Tabulated Syllogisms

 We can represent each categorical proposition in a tabular way, as follows:

	X	Y
All X is Y	-1	1
No X is Y	-1	-1
Some X is Y	1	1
Some X is not y	1	-1

Given this, we can represent syllogisms in a similar way.

BARBARA	S	M	P
All M is P	0	-1	1
All S is M	-1	1	0
All S is P	-1	0	1

Notice that the premises add to the conclusion, All S is P. We can do the same for the other First Figure syllogisms:

CELARENT	S	M	P
No M is P	0	-1	-1
All S is M	-1	1	0
All S is P	-1	0	-1

DARII	S	M	P
All M is P	0	-1	1
Some S is M	1	1	0
Some S is P	1	0	1

FERIO	S	M	P
No M is P	0	-1	-1
Some S is M	1	1	0
Some S is not P	1	0	-1

If we look at Second, Third, and Fourth Figure, we find that the C's all have the same pattern as Celarent, showing that they can be directly converted to Celarent in the First Figure. The D's and F's reduce to Darii and Ferio, for the most part; in fact, the only exceptions to this general pattern in the traditional figures are Bramantip/Baralipton/Bamalip (Fourth Figure), Darapti (Third Figure), Felapton (Third Figure), and Fesapo (Fourth Figure). These all have to involve subalternation in some way so as to get particular conclusions from universal premises. If we tabulate the the way we tabulated the First Figure, we find that the premises do not directly add to the conclusion. For instance, this is Bramantip:

BRAMANTIP	S	M	P
All M is P	0	1	-1
All M is S	1	-1	0
Some S is P	1	0	1

The P's do not add. But this is because there is a subalternation step. In Bramantip, this subalternation step is 'Some P is P', which gives us a double-dose of P. Thus:

BRAMANTIP	S	M	P
All M is P	0	1	-1
All M is S	1	-1	0
Some P is P	0	0	2
Some S is P	1	0	1

Bramantip, in using 'Some P is P', is actually the odd man out, the most unusual of all valid syllogisms; Darapti, Felapton, and Fesapo use 'Some M is M' instead, because they all have -1 for both the M places in the premise, and therefore need something that can cancel out a -2 for M.  The same method will work for subalternated moods that take ordinary syllogisms with universal conclusions that are then subalternated (Barbari, Celaront, Cesaro, etc.), except that in those cases the subalternation can be handled extramodally -- i.e., one way to do them is to reach the conclusion using the standard mood and figure and then add the subalternation premise to the conclusion to get the particular conclusion (for these, the subalternation premises is always 'Some S is S').

The premises adding to the conclusion is a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for validity of syllogism; the tables don't actually track figure (which requires considering order, not just value), so they only identify syllogisms that are invalid purely because of mood. For validity, syllogisms also need to be regular, i.e., universal conclusions have to come from all universal premises, and particular conclusions have to come from premises that have one and only one particular proposition (which may be the subalternation premise).

Habitude XI

 To the fourth one proceeds thus. It seems that no habitude is poured into human beings from God. For God has himself equally to all. If therefore He pours some habitudes into some, he would pour them into all, which is obviously false.

Further, God works in everything according to the way appropriate to its nature, because divine providence is for saving nature, as says Dionysius, De Div. Nom. ch. IV. But human habitudes are naturally caused by acts, as was said. Therefore God does not cause any habitudes in human beings apart from acts.

Further, if any habitude is poured out from God, through that habitude a human being is able to produce many acts. But from those acts a like habitude is cased, as is said in Ethic. II. It follows therefore that there are two acts of the same species in the same human being, one acquired, the other poured, which it seems is impossible, for two forms of one species cannot be in the same subject. Therefore no habitude is poured into a human being from God.

But contrariwise is what is said in Eccli. XV: The Lord filled him with the spirit of wisdom and understanding. But wisdom and understanding are sorts of habitudes. Therefore some human habitudes are poured out from God.

I reply that it must be said that some human habitudes are poured out from God for two reasons. The first reason is that there are some habitudes by which a human being is disposed well to an end exceeding the faculty of human nature, which is ultimate and complete human beatitude, as was said above. And because it is needful that habitudes be proportionate to that to which the human being is disposed according to them, it is also necessary that habitudes disposing in any way to such an end exceed the faculty of human nature. Thus such habitudes are not able to be in a human being save from divine pouring, as it is with all gratuitous virtues. 

Another reason is because God is able to produce the effects of secondary causes apart from the secondary causes themselves, as was said at the first. Therefore, just as sometimes to show his force he produces health without the natural cause, so also sometimes to show his force he pours into man those habitudes that are able to be caused by natural force. So he gave to the apostles knowledge of scripture and of all languages, which human beings through study or custom are able to acquire, although not so completely.

To the first therefore it must be said that God, with respect to his nature, equally has himself to all, but according to the order of his wisdom, for a definite reason he grants to some what he does not grant to others.

To the second it must be said that God working in everything according to their ways, does not exclude God from working that which nature is not able to work, but it follows from this that nothing is worked contrary to what is appropriate to nature.

To the third it must be said that acts which are produced by a poured habitude do not cause any habitude, but confirm a pre-existing habitude, just medicinal remedies applied to a man healthy by nature do not cause any health but rather strengthen the prior habitude of health.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.51.4, my translation. The Latin is here, the Dominican Fathers translation is here.]

I have deliberately avoided the word 'infused'; it's a perfectly good word, but I think it's worth remembering the underlying metaphor. I've also translated with 'faculty' rather than a more generic term like 'capacity' because the technical meaning is operative here -- a faculty is a power or capacity that can be directly disposed by will, which then makes it possible for the power or capacity be disposed well or badly.

This short article has more going on than might meet the eye. It will, of course, be the foundation of some of the most important discussions of virtue in the Summa. We also have here the essential argument for a key Thomistic idea, that we have no natural habitude to our natural end, because the latter is our natural end in the sense that we have it as an end by nature, not in the sense that it is within the capability of human nature to achieve it. It is therefore natural to human beings to seek a higher power than our own. This idea would lead to argument in the nineteenth century, by the clumsy device of an imaginary 'pure state of nature', and then again in the twentieth century, over the natural desire to see God.

In addition, the response to the third objection is more important than it might look, because it identifies a principle that will play a significant role in the Thomistic account of infused virtue.

This article completes St. Thomas's tour of habitudes in light of their causes. We have

natural habitudes

acquired habitudes

infused habitudes

but we've also discovered that the boundaries among these are not quite so hard and fast as might be assumed. There are natural habitudes that also require human acts for their full specification, and thus are in a sense mediate between natural and acquired habitudes, and as God can infuse any habitude whatsoever, something's being a natural or an acquired habitude does not necessarily rule out its also being an infused habitude. There are, of course, infused habitudes that are definitely neither natural or acquired habitudes, but the mere fact that something is poured out on someone by God does not itself make it itself  'supernatural', as we might say today. Likewise, the fact that something is a natural or acquired habitude does not exclude the possibility that it is a direct gift from God.

Dashed Off XXX

 This is the beginning of the notebook begun at the end of July 2024.

We recognize God from being moved by Him, being created by Him, resting upon Him, being uplifted by Him, and being guided by Him. Many ordinary people will spontaneously say such things. But these are the Five Ways, loosely expressed in experiential terms.

the flavor story of a meal
the hospitality story of a meal
the prestige story of a meal

Treating everything as a matter of exchange for one's own benefit is the root of all evil.

