Two Poem Drafts

The second poem is an experiment. I took a very early draft (2012)of a  previous poem I'd written, "Despair", then inverted it -- literally turned it upside-down, with the last line now the first line, etc. -- and lightly revised it until it started to made some sort of sense, then reorganized it to make more sense, then revised it again. It can also be compared to the most recent draft  (2013) of "Despair", which I didn't look at until I had finished "Dread" (it is currently still the stronger poem). It's interesting to see the elements that have endured in both forks of the drafting.

 Podunk Hollow Spaceport

Many rivers and streams run through here,
the West, the Taughannock, the Quahoag, the Milky Way,
and out on Vinton's Pond the starfish gleam
near where the High Rocks rise to sky sublime.
Out near Holley they speak Italian and Rigellian.
The rockets began sometime ago,
linking planet to planet and star to star.
The whizbangs and gizmos are for sale at the corner store.
But still the quiet reigns, the unanxious calm,
and little things done well, the boring way.
The galaxy is vast beyond imagination,
the future is greater than the realm of dreams,
even here, and perhaps especially here;
but in every future on every star
the simple places are simple still.

Dread 

I crossed a glassy sea of illusions;
 my mind's boat now drifts
on shadowed seashore.
 Darkness swirls in the enveloping mist,
 in the clouds, crying out for judgment day.
 From the darkest shadows of dreams,
 a web of lightless thread,
dark and ungleaming, holds all.
But I followed a thread astray
 and now see the terror of divine judgment.
 Beneath the earth, like a mighty image,
 in iron chains water-rusting
 until they crack, twist, break,
 is the darkest god on a rocky isle.
 Gloomy, in iron chains, for long ages he sat,
 and from him came darkness,
 and the darkness blinded the light.
 The shadow of darkness sits in chains,
 a mountain peak rising up from a mighty cliff.
 In the deep silence, stars are hidden.
 Water falls through cavern stones,
dripping and dripping on holy chains,
turning god-iron into red rust;
dark shadow waits enmeshed
in rotting chains until the chains are no more,
until the shell of the earth is broken,
until the darkness of the earth knows
 the fire and light of the sun
and hungers for it.
The darkest darkness is star-exclusive night,
 and from it I trembled and fled;
 but I knew the future
 and saw the end too clearly.
 Once long ago that gigantic figure,
a lifeless light, beyond the reach of the stars,
 surrounded by chains,
 was dragged before the ancient court, and knelt.
 His crown was broken, the war over.
 He was the darkest god, the darkness-bringer,
 the fear of the night,
 but even divine wars subside,
 even gods suffer heavy defeat.
 What mortal thought can imagine
the fierce convulsions of warring gods?
 The wind tore rock from its roots,
 monsters fought in the endless depths.
 Mountains splashed like stones in the sea,
 the sea devoured longstanding lands.
Yea, it is said that a war between the gods
 shook the world in ancient times.
Yea, it is said that it will begin again.
The darkness one day will reappear
 and final judgment come.

Fortnightly Book, May 4

 Maurice LeBlanc's third Arsene Lupin book, L'Aguille creuse, in English The Hollow Needle, was serialized in the magazine Je sais tout in 1908 and 1909, and was brought out in somewhat revised book form shortly after its serialization finished. I know very little about this book; I don't think it's one of the ones I've listened to in audiobook. Nor is it easy to find much definite about it online. What I do know is that in it, Lupin is on the trail of the legendary lost treasure of the Kings of France. His major opponent, Isidore Beautrelet, also is widely considered to be one of the best 'schoolboy detectives' in the genre (he's in high school, and it seems generally agreed that he is both more likable and more plausible than most boy-genius detective characters).

Prin Abraam Genesthai

 The Judeans answered and said to him, Do we not say well, that you are a Samaritan and have a demon!

Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. I do not seek praise for me; there exists the Inquirer and Judge. Amen, amen, I say to you, if someone keeps my word, he shall absolutely not see death, unto the perpetuity. 

Therefore the Judeans said to him, Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets, and you say, if someone keeps my word, he shall absolutely not taste death, unto the perpetuity. Are not you greater than our father Abraham, who died! And the prophets died! Whom do you make yourself!

Jesus answered, If I praised myself, my praise is nothing; it is my Father praising me, of whom you say, He is our God. But you have not known him, whereas I know him. And were I to say I have not known him, I would be like you, a liar. But I know him and I keep his word. Abraham your father exulted that he should see my day, and he saw and he rejoiced. 

Therefore the Judeans said to him, You are not yet fifty years, and you have seen Abraham!

Jesus said to them, Amen, amen, I say to you, Before Abraham came to be, I am.

Therefore they picked up stones that they might throw them at him. But Jesus was concealed and went out of the temple, leaving through the middle of them, and thus departed.

[John 8:48-59, my rough translation. 'Judeans' could also be translated as 'Jews', but in John is used exclusively for people associated with the Temple worship in Judea, who are contrasted with Samaritans (as here) and Hellenistic Jews, and sometimes (but not always) Galileans. The particular Judeans here are not initially hostile; they are explicitly said (verse 31) to be Judeans who had been believing in Jesus. 'Demon' is daimonion; in ancient Greek, it literally means a semi-divine intermediary between gods and men, good or bad, but in a Jewish context gets the negative association. 'Perpetuity' is the literal meaning of aion, which likely refers here to the Messianic age. I think the Judean comments should be understood throughout as being in a sarcastic or derisive tone, and indeed in an increasingly sarcastic or derisive tone, which is why I've given them exclamation points rather than question marks. 

'Praise' is usually translated 'glory'; it is doxa and its cognates, and that has to do with fame, report, celebrity, honor, public recognition. While I think we tend to think of 'glory' with a primarily visual tone (shining) and secondarily an auditory tone (praising), doxa (like Latin gloria) is usually the reverse -- it means primarily praising (as it does here, linking to the notion of testifying or givine witness in verse 14), although the association with shining does also exist (and in fact here also has this association, carried over from verse 12). Both associations, of course, have to do with making excellence known. (This is also linked to its less common association with weight or felt heaviness, in something like how we might say that we are giving weight to something.)

Verse 58 is widely read as a reference to the I Am of Exodus 3:14; we don't have any Greek translation of Exodus that translates it just by ego eimi (the LXX has ego eimi ho on, I am Being, which is then shortened to ho on), but it's very difficult not to read it as such a reference here because: (1) The switch of tenses (Before X became, I am) is odd, indicating that special emphasis is put on the 'I am', and that this is not an inadvertence, nor just a 'present of past action', is seen by the fact that Jesus keeps using the aorist with both Abraham and the Jews (and the counterfactual case in which he would be wrong), but the present with himself -- e.g., the Judeans did not know God, but Jesus knows God, where the distinction in tenses is clearly not incidental or purely grammatical, and is clearly intended to indicate that Jesus in the present is superior to what the Judeans ever were. (2) The immediate and extreme reaction of the Judeans to it, in which they try to execute him on the spot for blasphemy, while in itself it could possibly be just a reaction to Jesus claiming superiority to Abraham, is more consistent with their taking him to be associating himself with the divine Name. (3) John 8:17 already explicitly referred to the passage in Deuteronomy discussing the punishment (stoning) for those who propose or worship strange gods, so the passage itself sets this association up. (4) The Church Fathers who discuss the verse (e.g., Chrysostom) seem consistently to have read this verse as a statement of divinity, and indeed, the notion that it is not is historically rare, which at the very least is evidence that any other reading is not an obvious one.

'Leaving through the middle of them, and thus departed' is missing in most manuscripts, and is often regarded as an insertion (from Luke 4:30) rather than original to the text; 'and went out of the temple' is also  missing from some manuscripts, but is much more common and usually thought to be original.]

Orkneyinga Saga

 Introduction

Opening Passage:

There was a king called Fornjot who ruled over Finland and Kvenland, the countries stretching to the east of what we call the Gulf of Bothnia, which lies opposite the White Sea. Fornjot had three sons, Hler (whom we also call Aegir), a second called Logi and a third, Kari, the father of Frosti, who was in turn the father of Snaer the Old, the father of Thorri. He had two sons, Nor and Gor, and a daughter called Goi. (p. 23)

Summary: The Orkneyinga Saga is a text about divisions. We begin with a legendary history of Scandinavia; nobody knows for sure what 'Fornjotr' means, but the myths are consistent that he is the father of the elements: sea (Hler), fire (Logi), and storm (Kari). Storm begets frost or cold (Frosti), which begets snow (Snaer); Thorri is a god about whom we know very little who is associated with the winter and had a winter month and festival named after him. Ultimately we get to the children of Thorri; Thorri's daughter Goi goes missing, and Nor and Gor vow to find her. Nor skis across the land, laying claim to wherever he travels; Gor sails across the sea, doing the same. They do eventually find Goi, but a division has been laid between the house of Nor, which rules Norway, and the house of Gor, which rules the northern islands. From there we focus in on the Orkneys and the Shetlands (with Caithness, the northern tip of Scotland nearest to the Orkneys, occasionally relevant), as they live a somewhat precarious existence trying to maintain their independence while being an easy sailing distance from the much more powerful kingdom of Norway. 

When the islands are unified, things are good, but the situation is not stable, and no matter how much any Earl of Orkney unifies them, divisions keep arising. Part of this is the meddling of Norway; Scotland too occasionally interferes, although not as often. More often it is just family feuding over inheritance and property. The Earls of Orkney in the period primarily covered by the saga (from about the late ninth century to the beginning of the thirteenth century) are all from the house of Eystein (whose younger son Sigurd the Powerful becomes the first Earl of the house). About twenty-eight descendants of Eystein were Earls of Orkney in that period, a number of them concurrently. Given the geography of the islands, the division when there are two Earls of Orkney tends to be roughly one Earl controlling about two-thirds of the territory and another controlling the rest, but it easily flips. And of course, while Christianity comes to the islands during the course of the saga, it comes in waves rather than a clear, clean conversion, and in any case it's still early medieval Scandinavia -- if the Earls aren't successful getting each other's land by legal and political machinations, they are not opposed to getting it by force.

