This completes the notebook finished in September 2022.
Hebrews 9:14
(1) through the eternal Spirit
(2) Christ offered himself
(3) as spotless sacrifice
(4) to God
the 'inner theater' of consciousness is an imaginative construct used as an organizing instrument
Building institutions on romanticized notions of the past is often building them to fail, but refusing to romanticize the past at all is a pathological condition.
principles of due process
(1) deprivations and penalties can only be imposed through process;
(2) this process must have a structure identifiable by a reasonable person;
(3) the state is bound by its own laws in such processes.
If those in a given parish just make friends among each other, both in parish and out, help each other in watchful prayer, and aid each other in illness and emergency, much will have been done toward living in love and harmony, such as is possible in this world; much will have been done to have changed the world for the better.
"Every act of seeing leads to consideration, every consideration to reflection, every reflection to combination, and thus it may be said that in every attentive look at nature we already theorize." Goethe
We receive our bodies first as gifts, and they become the instruments of our giving.
Maintaining a republic seems to require a level of abstraction with which people often struggle.
Anything that can be understood as designed can be understood deontically. One may reject the rationale of the design, or the need for it, but granted the design, the norms and requirements associated with it follow.
It is still the case that 'Number is unity in plurality' is a better definition of number than most formal definitions of number, across most situations. Besides being of the right general kind -- unity and plurality as concepts preceded any counting system -- it is the least ad hoc, not being tied to specific situations of use. (Russell's criticism of it makes the elementary blunder of confusing a collection of three things with the attribution of predication, 'being a collection of three things'.) It is, of course, the case that there are many specific things it cannot do, for which one needs more attuned definitions, but even these are kept definitions of *number* by comparison with 'unity in plurality'.
formal ceremony as the natural context of exposition
repetition -> generalization -> universalization
It is simply false to say that all intrinsically good things are richer in value than all extrinsically good things.
the threefold aspect of Jesus's being the Anointed, as reflected in the Baptism, the Transfiguration, and Pentecost
(1) He is anointed as being Son
(2) He is anointed in His fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets
(3) We are anointed in Him (He is anointed in His sacramental body)
personal and real readings of 'communion of saints' (i.e., holy people and holy things)
Wise government facilitates the governed in satisfying their needs and fulfilling their duties.
"Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." Jerome (Ep 22)
"We speak to him when we pray, we listen to him when we read the divine oracles." Ambrose (De off. 1.20.88)
Democratic systems tend toward a politics of hyperbole.
Personhood is expressed in different modalities, such as child and adult, and respect for personhood has to be expressed in ways that take these differences into account.
Thirst is a problem primarily because lack of water can kill you, not primarily because it is unpleasant.
Locard's exchange principle: "Every human action, and a fortiori the violent action that is a crime, cannot occur without leaving a trace."
similarity, contiguity, and causality accounts of personal identity
People often use disrespect for the dead as a way of dehumanizing some of the living.
the effect of luck in the spiritual and religion devotions of the Church
The unity of mathematics as a whole is not axiomatic but a system of analogies.
find -> find relation -> match
informativeness and brevity // richness and simplicity
tactics as the art of finding exploitable disorganization
A strategy of bread and circuses creates political disruptions and increases political tensions.
When a heresy is defeated, its echo will soon follow.
We construct models from nonmodels, fragments of understood reality.
Love has a natural tendency to reveal truth, and the more perfect the love, the greater the tendency.
People sometimes convince themselves that they are opposing injustice when in reality they are just building themselves a dramatic backstory.
"Whenever all the forces of society act in one single direction, the just claims of the individual human being are in extreme peril." John Stuart Mill
the crime market
Sensation is a use of change to detect stable things. Classical empiricism often erred by focusing on the stabilities.