'his name' / 'her name' etc. as quasi-demonstrative (cf.: His name is Bob. This is Bob. He is Bob.)

prudence: the world as a field of need for plan and decision (the agible)
justice: as a field of the due (jural goods)
fortitude: as a field of challenge and achievement
temperance: as a field of need for balance of good

Familial society and civil society need mediation. (Rosmini)

regulation of the modality of rights
(1) to protect rights from suppression
(2) to settle disputes (by agreement, custom, and reason)
(3) to modify minimally the exercise of rights to avoid harm (by agreement, custom, and reason)
(4) to form frameworks by which people may exercise their rights in mutually beneficial cooperations

"The effect of genius is not to persuade the audience but rather to transport them out of themselves. Invariably what inspires wonder casts a spell on us and is always superior to what is merely convincing and pleasing." Longinus

Sex must be done in a way consistent with friendship and justice to all who are potentially affected by it.

'white horse is not horse' and ignoratio elenchi

The New Natural Law principle, "Do not choose to destroy, damage, or impede any instantiation of a basic human good" (Finnis), is defective in formulation in two ways:
(1) it is common good instantiations, and not individual good instantiations, that are relevant to moral ought;
(2) choices are often comparative and thus the principle has to be formulated as to deal with choices between instantiations of basic human activity (which is nto the same as choices between basic human goods).

the family as community of grace and prayer

humanizing goods

"For the role of prudence is to ensure that one's natural understanding of the basic human goods *is brought all the way down to action and a whole lifetime of actions*." Finnis

that something continues to exist as a presupposition of scientific inquiry, and the ultimate foundation of conservation laws

ideals to strive for (must be practicable) vs. ideals for assessment of progress (organize ideals to strive for into judgments of value)

modality of rights: "everything that can be done with or about a rigth without diminishing the good contained in it" (Rosmini)

Not all aspects of our union with Christ are experienced.

the already-knowledge account of immediate inferences
-- it is easy to see how Simplification is justified (knowing the conjunction is already knowing the conjuncts), but Addition seems to fail (knowing p is not already knowing that q is a logical possibility) (cp. Williamson)

Nothing we clearly imagine is impossible, but only to the extent we clearly imagine it.

The good and bad of reasoning gets you farther than it might seem, because many other kinds of good and bad are specific applications to particular domains, while others are extensions or analogues.

the role of scientist as witness to phenomena in science communication

obstinacy as misplaced loyalty

passive vs active participation in the human moral community

Humanity is both received and expressed.

In choosing, we partition the circumstances in which we find ourselves, dividing accidental circumstances from specifying circumstances, and indeed making the particular division betwene them by the choosing itself.

Human belief is not very systematic.

justice as order, justice as right, justice as participation in the divine

wisdom, sanctity, adventure, harmony

the juridical city, i.e., civilized life qua juridical

Act in a way always consistent with the friendships of civilized life.

law, right, and liturgy

sacrifice, purity, and wisdom as the three aspects of imitation of Christ at which human beings have special potential to excel, in part because they create special challenges for us

three ways of considering what is right: component of honorable life, requirement of non-injury, one's own/due
-- these perhaps can be considered positive, negative, union of two, or else formal, material, total

the right as the mediating factor in just relation and action between persons

Headlines are not descriptions of what the article says; headlines are editorial comments by which the editors express why they think it is important.

Justice creates derivative rights as part of its respect for rights.

incongruity immediately resolved: surprise
incongruity of uncertain character: puzzlement/bafflement
unresolved and definite incongruity: humor
-- but this is idealized; as Beattie and Gerard note, other sentiments can interfere, either overriding or redirecting the first impulse

humorous laughter -> uneasy laughter -> bitter laughter

The city that is the heart of civilization is the relatively self-sufficient city, i.e., not the urban area alone but all that makes the city possible and sustainable.

Everything is germinal philosophy.

One thing that makes Norse mythology splendid is the well-roundedness of the major gods -- they are complex, and we can both identify with them and find them alien, sometimes at the same time.

three aspects of a functional state: representation, preservation of rights, orderly action encouraging order

Many things are believed because they are beloved.

rite : moral person :: habitus : natural person

political philosophy as katabasis and anabasis

"There is no point in abstaining from vice unless you embrace moral excellence, because when it comes to noble pursuits, the beginning is not as praiseworthy as the end." Jerome

"Any right whatsoever, held by a person, causes inequality in others because it causes duy in them." Rosmini

Distributive justice is based on the inequality created by rights. (Rosmini)

the jural equality between state and citizen

common good -> community -> community as moral system -> suum of community

injustice qua intention of inequality in interaction (taking advantage) vs. injustice qua intention toward unjust thing (violating rights)

prudence, fortitude, and temperance with respect to another as included in complete justice

academic life as scaffold-building

Many modern discussions of love make more sense if you substitute 'need for love' or 'desire for love' in place of 'love'.

One sign of an adequate ethics is that it can serve as the framework for excellent stories with rich characterization.

We all owe to the human community as a moral person to act in a way appropriate to its survival and betterment.

A (subjective) right is possession of title to a jural good given a general obligation regarding it.

It is against the nature of governance to impede people from acting according to their officia, except in emergencies. (cf. SCG 71.4)

Habitude X

 To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that habitude can be generated through one act. For demonstration is an act of reason. But through one demonstration is caused the knowledge [scientiam] that is the habitude of one conclusion. Therefore habitudes is able to be caused from one act.

Further, just as one habitude happens to increase through multiplication, so an act happens to increase through intension. But acts being multiplied, habitude is generated. Therefore if one act is intensified a lot, it could be a generative cause of habitude.

Further, health and illness are sorts of habitude. But from one act a man happens to be healed or sickened. Therefore one act is able to cause habitude.

But contrariwise is what the Philosopher says in Ethic. I, that neither one swallow nor one day makes a spring, so certainly neither one day nor a short time makes beatitude or happiness. But beatitude is working according to a habitude of complete virtue, as is said in Ethic. I. Therefore the habitude, and for the same reason any other habitude, is not caused through one act.

I reply that it must be said that, just as has already been said, habitude is generated through act inasmuch as passive power is moved from some active principle. But in order for any quality to be caused in the passive, it is needful that the active wholly overcome the passive. Thus we see that because fire cannot at once overcome its combustible, it does not at once inflame it, but bit by bit casts down contrary dispositions so that, wholly overcoming it, it may impress its similitude on it. But it is manifest that the active principle that is reason, is not able wholly to overcome the appetitive power in one act because the appetitive power has itself in many ways and to many things; but through reason is judged, in one act, that something is sought [appetendum] according to determinate reasons and circumstances. Thus from this the appetitive power is not wholly overcome, so as to be brought mostly to the same thing, by the way of nature, as pertains to the habitude of virtue. And therefore the habitude of virtue is not able to through one act, but through many. 

But in the apprehensive powers it must be considered that the passive is twofold, one of which is the possible intellect itself, but another intellect which Aristotle calls passive, which is particular reason, that is, the cogitative impulse along with the memorative and the imaginative. Therefore with respect to the first passive, there is able to be some active that by one act wholly overcomes the power of its passive, as one proposition known through itself [per se nota] convinces the intellect to assent firmly to a conclusion, which indeed a probable proposition does not do. Thus it is needful for opinionative habitude to be caused from many acts of reason, even on the part of the possible intellect, but habitude of knowledge [habitum scientiae] is possibly caused from one act of reason as regards teh possible intellect. But as regards inferior apprehensive impulses, it is necessary to reiterate the same act many times so that something may be impressed firmly on the memory. Thus the Philosophers in the book on memory and recollection says meditation confirms memory. 