The Orkneyinga Saga has a less unified story than one often finds in Icelandic sagas. We get a full smorgasbord of things; legends, genealogies, hagiographies, battles complete with heroic verse, a pilgramge to the Holy Land, property disputes, truly byzantine political maneuvering. However, the saga is not completely disunified, either; it gets a sort of unity having two major peaks. The first peak is the martyrdom of St. Magnus Erlendsson, which is fairly brief in itself but plays an outsized role in the story, and the second is the much longer life of St. Rognvald Kali. The two are connected in part by being local saints from the same family (Rognvald is Magnus's nephew), although their stories are about as different as can be. St. Magnus, the Holy Earl, is exactly the sort of person you would expect to be a saint; he tries to keep the peace somewhat naively by making concessions, which works for a little while, but only for a little while, and in his dispute with Earl Hakon he goes bravely to his death praying for divine mercy to be given to the man whom Hakon forces to behead him. St. Rognvald, on the other hand, is a wily political operator engaged in large-scale political maneuvers against several other wily political operators; he very obviously has a zest for a good fight, for battle-poetry, for flirting with beautiful women, and for crushing his enemies with all the force they deserve. It's not surprising that St. Magnus eventually graduated from the local calendar to the universal calendar while St. Rognvald's right to a place on any calendar of saints has occasionally been questioned; but as far as the saga itself is concerned, they are both obviously saints, confirmed both by divine miracles and papal permissions, and of course, if anyone would know who is a saint, it's God and the Pope. 

St. Rognvald's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is itself part of his holy life, although it is as full of fighting as you would expect a Scandinavian pilgrimage to the Holy Land to be, and indeed, has much more fighting and much less Holy Land you would expect. The goal just seems to have been to get there and then come back, which might seem odd to us, who tend to think of pilgrimage as a sort of religious tourism. That is not at all how Scandinavian Christians (and indeed many early medieval Christians elsewhere) saw it; it was primarily a penitential practice. The hardship on the road was penance, and was the point; the destination was primarily of symbolic force. We might not think of heading out with the boys to lay siege to castles and fight Saracen pirates on the seas as holy penance, but if it was done on the way to Rome or Jerusalem, my Scandinavian ancestors in the Viking Age certainly thought it could be. The pilgrimage is the stuff of legend -- it occupies five detailed chapters of the saga -- but it was probably a political mistake; it allowed his major enemy, Svein Asleifarson, time to make trouble why he is away, and although he is able to start getting a handle on the trouble when he returns, he keeps finding himself in vulnerable positions until his luck and cleverness run out and he is murdered. Then again, he might have had similar problems had he stayed. Less popular than some of his rivals, he had leaned heavily into the cult of St. Magnus, and he was buried in the church of St. Magnus that he himself had built. One of his first miracles was that the rock on which he had been murdered remained wet and bloody.

The saga has everything, so it is not surprising that it has all the things that are most charming about sagas -- dry wit, direct action, one-liners, and, of course, the Scandinavian habit of distinguishing people by nicknames. I confess, at one point I wondered whether the author was doing a bit of leg-pulling, when I read about Einar Buttered-Bread -- we are never informed about why he is called Einar Buttered Bread -- is murdered by his cousin, Einar Hard-Mouth. (Neither should be confused with Einar Belly-Shaker, Einar Wry-Mouth, or Einar Vorse-Raven.) Is it really true that Buttered-Bread was murdered by Hard-Mouth? Actually, it seems that it was not quite the case; Einar Buttered-Bread's nickname was actually Kliningr, which is usually thought to be related to the word for 'smear'. So Einar the Smearing, I suppose? He seems to pre-date any actual known practice of buttering bread -- which is invented later than one might think -- although it may very well still refer to smearing something else on bread. In any case, it perhaps fits; a member of a family who often get nicknames like Skull-Splitter, Einar Buttered-Bread was inevitably doomed to be toast.

This is a fun saga, although it's not one of the easier ones to get through. It's fragmentary construction and everything-and-the-kitchen-sink content can be a bit overwhelming. Nonetheless, I can also guarantee for the same reason that anyone can certainly find parts that they would enjoy.

Favorite Passage:

On the tenth day of Christmas, a day of fine weather, Earl Rognvald stood up and told his men to arm themselves and to blow the trumpets summoning everyone to the castle. The firewood was taken right up to the ramparts and piled all around. Then the Earl gave orders where each of his chief men was to attack; he himself and the men of Orkney from the south, Erling and Aslak from the west, John and Guthorm from the east and Eindridi the Young from the north. When they were all prepared for the assault, they set fire to the wood-piles, and the Earl made this verse: 

Most admired of maidens,
gold-decked at our meeting,
Ermingerd the exquisite
once offered me her wine -- 
now fiercely we bear fire
up to the fortress,
assault the stronghold
with unsheathed sword-thrust.

They attacked ferociously with iron and fire, hurling a shower of missiles into the fortress, this being the only way they could assault it. The defenders held the ramparts none too decisively, poured down burning sulphur and pitch, though this did little harm to the Earl's men. Eventually, as Erling had foreseen, the ramparts started crumbling before the fire, leaving huge gaps where the mortar failed to hold. (pp. 169-170)

Recommendation: Recommended. 

****

Orkneyinga Saga: The History of the Earls of Orkney, Palsson & Edwards, trs. and eds., Penguin (New York: 1981).

The Beacon of Alexandria

 Today is the feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. From his work, On the Incarnation 16:

For men's mind having finally fallen to things of sense, the Word disguised Himself by appearing in a body, that He might, as Man, transfer men to Himself, and centre their senses on Himself, and, men seeing Him thenceforth as Man, persuade them by the works He did that He is not Man only, but also God, and the Word and Wisdom of the true God. This, too, is what Paul means to point out when he says: That ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God. For by the Word revealing Himself everywhere, both above and beneath, and in the depth and in the breadth — above, in the creation; beneath, in becoming man; in the depth, in Hades; and in the breadth, in the world — all things have been filled with the knowledge of God. Now for this cause, also, He did not immediately upon His coming accomplish His sacrifice on behalf of all, by offering His body to death and raising it again, for by this means He would have made Himself invisible. But He made Himself visible enough by what He did, abiding in it, and doing such works, and showing such signs, as made Him known no longer as Man, but as God the Word. For by His becoming Man, the Saviour was to accomplish both works of love; first, in putting away death from us and renewing us again; secondly, being unseen and invisible, in manifesting and making Himself known by His works to be the Word of the Father, and the Ruler and King of the universe.

Links of Note

 * Mateusz Kotowski & Krzysztof Szlachcic, Deconstructing the Phantom: Duhem and the Scientific Realism Debate (PDF)

* Jane Psmith reviews Peter Lawrence's Road Belong Cargo, at "Mr. and Mrs. Psmith's Bookshelf". Highly Recommended.

* Erich Przywara, Philosophy as a Problem, at "Church Life Journal"

* Carla Bagnoli, Kant and Sidgwick on Practical Knowledge and Rational Action (PDF)

* SDG, What is a miracle? It depends partly on interpretation, at "SDG's Dailies and Sundays"

* David Hume and Suzanne Collins's Sunrise on the Reaping 

* W. Matthews Grant & Mark K. Spencer, Activity, Identity, and God (PDF). This paper makes the common mistake made on this topic, of conflating identitas with identity (the former is a much less restrictive term), and (a perhaps related mistake) in at least one passage seems to make odd assumptions about rationally distinct acts (e.g., that they are not actually distinct). I think this mistake also leads to exaggerating some of the differences among the Thomistic commentators. But with that caveat, it's a nice collection of arguments on various aspects of what it means to say that distinct acts are not diverse things in God.

* Ken MacVey, Corporations, Free Will, Responsibility, and AI: How Do They Fit Together?, at "3 Quarks Daily"

* Leonardo Flamini, Inquiry and conversation: Gricean zetetic norms and virtues (PDF)

* Chad Hansen, Daoism, at the SEP

* Klaas Kraay, Divine Freedom, also at the SEP

* Bartosz Biskup, Two Senses of Law as an Artefact (PDF)

* Bradley J. Birzer, Canticle for Leibowitz

* Laurenz Ramsauer, The Efficacy Problem (PDF), on the nature of legal systems

*John Michael Greer, The death of Progress, at "Unherd"

* Lisa Cassell, The Positive Argument for Impermissivism (PDF)

* Armand D'Angour, The truth about love, on Diotima and Socrates, at "Aeon"

* Nathan Pinkoski, Pope Francis's Managerial Revolution, at "Compact"

In Love's Empty Chair

 A Song
by Lizette Woodworth Reese 

O Love, he went a-straying,
 A long time ago!
 I missed him in the Maying,
 When blossoms were of snow;
 So back I came by the old sweet way;
 And for I loved him so,
 I wept that he came not with me,
 A long time ago! 

 Wide open stood my chamber door,
 And one stepped forth to greet;
 Gray Grief, strange Grief, who turned me sore
 With words he spake so sweet.
 I gave him meat; I gave him drink;
 (And listened for Love's feet).
 How many years? I cannot think;
 In truth, I do not know--
A long time ago! 

 O Love, he came not back again,
 Although I kept me fair;
 And each white May, in field and lane,
 I waited for him there!
 Yea, he forgot; but Grief stayed on,
 And in Love's empty chair
 Doth sit and tell of days long gone--
'Tis more than I can bear!

Lizette Woodworth Reese, the Poet Laureate of Maryland in 1931, spent most of her career as a high school English teacher in Baltimore; she has quite an extensive oeuvre, prose as well as poetry, most of which did quite well, both in popularity and in critical acclaim, in her day. Her most famous poem is "Tears".

Devereaux on Spiritual Power in Tolkien

 Bret Devereaux, at "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry", recently had a very good series on Rings of Power, that touches on issues that go well beyond that series, with problems in how one's handling of medieval settings in fantasy fiction can go wrong:

The Siege of Eregion, Part I: What Logistics?

The Siege of Eregion, Part II: What Siege Camp?

The Siege of Eregion, Part III: What Catapults?

The Siege of Eregion, Part IV: What Siege Equipment?

The Siege of Eregion, Part V: What Tactics?