The congregation in Mass not only receives the Body of Christ, it is raised by Christ as part of His sacrifice, as His sacramental body.
vow : matrimony :: sacrifice : eucharist
Matrimony carries forward and transfigures the mode of religion of the patriarchs.
inference with metaphors as implicitly reduplicative
One thing literature shows us is that sometimes people like a villain while still seeing him as a villain.
shi = focused tendency
2 Chronicles 28 and the Good Samaritan
demotic eros vs. philosophical eros
"As when we say a *certain Persusasion* or a *certain Truth*, these expressions imply there may be a Persuasion or a Truth not so certain; so when we say Certain Knowledge, it seems to imply that there may be Knowledge not so certain." John Milner
Much of democratic politics is based on using people as attention-getting props.
"Colour, it seems, involves time. Things cannot have colour at an instant. The sensations of colour depend on *rhythms* of electromagnetic vibrations." Olaf Stapledon
"Even bodily appetite, I should say, includes a moral aspect. When I am hungry I do not merely crave food, I feel that I *ought* to be fed. My hunger, I feel, constitutes a claim on all beings who know what hunger is and that this creature is hungry."
Stapledon on Star Maker -- Philosophy and Living, Vol. 2, pp. 403-404
constitutive providence, antecedent providence, circumstantial providence, consequent providence
All development of moral character is cooperation with providence.
sacramental objects as natural being that is given ordering as artificial being that is consecrated as holy being
You only have democracy to the extent that you have freedom of speech; for free speech is the daily and ordinary political work of democratic governance.
unity, truth, goodness, and beauty in civil theology
possible range for p: set of possible worlds such that p: r[p]
p & q are compossible : r[p]Or[q]
subpossible: r[p]PPr[q]
noncompossible: r[p]Dr[q]
Courts developed 'doctrinal tests' as ways to defend against charges of eisegesis (Lochnerizing).
Phil 2:7 // Is 53:11-12
Phil 2:9-10 // Is 45:22-24
the brain as a model of the mind
Every human mind implicitly posits God as its agent future.
chreia as stories in especially shareable form
Lives in general are more defined by the goods toward which they tended than by any flaws; although some lives mostly work toward highly defective goods or highly twisted versions of goods. But the life of someone terribly flawed who works for very great good is itself a very great good.
mood memes vs structure memes
logic exemplified through time in a physical medium
the precedential character of conscientious reasoning
Hobbes's df. of body in Elements would make holes bodies.
pure gambles vs informed gambles
moral, jural, and sacral aspects of ren (ren as human + relation; ren as sacrifice)
pure points vs points under relations of directionality
"The propositional variable signifies the formal concept, and its values signify the objects that fall under the concept." Wittgenstein
mathematical cycles or phases (Ross Street)
naive -> axiomatic -> algebraic -> nonstandard -> local -> relations among loci
Society remembers those who have gone before and anticipates those who come after; it is open in both directions, and has a hospitality in both directions.
Deterioration of an institution creates the conditions for partisan capture.
Against the introduction of Christianity, the World evolves defenses over time, whether camouflage or toxin or a new form of predation.
HOT theories of consciousness always boil down to saying that consciousness is when we are conscious of things, and they don't even really give us a useful breakdown of the parts of that.
qualified ownership of wild animals
(1) per industriam (e.g., by capturing or taming so that they keep returning)
(2) ratione impotentiae et loci (e.g., by owning the land on which they live and which they cannot leave due to youth or injury)
(3) ratione soli (e.g., by right to hunt arising from land)
(4) ratione privilegii (e.g. by right to hunt arising from license)
permission-structure propaganda
Our conception of harm is only as sure as our conception of good and bad.
just-so stories are narrative devices for highlighting elements and aspects of structure
Sabine Hossenfelder on levels of nothing
Take a box, "nothing in it" means:
(1) filled with air
(2) contains vacuum (17th c.)
(3) no particles at all
(4) no radiation or fields at all (21st. c. vacuum)
(5) not even virtual particles
(6) not even space and time
-- theory of inflation goes down to level (4)
"There are several senses in which a thing is said to be first; but substance is first in every respect: in definition, in knowing, and in time. For none of the other categories can exist separately, but only substance." Aristotle
"But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes." Thomas Hardy
memory as the universe of the mind, or
memory : time :: imagination : space
Detached from relationship with God, all substance of our ideals drains away, leaving only husks.