But bodily habitude is possibly caused from one act, if the active is of great force, as sometimes strong medicine at once induces health.

And from this is obvious the response to the objections.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.51.3, my translation. The Dominican Fathers translation is here, the Latin is here.]

Thus we get a basic account of habituation, and also the first reason why it was necessary to determine that habitudes are qualities. Qualities admit of contraries, and thus when you induce a qualitative disposition in anything, you have to do so against any contrary disposition it might happen to have. Thus, where such contrary dispositions exist, you have to act enough to overcome the contrariety, whatever it may be, and depending on the situation, it may take many actions to do so. In the case of the intellect affecting appetitive powers, there need to be many actions, as also there will need to be many actions for the internal senses, and, depending on the situation, possibly the body.  

But in purely intellectual matters that are certain, it is possible, as when understanding a proof at once gives you knowledge, for the habitude to arise from a single action. In other cases, as in probable matters, it takes many actions. (St. Thomas elsewhere characterizes opinion as arising from when we have reasons on both sides, but greater on one side, so this is again a case of action overcoming contrary disposition.)

A Poem Re-Draft

 A Bit of Thanksgiving 

 I thank you, Lord, for fruitful fields,
for wide and healthful skies,
and for the hopes that we can have
that are not marred by lies.
And thank you, God, for mysteries
still left for us to solve
upon this awesome floating ball
that rotates and revolves. 

 Thank you, Lord, for infant smiles
and children bright at play;
thank you for the silly souls
who goad us every day.
(We appreciate those most, O Lord,
those crosses that we bear,
and we thank you that we're not yet bald
from pulling out our hair.) 

 I thank you, Lord, for mercy!
It saves us from the brink;
and thank you, Lord, for righteous wrath --
we need more of it, I think.
But thank you for all gentle souls
who always tempers keep;
protect them, Lord, from the rest of us,
lest we kill them in their sleep. 

 I thank you, Lord, for cheerful sun
that rises every dawn,
and that my students learn to hide
the sound and sight of yawn;
that education is a joy
that overflows with awe,
and, on those crazy grading days,
that there are murder laws. 

 I thank you that we live here free
in houses without bars,
that there are things that we can own,
that no one owns the stars,
that joy and virtue freely flow
without a market price
while we have markets fully full
of grain and fruit and spice. 

 I thank you, Lord, for politics,
for presidents and such,
that they work so hard to get their way,
that they never get it much;
yea, for the limits you have placed
on corruption, fraud, and spite,
that we need only deal with them
a dozen times each night. 

 I thank you for the not-quite-hinged,
the high-strung drama queen,
who overreacts ten times a day
(and twenty more if seen),
and for the fact we have the right,
however the world may go,
to stand our ground, though he may wail,
and simply tell him, 'No.' 

 For those who make such trouble, Lord,
I thank you, too, for them;
they force us to be on our toes
and keep us fit and slim.
I thank you for our heartache-pains,
for things that go awry,
and thank you for each helping hand,
however small and shy. 

 Thank you, Lord, for critics harsh
who attack with whip and flail;
and because of harsh reviewers, Lord,
I thank you too for hell.
And thank you, Lord, for stupid folk,
that we can clearly see
in blatant view the foolish things
from which none of us are free. 

 And thank you for those shocking times
when we pedants who lecture all
on every foolish folly
into those follies fall,
for it teaches us the wisdom
of gentleness's restraint
lest we in turn be painted
with the brush by which we paint. 

 Thank you for your graces,
the good of little things,
which even in harsh and hurtful times
can make us laugh and sing.
And thank you for all wonders
that stimulate the mind --
no matter the occasion,
new truths our minds may find. 

 But I thank you most for absurdities --
they overflow every bank,
so that if I thank you for each one,
I'll never cease to thank!
And thank you for sweet irony;
it gives the wit to see
that all the things we moan about
may be thanksgiving's seed. 

 But most of all, I thank you, Lord,
that long before we die,
we can see ourselves with wry regard,
and laugh until we cry.

Eucharisteite

 We call you, brothers, to caution the disorderly, soothe the dispirited, hold on to the weak, be undauntable toward all. See that no one gives bad for bad to anyone, but always pursue the good both toward each other and toward all. Always rejoice. Unceasingly pray. In everything be grateful because of the inclination of God toward you in Jesus Christ. Do not suppress the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but all things test; hold tight the good. Keep away from every form of wickedness.

[1 Thessalonians 5:14-22, my very rough translation. Lots of interesting words here. Oligopsychia is usually pusillanimity or petty-mindedness, but the verb suggests that it is here indicating a weakness rather than a vice. 'Dispirited' is my guess, but I think it's probably reasonably close to what is intended. Antechesthe, here translated as 'hold on to', literally means to adhere or stick to something, and can be translated as 'care for', as well. Makrothymia is often translated as 'patience', but it's an active patience -- greatness of thymos, or great-spiritedness, the thymos being the part of you that rises to challenges. So for makrothymeite I've tried to capture some of that, with be undauntable. Chairete means 'rejoice'; but it's also related to the common Greek salutation. (Gabriel's Ave or Hail is in Greek Chaire.) 'Be grateful' is eucharisteite, which can also be translated as 'give thanks'.]

Habitude IX

 To the second one proceeds thus. It seems that no habitude is able to be caused by act. For a habitude is a sort of quality, as was said above. But every quality is caused in some subject inasmuch as it is receptive of something. Therefore since what acts does not receive something, but rather sends forth from itself, it seems that there is not able to be a habitude generated from act in an agent.

Further, that in which some quality is caused, is moved to that quality, as is obvious in a cooled or heated thing, but what produces the act causing the quality, moves, as is obvious with cooling and heating. Therefore if habitude were caused in something by its own act, it would follow that mover and moved, agent and patient, would be the same, which is impossible, as is said in Physic. VII.

Further, an effect is not able to be nobler than its cause. But habitude is nobler than act preceding habitude, which is obvious from this, that it renders act nobler. Therefore habitude is not able to be cause by an act preceding the habitude.

But contrariwise, the Philosopher in Ethic. II teaches that habitudes of virtues and vices are caused by acts.

I reply that it must be said that in an agent there is sometimes only the active principle of its act, as in fire there is only the active principle of heating. And in such an agent there is not able to be any habitude cause by its own act, and thus it is that natural things are not able to be accustoming or unaccustoming [consuescere vel dissuescere], as is said in Ethic. II. But some agent is found in which there is the active and passive principle of its act, as is obvious in human acts. For the acts of appetitive virtue proceed from the appetitive impulse [vi appetitiva] according as it is moved by the apprehensive impulse [vi apprehensiva] representing the object, and beyond this, the intellectual impulse [vis intellectiva], according as it reasons about conclusions has as its active principle a proposition known through itself [per se notam]. Thus from such acts habitudes are able to be caused in the agent, not indeed with respect to the first active principle, but with regard to the principle of the act that moves the moved. For everything that is endured and moved from another is disposed through the act of an agent; thus from multiplied acts there is generated a sort of quality in passive and moved power, which is called habitude; just as the habitudes of the moral virtues are caused in appetitive powers, inasmuch as they are moved by reason, and the habitudes of kinds of knowledge [scientiarum] are caused in the intellect, inasmuch as they are moved by first propositions.

