This begins the notebook started in March 2022.
Socrates' use of leading questions: people joke about this but rarely see that it is evidence for what Socrates is actually doing.
legal cross-examination as storytelling with witness confirmation (Note that it is not argument-making, which can get an objection for being argumentative)
It is difficult for human beings to grow enough to begin to understand divine love.
One purpose of objections in court trials is to record possible errors in case of appeal.
major / minor / conclusion
law / fact / legal opinion
general or objective right / title / subjective right
obligation / case / duty
Democracies tend to be litigious because litigation is the democratic use of courts.
Courts in a sense are charged with drawing morals, in a sense that is used for fables, from cases. Laws : legislatures :: morals of cases : courts
wrongdoing under the color of law
wrongdoing under the color of medicine
wrongdoing under the color of ministry
wrongdoing under the color of education
In criminal law, most of the power of courts is in assessing mens rea.
free will as a postulate of criminal law
(mere) general intent crimes vs malice crimes vs gross negligence crimes vs specific intent crimes
marriage as a testimony of human dignity: the truth that a person holds within a lifetime of value and more
confirmation and knighthood
Llull calls priests 'spiritual knights'
Human beings recognize chance by designing models.
Any legitimate theory of probability must at least reduce to the frequentist interpretation for balls in an urn and similar systems.
Statute of Merton (Provisiones de Merton), 1235 [Henry III]
-- This is generally regarded as the first statute proper, although it has prototypes in the Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest. This was a concession to the barons, like those, but ends up serving as the model for the deliberate use of standing statutes in Edward I.
common law rules for statute interpretation
(1) Statutes are to be construed not merely according to letter but according to intent and object.
(2) Statutes are to be understood in light of what they contribute beyond common law.
(3) Beneficial and remedial statutes are to be construed liberally, penal statutes strictly.
(4) Statute is to be considered in light of statute.
(5) Statutes for the inferior do not necessarily apply to the superior, even when general.
(6) General statutes imply what is required for their effect.
(7) Later repeals earlier if they are inconsistent.
(8) Statutes do not bind the Crown unless the Crown is named.
(9) There is presumption against what is unreasonable or destructive.
(10) Penalty implies prohibition.
argumentative transplants from one system or school to another
In Esther, it is notable that the Jews are saved by making it acceptable for them to defend themselves.
A problem with standard propositional logic is that it treats all falsehood as logical falsehood.
"It turns out that conservation laws give me infinite sufficient causes in the same way that electrical cords are of indefinite length. Conserved quantities are homogeneous middle parts, and one can have as many such parts as he pleases. Considered precisely as multiplicable, one can have as many feet of cord or sufficient physical causes as he likes. Considered as *middle*, however, physical causes are conduits of higher order and thus non-interactive actions." James Chastek
In international law (and sometimes elsewhere) 'right' is often used when what is really meant is 'reasonable standard'.
the illocutionary and perlocutionary forces of paintings
Every human right as ad rem and in re aspects.
papal provisions (exercise of papal provisory powers)
(1) iure concursus
(2) iure reservationis
(3) iure praeventionis (gratia expectativa)
Weapons become arms in the ambit of personal skill; arms depend on the armigerous.
Legibility should serve governance, not governance legibility.
evidence : investigative prudence : rights : justice
evidences as beings of reason involving signs in the context of inquiry
radically contingent ordered intelligibility
philosophy shaped by acquired virtues, philosophy shaped by infused virtues
Boethius's Consolation as a philosophy of insufficiency
"Man does not suffice to himself; he must act for others, with others, by others. One cannot arrange for oneself the affairs of one's own life." Blondel
We come to understand people better by cooperation with them.
"Les hommes pensent à Dieu; donc Dieu peut exister. Les hommes ont le sentiment de Dieu; donc Dieu existe." Blondel
"Une république d'athées ne puet pas subsister, et la France en offre la preuve."
"Repentance, contrition of spirit, and lamentation are signs which attest to the correctness of our feat of prayer. Their absence, on the other hand, is a sign of inclination towards false direction, self-delusion, deception, and barrenness." Ignatius Brianchaninov
infused prudence and the discrimination/discernment of spirits
citizenship as a right of legal identification
-- this legal identification can then modulate the expression of human rights
Legal citizenship can only maintain cohesion in a population by association with rights and duties.
Since the state must serve civil society, citizenship cannot ever be a morally neutral status for it.
citizenship as an envelope power
rights as subject vs rights as citizen
Opposition to X inevitably spills over into opposition into things adjacent to X.
The democratic politics we have is not abstract democracy but a deliberate attempt to transfer feudal and royal rights to the people considered as a body.
Commitment matters more than numbers in democratic governance.
'the taxonomical state'
'the statistical state'
It is irrational to punish responsible citizens for the failures of irresponsible citizens.
Philosophy as an activity has a scope far beyond philosophy as a system, which in turn extends beyond philosophy as scientia.
Wisdom extends to many things we cannot know for certain.
One advantage of the mutability of fashion in clothes is that at different times it accentuates different kinds of beauty.
"nobility is nothing less than the continuance of ancient honor" Ramon Llull
ci-devant liberalism
Whether philosophy can dispense with revelation naturally depends on whether revelation exists.
In all philosophy, there is an aspiration, indeed, many aspirations.
Sacred doctrine differs from metaphysics by revealed data, greater light, and higher end.
love of wisdom as a human virtue allied to prudence
the internet as a mission territory
libretto approaches to philosophy of X
Anything relevant can enter into the dialectical level of philosophy.
A very great many psychological experiments are less experiments than living fables, and, indeed, despite much work-up to meet the conventions of the experiment genre, are used even by psychologists more as fables with morals than as experiments.
The human race has a natural destiny to assembly before God, but we are fractured in our ability to achieve it; thus we need to be formed into an ecclesia by God. But God in doing this does not erase our facturing, but uses it.
liturgical commendaria
"Sacrifice and priesthood are by the ordinance of God so united that both have existed in every law." Council of Trent
The souls in purgatory are (1) detained and (2) aided for the sake of (3) purification.
Remission of guilt is distinct from remission of penalty.
the satispassive nature of sacramental unction
ecclesial acquisition by usucaption of Greco-Roman heritage, through documented continuous possessory activity
An expressed proof is not a mere string of speech acts like assertion; it itself is a speech act.
illocutionary proof (being a proof) vs perlocutionary proof (proving to)
Joint proof requires coordinations of provings, by means of questions and imperatives. Indeed, in general, coordinated reasoning requires interrogative and imperative elements.
The natural law precept to live peaceably with those with whom we live binds us, when living with others, to recognize a shared juridical state with them, a co-possession of rights, both in common and reciprocally.
The arguments for dueling and for abortion are sometimes remarkably similar.
Idealistic aspirations is how you maintain good systems; it is not how you reform bad ones.
People have a right of innocent passage with respect to cultures; that is to say, anyone may draw from a culture as long as they do so in a way that is not prejudicial to the integrity and flourishing of the culture.
Most people talk politics as a way of talking about themselves.
All discussions of 'political legitimacy' reduce to matters of law, of representation, or of support.
Opinions matter more when there isn't a glut of them.
The law must apply to moral agents and therefore must take into account that it does so.
Reason naturally expresses itself in a sort of pomp and pageantry.