Human nature is itself deontic.
The notion of nondeontic reason is a chimera. Reason deontifies.
'approximately' as a modality (a kind of Diamond)
'such that' as indicating an explanandum
Confidence comes in degrees because it is affected by all of our beliefs, not because beliefs come in degrees.
Teaching is an inherently hierarchical act, but learning is not, although it can be.
'Best practices' exist to make actions visible to bureaucracies.
remakes & curatorial authority
doxastic voluntarism in regions of provisionality (as contrasted with set doxastic regimes)
In knowing, we posit a greater knowable than what we know.
Mathematics as the discovery of the infinity of the intellect in understanding material things
the interstitial civilization of Christendom
Each Note of the Church has moral, jural, and sacral aspects.
each sacrament as expressing an aspect of divine wisdom
All love of wisdom is a disposition to God, whether known or unknown.
"'Father' designates neither the substance nor the activity, but the relationship, the manner of being, which holds between the Father and the Son." Nazianzen
"The inherent holiness and royal dignity extend from the Father through the Only-Begotten to the Spirit." Basil
By experiment, we study things insofar as they are relative to various actions.
God as the precondition for general modal structures
sortiarius -> sorcier -> sorcerie
All politics eventually crumbles into hypocrisy.
free will as getting its value from love
charity as transfiguring both human sympathy and self-respect
Human powers of consistent actions must be grown and built.
Akallabeth is a story about the progress of heresy.
Liberty is always structured by allegiance, and it is always one's allegiances that lead one to fight for liberty. A people without allegiances is not motivated to be free.
extrinsic formal causes as scaffolding for action
St. Therese depicts the little flowers as intrinsically ecclesial. They are done by us as members of the Bride of Christ; they have their value because the Church Triumphant lifts them as prayers to God in such a way that the graces given are distributed to the Church Patient and the Church Militant.
Most methods of progressive protest are methods for bullying bureaucracies. Protest becomes significant in a bureaucratic society, because it takes advantage of failure points in bureaucracies.
Fit to obligation admits of gradation.
moral endowments as signs of natural law
moral endowments as material contributors to natural law
questions as intellectual dissection tools
the expression "very much not X" and combination of remotion and eminence
Pride is not the opposite of shame.
The value of a thing is measured by its capability for being loved.
"El malvado sucumbira sin remedio; el justo, en cambio, vivira por su fe." Heb 2:4
2 Tim 1:6-8 -- stir to flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands
-- the relation between character and devotion
Lk 17:5-10 -- faith even like a mustard seed goes beyond what is commanded.
little arguments constructed with great love
God in His truth and love is more dangerous than anything in the universe; by being baptized and adopted by Him, Christians become among the most most dangerous things in the universe. So very often we are like tigers cowering before mice.
The hidden part of Christ's life shows us that great ministry and great devotion may also require a great patience that will not look impressive to one who only looks for public action. The public and the devout are mostly not the same.
Is 34:4 -- the falling of stars as a metaphor for the destruction of armies and nations
"One must be capable of thinking idealistically with the idealist and materialistically with the materialist. For only thus will the faculty of the soul be awakened that can become active in spiritual intuition." Rudolf Steiner
"Whoever wants to view the history of human thought development from a fruitful point of view must be able to admire the greatness of an idea in one age, and yet be capable of producing the same enthusiasm in watching this idea as it reveals its shortcoming in a later period. He must be able to accept the thought that the mode of thinking to which he himself adheres will be replaced in teh future by an entirely different one."
We begin in physical union with our mothers, and end in physical union with the earth.