Therefore to the first it must be said that the agent, inasmuch as it is agent, does not receivng something. But inasmuch as it acts as moved by another, it receives something from the mover, and so habitude is caused.

To the second it must be said that the same, according as it is same, is not able to be mover and moved. But nothing prevents the same being moved by itself according to diverse things, as is proved in Physic. VIII.

To the third it must be said that the act proceeding habitude, inasmuch as it proceeds from active principle, proceeds from a nobler principle than the generated habitude, just as reason itself is a nobler principle than the habitudes of moral virtues generated in appetitive impulse [vi appetitiva] by customary acts; and understanding of principles is a nobler principle than knowledge of conclusions [scientia conclusionum].

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.51.2, my translation; the Latin is here, the Dominican Fathers translation is here.]

This, of course, gives us habitudes that are not natural in the sense that the previous article considered. It's easy to overlook, but this article is also an indirect discussion of free will and rational learning, which involve acts that cause habitudes.

The Wheel-Breaker

 Today is the feast of Queen Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Great Martyr, the patron saint of philosophers.

Raphael, Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Links of Note

 * Gregory B. Sadler, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Patroness of Christian Philosophers: Inspiration for Contemporary Christian Philosophy

* Daniel D. De Haan, Delectatio, gaudium, fruitio: Three kinds of pleasure for three kinds of knowledge in Thomas Aquinas (PDF)

* Virginia Weaver, Gender essentialism is inevitable -- and necessary for feminism, at "Overlong Memories"

* R. A. Nicolás-Francisco, On the Polish “Via Modalization” Approach to Paraconsistency (PDF)

* Ashley Frawley, Are We Not Catholics, Too?, at "Compact"

* Miguel Garcia-Godinez, Easy Social Ontology (PDF)

* Dirk Schlimm and David Waszek, John Venn's pluralism regarding logical forms (PDF)

* Tim Powers has a substack on writing fantasy. Orson Scott Card occasionally comments.

*Tim Juvshik, Why Be Realists About Artifact Kinds? (PDF)

* Bañezian Thomist, Domingo Báñez on the Logical Problem of the Trinity

Habitude VIII

Next we must consider the cause of habitudes. And first, as to their generation; second, as to their growth; third, as to their diminution and corruption. About the first, four questions are asked. First, whether any habitude is from nature. Second, whether any habitude is caused by acts. Third, whether habitude can be generated through one act. Fourth, whether any habitudes are infused into human beings by God.

To the first one proceeds thus. It seems that no habitude is from nature. For of those things that are from nature, the use is not subject to will. But habitude is that which one uses when one wishes, as the Commentator says on De Anima III. Therefore habitude is not from nature.

Further, nature does not do by two what it can do by one. But the powers of the soul are from nature. Therefore if the habitudes of the powers were from nature, habitude and power would be one.

Further, nature is not defective in matters of necessity. But habitudes are necessary for working well, as was said above. Therefore if any habitudes were from nature, it seems nature would not be defective in causing all necessary habitudes. But this is obviously false. Therefore habitudes are not from nature.

But contrariwise is that in Ethic. IV, among other habitudes is put understanding of principles, which is from nature, whence also first principles are said to be naturally cognized.

I reply that it must be said that something is able to be natural to someone in two ways. (1) In one way, according to the nature of the species, as it is natural for a human being to be risible, or fire to rise. (2) In another way, according to the nature of the individual, as it is natural for Socrates or Plato to be illness-prone or health-prone, according to his temperament [complexionem]. Again, according to both natures, something is able to be said to be natural in two ways, (i) in one way, because it is wholly from nature, (ii) in another way, because according to something it is from nature and according to something it is from an external principle; just as when someone is healed through himself, health is wholly from nature, but when someone is healed through the help of medicine, health is partly from nature and partly from external principle.

So, therefore, if we speak of habitude according as it is a disposition of a subject ordered to form or nature, in any of the aforesaid ways habitude can happen to be natural.  For there is some natural disposition that is due to human species, outside of which no human being is found. And this is natural according to the nature of the species. But because such a disposition has a certain latitude, it happens that diverse gradations of this sort of disposition can be appropriate to diverse human beings according to the nature of the individual. And this sort of disposition is able to be either wholly from nature or partly from nature and partly from exterior principle, as was said of those who were healed through art.

But habitude that is a disposition to working, whose subject is a power of the soul, as was said, is able to be natural both according to the nature of the species and according to the nature of the individual: According to the nature of the species, according as it is held on the part of the soul itself, which, as it is the form of the body, is a specific principle; but according to the nature of the individual, on the part of the body, which is the material principle. But in neither way does it happen in human beings that there are natural habitudes so that they are entirely from nature. (In angels this does happen, in that they have naturally innate [inditus] intelligible species, which do not belong to the human soul, as was said in the first place.) 

There are therefore in human beings some natural habitudes as it were existing partly from nature and partly from external principle, in one way in the apprehensive powers and in another in the appetitive powers. For in apprehensive powers there is able to be natural habitude according to incipience [inchoationem], both according to the nature of the species and according to the nature of the individual: according to the nature of the species, on the part of the soul itself, as the understanding of principles is said to be natural habitude. For from the nature of the intellectual soul itself, it is appropriate that a human being, cognizing what is whole and what is part, cognizes that every whole is greater than its part, and likewise in other things. But what is whole and what is part, he is not able to cognize save through intelligible species received from phantasms. And because of this is the Philosopher, at the end of the Posterior [Analytics], shows that cognition of principles comes to us from the senses.  But according to the nature of the individual, there is some cognitive habitude according to natural incipience, inasmuch as one human being from the disposition of organs is more apt to understand well than another, inasmuch as we need sensitive virtues for the working of the intellect.

But in the appetitive powers, there is no natural habitude according to incipience on the part of the soul itself according to the substance of the habitude itself, but only as to certain principles of it, as principles of common right are said to be seminal virtues. And this is because inclination to proper objects, which seems to be incipience of habitude, does not pertain to habitude, but pertains more to the very notion of powers. But on the part of the body, according to the nature of the individual, there are some appetitive habitudes according to natural incipience. For some are disposed from their own bodily temperament to chastity or gentleness or to some such.

To the first, therefore, it must be said that this objection proceeds from nature as divided over against reason and will, whereas reason and will themselves pertain to human nature.

To the second it must be said that something is able to be naturally superadded to power that nevertheless is not able to pertain to the power itself, as in angels it is not able to pertain to some intellectual power that it be through itself cognizant of everything, because that would need to be the act of everything, which is God's alone. For that by which something is cognized needs to be the actual similitude of what is cognized, whence it would follow, if the power of the angel through itself cognized everything, that it would be the similitude and act of everything. Hence it needs to be the case that some intelligible species, which are the similitudes of intellectual things, be superadded to the intellectual power itself, because through its participation of divine wisdom, and not through its own essence, their intellects can be actual for those things which they understand. And so it is obvious that not everything that pertains to natural aptitude is able to pertain to power.

To the third it must be said that nature does not equally have itself to causing all the diversity of habitudes, because some are able to be caused by nature, some not, as was said above. And thus it does not follow that if some habitudes are natural, all are natural.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.51.1. The Dominican Fathers translation is here, the Latin is here.]