He's also had two other post that are not strictly part of the same series, but do have some broader thematic links:

Why Celebrimbor Fell but Boromir Conquered: The Moral Universe of Tolkien

How Gandal Proved Mightiest: Spiritual Power in Tolkien

The latter is especially good, and is the one to read if you only read one. One thing I will add is that the Wizards' staffs seem to function as insignia of (spiritual) authority, and thus (like their words) as part of how they exercise authority (which for them can have effects on the world) -- this seems quite clearly indicated by Gandalf's breaking of Saruman's staff, in which, having been promoted by higher powers, he is effectively removing Saruman from office, both substantively and symbolically. (It's an interesting comparison and contrast with the Ring. The staffs seem to be just effective symbols of an authority received by mission from a higher power; this is essential to the function of Wizards, who are in fact massively more powerful than they appear but who are only authorized to use that power for purposes related to their mission. With the Ring, however, Sauron has alienated much of his own power into an artifact in order to use his own power more effectively -- he is a case study in the evil of using yourself as a mere means. The Ring is not a sign of his authority, because he has no mission, but just is partly Sauron himself. And the closest we get in The Lord of the Rings to seeing Sauron himself directly exercise power is when Frodo, seeming to be a figure in white with a wheel of fire on his chest, faces Gollum and out of the fire a commanding voice tells Gollum to go, and if he ever lays hands on him again, he shall be cast into the Fire of Doom. And it is so. Frodo is not Sauron -- but the command through the Ring has much of the authority of Sauron, limited only by the limitations of Frodo himself. Someone like Gandalf or Galadriel could do far more with it, effectively adding much of the power of Sauron to their own; and Sauron, of course, far more still.)

Sympathetic Affections

 It is true that nature has sympathetic affections gently inclining us to love and do good to our neighbour. Philosophers did not delay in firmly attaching their shaky morality to them, but the effort was soon seen to fail. Good sense saw that sympathetic affection and gentle inclinations did not contain the authority of law. Subject to illusions and eccentricities, and even to serious disorders, they also vary capriciously in different individuals,a nd sometimes lead us to offend rather than practise virtue. Affections, therefore, could not be considered the principle of the moral activity necessary for individuals, for society and for the human race. Moreover, even if we found affections on the same level and with the same nature in everyone, and free from the restrictions we have mentioned, we would still have to take account of their uncertain tenuous power....

[Antonio Rosmini, The Essence of Right, Cleary and Watson, trs., Rosmini House (Durham: 1993), pp. 119-120.]

Another Himself

 Today is the feast day of St. Caterina di Jacopo di Benincasa, Virgin and Doctor of the Church. usually known in English as St. Catherine of Siena. From the Dialogue:

The soul, who is lifted by a very great and yearning desire for the honor of God and the salvation of souls, begins by exercising herself, for a certain space of time, in the ordinary virtues, remaining in the cell of self-knowledge, in order to know better the goodness of God towards her. This she does because knowledge must precede love, and only when she has attained love, can she strive to follow and to clothe herself with the truth. But, in no way, does the creature receive such a taste of the truth, or so brilliant a light therefrom, as by means of humble and continuous prayer, founded on knowledge of herself and of God; because prayer, exercising her in the above way, unites with God the soul that follows the footprints of Christ Crucified, and thus, by desire and affection, and union of love, makes her another Himself. Christ would seem to have meant this, when He said: To him who will love Me and will observe My commandment, will I manifest Myself; and he shall be one thing with Me and I with him. In several places we find similar words, by which we can see that it is, indeed, through the effect of love, that the soul becomes another Himself.

Intellect and Alternate Possibilities

If we look at positions that accept the idea that human beings can select from alternative possibilities, we can divide a large portion of them into two families.

(1) Both the intellect and the will are free powers. On this view, the full phenomenon of what we call 'free will' involves not merely freedom of choice in the will but also a kind of freedom in the intellect (sometimes called freedom of decision). The intellect, when dealing with matters less than perfectly certain can decide to suppose, or presume, or hypothesize, or guess, or select, or some such, entirely as part of its own operation, and in a way that is distinct from any choice of the will. (This is not necessarily to say that every case in which the intellect seems involved with alternative possibilities is purely on the part of the intellect; depending on the specifics of the position, there may be cases in which the will can direct the intellect as well.) An example of a major philosopher who accepts a position like this is Thomas Aquinas. 

However, this is by far the minority view. The majority view is:

(2) The intellect is a natural power and the will a free power. While the will may freely choose from among alternatives, the intellect is entirely natural and determinate; any case in which the intellect seems to be doing something involving alternative possibilities is in reality a case in which the will is directing the intellect. The Cartesians are a major modern example of (2); this position in fact plays a significant role in Cartesian theories of error. As Descartes develops the idea in Meditation V, we only ever go wrong because the will misuses its freedom to jump to a conclusion that is not clearly and distinctly perceived. 

Malebranche gives a slightly different, and much more explicitly developed, version of the Cartesian position in The Search after Truth (Book One, Chapter Two). As Malebranche develops the idea there, for something to be genuinely evident (i.e., obvious), the intellect has to have examined the matter fully, and in particular has to have considered all relevant relations. This is pretty much the entire function of the intellect -- it perceives, either incompletely or completely, either clearly and distinctly or not. When the intellect has done so, there's nothing left for the will to do -- it can't will for the intellect to consider a new relation, because there isn't any, so it has to repose with what the intellect has done. 

On Malebranche's account, this repose is what we are talking about when we talk about judgment and inference as if they were involuntary things. The will is in fact what does them, it's just that it has reached the end of what it can do, so it rests. In matters in which the intellect has not done a complete examination, however, so that parts of the subject are unexamined or still obscure, the will can choose to have the intellect look at something new, or it can stop. This covers cases in which our judgments and inferences seem to be voluntary.

As Malebranche notes, this account means that there is no fundamental distinction between what is called intellectual assent and what is called the consent of will; intellectual assent just is volitional consent. When we are dealing with good, most people can easily recognize that consent to good is a voluntary act of will, but they struggle when it comes to consent to truth:

But we do not likewise perceive that we make use of our freedom in consenting to truth, especially when it appears altogether evident to us; and this makes us believe that consent to truth is not voluntary. As if it were necessary that our actiosn be indifferent to be voluntary, and as if the blessed did not love God quite voluntarily, without being diverted by anything whatever, just as we consent to this evident proposition, that twice two is four, without being diverted from believing it by anything indicating otherwise. (LO 9)

The real distinction between the two doesn't have to do with the act but the object; the true consists in the relations we perceive between things, whereas the good consists in the relation things have with us. The will merely consents to their being relations between things we perceive, but it consents both to the relation of a thing to us and also to our impulse to it, and it is the double consent in the case of goodness that makes it more obvious to people that the will is involved. 

Error, of course, is when we either consent to a relation that the intellect has not actually perceived or consent to a love or impulse that is imperfect. However, Malebranche's conception of this is somewhat different from Descartes's, because he takes us to have an experience of "inward reproaches" (LO 10), shocks or blows as he calles them elsewhere, of reason, and he relies on this more than on the bare case of clear and distinct perception. Thus the rules for avoiding error are, paraphrasing slightly:

1. Never give complete consent to something as true unless it is so evident that we cannot refuse our consent without experiencing internal pain and "inward reproaches" of reason. 

2. Never completely love something if we can refuse to love it without remorse of conscience.

It's important, however, in the case of the first rule that it's not the bare experience of internal pain when we try not to consent, but the experience of it on the basis of the evidentness of the thing, which is tied, again, to the intellect having thoroughly examined the matter. This way of thinking means that the thorough examination rule from Descartes's rules of method plays a much more obvious role than it sometimes does in other Cartesians, including Descartes himself. Malebranche holds that we should sometimes consent to probabilities, albeit specifically in a way that recognizes them as such, as parts, so to speak, of an inquiry not yet finished. It also means that we can in principle always tell whether we are in error or not simply by self-examination.

In any case, the work here is all done by the will, which directs everything. The intellect is a passive power, and Malebranche thinks that treating it as if it were an active one like the will is a serious mistake that creates methodological problems. There are other varieties of the second family noted above, however, that regard the intellect as active -- they would in fact distinguish assent and consent, they just think that the assent of the intellect is natural. Thus we get the division:

	The intellect itself is a free power	The intellect itself is not a free power
The intellect is an active power	(1), e.g., Thomas Aquinas: the intellect and the will each have their own distinctive free acts	(2a), e.g., John Duns Scotus: the intellect has its own distinctive acts, but all free acts are of the will
The intellect is a passive power	(completely empty, as far as I know)	(2b), e.g., Nicolas Malebranche: the intellect merely receives representations of relations, and all acts, free or not, are of the will

****

Nicolas Malebranche, The Search after Truth, Lennon & Olscamp, eds., Cambridge UP (New York: 1997).

A Poem Re-Draft

 Triptych 

 I. Fire Sermon
Of earth, which slides toward hell 

 Beneath the wisdom tree,
made free,
we see the final victory;
alas,
the world is gone
if we move on!
Without the piety of dawn,
alas,
the world is gone!
Proclaim it
and convey it
in its pure and spotless form;
all who go forth to meet it
are rescued from the storm:
All is burning,
burning,
everything is burning,
all things in fire turning
as ember in the flame.
The eye is burning,
burning,
its vision consumed the same.
With craving and aversion,
with the darkened mind's delusion,
the eye is burning,
burning,
an ashen end is earning.
The ear is burning,
burning,
the nose to flame is turning,
the tongue its fire earning,
body and mind are burning.
The noble seeker tires
of his senses
with their fires,
and casts aside all craving,
all aversion with its raving,
the mind from delusion saving,
now made free.
For beyond rebirth is victory,
the victory of sanctity,
the sanctity of sanity,
an ecstasy fulfilled and done. 

 II. Raja-Yoga
Of purgatory, which stills all desire 

 Work,
devotion,
insight grow,
an intermingled fire-glow,
into a kingly lore,
growing more and ever more
in light
that purges every sin,
purifies the hearts of men,
with inner splendor shining,
every glory intertwining.
The world of flesh is ever-changed,
battered,
moved,
by force deranged,
but it cannot enchain
the light unmoved to fear or flight,
unchanged above the fight.
Those who tread the holy course
come to rest in purest source,
which is both psalm and sacrifice,
which is both priest and priest's device,
the ever-burning fire
that quenches all desire,
the candle,
offering,
and adored,
the Prayer,
Priest,
and holy Lord,
the baptizing font of eternity
beyond and more than victory!
Who will in hope of heart convert
will to heaven's Lord revert,
no matter sin,
no matter shame,
return again to holy name.
Fix heart and thought on what endures,
the being,
thought,
and bliss most pure! 

