Friday, March 11, 2022

Dashed Off VI

the streaming-through of people & things as the fundamental aesthetic experience of present-day architecture

Not comforts but cultivations make up civilized life.

'Male' and 'female' have distinct etymologies; the spelling is convergent.

juridical duties
(1) to self
(2) to others
--- (a) qua individuals
--- (b) qua co-members
--- (c) qua humanity
(3) to God
--- (a) directly
--- (b) indirectly

"All knowledge whatever comes from observation; but different sciences are observational in such radically different ways that the kind of information derived from the observation of one department of science (say natural history) could not possibly afford the information required of observation by another branch (say mathematics)." Peirce

being
(1) in itself (substance)
(2) in another
--- (a) so as to be in it (quality, quantity)
--- (b) so as to be to yet another (relation)
--- (c) so as to be of yet another (sex principia)

agent intellect as the seed of all disciplines

What remains of us in human society after our deaths is found only in memory and family. When someone deserves a reward that is beyond what can be given in his life, one can only fulfill one's obligation to him by commemoration or heritable gift. All societies use both, but states tend to be constrained by their structure; thus aristocracies tend toward heritable gift, while republics go all in for commemoration, because these are what their governments are already set up to give.

3 differences between objective cause & exemplar cause, which are both extrinsic formal causes (John of St. Thomas)
(1) An exemplar is that in whose likeness an exemplate comes to be.
(2) An exemplar is so by way of origin.
(3) An exemplar is efficacious and thus a cause of existence, but an object only formally specifies.

The action of the end is the action of the agent.

semiotic causality as objective causality, not as principal object but as substitute/proxy object

indulgentia: gentling, sweetening, mild-making, yielding, favoring, lightening, forbearing, releasing

the treasury of the Church and the Church as Bride of Christ
the treasury and the Church as moral cause of grace

church treasury (for relics) as symbol of the Treasury of the Church (for satisfactions)

Is 3:13 -- The Lord rises to sue, He stands to prosecute the people; the Lord will take to court the elders of the people.

Aquinas on essential parts of the universe
(1) The principal good of creation is assimilation to God.
(2) Complete assimilation of effect to cause is when the effect imitates the cause according to the way the cause produces (like a hot thing heating a heated thing so that the latter becomes hot).
(3) Creation is intellectual and volitional.
(4) Thus completion of the universe *requires* intellectual creatures.
(5) But intellectual act is not properly a physical act.
(6) Thus there have to be incorporeal creatures.
(7) Human beings are only incompletely intellectual.
(8) Therefore there must be incorporeal creatures higher than human beings (i.e., they are essential parts of the universe). These would be either fundamental (celestial) movers or angels or both.

It is impossible for there to be complete contingent good without fragile goods.

gradus rerum determined by act and potency

"The completeness of the universe requires that it contains all grades of creatables, but not all creatable creatures." Cajetan (Comm in Sum Th. 1a.50.1)

Albertus Magnus takes the perpetual motion of the heavens to require a self-mover. All extrinsic movers are moved, only intrinsic movers (being conjoined) could cause perpetual motion; everything moved leads back to a  prime mover that moves itself by an intrinsic power. This self-mover has to be composite, though (that is, as self-mover it is really the moving prime mover moving the moved first heaven).

Quantity, from matter, gives substance intrinsic measure; quality, from form, gives substance intrinsic order.

the view of the Liber de sex principiis (as interpreted by Albert)
(1) substance
(2) intrinsic to substance (quantity and quality)
(3) extrinsic but frequently based on the intrinsic (relatio)
(4) extrinsic and frequently from the extrinsic (sex principia)
-- although elsewhere he seems to suggest that action and passion are more (3) than (4), but perhaps this can be reconciled by thinking in terms of degrees
-- inhere vs. assistere

Albert ST 1 tr 14 q 66
(1) esse simpliciter (substance)
(2) esse in (quantity and quality)
(3) esse ad
--- (a) itself ad aliud (relatio)
--- (b) from comparison (sex principia)

Most of people's political views are explained by 'nearest port in a storm'.

design as formal cause implying/suggesting exemplar cause
-- the nature of this 'suggesting' is of course a key issue

Every subject is both intersubjective and supersubjective.

external formal cause
(1) by finality
(2) by specification
(3) by limitation/constraint

the Word as the meritorious cause of creation
-- in a sense this is how Malebranche frames it, or is at least close to how he does so
-- related to taking divine glory as the end of creation

substance : unity :: quality : sanctity :: quantity : catholicity :: relation : apostolicity

The Church is plagued by old men trying to manufacture hipness.

Scholarship is not just about using evidence but tracking it.

Salvation-history multiplies the modes of worship, represented in the history-derived titles of the divine. To discover that the Creator is also the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is to discover a new way to worship.

the substance vs the trappings of the republic

commemoration as a way of building the august, the political sublime

three aspects of all investigations: strengthening investigative ability, removing error, clarifying concept

The Cross establishes that sin and death are finite.

Our Father... [Father]
hallowed be thy name [Son]
Thy kingdom come... [Spirit]
Give us this day... [Eucharist, Church]
Forgive us... [Judgment]
Deliver us... [Eternal Life]

It is remarkable how often the word 'progress' is used to justify accepting defects.

The problem of evil lies only in this, that what seems good and what is good are not necessarily connected.