So this mazy article is a partial taxonomy of habitudes. We are considering only those habitudes in some way caused by nature, and we have to consider a prior distinction in habitudes, namely, habitudes insofar as they are ordered to nature or form, and habitudes insofar as they are ordered to operation. The classification looks something along these lines:

NATURAL HABITUDES INSOFAR AS THEY ARE ORDERED TO NATURE

(1) According to the nature of the species
--- --- (i) as wholly from nature (e.g., natural disposition pertaining to human species, presumably those natural balances that are necessary for vital human functions)
--- --- (ii) as partly from nature, partly from external source (e.g., one's vital functions as restored or corrected by medicine)

(2) According to the nature of the individual
--- --- (i) as wholly from nature (e.g., variant forms arising from the latitude of the natural disposition pertaining to human species, such as sickly or healthy physical temperament)
--- --- (ii) as partly from nature, partly from external source (perhaps as examples we could include healthiness in part from dietary regimen, or physical fitness, which refine the natural health of the body)

NATUR AL HABITUDES INSOFAR AS THEY ARE ORDERED TO OPERATION

(1) According to the nature of the species (in human beings, on the part of the soul)
--- --- (i) as wholly from nature (do not exist in human beings, although angels have them, e.g., innate intelligible species through which the angel understands by nature)
--- --- (ii) as partly from nature, partly from external source (in natural incipience or inchoation)
--- --- --- --- (a) in apprehensive powers (e.g., understanding of first principles)
--- --- --- --- (b) in appetitive powers (do not properly exist, although in a loose sense seminal virtues in the apprehensive powers, insofar as they prepare for appetitive operation, can be considered as standing proxy for them)

(2) According to the nature of the individual (on the part of the body)
--- --- (i) as wholly from nature (do not properly exist)
--- --- (ii) as partly from nature, partly from external source (in natural incipience or inchoation)
--- --- --- --- (a) in apprehensive powers (e.g., sensitive virtues, i.e., better disposition of the physical organs so as to facilitate understanding, like quickness of imagination or clarity of memory)
--- --- --- --- (b) in appetitive powers (e.g., bodily temperaments facilitating character)

So since 1.i, 1.ii.b, and 2.i  of those ordered to operation are empty classes for human beings, there are seven kinds of natural human habitudes. This is, of course, not a complete taxonomy of habitude, but only covers natural habitudes; there are other habitudes that are acquired in ways that make them not natural in any of these senses, which the next articles will go on to discuss. From what we see here, the natural habitudes insofar as they are ordered to nature are the principal foundation for health and medicine; the natural habitudes insofar as they are ordered to operation are the principal foundations for human social and cognitive life; but we should not consider this as a sharp separation (e.g., since we are naturally social, there could be socially-oriented natural habitudes ordered to nature, and 2.ii.a and 2.ii.b clearly intersect with medical concerns).

An interesting question for understanding how natural habitudes work in principle is how many kinds of natural habitude angels have. As far as I know, St. Thomas never addresses this, but I am inclined to say four: they can have all of the natural habitudes insofar as they are ordered to nature, but there is no distinction between individual and species at the angelic level, at least in St. Thomas's account -- every individual angel just is its own species of angel, carrying everything that is possible to that species. Thus these collapse to two. The same occurs for natural habitudes according to operation, but the reason for denying the existence of 1.ii.b to human beings seems quite general and thus would apply to angels. So of those natural habitudes, angels would have at least innate intelligible species (1.i) and innate apprehensive habitudes for understanding (1.ii.a). One could perhaps argue that these latter also collapse in angelic intellects; but I think both angelic self-knowledge and angelic communication, as St. Thomas characterizes them, allow for 1.ii.a that is not 1.i.

Fortnightly Book, November 23

 Owen Wister was born into a wealthy family and spent part of his early education in Swiss and British boarding schools. He went to Harvard and spent time in a Paris conservatory, hoping to write operas. He eventually concluded this was not going to work, began working for a bank and going to Harvard Law School, after which he became a lawyer. That's a very upper class lifestyle. But Owen Wister is not famous for any of this, and he himself was rather bored with it. What he really liked was research the American West and writing stories about it. And today he is famous for a novel he published in 1902, drawing on and adapting some of those stories, that changed the shape of fiction for decades afterward. That novel is The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains. It was a runaway bestseller, has never been out of print, and is one of the bestselling books of all time. Because of it, Owen Wister is the father of the Cowboy Western. A large market for imitators suddenly sprang up; this spilled over into other media, theater, and radio, and movies, and later television, so that many of the standard tropes of cowboy fiction in any medium trace back to Wister's novel. At least five movie adaptations have been made, starting with a 1914 silent adaptation by Cecil B. DeMille, itself based on an already extremely successful stageplay adaptation.

Two of the movie adaptations are extremely famous -- the 1929 one with Gary Cooper and the 1946 one with Joel McRae. If I have the time, I might watch one of them to see how they adapt it. There are also several radio adaptations (including one by Lux Radio Theatre, which is usually good at movie adaptations) that I might listen to -- again, if I have time.

J.-K. Huysmans, En Route

 Introduction

Opening Passage:

It was during the first week in November, the week inwhich the Octave of All Souls was celebrated. Durtal entered Saint Sulpice at eight o'clock in the evening. He would deliberately come to his church because there was a trained choir, and he could, away from the crowd, take stock of himself in peace. The ugliness of the nave, with its heavy barrel vaulting, would disappear at nightfall, the aisles were often deserted, and its few lamps shed little light; you could de-louse your soul here without being seen; you were at home. (p. 27)

Summary:  At the end of Là-bas, Durtal was finishing up his book on Gilles de Ries and Satanism, beginning to feel a bit tired and sick of the lying of the modern age. At the beginning of En Route, he is working on a book about a Blessed Lydwine, having recently become Catholic and not entirely sure why. He enjoys some of art and music -- much of the book is structured by reflection on plainchant -- but he, of course, is an author who runs in artistic circles and finds the modern Catholic taste in these to be atrocious. His research has led him to read widely in mystical theology; he likes some of the more impassioned mystical saints, although he finds much of it unappealing. The reading has led him to a spiritual director he likes, Abbé Gévresin, who also has an interest in mystical theology. Gévresin finds that Durtal is having difficulty bringing himself to take communion, and arranges for him to visit the monastery of La Trappe and spend a week or so among the Trappist monks. He explores the monastery, the grounds, the history, the spirituality, and then takes communion and returns to Paris.

This is very much a character-focused novel; in terms of external action, very little occurs. But it would be an error to say that there is no plot. The plot is instead all internal, and Durtal's mind throughout all this is very active indeed. He is in a state of perplexity, of wavering, of repeated temptations, which he must struggle to overcome. The novel has a clear plot-climax, in Part II, Chapter V, which is brilliantly handled; this climax is an entirely internal struggle, the last great temptation that Durtal must overcome. On the outside, very little happens; on the inside, a life is changed forever.

As a sidenote, it was somewhat amusing as a historical matter to see a Catholic work written in the very early days (the 1890s) of what later would become sarcastically known as the Liturgy Wars, with Durtal fuming about people trying to replace traditional plainchant with contemporary dance tunes and the parish priests who allow such atrocious bad taste and kitsch in their churches. One of the things he likes about La Trappe, in fact, is that they still do ordinary plainchant, completely unpretentiously, which ironically is far more appealing to his sophisticated and modern artistic tastes than the would-be modern material, which he finds grating and distracting. 