 III. The Most Songly Song
Of heaven, which is the saint in God 

 May he kiss --
 -- your love more sweet than wine,
the bliss
beyond all fruit of vine --
 -- the incense fair,
a holy name,
all things love you,
who are one and same;
as king into the inmost place,
loving lure and loving chase --
-- all wealth is as nothing next to you --
 -- like crocus I am overflowing dew,
more pure than all,
with love lily-true.
He is an apple tree,
freshly sweet;
beneath his shade I take my seat.
Refreshed with apples,
drunk with love,
may his hand be underneath me,
he above,
like gazelle leaping on the hill,
a splendor that my eyes would fill --
 -- the flowers bloom;
in spring is heard
the singing of the gentle bird;
arise,
my love,
come away,
my love,
unveil your splendid ray:
let loose your voice,
unhide your face --
-- with him do I find my place,
thought and thought intertwine,
for I am his and he is mine.
O north-wind rise,
upon this garden blow;
O come,
my love,
as breeze-held spices flow! --
-- I come into my garden,
O bride most fair and mine,
and gather myrrh,
taste honey,
and drink my wine --
 -- a mansion of riches is my beloved,
marble and gold to his feet,
altogether lovely
and mouth most lovely sweet --
 -- my pure,
my dove,
is one and only one,
joysome as dawn;
she is fair as moon,
clear as sun;
I went down to the garden
to see the earth bloom bright
and I was made a king
by the sight --
 -- I am my beloved's,
his love is for me;
let us go down to the garden,
the blooming to see --
 -- set me as a seal upon your heart,
forever same,
for love is strong as death
and (I dare to speak the Name),
it is God-flame,
unquenched by any water's flood,
ever-resting,
ever-acting,
ever good.

Non-Papabile

In times of papal conclave, people can't help but speculate about who might be the next pope. Here's the most helpful graphic for such speculations (it's been going around online, and I don't know who first started it).

 

Dashed Off IX

This begins the notebook started in January 2024.

***** 

It is in the sacrament of marriage that we most clearly see the transfiguration of the earthly and mundane (water) into the heavenly and spiritual (wine).

levels of pedagogy
(1) nominal (classification scheme)
(2) verbal definition (how classifications are used)
(3) representational (experiential familiarity)
(4) knowledge (logical ordering)
(5) understanding

"Consciousness is a being outside being within being." Novalis (tracing out an idea in Fichte)
"Science [Wissenschaft] is the projection, grapsed in signs of the essence and qualities of A Whole."
"Almost every person is already an artist to a limited extent."
"The ground of all perversity in attitude and opinion is -- mistaking the means for the end."
"Marriage is to politics what the lever is to mechanics. The state does not consist of individual people, but of pairs and societies. The condition of marriage is the condition of the state -- wife and husband."
"The art of estranging in a pleasing way, of making an object strange and yet familiar and attractive -- that is romantic poetics."
"Where there are no gods, ghosts rule."

The citizen is not the servant of the state; the state is the servant of the citizenry as a whole.

Landmarks are used in navigation to orient forward/backward, to identify points of turn, to confirm correctness of path, and to provide warning of navigational error.

the importance of doing things the hard way for training one's skill and taste

"In every sphere, through everything that becomes present to us, we gaze toward the train of the eternal You, in each we perceive a breath of it; in every You we address the eternal You, in every sphere according to its manner." Buber

The -le at the end of many English verbs seems to be a frequentative, indicating a repetitive or continuous action. (E.g., sparkle, repeatedly or continually giving sparks.)

the importance of a man finding his comfortable oddity

Revolutions are forest fires, and they are fools who set them lightly.

Dogma expresses itself into praxis.

free will, chance, rationality (providence), and original sin (broadly construed) as the key principles underlying good historical scholarship

No amount of emphasis on method can eliminate the need for good taste in historical scholarship.

All human beings fictionalize the world to some extent -- by anthropocentrism and personification, by allegory, by pedagogical illustration, by transference from story to nature, and more.

development of doctrine // philosophia as shared love of wisdom

Newman's Notes of Development as ways of learning doctrine

NB Conyers Middleton's argument (in Introductory Discourses) that essential seeds of 'Popery' were established by the fifth century at the latest: "the institution of Monkery; the worship of reliques, invocation of saints, prayers for the Dead; the superstitious use of Images, of the Sacraments, of the Sign of the Cross; and of consecrated oil." He takes these to be confirmed in the eyes of the Fathers by primitive miracles, so that "if we admit the Miracles, we must necessarily admit the rites, for the sake of which they were wrought; they both rest on the same bottom, and mutually establish each other." Thus he rejects the one by rejecting the other. It is not surprising, I think, that magisterial Protestant divines often saw this as an attack on them, not despite but because of Middleton's insistence that this line of thought was a necessary implication of Protestantism. (Note that on at least a few things, like the Eucharist, Middleton traces the line all the way to the second century; he holds that the assertion of miracles, although dying out with the Apostles, was revived about fifty years later.)

From scoffing premises it is hardly surprising that one derives scoffing conclusions.

An ideal can only be fully grasped in a person.

"As we cannot give a general definition of energy, the principle of the conservation of energy siply signifies that there is a *something* which remains constant." Poincare

"An affirmative hypothetical is not simply convertible, and in respect of distribution, its consequent practically corresponds to the undistributed predicate of an affirmative categorical in which the terms are general. On the other hand, a negative hypothetical *is* simply convertible and its consequent corresponds to the distributed predicate of a negative categorical." J. N . Keynes

NB Keynes' use of Euler circles to illustrate distribution of predicate

Words shift about in meaning depending on the sentences in which they are found.

Copulas are not identity functions.

"Who is a hero? He who subdues his inclination." Ben-Zoma, in M. Avot 4.1

You are not called to complete the great task but to continue it.

"Science is permeated with values, ethics in the search for truth and aesthetics in the conceptual judgment of hypotheses." Eccles

Sensory impressions mostly affect us by jostling with other sensory impressions.

Critique is dialectical and tehrefore interpretable only in light of an end.

The existence of the Other extends my freedom.

History is woven of many histories.

Freedom cooperating with freedom is much more than two freedoms.

Always look skeptically at the self-assertion of the University; the politics may change but the nastiness of it does not.

Grace is the only revolution that ultimately matters.

the atmosphere of truth, goodness, and beauty

"Science is a continuous human struggle with what is as yet unintelligible, and this struggle is its very life. The petrified science of an inferior text-book is not science at all." J. S. Haldane

If consciousness is epiphenomenal, scientific inquiry is also epiphenomenal; if the universe is deterministic, scientific inquiry is also deterministic; if everything in the universe is a physical process, scientific inquiry is also a physical process.

"We discover natural law not because Nature is obviously an orderly system but because we labor and struggle to extract order from the chaos of experience. Natural law is a result obtained when man works for an end." E. W. Barnes

"Revolutions have never found it easy to give power to the people when revolution is accomplished. Liberals were not always democrats. The power of the people is not invariably exercise to make men more free." Owen Chadwick
"Religion is a commoner interest of most of the human race than is Physics or Biology. The great public was far more interested in Science-versus-Religion than in Science."

evolutionary selection by recurring development of habits of behavior (Lamarck takes this to be far too direct and singular)

Part of the problem with Veatch's attack on 'Hippocratic ethics' is seen in the discussion of confidentiality, in which he attributes to the Hippocratic ethics exactly the opposite of what the Hippocratic Oath says. The Oath makes it a matter of sacred oath not to disclse the secrets of the patient, and Veatch repeatedly claims that the "standard Hippocratic position" requires disclosures for benefit. This is tied to his (incorrect) reading of the Hippocratic tradition as consequentialist.

Veatch seems not to grasp that his deployment of diversity against professional codes actually works against his own common morality approach, as well, with very little modification. Nothing in Veatch's account of secular ways of knowing norms is consistent with Barth, proving the falseness of the 'common'. (And it's worth noting in connection with this that Veatch completely bungles the discussion of Catholic medical ethics.)

the Poirot conundrum -- when we know what *must* have happened, but not *that* it happened (Death on the Nile)

social functions as arising from intentions + incentives + constraints

What we identify as our interests is based on what we take to belong to us, including what belongs to us by right.

Canonical texts are, as canonical, an expression of the effectiveness of pedagogy.

Autonomy is a matter of the universality, the unboundedness, of reason.

types of cheese; fresh, soft-ripened, semi-soft, semi-firm, firm, blue

"The Categorical Imperative, in all its versions, including the Formula of Autonomy, articulates this double modal structure fo the supreme principle of reason for the domain of action: we *must* act on principles others *can* follow." O'Neill
"If blanket scepticism is not a feasible basis for life we must place trust selectively and with discrimination even when we lack any guarantee that agents or institutions of any specific sort are unfailingly trustworthy."
"The first step in a pursuit of greater trustworthiness is to ask how and how far structures are in place to ensure that institutions and individuals generally act in trustworthy ways."
"Trust will be restored only if the public have ways of judging matters *for themselves*."

Trustworthiness can be built. Trust must be grown.

faith as an organizer of our sense of loyalty and our sense of adventure

"We have made alive everything through water." Sura 21:30

"Free will is the endeavor to thank God for His beneficence." Rumi

category theory & demonstrative regress in the order of formal causes

A formal model is a logical structure (set of relations associated with set of objects) consistent with a set of admissible expressions.

the actuality operator as a what-if-actual operator

Liberty of conscience is required in some form for the community actually to be common, and thus a community, not merely an imposed association.

Human nature posits an ideal commensurate with its own potential.

"An institution is a pattern or framework of personal relationships within which a number of people cooperate, over a period of time and subject to certain rules, to satisfy a need, fulfil a purpose, or realise a value." Macbeath

Only God and the Devil actually have the patience to be utilitarians, and neither is one.

In scholarship you do not merely learn about the thing, you participate in it, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly and in more complex ways, sometimes even by a sort of opposition.

the liturgical system: the Church Triumphant reflected in the Church Militant
the penitential system: the Church Patient reflected in the Church Militant

the habitudo between subject and predicate arising from their locations in a common classification

Every person is a sign of God's holy work.

The unity of the Church is not based on ambiguity.

