Friday, May 27, 2022

Dashed Off XII

 God uses our mortality to transcend our mortality, and our variability to transcend our variability.

Justice springs from love and knowledge.

orders of angels and facets of wisdom

'the pious people who do penance for their own sins by putting other people into sackcloth'

Foucault often seems on the strongest ground if you treat his historical arguments less as historical arguments and more as well-fleshed-out analogical arguments.

Republics collapse into oligarchies of wealth or oligarchies of family.

In politics we should oppose anything done without a willingness to make distinctions, no matter the intentions.

Deliberate doubt always favors prejudices.

Shankara in Upadesa Sahsri: Brahman and Atman are related like face and reflection of face in a mirror; we are reflections of Brahman, distinguishable yet in some way not different.

A 'view' is as much about where you are standing as about what you see.

"It is authority alone which moves fools to hasten to wisdom." Augustine

mercy -> forgiveness -> life

active wit vs. modish conversation

'reading, that richest, highest, and noblest source of intellectual enjoyment'

exercitium sacrae scripturae: lectio, disputatio, praedicatio

All reasoning from from conceiving and to conceiving.

Jacobine: Mt Jas Jd
Petrine: Mk 1Pt 2Pt
Pauline: Lk Acts Pauline Letters
Johannine: Jn Rv Johannine Letters
--Hb is traditionally associated with Pauline; it is very Jewish like Jacobine, but Hellenistic Jewish like some of Johannine.

-- Clement is the earliest source to use Hb (1 Clem 34:2-5 uses Hb 1:3-4, and some probable allusions elsewhere); as both 2 Clem & Hermas seem to know it, this suggests it was sent to Rome.
-- Clement Al is the first extant person to hypothesize that Hb is Pauline; he attributes the idea to "the blessed Presbyter", probably Pantaenus (Eusebius HE 6.24). He suggests in particular Paul + Luke. The attraction is that there are affinities to Luke-Acts, but some of this is probably due to common use of LXX and both having a higher literary style of Koine.
-- Tertullian (de pudicitia) attributes to Barnabas; he quotes Hb 6:1-8)
-- Its association may also be due in part to mention of Timothy (13:23)

The bishop exists to further the unifying love of the Church, the priest that the faithful may better know their God, the deacon that the works of the Church may be well-ordered.

unintelligible propositions
-- due to knower
-- due to proposition
-- -- contradictory simply
-- -- contradictory in a certain sense

'the exercise of charity, the search of knowledge, and the enjoyment of quiet'

That which is more invariant is more real.

Leibniz Equivalence
Norton: Diffeomorphic models represent the same physical situation.
Jacobs (2021): Symmetry-related models are physically equivalent.
Greaves & Wallace (2014): Two states of affairs related by a symmetry transformation are really just the same state of affairs different described.
-- the negation of LE is 'model literalism' (distinct models represent distinct states of affairs even when symmetry-related)

"That mankind is a community, that we all stand in relation to each other, that there is a public end and interest of society which each particular is obliged to promote, is the sum of morals." Butler

Forgiveness arises from good will, not lack of resentment. The latter is an effect of forgiveness, sometimes with the aid of time.

'those only can be properly liberal, who are just and oeconomical'

the cartography of possibility

"Every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, resistance, dsire." Aristotle (Rhetoric 1369a)

INTERNAL
-- nature
-- -- steady
-- -- -- nature proper
-- -- -- reasoning
-- -- occasional
-- -- -- resistance
-- -- -- desire
-- second nature
EXTERNAL
-- chance
INTERNAL-EXTERNAL
-- compulsion

"Punishment is inflicted for the sake of the punisher." Aristotle (Rhetoric 1369b)
"the object of wonder is an object of desire" (1371a)
"It is also pleasant to complete what is defective, for the whole thing thereupon becomes our own work." (1371b)

pathological pursuit of proof of being good
(1) when pathology is in excess in the pursuit
(2) when pathology is in the type of proof
-- -- (2a) bad social proof
-- -- (2b) bad material proof
(3) when pathology is in the conception of being good

Opposition presupposes some sameness of general kind.

liberality vs magnificence of mind

Pursuit alone vests no property right.

Ancient thinkers often treat time-measurements less as measurements and more as classifications (i.e., less like dating devices and more like curricular or period designations).

the Third Way and God as transcending the genera of necessary existents

(1) Altruism is not of itself moral
(2) Restrictive norms are not of themselves moral.
(3) Sympathy is not of itself moral.
(4) There are combinations of these that are not moral.

Claims in contingent matter are capable of functioning as implicit arguments.

"Men do not reflect and act upon collections of meaningless symbols or nonsense rhymes." Margaret MacDonald

To say that a legal system is not just is to say there is a *jus* higher than what is found in that legal system.

What determines what you can do, determines what you must do.

The end of the human race is living as human beings.

It is pointless to try to clarify a field by asking whether its propositions are tautologies, empirical generalizations, value statements, etc., because every field necessarily uses all of these.

causation, remotion, and eminence as the foundation of every realism

The pseudodemos is constructed in and by public opinion.

instruments of pleasure vs sources of happiness

(1) that the cosmos can be conceived as a unified change
(2) that the cosmos can be conceived as a unified composite
(3) that the cosmos can be conceived as a limited durable
(4) that the cosmos can be conceived as a hierarchy of being
(5) that the cosmos can be conceived as an ordered system of causes

efficient causes
(1) bringing about form: perfective (perficiens)
(2) preparing matter: dispositive (praeparens seu disponens)
(3) operates for the end of another: assisting (adjuvans)
(4) proposes form for another to use: advising (consiliens)

four tasks of medicine (Engelland)
(1) safeguard integrity and existence of the whole body
(2) treat patient's experience of inordinate pain
(3) restore functioning of inoperable parts
(4) promote long-term functioning of whole and parts

medicine more concerned with our natality than our mortality (Engelland)

Most television series are structured on the pattern of procedurals, in part because they are very popular (so most writers learn to write scripts from them) and because their success depends on a relatively clear episodic structure, so they set a standard for structure to which others refer.

A pattern of aggressive retaliations is always a sign of deep misery.

By faith we recognize created being as an expression and triumph of love.

Mary as united with Jesus by connection of dignity, authority, and power

All the sacraments exhibit 'physical causality' and 'moral causality', but in some the latter is more important and in some less. Really, though, the physical/moral distinction here is based on an analogy (to nature and will as causes) and nothing else, and the analogy seems to break down at times in this context.

sacraments as
signs: extrinsic formal
medicaments: efficient dispositive
armaments: efficient dispositive
containing and conferring grace: efficient instrumental

donatists of argument

archive -> kinds of problem -> philosophical questions -> philosophical arguments

"Proverbs are, as has been said, one form of evidence." Aristotle (Rhetoric 1376a)
"Things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done, which shows that they were done for our sake and not for some other reason." (1381b)
shame as "a mental picture of disgrace" (1384a)

elements of ceremonial rites
(1) combination of incidents
(2) signs of moral purpose
(3) form of expression
(4) accessories of language (e.g., music)
(5) thought appropriate to context
(6) appearance to others

Genesis: preparation for Israel
Exodus: formation of Israel as Elect
Leviticus: cultic structuring of Israel
Numbers: administrative structuring of Israel
Deuteronomy: suzerainty covenant with Israel
Joshua, Judges, Ruth: preparation for Israel as kingdom

postulate : practical :: opinion : theoretical