The human person was born to walk in a garden of symbols, and taste of all those that do not confuse good and evil.
The trees in the Garden of Eden represent all the greatest potentialities of the human spirit.
An imperium is not a territory but a jurisdiction.
A regularity theory of laws of nature is in effect a final cause theory, since final causes are what explain regularities; the only question is whether it is final causes in the things or in the mind.
'Science' can only do what scientists do.
People often speak of 'intelligence' when they mean 'imaginative facility'.
Two thoughts may be occasionatively tangled (come from same occasion) or objectively tangled (have same, overlapping, or linked objects).
von Wright on quantifiers as 'existential modalities'
Every positive law presupposes a prior legal right to make law.
Law is the only source of the state.
There is always a gap between something becoming a law and its being enforced; indeed, there is often a gap between its becoming a law and the way of enforcing it being worked out. (Anyone who knows how laws get implemented through civil service can find examples of this.)
The primary purpose of the state is coordination, not coercion.
Nothing prevents the existence of a state that does not have coercive power, but (e.g.) simply organizes things for the people themselves to enforce. (Medieval Iceland was fairly close to this.)
Deterrence is always achieved by signs under an interpretation.
The world in its opposition to the Church is like a vast and well equipped army, but it is also always overextended.
Husserl's noema // Peirce's interpretant
Thomasson on dependencies
A.1. x constantly depends on y iff when x exists, y exists.
A.2. x historically depends on y iff x needs y to come to be, but may continue to exist without y.
B.1. x rigidly depends on y iff y is a determinate and irreplaceable individual.
B.2. x generically depends on y iff y is a token of a type and can be substituted by another toke of that type
-- fictional entities depend rigidly & historically on the creative activity of the author, generically and constantly on the work of fiction itself, perhaps generically & constantly on potential readers.
Szanto on collective imagination
(1) identity: same intentional object
(2) mutual awareness: awareness of others participating in the same kind of activity
(3) normativity: joint commitment in imagining
-- i.e., an act of collective imagining involves taking the same object in the same kind of awareness within a single framework
A discipline is a traditioning of an object.
A tradition is a reserve of possibilities.
The self-evidence of mathematical truths is only uncovered within the context of mathematics as a tradition.
Intentionality is a form of dispositionality.
Individual intentionality has a social mode as well as prive and public individual modes.
As money needs to be used in negotiations, every kind of money is partly structured by a language associated with it.
When one has been hurt, forgiveness is an ongoing process, at least for a while.
purgative improvement vs. compensatory improvement
If A is a sign of B and B is a sign of C, A may be a sign of C or not, i.e., the series may be transitive or not.
We do not start with an understanding of the physical world and build from it an understanding of the moral world; we start with an understanding of the moral world and build within it an understanding of the physical world.
Legal positivism becomes more and more adequate to legal facts the more it approximates legal naturalism.
A philosophy of law must first and foremost be a philosophy of law for legislators and for citizens/subjects; lawyers and judges need to get in line behind them, and not take over the field, becayse they minister to legislators and citizens/subjects.
Legal powers are conferred not directly by law but by reason in light of law.
Social reality is a moral and rational reality before it is a legal reality.
The rational reconstruction of the legal system requires taking a higher rational standpoint than positive law.
Things are recognized as means and ends in terms of the first principle of practical reason.
(1) The existence of positive law always depends on what is merited or not in light of the originating reasoning from which the law comes.
(2) The existence of laws in every legal system depends on at least very general moral values recognizable by all human beings as in some way good.
(3) Any system of rules depends in application on prudence, and law even more than most.
In order to function as institutions, institutions must have obligations, norms, and rights within a larger normative scheme.
Legal systems, as legal systems, depend on the natural law precepts associated with peaceable living.
Legal systems are so diverse that no particular legal process or proceeding seems to be universal, and nothing seems to unite them except their general role in practical reasoning in social matters.
Law is a rational ordering; rules are merely particular articulations of law.
Reason is the most fundamental legal system; legal systems are only legal systems in a way derivative from natural law.
Fuller's inner morality of law: Laws must be general, open (promulgated), prospective, clear, consistent, stable, obeyable, and upheld. [John Gardner's summary slightly modified.]
In matters of salvation, Scripture is perspicuous for those to whom the Holy Spirit gives light, and dark to those who reject Him; but this perspecuity and this obscurity are not phenomenal qualities, and many have been gravely misled by the idea that the meaning of Scripture is what *feels* perspicuous.
Civil war arises through the undermining of shared institutions.
the infrastructure of liberty
(1) means of movement
(2) means of communication
(3) means of self-defense
(4) means of influence
Medical treatment must be
(1) appropriate to the patient
(2) appropriate to the illness
(3) with a view to possible consequences
(4) clear, particularly with regard to risks and dangers
(5) consensual
(6) stable (non-erratic)
(7) implementable
(8) implemented with appropriate means
(9) informed
(10) authorized by role of those doing treatment (appropriate to doctor etc.)
One difficulty that sacramental thoelogy always faced is that one rite may serve at any given time multiple functions.
the Mandatum as a symbol of confession
social justice as rendering what is due to others by their human nature and vocation
There is no actual legal system in existence in which people do not often appeal directly to moral principles in interpreting, applying, creating, or criticizing laws; people will often assume that laws tend to reflect their own moral principles, in general terms at least, or use their consciences as a guide to determining how it is to be taken.
Our obedience to law is always a matter of degree, and the degree is affected by custom, inclination, and moral principle.
Hart's rule of recognition is a philosophical fiction serving as a proxy for what is in fact merely custom.
(1) Many moral obligations pertain to matters minor in themselves.
(2) Many moral norms are susceptible to abrupt and deliberate change (cf. promises).
(3) Moral principles sometimes settle responsibilities on people without regard for fault.
(4) The primary social pressure exerted by law is exhortation; sanction is for when this fails. The same is often true of moral obligations.
Law-abiding citizens obey the law from custom, from conscience, and from enlightened self-interest.
purposiveness in nature as a requirement of systematic classification (this is a way of reading Kant)
principle of homogeniety: there are genera
principle of specification: there are specific differences
principle of continuity of forms: transitions are not per saltum (how species are related in classification)
"...man is destined by his reason to live in a society with men and to cultivate himself, to civilize himself, and to make himself moral, by the arts and sciences." Kant
Theorizing serves practice, practice contemplation.