Understanding the spiritual aspects of sex requires extraordinary ascetic discipline; it is purification, not sexual experience, that creates the insight.

kinds of murder mystery
time-shifted murder 
time-shifted alibi
person-shifted alibi (decoy)
time-delay (prepared) murder (trap)
remote-initiated murder (mediated)
-- the alibi must apply to the relevant person at the right time, in such a way as to prevent the murder being able to prevent the murder being able to be perpetrated by that person (are there stories that disrup this latter that aren't traps? Right person at right time, but in fact the alibi only apparently shows that they couldn't do it. [place-shifted alibis! mediated murder])
-- decoy can be intentional or accidental/opportunistic 

possibility-exclusion scenes, possibility-discovery scenes

whodunit, howdunit, whydunit, howcatchem

Mos Def's characterization of pop music: "compatible with shopping"

Locked Room solutions
(1) Locked Room is after murder (time-shifted).
(2) Locked Room has non-obvious access.
(3) Murderer was nonobviously in the Locked Room.

Jane Kalmes:
The victim was (1) alone (or alone with patsy) in a (2) locked room in which (3) he died.
-- eliminate (1): murderer was in the room
-- eliminate (2): there was actually access
-- eliminate (3): the death was at a different time

-- any form of apparently impenetrable security or apparently unsurmounted loneliness can be the structure of a 'locked room'

The human body is always already juridical.

Hegelian philosophy can be seen as a gesture toward the hypercivilizational tier of philosophy, but is too crude to be successful at that level.

The Hidden Power

 Blessed is the hidden power that dwells in the bones of the martyrs: for they are situated in their graves, and they chase demons out of the world. Through their teachings, they abolished the error of idolaters, and they quietly visit creation, and teach it to worship you, who alone are the Lord.

[From the Basilica Hymn for Friday of the Confessors, in The Book of Before and After: The Liturgy of the Hours of the Church of the East, Fr. Andrew Younan, ed. and tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2024), p. 506.]

Immunity to Obsolescence

 A comment I made (about cursive and shorthand) in April 2022; I was put in mind of it by some comments I came across about various AI programs:

You should not trust anyone trying to convince you that anything learnable is obsolete; this is a term that is only appropriate to tools with very specific purposes. Moreover, I think that if you are actually teaching it, it is not obsolete. If people are learning shorthand, shorthand is not obsolete. If people are learning Old Norse, Old Norse is not obsolete. If people learn how to build a steam engine, steam engine design is not obsolete. If people are learning it, it is not obsolete. And part of this is that, if you can learn something, you genuinely have options now that you wouldn't have at all if you didn't. If you keep up your learning of it, even if only by refreshing your memory, you continue to have those options. Maybe you'll use your Boyd's syllabic shorthand or your Gregg shorthand, and maybe you will not; but as long as you know it, it is not obsolete, it is just, at most, uncommon. Perhaps it stops being mainstream and becomes a hobbyist's field, perhaps it becomes less a general field and more a specialized one, but there is no sense in which it is obsolete. What can be learned and retained has no obsolescence.

The Token of Life to Come

 Your death, Lord Jesus, became the beginning of new life for us. and through baptism into you, we receive the token of life to come, which is your resurrection from among the dead. And so, in feasting and joy, we glorify your name, O Lord, because you abolished error and took away the sin of the world. And the one on whose head was placed the decree of Adam's condemnation, you returned to life everlasting.

[From the Basilica Hymn for Thursday of the Week of Weeks, in The Book of Before and After: The Liturgy of the Hours of the Church of the East, Fr. Andrew Younan, ed. and tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2024), p. 506.]

O Solemn Bells

 The Angelus
by Bret Harte

(Heard at the Mission Dolores, 1868) 

 Bells of the Past, whose long-forgotten music
 Still fills the wide expanse,
 Tingeing the sober twilight of the Present
 With color of romance! 

 I hear your call, and see the sun descending
 On rock and wave and sand,
 As down the coast the Mission voices, blending,
 Girdle the heathen land. 

 Within the circle of your incantation
 No blight nor mildew falls;
 Nor fierce unrest, nor lust, nor low ambition
 Passes those airy walls. 

 Borne on the swell of your long waves receding,
 I touch the farther Past;
 I see the dying glow of Spanish glory,
 The sunset dream and last! 

 Before me rise the dome-shaped Mission towers,
 The white Presidio;
 The swart commander in his leathern jerkin,
 The priest in stole of snow. 

 Once more I see Portala's cross uplifting
 Above the setting sun;
 And past the headland, northward, slowly drifting,
 The freighted galleon. 

 O solemn bells! whose consecrated masses
 Recall the faith of old;
 O tinkling bells! that lulled with twilight music
 The spiritual fold! 

 Your voices break and falter in the darkness, --
Break, falter, and are still;
 And veiled and mystic, like the Host descending,
 The sun sinks from the hill!

That Fearful Judgment

 

  In the hour when, in the midst of silence, the trumpet of your coming sounds in great terror and the awesome legions of the angels fly down in turbulence, and when all men arise from the graves, trembling in their inquisition, the heavenly hosts will shake from the vehemence of the judgment of the earthly, when the cherubim carrying you extol you, O Just Judge, indeed, in that fearful judgment when the actions of each man are repaid, have mercy on me, O Friend of mankind!

[From the Basilica Hymn for Wednesday of the Week of Weeks, in The Book of Before and After: The Liturgy of the Hours of the Church of the East, Fr. Andrew Younan, ed. and tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2024), p. 505.]

Glad in the Universal Joys that Keep

 Reflections
by Paul Elmer More 

 Right often as I gazed upon the sea
And over all the billows far and wide,
Meseemed each passing wave but rose and died,
To murmur in the air some mystery
Learned in the solemn depths where such may be;
And once when the broad wind rose from the tide
And with the gathered burden louder sighed,
Meseemed I caught their utterance thus to me:--
Live in the heart of things where warnings sleep
That tears and laughter are not idle farce;
Live, not ashamed for honest pain to weep,
Still conqueror through sorrow's many wars,
Glad in the universal joys that keep,
And worthy of the sunlight and the stars.

New Life Apart from Sheol

 We adore the Memorial of your honorable Passion, O Savior, and also your Cross, which prepared a joyful feast for us. In it, we all accept the forgiveness of debts and sins, and new life apart from Sheol dawns for us, as well as the reproof of unbelievers, the boast of your faithful Church, and the glory of your victorious unending power!

[From the Basilica Hymn for Tuesday of the Week of Weeks, in The Book of Before and After: The Liturgy of the Hours of the Church of the East, Fr. Andrew Younan, ed. and tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2024), p. 505.]

Francis (1936-2025)

 Pope Francis has died today, on Easter Monday and the memorial of St. Anselm of Canterbury. St. Anselm is about as different from Pope Francis as I can imagine a bishop being, but Easter Monday is a day of hope, and as much as people will often use the word 'mercy' in discussions of Pope Francis today, it was hope, I think, that best characterized him, a pope who was in some ways always looking for tomorrow. Hope was a key idea in the Urbi et Orbi speech yesterday:

The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion. Thanks to Christ — crucified and risen from the dead — hope does not disappoint! Spes non confundit! (Romans 5:5). That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us. 

 All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey. Together with the Risen Jesus, they become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of Life.

He struggled greatly from following two intellectuals; lacking both St. John Paul II's philosophical ingenuity and Benedict XVI's theological erudition, and inclined on his own part to improvise his way through things, his tenure was often one of doctrinal controversy and he was often accused of at least speaking poorly and confusingly, and sometimes of at least material heresy. The improvising and lack of nicety, however, provably made him widely relatable and engaging, and while it was distressing to some, others found some relief in a pope who was, by his own account, willing to accept a great deal of mess.

He came into the papacy at a time when it was clear that there was need for extensive reform; poorly suited for the tedious practical work required, he relied heavily on others, and all too often seems to have found himself reduced to scolding or lecturing people without much effect. He was also notorious for being too quick to try to solve matters with scolding, and more than once, having scolded people for what he took to be their problems, he had to walk back his words. In many respects, his attempts in reform were failures, succeeding primarily only at a purely symbolic and cosmetic level. As I've said before, failure is the normal mode of being a pope; playing chess with the devil, a man will certainly lose, and all that a pope is really able to do is hold the office, restrain some things, encourage things, and pray, and let God draw from it whatever might be worthwhile. Francis was very far from being a great pope, but he was also not a disaster, and much of that, I think, is that he was active in prayer. Beyond that, it is God and not man who decides the ultimate result. Nonetheless, while not a disaster, much of the practical side of Francis's papacy has repeatedly broken down into incoherence, and I do not envy the pope who has to deal with inheriting it.

If Benedict's tenure struck me as often sad and lonely, Francis's has often struck me as one of frustration. An idealist by nature, he seems to have had great dreams, but he constantly failed to find any real cooperation with them, as his critics became more intractable and his allies often just used his ideas as cover for their own projects and interests. Many of the struggles of his papacy can safely be said not to be his fault; he inherited many tangled problems, an entrenched bureaucracy, and an increasingly unruly laity. It is an unpleasant task to be the one whose task is to get everybody on the same page at the moment they are becoming least inclined to listen. He actually dealt with this quite well -- one of his truly great strengths was his willingness to act, and sometimes ingenuity in acting, indirectly when needed, an important skill that historically has not  been common among popes -- but throughout his papacy, whenever he has let his guard down, he has always seemed frustrated. What seems constantly to have pushed him through was a genuine and sincere desire to do good to others; such a tenacity in seeking good for people in their actual lives is a precious thing, and we can only hope that we see something like it again in our lifetimes.

The Pillar has a good account of his life, as well as a summary of what can be expected in the days to come.

Shook the Foundations of Death

 In the hour that the wood of your cross was fastened, you shook the foundations of death, O Lord. And those whom Sheol had swallowed in their sins, it released while trembling -- your command quickened them, O Lord. Because of this, we also glorify you, O Christ the King: Have mercy on us!

[From the Basilica Hymn for Monday of the Week of Weeks and the Memorial of the Disciples of Emmaus, in The Book of Before and After: The Liturgy of the Hours of the Church of the East, Fr. Andrew Younan, ed. and tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2024), p. 505.]