This was much more enjoyable to read than Là-bas. Part of this is that the material is a bit less off-putting, but part of it is that Huysmans really excels himself in some of the psychological and artistic description here. Parts of the book are just extraordinarily beautiful. The book caused a scandal when it came out, because of Durtal's sexual temptations, but I have to say (and it is a sign of our times) that, while frank, they were relatively tame compared to what would be even common fare today.

Favorite Passage:

The trees were rustling, trembling, in a whisper of prayer, as if bowing before Christ, who was no longer writing his painful arms in the mirror of the pool, but embracing these waters, laying them out before him, blessing them.

And the pool itself was different; its inky waters were filling with monastic visions, of white habits left there by the passing reflections of clouds, and the swan was splashing them amid the lapping sunlight, making great circles of oil ripple before it as it swam.

One might have said these waves were gilded by the oil of catechumens and the holy chrism the Church consecrates on the Saturday of Holy Week; and above them the heavenly sky opened its tabernacle of clouds, out of which came a bright sun like a monstrance of molten gold, like a Blessed Sacrament of flames.

It was a Benediction of nature, a genuflection of trees and flowers, singing in the wind, perfuming with their incense the sacred bread, which was gleaming on high in the blazing pyx of the star. (p. 303)

Recommendation: Highly Recommended.

*************

J.-K. Huysmans, En Route, Brendan King, tr., Dedalus (Sawtry, UK: 2024).

Dashed Off XXIX

This ends the notebook that was completed toward the end of July 2024.

******

 The Creed is not a menu; the parts inter-relate.

According to legend, St Endelienta (daughter of King Brychan & sister of St. Nectan & St. Dilas) was King Arthur's goddaughter; while a hermit in Trentinney, she lived on the milk of a cow, which was killed by the Lord of Trentinney when the cow stryed onto his land. King Arthur, learning of this, sent his men to kill Lord Trentinney, but Endelienta restored him back to life.

Catholic doctrine gives new light even to self-evident truths.

"Equality, liberty, and fraternity are principles which mutually suppose each other, and are resolved one in the other, as the human, the political, and the domestic solidarities are dogmas which are resolved in and mutually suppose each other." Donoso Cortes

resemblance, contiguity, and causation as elements in precedent

Philosophical skepticisms are rarely as necessary as skeptics like to pretend.

the sense of soical order as a moral endowment

We only tie sets of actions to traffic lights because they are already conceptualized as traffic lights. Nobody stops on a red light that is not already recognized as the red of a traffic light.

No punishment can be ascribed to an action without a classification that makes the action discernible in a way relevant to the punishment.

The actions associated with institutional facts are not stable and predefined. We are sometimes incentivized to stop at borders and sometimes not, sometimes incentivized to use currency as legal tender and sometimes not, etc., through all the possible actions in myriad complicated ways.

What is defined as 'naturalistic' is often due more to cultural conventions in interpretations of natural things than to what is natural.

No human being is intelligent enough always to outsmart stupidity; stupidity is more constant than human intelligence can ever be.

The sacrament of reconciliation can vary in the ways that confession and satisfaction can.

"We cannot so abstract from Christianity its specific character, as to leave the general idea of religion behind." Nevin

Love is more perfect than duty.

We are none of us writers of our own story, which depends in great measure on an entire universe other than ourselves.

identity of indiscernibles as a principle of classification

Every human being is a germinal philosopher and every Christian a germinal theologian.

Revelation reverberates.

the categories as ways things can contribute to composition and mutability

The possibility of the Incarnation is implicit in the divine idea of humanity.

Sullivan (The Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia)
The Arian Syllogism:
(1) The Word is the subject of the human operations and passions of Christ.
(2) What is predicated of the Word must be predicated of him in his divine nature (kata physin).
Therefore (C) The human operations and passions of Christ are predicated of the divine nature (kata physin).
-- According to Sullivan, Athanasius and the Alexandrines rejected the minor (2); the Antiochenes rejected the major (1).

Phil 2:13: For God is the agent (energon) in you, both the willing and the acting (energein) according to purpose.

Acting for a reason is definitely distinguishable from doing what would make sense.

Every deontic logic can be given a design interpretation.

the intellect as agent intelligibility

Rational good is not unitary but a hierarchy.

Reason itself requires that we choose reason not only for reason's sake but for truth, goodness, beauty, etc.

General principles of classification
(1) contrastive identity: Everything is what it is and is not some other thing.
(2) indiscernibility of identicals: What is the same in what it is, is to that extent classifiable as the same.
(3) identity of indiscernibles: What is classifiable as the same is to that extent the same in what it is.
(4) sufficient reason: What is classifiable as the same or different is classifiable as such for a reason.

Citizenship implies powers of voluntary association.

Factional politics is a dangerous drug.

Conflict is part of how human beings organize.

The reality of the world cannot be bracketed off from the world itself without changing the phenomenon of the world. (Conrad-Martius)

Phenomenology can only get results relative to a reduction.

Wormelow Tump -- burial place according to legend of Arthur's son Amr.

Laws of nature explain as final causes.

Whether or not you can patch together different parts of possible worlds depends on teh possible worlds and the patches.
--> Lewis's argument form recombination is entirely in terms of objects; but possible worlds are not bare collections of objects but propositionally constructed. It is consistency of propositions, not objects of terms, that fundamentally matters.

Every civil society incorporates residues of previous societies.

Commentarial traditions are always a slow process of abstraction. Positions are analogized and then generalized, arguments put into a more general structure of objection and reply, ideas detached and used in new ways, distinctions made so that terms may be defined more precisely and in ways going beyond that which receives comment.

being as contrasted with
(a) not being
(b) being other
(c) appearing to be
(d) failing to be
(e) being like

Every fine art draws out aspects of every other fine art.

energy as mass & momentum with respect to field of effect

Memorialism tends to attribute to the Eucharist the effects of Gospel-reading and preaching.

We do not start with a distinction between natural and supernatural and find revelation appropriate to each; we start with revelation and find a distinction we crudely characterize by 'natural' vs 'supernatural'.

Imitating Christ is not being nice but giving one's body and pouring out one's blood.

Lawmaking is natural to human beings in much teh same way group-forming is.

Doubting does have some of the structure of Cartesianism; but other cognitive acts have other structures.

Creation is a foundational act in ontic, moral, jural, and sacral orders.

Civil society regulates the modalities of rights by customary law, by civil etiquette, by delegation, by negotiation, and by cooperative sanction.

incorporation of rights under due process vs under privileges or immunities (nnote that due process applies to persons and privilieges & immunities to citizens)

The Ninth Amendment direclty implies that there are rights of the people not dependent on the Constitution.

Gabriel as icon of the Incarnation

Christ's human intellect always had the light of glory, and in certain events -- Baptism, Transfiguration, Ascension -- the disciples were granted a foretaste, a slight glimpse, of what Christ always knew and what we shall always know in the order to come.

"But in a being that is absolutely without any plurality, there cannot be excellence, for there can be no such thing as consent or agreement." Jonathan Edwards

Reason inevitably asks how the doctrine of the Trinity can be true, but only fools think reason asks questions in order to avoid seeking answers.

Creation is a discursive space for glory.