Caravan trade is inevitably luxury trade, due to expense and difficulty. Consistent caravan trade depends on building family connections over the trade route, for reasons of credit and market.
respect for being in general, respect for being in kind, respect for individual in its being
Act only on maxims that include preferentially opting for truth, goodness, and beauty.
the Church as collective unity, the Church as similitudinary unity, the Church as instrumental unity, the Church as expressive unity
A poet takes ordinary words and gives them a new glow.
conditional necessity // conditional obligation // conditional always // conditional everywhere
moral : prophet :: jural : king :: sacral : priest
evidence as that which contributes to making truth manifest to the mind
In checks and balances, courts are means-restricting instruments.
People watch romantic comedies to see the tropes of mundane life subverted into romantic comedy tropes, not to see the latter subverted into something else, which is a common moviemaker's mistake.
The temptation is to think that in democratic politics you have to be right; but in democratic politics, you have to win people over -- which may not even require convincing them that you are right, much less actually being right.
beings of reason known by reflection, beings of reason known by construction, beings of reason known by perception-as
Ingroup and outgroup are inherent to the structure of groups, which partition by their nature.
Continual use of political mechanisms is like running an engine too hot.
All democracies function in accordance with the preferences of a minority that is active and vocal, but get their ability to function from a much larger population, who may or may not have the same preferences.
"Democratic freedoms may be based on the equality of all citizens before the law; yet they acquire their meaning and function organically only where the citizens belong to and are represented by groups or form a social and political hierarchy." Arendt
Physical desires are not precise in aim or object, but always fairly generic. They are specified by preferences that are not themselves physical desires.
"Everything that appears in the world is twofold, containing manifest wisdom and invisible wisdom." Nahmanides
"The mystery of the Sanctuary is that the glory which rested on Mount Sinai abides on it unseen."
"The Rabbis hinted that all the commandments are included in the Sabbath and the Sanctuary."
Language itself is implicitly philosophical.
God as the ultimate precondition of resemblance (this is a via participationis)
God as the ultimate precondition of spacetime (this is related to Tertia Via)
On Akiba's modal account of vagueness, a vague object is a transworld object mapping to an unordered pair consisting of an object in one world and an object in another world.
-- If we go with this, we can have time-vague, space-vague, possibility-vague, permissibility-vague, etc.
-- vague : definite :: Diamond : Box
counterfactual // counterlocational // counterinstantial
modality as a way one existent is related to or not separate from another
divine lots // Urim and Thummim // coincidence of liturgical readings and contemporary events in life and society
"Diversitas rerum est ex movente et materia." Aquinas
the form as what is in commmon between the singular and the universal
complete being-at-work-staying-itself
"Rationality is being governed by final causes." Peirce (CP 2.66)
"Efficient causation is that kind of causation whereby the parts compose the whole; final causation is that kind of causation whereby the whole calls out its part." (CP 1.220)
"Triadic Logic is that logic which, though not rejecting entirely the Principle of Excluded Middle, nevertheless recognizes that every proposition, S is P, is either true, or false, or else S has a lower mode of being such that it can neither be determinately P nor determinately not-P, but is at the limit between P and not P." (R 339:624 [23 Feb 1907]) -- Peirce explicitly develops this in terms if incipit and desinit
Commitments of people presuppose norms; they cannot wholly ground them.
If Mackie's argument from queerness were viable, it would equally be an argument against the existence of human beings.
For each person, every other person is a potential part of the epistemic means available to that person.
Some individual rights seem to presuppose group rights.
We form corporate persons to better understand our nature as individual person.
"... the more propaganda there is, the more partitioning there is." Jacques Ellul
the sweeping as a cinemetic aesthetic concept
Marian apparitions and the prophetic munus of the Virgin
The religious priesthood combines two kinds of order, a lesser religious consecration that is a minor sacrament and a consecration that is a major sacrament. It seems however that the latter would redound on the former, forming and transfiguring it.
marriage, baptism, and unction as particularly pastoral responsibilities
The sacrament of orders gives grace for preaching and ruling insofar as these are means for sanctification.
The sacraments or semi-sacraments under natural law become minor sacraments of grace in the context of the Church.