Tree of Life

 Around the tomb, Mary cried "Have pity on me!" for she was remembering you who made her, instead of a dwelling of demons, a dwelling of your love. She had bought spices to perfume your precious Body, by which the scent of our mortal race was perfumed. "By your Resurrection, O Good Lord of the deceased, I beg you, O Tree of Life, who raised Adam who has been passed over, O Fruit that our race did not want to taste, my Savior, may the dew of your mercies sprinkle me!"

[From the Basilica Hymn for Resurrection Sunday, in The Book of Before and After: The Liturgy of the Hours of the Church of the East, Fr. Andrew Younan, ed. and tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2024), p. 501.]

Links of Note

 * Mark K. Spencer, Habits, Potencies, and Obedience (PDF)

* James Chastek, No choice is discovered, at "Just Thomism"

* A major portion of Antoni Gaudí's beatification process is completed, and now just requires final approval.

* Domenik Jarczewski & Wayne D. Riggs, Socializing Virtue Epistemology (PDF)

* Recorded Music Sales by Format Shares 1973-2024 (press the play button in the lower left-hand corner), by Mark Perry

* "God Is....": Saying Various Names of God, on Alan of Lille, at "Quodlibeta Theologia"

* Joseph M. Magee, Aristotle and Aquinas on Proving the Intellect's Immateriality (PDF)

* Nicholas Carr, Epistemological Slop, at "New Cartographies"

* Asanga Welikala, The 'Common Good' in Legal Constitutions, at "The New Digest"

* Stephen Harrop, Sufficient Reason Vindicated (PDF)

* Gregory B. Sadler is interviewed at "Why Philosophy?"

* Therese Cory, How to Reason Prudentially about Immigration: A Reply to Feser, at "Public Discourse". Unfortunately, I think Cory just pendulum-swings to the opposite of the error she diagnoses in Feser (who, however, I think is slightly more nuanced than she is suggesting). An obvious question that needs answering is how Cory's view differs from tutiorism; the claim that "Disagreement is legitimate when prudence fails, not when prudence is operating normally" would normally be a huge red flag for a rigorist position, for instance. I don't think such a position is what Cory intends, but it's what she seems to say throughout. My suspicion is that in trying to be concise she has confused the individual level of prudence (in which we must act according to our prudent judgment) with the social level of prudence (in which, inevitably, we have to deal prudently with differing prudent and apparently prudent judgments). But she does make some worthwhile points about prudence in the process.

* Simona Aimar and Carlotta Pavese, Technical Knowledge as Scientific Knowledge in Aristotle (PDF)

* Anand Vaidya & Manjula Menon, In light of brahman, at "Aeon"

* Gideon Lazar, Scotus on the Abolition of the Old Law

* Nicolae Turcan, The Phenomenology of Prayer and the Relationship Between Phenomenology and Theology (PDF)

* A. D. Hunt, The Problem with Nominalism, at "The Occidental Tourist"

* Alex Fisher, In defence of fictional examples

* Joseph Heath, Why philosophers hate that 'equity' meme, at "In Due Course". As people have pointed out before, there are more than a few oddities to the meme -- the people are not in the stadium, calling the left-hand side 'equality' is obviously arbitrary, the assumption seems to be that goods are limited, discrete, and smoothly distributable in a precise way. And, as Heath notes, it has the problem memes generally have -- you can label anything anything in a meme, and, outside very specific and obvious contexts, you start getting problems when you start asking why it should be labeled this way rather than some other way. 

Ouk Epaino

 In this instruction, I do not praise, because you do not convene so as to be stronger, but weaker.  For firstmost, as you convene in assembly, I hear that there are divisions among you, and partly I credit this, for it is also necesary for there to be partisanships among you so that also the approved should become obvious among you. Therefore as you are convening all together, it is not to eat Lordly supper, for one does his eating of his own supper beforehand, and this one famished, that one drunk. Do you really not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you have contempt for the house of God and disgrace those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Should I praise you in this? I do not praise!

For I learned from the Lord what I likewise handed down to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night he was handed over, laid hold of bread and, having given thanks, broke it and answered, This is my body, which is for you; do this in recollection of me. In like manner also the cup, after having supped, saying, This cup is the new contract in my blood; do this, as often as you might drink, in recollection of me. For provided that you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he should come.

Therefore whoever should eat the bread or drink the Lord's cup unworthily, will be liable for the body and the blood of the Lord. So let a man test himself and in this way let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For the eater and drinker not judging the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. Because of this many of you are weak and unhealthy, and many slumber. For if we are not judging ourselves, we are judged. And being judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we are not with the world condemned.

So my brothers, in convening in order to eat, wait for each other. If anyone is famished, let him eat at home, so that you might not convene for judgment. And the rest, when I come, I will arrange.

[1 Corinthians 11:17-34, my very rough translation. The words for 'stronger' and 'weaker' can also have the figurative  meanings of 'better' or 'worse'. Divisions (schismata) gives us the word for 'schism', and parties/partisanships (haereseis) gives us the word for 'heresies', but they are being used more broadly here. 'Assembly' is ekklesia, so is also 'church'. 'Recollection' could also be 'commemoration'; it is an active term for keeping in mind or bringing to mind or preserving something in memory or as a memorial. 'Contract' is also 'covenant', but the latter, of course, is a contract; covenant and memorial are ideas with longstanding mutual associations.

It's notable that Paul is not merely telling the story of the Lord's Supper; he is doing so explictily as a part of a sharp criticism of the Corinthians, highlighting what he thinks they are egregiously forgetting, that participation in it must be worthy.]

Spy Wednesday

Today is Holy Wednesday, also known as Spy Wednesday. So to mark the day, I give here again a poem based on medieval tales of Judas Iscariot:

 

Judas

Christ was looking to the heavens,
looking with a sigh and frown,
looking for the time of day;
'Judas, make my way,' he said,
'buy a room in Zion-town.'
Judas said, 'A stately dwelling
I will buy us for the feast --
money rings within the wallet,
bells of silver, thirty piece.'

Judas searched then over, under,
Judas searched then broad and deep.
Nowhere did he find a dwelling,
nowhere was a room for having,
nowhere would his money buy it,
coins of silver, thirty piece.

Tired from his ceaseless searching,
ceased he then to nap a while,
deeply on the lawn he slumbered.
When he woke, the noon-time vanished,
nowhere could he find the wallet,
nowhere could he find the money,
treasured silver, thirty piece.

Judas wept and beat his breast,
crying, 'What can now be done?'
Judas wept for thought of failure,
wept (for what would others say?),
fearing to return to Jesus
without dwelling, without wallet,
without silver, thirty piece.

But a young man near was shouting,
'Have you heard? The priests have posted
prize for word to help them capture
Joshua the Nazorean,
trouble-making, rabble-raising:
prize of silver, thirty piece!'

Straightway Satan spoke to Judas,
'Never has the Lord been caught,
grasping hands he has eluded.
Can they capture one who conquers
blindness, sickness, lameness, death,
walks on water, loaves and fishes
multiplies like grains of sand,
water turns to wedding wine?
Crowds he passes through unharmed!
If he from the temple height
were to fall, the Lord's own angels,
soaring down, would surely save him!
If he were in starving hunger,
stones he'd surely change to bread!
If he wanted all the kingdoms,
kings would fall before his power!'
Judas to the scribes and priests
made a promise to betray,
promised to deliver Jesus,
for reward to fill the wallet,
costly silver, thirty piece.

Judas came again to Jesus,
saying he had found no dwelling,
nowhere taking merely silver.
Christ then looked up to the heavens,
looking with a sigh and frown.
John he called, and also Peter,
gave to them a different mission:
'Silver cannot buy a dwelling,
time is short, too soon too late.
Go now quickly to the city.
When you enter in the gate
you will find a water-bearer;
let him guide you to his home.
Ask the master of the house
"Where is found the special room?
He who asks has pressing need."'

Judas followed, worries lightened,
thinking how he was so clever,
how the priests he had outsmarted,
how he trusted in his Master,
how he had made right the problem,
thinking he would get the money,
shining silver, thirty piece.

En Ligne Droite

 Just as the Author of nature is the universal cause of all motion found in matter, so is He also the general cause of all natural inclinations found in minds; and just as all motion proceeds in a straight line [en ligne droite] unless it encounters particular external causes that influence its course and that by their opposition alter it so that it proceeds in a curved path, so all the inclinations that we have from God are right [droites] and could have no other end but the possession of good and of truth were there not some external cause that directed the impression of nature toward evil ends. Now it is this external cause that is the cause of all our evils, and that corrupts all our inclinations.

[Nicolas Malebranche, The Search After Truth, Lennon & Olscamp, trs. & eds., Cambridge University Press (New York 1997) p. 4.]

To Be a Warning Word to Us

 The Blasted Fig-Tree
by John Newton

One aweful word which Jesus spoke,
Against the tree which bore no fruit;
More piercing than the lightning's stroke,
Blasted and dried it to the root. 

 But could a tree the Lord offend,
To make him show his anger thus?
He surely had a farther end,
To be a warning word to us. 

 The fig-tree by its leaves was known,
But having not a fig to show;
It brought a heavy sentence down,
Let none hereafter on thee grow. 

 Too many, who the gospel hear,
Whom Satan blinds and sin deceives;
We to this fig-tree may compare,
They yield no fruit, but only leaves. 

 Knowledge, and zeal, and gifts, and talk,
Unless combined with faith and love,
And witnessed by a gospel walk,
Will not a true profession prove. 

 Without the fruit the Lord expects
Knowledge will make our state the worse;
The barren trees he still rejects,
And soon will blast them with his curse. 

 O Lord, unite our hearts in prayer!
On each of us thy Spirit send;
That we the fruits of grace may bear,
And find acceptance in the end.

John Newton, of course, is most famous for "Amazing Grace", but he has quite a few other poems. 

Fortnightly Book, April 13

 The Orkneyinga Saga is a complicated Icelandic saga. Parts of it seem to go back to the early twelfth century, but parts were probably written in the thirteenth or even fourteenth century. It was originally titled the Earl's Saga, and it actually covers not merely the Orkneys, as the modern title suggests, but also the Shetlands. The saga is in some ways quite loose with history, and it's unclear how much of this free hand with history is deliberately written, how much is just recording the actual legends and rumors of the time, and how much is an accidental byproduct of its multi-layered composition through an extended period of time. Like many of the 'national' sagas produced by Icelanders, it depicts Christianity coming to the Northern Isles, but this is perhaps partly just conventional; historically, Christianity in the Orkneys probably predates the events of the saga. Even in the saga itself, the coming of Christianity seems presented as a long, stuttering, complex, and perhaps not always consistent process -- and, again, it is unclear how much of this is deliberate, how much due to sources, and how much due to accident of composition.

