
---- ---- (ii) of all bishops
(3) by default (only bishop left)

People are not machines to be fixed; they must be helped to grow well.

Wisdom often requires drawing on hints and possibilities as well as what is known.

Politics by its very nature is not its own end.