This begins the notebook that was begun in May 2021.
Preparation for disaster is always hard to scale.
ex pacto causality as a kind of sine qua non causality vs as a kind of moral causality
condign vs congruous approaches to moral causality in the scaraments
D'Ailly's argument against physical causality in sacraments (that nature is such that one should always posit the least required to save appearances) is baffling, because the reason for positing supernatural virtue is that nature is precisely not adequate to the effect.
The Whigs advocated free trade as a way to make foreign nations colonies without having to govern them.
Hegel on reigns of terror: "Virtue is here a simple abstract principle and distinguishes the citizens into two classes only -- those who are favorably disposed and those who are not. But disposition can only be recognized and judged of by disposition. *Suspicion* therefore is in the ascendant, but virtue, as soon as it becomes liable to suspicion, is already condemned."
The poet does not merely speak but works with speech.
"...in thinking about things we always seek what is fixed, persisting, and inwardly determined, and what governs the particular. This universal cannot be grasped by means of the sense, and it counts as what is essential and true." Hegel
the instrumetnal, moral, and juridical mineness of the body
the body as a sphere of technical, moral, and legal responsibilities
the body as a gift of God
arbitrary/indifferent as a mathematical concept (e.g., any arbitrary positive integer)
Our possible obligations change depending on what exists.
"Community by itself cannot overwhelm the loneliness of our lives." Hauerwas
"The problem with the word *nonviolence* is that people think they know what nonviolence is *apart from Christ*."
"The church doesn't have a mission. The Church *is* a mission."
Close attention is like rings of different kinds of consciousness, one within or on top of the other.
The subordination of church to civil power makes of Christianity nothing but a customary religion, since civil power has authority only over a civil religion, like the religious practices of pagan states.
Christian monarchs as first laypersons, and the lay apostolate
"Mr Hobbes having taken upon him to imitate God, and created Man after his own likeness, given him all the passions and affections which he finds in himself, and no other, he prescribes him to judge of all things and words, according to the definitions he sets down, with the Authority of a Creator." Edward Hyde
the angels as liturgical spirits
Like a great estate, tradition requires preservation, maintenance, reconstruction, and conserving development.
poetry, reasoned argument, rich experience, common conversation as part of the nutrients of reason
To teach is to do something which only another can make succeed, and thus most of it consists in setting the student up for such a success-giving.
"Money is the estranged essence of man's work and existence; this alien essence dominates him and he worships it." Marx
group-singability as an aesthetic concept
The ability to assess intent presupposes trust.
Intellectual monocultures impede adaptability.
Value is a scaffolding for better seeing good.
The will is intrinsically a moved mover and the intellect a relatively (i.e., w/ respect to the will) unmoved mover.
feeling vs using one's feelings (sensibility as faculty)
Hursthouse's four natural ends: survival, continuance of species, characteristic pleasure and freedom from pain, good functioning of social group
normative authority as dominance of reasons
'Self legislation' only has normative authority if it draws from a prior normativity.
Love is goodness conforming to goodness.
Much of our sense of progress is dominated by progress in toolmaking, which has a well defined functionality to designate a final cause.
No scientific theory is final, but all scientific theories imply a finality to which they tend.
nations as legacies received
function in an organism, function in a population, function in an ecosystem
Every function is a function-in.
"Man has no need to travel to become greater; he bears immensity within." Chateaubriand
Civil liberty is made perfect in civil fraternity.
Political equality not rooted in political liberty or not oriented toward political fraternity, is a perversion.
academic partisanship-laundering
body, prosthetic, vestment
implement, dwelling, property
The Church indwells a culture.
Musical works are (1) repeatable (2) artifacts (3) wholly present in their manifestation (4) and enduring.
// stories
music and the sense of design
Beings of reason are made possible by concepts
rational artifacts vs real artifacts
A ruler turns points into lines; a compass turns points into other points.
"Geometrical points and lines have essentially simpler properties than do any physical objects, and this simplification provides the essential condition for the development of geometry as a deductive science." Courant & Robbins
In projective geometry, we think of points as line-relatings. Ideal points, i.e., points at infinity, are relatings for parallel lines, real points are relatings for nonparallel lines.
The record for the organism is not the gene but the organism.
A poorly ordered academia is a swamp in which diseases grow, for society as well as academia.
All countries are unhappy in some way, and so all countries need heroes of some kind.
The integration of liberty, equality, and fraternity, requires postulating God as a cause unifying the foundations of all three.
We are only accountable to one another generally within the context of a greater accountability.
the nondifference of mind and world
survival of fittest of mathematical concepts though many different kinds of problems
When philosophers today draw on experimental science, it is usually as a symbol or metaphor. It may sound scientific but it is a bit of poetic exposition of something other than itself.
Appreciating the gnomic requires enjoying thinking itself; one must enjoy rolling even the obvious around in one's mind, considering it from different points of view and in different expressions.
mapability and election-trackability
Discussions of interest convergence often seem to conflate several different kinds of things:
(1) greater facility of negotiation where interests actually converge
(2) the deliberate negotiation tactic of presenting interests in ways that appear convergent
(3) the universal influence of self-interest even when not dominant
(4) co-option of a supporting reason for what will be done independently anyway
At the same time, such discussions regularly overlooked:
(1) moral reputation and appearance as a common element in interests
(2) moral self-regard as same
(3) the fact that one thing can be for and against one's interests, in different ways
(4) the distinction between interest and motivation
(5) the distinction between what others think a group's interest and what the group itself does.
Mengzi's position on the goodness of human nature can be seen as an indirect way of recognizing full human goodness (good character) as second nature that is not skill. (Xunzi's position can be interpreted as conflating virtue and skill.)
The whole of what can be known cannot be wholly articulated into a set of propositions.