In any case, the Orkneyinga Saga is the next fortnightly book. I am reading it in the Penguin Classics edition, translated by Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards. It has a sort of minor connection to a prior fortnightly book, since it is dedicated to George MacKay Brown, whose Magnus was a fortnightly book in 2018; Magnus, of course, is partly influenced by the account of St. Magnus in the Orkneyinga Saga. 

The Northern Isles of Scotland (i.e., the Orkneys, bottom left, and the Shetlands, upper right).

Two Vast, Spacious Things

 The Agony
by George Herbert 

Philosophers have measur'd the mountains,
Fathom'd the depths of the seas, of states, and kings,
Walk'd with a staffe to heav'n, and traced fountains:
 But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that found them; Sinne and Love. 

 Who would know Sinne, let him repair
Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
 His skinne, his garments bloudie be.
Sinne is that presse and vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruell food through ev'ry vein. 

 Who knows not Love, let him assay,
And taste that juice, which on the crosse a pike
Did set again abroach; then let him say
 If ever he did taste the like.
Love in that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as bloud; but I, as wine.

Hexeis Thesauron en Ourano

 And they were leading to him childlings, so that he might touch them. But the students censured them. 

And having seen this, Jesus was incensed, and answered them, Release the childlings to come to me; do not stop them, for the realm of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not receive the realm of God as a childling shall absolutely not enter into it.

And having embraced them, he was blessing them, having laid hands on them.

And (as he was) going forth on his way, someone having run up and knelt to him said, Good teacher, what should I do that I might inherit perpetual life?

And Jesus said to him, Why call me good? None are good if the one God is not good. You know the laws. Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't testify falsely, don't injure, revere your father and your mother. 

But he was saying to him, Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.

And Jesus, having gazed at him, was devoted to him and said to him, One is missing to you. Depart, exchange as much as you have, and give to those in need, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.

But sobered by the word, he went off grieving, for he was one having many estates.

And having gazed around, Jesus says to his students, With what difficulty those having possessions will enter into the realm of God!

And the students were stupefied at his words. But Jesus, again responding, says to them, Children, how difficult is it to enter the realm of God! Those trusting in possessions -- easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than the wealthy to enter into the realm of God.

And they were greatly panicked, saying among themselves, Then who can be delivered? 

Having gazed at them, Jesus says, With men, 'can't', but not with God; for everything (is) 'can' with God.

The Rock began to say to him, See, we have released all and followed you. 

Jesus was saying, Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has released house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands on account of me and on account of the good news who shall not get a hundred times it now in this moment, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecution, and in the age that is coming, perpetual life. And many first will be last, and the last first.

[Mark 10:13-31, my very rough translation. These two stories are often treated apart, but it seems to me that in Mark they are clearly two parts of the same story. For instance, Peter (the name is clearly being used as a title here, ho Petros, the Rock) at the end uses a version of the same verb ('release, let go') from the children story and a version of the same verb ('follow') from the landed man story. Little children come having nothing; if you have possessions, you have to relax your grasp on them if you are to receive the kingdom as a little child.

The word we usually translate as 'disciples', of course, just means 'students'. I've used 'childling' because the Greek word is actually a diminutive form. It seems to me that all the translations tone down the word for Jesus's response to the disciples rebuking those leading the children to him. Eganaktesan literally means 'greatly grieved' or 'greatly burdened', but often has to do with anger; the word contains an emphatic element -- Jesus is super-upset.

Much has been said of the somewhat difficult "Why call me good?" exchange. In context, however, the point seems clear -- the man asked him a question, and Jesus's point is explicitly that he already knows the answer, because through the law, God, who is good, has already told him. Jesus is not claiming not to be good, which obviously would not make sense in the present discussion, but saying that if anyone is good, God is, and God has already answered the question. The word I've translated non-colloquially as 'injure' is more often translated as 'defraud' or 'despoil'; but it fundamentally means to take what rightfully is someone else's, which is what 'injure' technically means. The word I've translated as 'exchange' is usually translated 'sell', but I'm not sure that the money is precisely the point, rather than giving his possessions to those who need them more. The rich man has, justly, avoided taking what rightfully belongs to others; now he has to devote what rightfully belongs to him to those who need it.

The rich man is very rich -- the text is clear that he doesn't just have money, he has many productive lands, which is as rich as you can get in the ancient world. But what throws the disciples into consternation is that when Jesus comments on it, he doesn't merely say (as one might sometimes assume from translations and homilies) that it is difficult to get into the kingdom of God if you are rich; he says that it is difficult to get into the kingdom of God if you possess things. Chremata, the word usually translated 'riches', are any kind of useful or needful possessions. The word used in the camel saying, on the other hand, is plousios, which is literally 'wealthy man'. That is to say: How hard it is to enter the kingdom if you have possessions; having a lot of possessions, it is like threading a camel through a needle. (Some manuscripts have not kamelos but kamilos, which is a relatively rare word that in later days means the sort of rope or cable you use for a ship; the Aramaic word, gamla, can also mean either a camel or a large rope, and apparently there are other languages, like Armenian and Arabic, that have similar homonyms. Contrary to the suggestion of some, saying you are going to pass a ship's hawser through an eye of the needle doesn't 'soften' the comparison; camel or cable, it's impossible. The point does not change. And, of course, a number of Jesus' disciples are fishermen. Nonetheless, I think an argument can be made that 'camel' actually fits better. Early Christians quite clearly took it to be 'camel'. Camels are big animals, yes, but they are also associated with wealth and are famously obstinate animals; a camel is not just physically unable to fit through the eye of a needle, it will actively resist going, like the wealthy will actively resist releasing their possessions. And hyperbole is not just about exaggeration but absurdity; and it's notable that later rabbis occasionally use a similar expression but with elephants rather than camels. He could also very well be deliberately using a word that means both. Of course, there are people who will, like camels, balk at the idea of Jesus telling a joke by making a pun, however serious and grave the purpose, and however much this is a common practice of memorable teachers everywhere.)

It's very easy to read the story as a rebuke of people who have more than us, but the point of the story is that relying on possessions at all is a problem, and the disciples are clearly not shocked (and the words for their reaction are quite strong here) at commentary on rich men but about the implications for themselves. If you read the story and say, "Yah, rich people, am I right!", you have, unlike the disciples, not heard what Jesus actually said, because the point, and the thing that astonished them (the word, ekplesso, literally means 'struck, hit, slammed, smote', and, having the implication that you are knocked out of your senses, is used to indicate fright, panic, intoxication, or any sort of overwhelming passion) is that it is difficult for you also to enter the kingdom of God, as long as you are putting your trust in possessions.]

Dashed Off VIII

This finishes the notebook that was completed in January 2024.

*** 

"Through taste we strive to realize the implied community which gives sense to the aesthetic experience: our matching of thought to thought and image to image is also a matching of person to person, the active creation of the first-person plural to which we aspire." Scruton
"Wit propagates the sense of membership."
"True musical constraint depends not on intellectual systems, but on custom, habit, and tradition -- on the forms of a common musical culture which create the currency of allusion."
"The aesthetic impulse is latent in irrational nature, arising from the need to complete and instrumental reasoning with a conception of the end."
"A musical culture arises whenever music enters into the life of the tribe, to become a system of allusion, and a way of 'joining in'."
"Cliche involves a stereotype, an unthinking bid for effect which falls short of meaning anything."
"Through melody, harmony, and rhythm, we enter a world where others exist besides the self, a world that is full of feeling but also ordered, disciplined but free."
"The avant-garde persists only as a state-funded priesthood, ministering to a dying congregation."

Ramsey's definition of subjective probability can only apply to cases in which outcomes allow for continuous gradations of value.

It is better to think of utilities as presupposing probabilities than vice versa.

possibility -> probability -> utility

Determining probabilities requires a testing of possibilities.

Living things carry part of the context for their actions within themselves.

What benevolence is possible often depends on what order already obtains.

Actual forensic justification even in human cases does not merely declare one just but in so doing give s a status as justified; it is not a mere recognition or certification but a bestowal of at least a juridical status.

past necessity : faith :: future possibility : hope :: the finality that unifies both : charity

When important truths are scattered to the wind, one can hardly avoid being eclectic.

"Move far away from deceit." Ex 23:7

"The image of God is the active mutuality possible only between God and humans." David Novak
"To be sure, unlike creation, the covenant does have historical antecedents, but like creation, its existence comes from nowhere (ex nihilo)."

Noah is justified by being recognized as righteous before God and brough to the ark to be saved (Gn 7:1).

Ex 24:7 -- "we shall do and we shall hear" (i.e., we shall obey and we shall learn in obeying and having obeyed)

"One's agent is like oneself." M. Berakhot 5.5

B. Sanhedrin 74b on Lv 22:32: martyrdom as hallowing the Lord in the midst of the people

"Although she has sinned, Israel is still Israel." B. Sanhedrin 44a, on Jos 7:11

Reality itself is an external reason on which we regularly rely.

(1) that which is ours because we are possessed by it
(2) that which is ours because we are given possession of it
(3) that which is ours because we take possession of it

Architecture involves the interrelation of three structures, the mereological, the perspectival, and the affordant.

Music and language arguably branch off different aspects of maternal communication with child.

architecture as an organization of suitabilities

"Style ennobles choices, giving them a significance that otherwise they have." Scruton
"The institutions of courtship (and the kind of self-reflection which they require) transform passion into a kind of rational entreprise, through which the subject is in some measure distanced from his present need, and comes to see his self-fulfillment as equally involved."

the sense of design as a sense of solvedness

An essential part of sincerity is the attempt at consistency.

To have rational hope that something is true posits that reasons and evidences supporting its truth may be found.

"The most important rights I exercise as a whole person before someone else, are rooted in duties to others, which when we fulfill them are good for us as well." Novak
"My right is a means to a dutiful end. That is why these rights are to be exercised for us when, for whatever reason, we are unable or unwilling to do so by ourselves."