Human practice by its very nature produces sufficient kinds or enough-kinds, e.g., straight enough, sufficiently like an animal, etc. What is more, this applies to scientific practice, as well -- frictionless enough, etc.

problems may be ill-posed
(a) as lacking what is required for any solution to be identified (indeterminacy)
(b) as having a surfeit of solutions
(c) as having a surplus of solutions

In popular sovereignty, the juridical person of the People is by legal fiction both lord and subject.

'Business is business', 'Rules are rules', etc., are classificatory statements, not bare identities, and their pragmatic implicatures arise from this classificatory aspect.

Bullying does not create dominance hierarchies; the former is a disruption of social order, the latter a structure of social order.

"The road to norms begins with pride (or with discontent, if something has gone wrong) in craftsmanship; caring about your work, perhaps partly for instrumental reasons, but importantly for intrinsic reasons as well." Sterelny

Hume's account of personal identity is in effect a juridical account of personal identity, and he explicitly puts aspects of it in juridical terms.

No autonomy rights can be inalienable because no one can guarantee taht they will never be in a situation in which they will need others to make decissinos for them -- as children, as elderly, as ill, in an emergency, etc.

Inference to the best explanation has the structure of defeasible disjunctive syllogism; the 'best' indicates that it has to be comparative, eliminating other explanations as (relatively) defective compared to what is concluded to be the best.

People do not lose their value just because they are dead.

Moral law requires a view of persons such that they can be of boundless worth (dignity) --> postulates of freedom, immortality, and God

Virtues determine by reason appropriate choices so as to avoid extremes arisign from the unpleasant and the pleasant.

qualia as residue of classification

rites as artificial habitudes

explanations of occurrences, existences, and endurances

What Goodman's Paradox shows is that every enumerative induction presupposes a classification, not merely incidentally, but in a load-bearing way.

Israel as corporate prophet of God (cp Torrance on mediation)

technobabble as magic (wizard-stuff for science fiction)

In salvation, participation is the ground of imputation.

"Christianity as the absolute religion, *must* in the nature of the case, take up into itself, and exhibit in a perfect form, the fragments and rudiments of truth contained in all relative religions. It is not a doctrine but a divine *fact*, into which all previous religious tendencies and developments are ultimately gathered as their proper end." Nevin

The fullness of justice requires a society adequate to it.

Shannon entropy & spread of probability distribution

Discreteness in QM is behavior like a harmonic oscillator.

A term is an organization of a field of meaning.

In moral matters, human beings have a temptation to dewll on fantasies rather than realities; prudence is necessary to prevent this from corrupting everything else.

Much of human creativity is founded on our ability to see ourselves and others as persons, or in light of persons.

The feeling of obligation is often an offshoot of the feeling of caring.

The amount of boredom in seems sometimes to expand to match the amount of entertainment.

"Social scientists follow their creator, because social science was created by capitalist society." George Grant
"When leisure is open to all, then education must be opened to all."

the five administrative offices of a lord: seneschal, chamberlain, butler, marshal, cupbearer

Consequences are not unified and simple things, but have many facets; the consequences of an action look different from the perspective of our sympathy and sense of compassion than they do from the perspective of our sense of responsibility to others, or our sense of honor and shame, or our sense of humor.

We can talk about finding our meaning in life because life as we know it is essentially probationary.

Four things drive toward civil governance: defect of lordship; religion; trade; discord among powerful families. (These all seem to do so by introducing or strengthening balanced division of powers.)

Arguments from evil are generally arguments from obscurity.

Because positive law is an artifact, it is essentially a part of a broader deontic framework just like every other artifact.

What Hart treats as 'contingent connnection' between law and morality is often merely the contingency of the particular laws themselves, not of their relation to morality as such.

Law is intrinsically a means and therefore ordered to fundamental ends; however, law cannot by its nature be ordered to just any arbitrary end.

Positive law is an externalization of rational principles into contingent circumstances.

All positive legislation has an active and a passive component, the active being contributed by lawmakers and the passive being those to whom it applies (officials, subjects, citizens); all positive legislation is thus a sort of co-legislation. The people are, so to speak, a silent partner.

All laws are put forward as reasons.

"Thus, then, we have three senses in which the expression 'This *is*' might be employed. First, it may imply identity secondly, it may imply that kind of representation which derives its force merely from the effect produced upon the spectator or receiver; thirdly, it may imply that kind of representation which is dependent only upon the intention of the author or giver." R. Wilberforce

All laws of nature have an implicit reference to totality of consistently interacting things.

Deontic seriality is the principle that no possible world is a deontic 'dead end' (Melissa Fusco) -- for any possible world, there is a deontically ideal world for it (which may be itself); no matter how non-ideal the world, a deontic world can be seen from it. (Shift reflexivity is that every deontically ideal world is deontically ideal for itself.)

People deny that there is a human nature in order to avoid responsibility for it.

The key issue in any simulation is relevant simplification, how to ignore things yet still have something relevant.

Presence is a kind of loose unity of being.

update as shifting reference state to another possible world

modus ponens as a product of classification relations (genus, species)

possibilities internal to a history (e.g., even in a deterministic history, if a light switch is sometimes on or sometimes off, both are possibilities for that switch in the history) & possibilities external to a history (if it takes more than one possible history to describe the light switch)
-- note that this is a generalization of diachronic vs synchronic

We often tame the unruliness of figurative language communally, by commonly using figurative expressions in particular ways that then serve as common reference points.

Faced with contradictions, we resolve the matter by rejection of one and acceptance of teh other so that the resolution is:
(a) wholly resolved, wholly secure: by proof
(b) wholly resolved, partly secure: by probable inference
(c) partly resolved, partly secure: by rhetorical persuasion
(d) partly resolved, insecure: by plausible representation.

history of philosophy -> strongly recurrent things -> 'perennial questions'

"There are two general ways of beginning the study of philosophy. One is by chance and the other is by following someone's advice." Ralph McInerny

Philosophical reasoning regularly draws on the testimony of the skilled.

Contradictions cannot be done, simpliciter -- they are not agibile. But God can do things we might think are contradictory because we did not see beforehand a subtle distinction.

Habitude VII

The next questions all depend crucially on two things that have been established about habitudes:

(1) They specify possible actions out of multiple possible actions.

(2) They belong to something only insofar as it is potential in some way.

 Can the intellect have habitudes?

It is clear that there are habitudes associated with the intellect, and this is assumed by St. Thomas's argument, but the question is whether the intellect itself has habitudes. A significant position that St. Thomas wants consistently to argue against is the position that held that we all have one intellect; if you hold this position, it's obvious that intellect-associated habitudes like knowledge vary from person to person, so they would have to be in the sensitive powers. To this Aquinas responds:

But this position, first of all, is against the intention of Aristotle, for it is manifest that sensitive powers are not rational by essence but only by participation, as is said in Ethic. I. And the Philosopher puts intellectual virtues, which are wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, in that which is rational by essence. Thus they are not in sensible powers but in the intellect itself. He also explicitly says, in De Anima III, that the possible intellect when it it made singular, that is, when it is reduced into the act of singulars by intelligible species, then comes to be according to act in the same way that a knower is said to be actual, which indeed happens when someone is able to work through himself, to wit, by considering; and even then it is in some way potential, but not as it was before learning and discovering. Therefore the possible intellect itself is that in which there is a habitude of knowledge by which it can consider even when it does not consider.