Dt 16::20
Tsedeq tsedeq you shall pursue [Justice/Justly Justice you shall pursue]
To dikaion you shall pursue dikaios (LXX) [The just/right you shall pursue justly/rightly]

Laws as applied are not laws as on the page but laws as living rules in reason.

the Noachide commandments as the laws for the basic rights of a civilized society

"Human sexuality is inseparable from family." Novak
"A coherent balancing of the rights of the community and the rights of individuals is possible only when both sets of rights are relative to the absolute rights of God."

Children are owed parents whom they can honor.

Rigor is inherently instrumental & only has value insofar as it contributes to reasoning and the ends of reasoning.

Association, commutation, and distribution are logical properties of operational notations.

NB Poincare takes proof by recurrence to correspond to the synthetic a priori (as opposed to analytical proof, experiment, or postulation/convention)

analogues of reasoning by recurrence (finite -> infinite) for possibility/necessity, permissibility/obligatory, etc.

The space we experience is not three-dimensional but an interrelation of many different ways of sensing space, on the basis of which we localize things three-dimensionally. Our experience of *location in space* is three-dimensional; our experience of space is much richer (which is one of the things that allows us to do our 3D localizing).

mathematical equality as a zeroing relation

To investigate requires recognizing a hierarchy of facts.

Descriptions of that at which one aims are normative; this is in fact one of our normal ways of constructing normative statements.

Relevance is position in a hierarchy of facts.

genus/species as res, as function, as cognitive object

Rv 7:17 as Trinitarian: the Lamb on the Throne leading to the Fountanins of the Waters of Life

Ps 111:4-5 on the Eucharist (cf Sir 38:11)
Ps 4:7 on the sacraments

the right hand of the Father Ps 16:11

Pr 30:18-19 -- The eagle in flight, the serpent winding its way through crags, the ship navigating the sea, and the man in youth can only do so by continual adjustment, improvisation, adaptation in light of circumstances: there is no strict rule or method.

Pr 11:30 on the Church

"That charity is called genuine which admits of nothing corruptible." Albert

Experiences are analyzed into causal components.

Even purely at the level of self-love, we see ourselves reflected in other people.

There is a natural sanctity to the devoted pursuit of transcendental perfections (truth, goodness, beauty, nobility), and even failing to recognize this is often a grave error.

We know substances through acquaintance with their accidents, but we know accidents themselves by how they express the substances known through them.

We understand the essential principles of Scripture to the extent we are united to Christ.

allusive continuities in traditions
(distinct from continuities based on preservation or reconstruction)

Discussions of political representation are often ambiguous between behalfness and resemblance as teh key element in representation.

Living things in changing themselves give ends to other things; every living things is the center of a system of extrinsic teleology, which interlocks with other systems in complex way s(symbiosis, parasitism, predation, habitat-building, etc.). The early modern period took this relativity of extrinsic teleology to be evidence of its nonreality, but in truth what it means is that real nature has many, many systems of extrinsic teleology.

Creatures not only receive an intrinsic teleology in creation; they, and the whole cosmos, have an extrinsic teleology relative to God in eschatological consummation. Providence is what ties together created destiny and final glory.

(1) The standard that arises from the will's ultimate relation to its final end is not heteronomous to it.
(2) The final end of the will is union with God.

God chooses Israel so as to give his Torah to Israel.
-- choice contrasts withneed; it is free, not necessary; it is historical, not natural.
-- it is a choice of a specific people, contrasted with other people (the nations)
-- it is initiated by God
-- the giving of Torah occurs within the context of this choice.

Jesus' promise to His apostles of judging the tribes establishes that Israel will continue to exist as a distinguishable people in the world to come.

Covenant is how law is both received and self-given.

Dt. 17:11 as the foundation of rabbinical authority in Judaism

A significant portion of quantum mechanics consists entirely in discussing that models of probabilities for physical processes have to be constructed from complex-number amplitudes.

We know actions by knowing substances through them.

Two definitions of circle:
(a) set of points p with fixed distance to fixed point
(b) set of points p such that, given a fixed line segment ab, the angle formed by apb is a right angle.
-- With infinite divisibility these are equivalent; in discrete geometry, they come apart.

the duty of civil self-governance
-- requires moral responsibility : rights of conscience
-- requries cooperation and coordiantion with other citizens : rights of speech and peaceable assembly
-- requires input into broader government (to maintain and make effective self-governance) : rights of direct voice/election, petition, etc.

Citizenship postulates:
(a) civilization as human destiny (possibility of civil society)
(b) a moral order (under which the citizen is responsible)
(c) a hierarchy of governance (within which the citizen has a role)

claims on profit
retensive: payment of debt
protensive: sustainign of enterprise into future
distributive: sharing of profit

Thin normative expressions seem to have an obviously unsaturated relativity -- ie.., to say something is 'obligatory' doesn't tell us relative to what (obligator, domain, end), whereas telling us that it is compassionate gives us a lot of this information. Saying something is obligatory is like saying that something is a part or that something is relevant, as opposed to being a vital organ or being a distinct individual of this same particular species, exactly resembling on the point under discussion.

'I ought to take X as true' as creating a subargument ('Suppose X to be true') within which X is true. ['conditional subdomain' might be better]

God as the cause of sufficiency to effect

If truth were not a rule for what we ought to take as true, we could justify nothing.

free will as the manner in which human capacity for good is nonfinite

The intellect, like the will, is an end-setting power.

The value of the activity of end-setting necessarily depends on the value of the ends set.

Always use one's intellect in such a way as is consistent with the person as an end.

The existence of the intellect in itself establishes the world, and particularly the self, as noumenal.

moral heroism, spontaneity of thought, experience of sublime, and pursuit of beautiful as expressions of human transcendence

co-purposiveness as an essential element of reason and thus of human nature

That which is in itself inconsisent with being purposive in a way consistent with the purposiveness of others, is irrational in itself. Kant is correct so far; but he treats the conditional as biconditional, and is somewhat muddled about how to understand the purposiveness.

The intellect must think of itself in terms of the harmony of intellects.

To think according to local principles that are consistent with universal principles.
(1) To think according to the local principles that can be applied with those principles that apply to everything.
(2) To think according to the local principles that are consistent with the end and nature of the intellect.
(3) To think according to the local principles that all intellects can apply in a manner consistent with all other intellects.

free will & moral life as mutually and reciprocally implying each other and each otehr's implication of the other

The intellect in pursuing the real also waits for the real to give itself.

Things that can be believed or not presuppose what must be known. Things that can be known or not presuppose what must be understood. Things that can be understood or not also presuppose what must be understood. What must be understood presupposes what is necessarily true.

natural rights, artificial rights that are based on natural rights, fictional rights (artificial rights that are formed purely for practical convenience), illusory rights (things that seem like rights but are not)

The union of happiness and morality in Kant is aunion of empirical self and noumenal self, the latter being the summum bonum in which we are fully able to live as human and as moral agents; this requires some cause or ground that makes the union itself possible.

Our capacity to think of ends is proof that there are ends (although not always those particular ones that we think there are).

The actuality operator privileges a given possible world, making it a reference world; 'actually' in both colloquial and metaphysical contexts indicates 'with respect tothat which all possible worlds together model or describe.'

The revelation on Sinai is expressed and communicated not merely by the written Torah but by the Jewish people themselves.

"The great innovation of the covenant with Israel is that both the community and the individual are granted the power to make claims upon God." Novak

Act in such a way as to treat eternal reason, and humanity insofar as it participates eternal reason, always as an end in itself. 

Freedom only exists where divine action overflows.

Practical reason must postulate moral freedom as given, and this freedom can only be so if given by freedom, and therefore if it is gift.

Kant seems to recognize that his accounts of freedom is apparently inconsistent with the principle that human persons are creatures.

intellectual first principles as divine gifts reflecting the divine

Free will is a participation of divine creation, and thus inherently subcreative.

rational life as prudence in intellect and prudentness in will

Moral life requires recognizing ourselves as participants in a moral system; that is to say, as not being involved in a quixotic individual venture but an orderly and harmonious co-venture.

God is the first principle of both the noumenal and the phenomenal, and their unity; Kant's inability to recognize this transcendence of the distinction is an uncritical weakness.

The moral world is only cognizable as personal.
The only world adequate to a moral world is that whose principle of coordination is commensurate with the universality of the moral world.

the Kantian practical postulates as moves against determinism, annihilationism, and nihilism as obstacle to a robust and meaningful moral life

Whewell's Five Virtues as reflections of the Divine Word (the Word as the Benevolence, Purity, Order, etc., of God)

In human beings, understanding and sensibility must cooperate, but this does not imply the strict one-to-one correspondence that Kant tends to assume. We cannot have intuitions without concepts *of some kind* or concepts without intuitions *of some kind* in human cognition, but there are myriad possible ways this can happen. And intuition does not fall wholly one the sensibility side nor (in Kant's sense) concepts wholly on the understanding side. (Both Leibniz and Locke, as interpreted by Kant, are more correct than Kant on this, and Leibniz more correct than Locke.)

One of the functions of the Book of Revelation is to prevent Christian doctrine from over-intellectualizing.

"The Christological heresies are a reflection of tendencies to make pagan the Christian sense of the divine." Sokolowski

"Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family -- a domestic church." Wojtyla

Fighting evil requires finding the positive good that is lacking.

We often seem to will in a way inconsistent with our actual preferences.

Much of fine art is concerned with love of means precisely as means.

To say that something is false always implies that there is a greater truth with respect to which its falseness is identifiable as falseness, and its relationship to the truth it falsifies is established.

Covnenant is inherently tied to memory; its effects are extended by way of memory.

"Kingship wants to be paternal." Aristotle

"No one by nature is a slave." Philo

"The body is the first human manifestation, which precedes in time the emergence of man's intellectual faculties." David Novak

It is fundamentally important to see the human body as an integral expression of the human person.

While we tend to classify feelings of joy and grief as 'mental', we actually experience them as 'tinging' the world around us, as well.

We do not usually experience pain as such but painful things as painful.

memory as a kind of self-knowledge

Money does not get its value merely from attitudes of valuing but from actual practical exchanges and means of exchange. The attitudes are dispositional to the means and ends that actually make things valuable; something could be valuable even though someone never thought about it in terms of value.