And second, this position is against the truth of the thing. For just as the power belongs to that which the working does, so too the habitude belongs to that which the working does. But to understand and to consider is an act proper to the intellect. Therefore the habitude by which one considers is properly in the intellect itself. (ST 2-1.50.4)

A few points are worth noting here.

(1) The first argument, from the mind of Aristotle, especially occurring immediately after the discussion on sensitive powers, indicates that Aquinas does not intend his position on habitudes in the sensitive powers to be a substantive change from Aristotle.

(2) Both arguments here also establish that the intellect is a free power; that is, in and of itself, it is capable of multiple possibilities, since this is a requirement for having a habitude non-derivatively and in the most proper sense.

(3) They both, of course, also imply that the human intellect, contrary to Aquinas's opponents, is not shared but individual.

(4) It follows from this position that habitudes belong to the potential intellect (because it can in some way be potential) and not the agent intellect.

Can the will have habitudes?

I reply that it must be said that every power that can be in diverse ways ordered to acting needs a habitude by which it can be well disposed to its act. But the will, since it is a rational power, can be in diverse ways ordered to acting. And thus it is fitting to put in the will some habitude by which it is well disposed to its act. It is also apparent from the very notion of habitude that it is principally ordered to the will, in that habitude is something one uses when one wills, as said above. (ST 2-1.50.5)

As St. Thomas notes in a reply to an objection (ad 2), this is because the will is more like the potential intellect than the agent intellect, in being both mover and moved. That is to say, the will, while not active, is not a purely active power, but involves a sort of potentiality by its nature.

Can angels have habitudes?

Angels, of course, differ from us in not being physical, so asking whether angels can have habitudes is not mere curiosity about angels, but a way of asking the question of whether having habitudes, even in the intellect and will, depends on the body, or on being physical or material in some way. Do we have habitudes only because we have bodies, so that habitudes are primarily concerned with bodily life? Aquinas holds that what matters for habitudes is not materiality but potentiality, and since angels are not pure act like God, they can have habitudes. From this, of course, it follows that not all habitudes are concerned with corporeal life.

However, with respect to this habitude, angelic intellect has itself differently from human intellect. For human intellect, because it is lowest in the intellectual order, is potential with respect to all intelligibles, just as prime matter with respect to all sensible forms, and therefore it needs some habitude to all understanding. But angelic intellect does not have itself as pure potential in the genus of intelligibles, but as a sort of act, although not as pure act (which is God's alone) but with mixture of some potential, and having less of potentiality the higher it is. (ST 2-1.50.6)

Of the kinds of habitude, the angels do not need habitudes with respect to nature, because they are not material, although it seems that they can have them, but they can have habitudes with respect to operation, and indeed need such habitudes to be united with God (a way of acting well), "by which they are conformed to God." (It follows from this, of course, that it is in principle possible for us also to have such godly habitudes, which will play a significant role in Aquinas's theology of grace.)

The parts that are mutually disposed by angelic habitudes are not physical parts, of course, but intelligible objects and volitional ends.

More Mighty than the Hosts of Mortal Kings

 Beethoven
by Maurice Baring

More mighty than the hosts of mortal kings,
I hear the legions gathering to their goal;
The tramping millions drifting from one pole,
The march, the counter-march, the flank that swings.
I hear the beating of tremendous wings,
The shock of battle and the drums that roll;
And far away the solemn belfries toll,
And in the field the careless shepherd sings. 

There is an end unto the longest day.
The echoes of the fighting die away.
The evening breathes a benediction mild.
The sunset fades. There is no need to weep,
For night has come, and with the night is sleep,
And now the fiercest foes are reconciled.

Habitude VI

 Habitude is qualitative ordering of the nature of some subject either well or badly to some act out of several possibles, through mutually disposing several things. As a quality, it requires a subject, and therefore Aquinas considers a number of questions concerned with the kind of subject for which habitude is an appropriate quality; since accidents are defined in relation to the substances that can have them, doing this clarifies several aspects of the definition. Rather than translate the whole question, as I did for the defining questions, I will make some comments with a few translations of select passages.

Can bodies have habitudes?

Aquinas argues that it depends. Habitudes dispose either to form or to operation. Habitudes always need to distinguish out some act out of several possibilities; bodies on their own are only determined to one operation, so bodies on their own develop no habitudes toward operations. However, habitudes to operation in the soul can be in a body secondarily, "inasmuch as the body is disposed and enabled to devote itself readily to the workings of the soul" (ST 2-1.50.1).

If, however, we speak of the disposition of the subject to form, then habitual disposition can be in body. And in this way health and beauty, and suchlike, are called habitual dispositions. But they do not completely have the notion of habitudes, because their causes are by their nature easily transformable.

In the reply to the second objection he further clarifies this by suggesting that health and beauty are habitudes comparatively -- they are 'difficult to change' relative to most things we consider dispositions -- but habitudes in the soul, like knowledge and virtue, are 'difficult to change' simply. I take it that the point is that bodily habitudes have a greater measure of dependency on things other than themselves than habitudes of the soul; that is, the difficult-to-change and the easy-to-change is a measure of relative independence.

In what way do souls have habitudes?

The soul does not naturally have a habitude to nature, because that would require something to which it is further disposed; this contrasts with the body, which has a habitude-to-nature with respect to the soul.  However, importantly, this also means that under the right conditions, the soul can have a habitude to a higher nature than itself; this can occur by divine grace, for instance, which gives us a habitude to the divine nature. In this way, the habitude takes as its subject the essence of the soul.

The usual way the soul has habitudes is by having habitudes to operations, which are themselves based on powers or capabilities. In this way, the habitude takes as its subject the powers of the soul.

Whether nutritive or sensitive powers of the soul can have habitudes?

Nutritive and sensitive powers are not in and of themselves capable of multiple possibilities because they "work from natural stimulation" (ST 2-1.50.3), ex instinctu naturae. Therefore, simply considered in themselves they do not have habitudes. However, rational powers are capable of multiple possibilities, so we can have habitudes in other powers of the soul insofar as they "work from command of reason".

On the basis of this, Aquinas concludes (ST 2-1.50.3 ad 1) that nutritive powers, which do not obey the command of reason, have no habitudes, but sensitive powers can obey the command of reason, and therefore can have habitudes. This is certainly true of human senstive powers, which are ordered naturally to rational powers; but what about the sensitive powers of animals other than human beings?

To the second it must be said that sensitive powers in brute animals do not work from the command of reason, but if brute animals are left to themselves, they work from natural stimulation, and thus in brute animals there are not any habitudes ordered to workings. There are nevertheless some dispositions in them ordered to nature, such as health and beauty. But because brute animals are through a sort of custom disposed by human reason to some working or another, in this way in brute animals habitude can in a certain way be put; thus Augustine says in the book of eighty-three questions, that we see the most savage beasts being restrained from that in which they have the greatest pleasures by fear of pain, and when this turns into custom for them, we call them tamed and gentled. However, the notion of habitude is incomplete as to voluntary use, because they do not have lordship of using or non-using, which it seems pertains to the notion of habitude. And therefore, properly speaking, in them there cannot be habitudes. (ST 2-1.50.3 ad 2)

'Use' is a technical term for St. Thomas; it is a particular act of will, the application of a thing to an operation; we are doing it when we apply a horse to riding or a stick to hitting by deliberately selecting this end for it. In doing this, our will is acting as a prime mover. In ST 2-1.16.2, he had concluded (also in agreement with Augustine in the Eighty-Three Questions) that it is an act exclusive to rational animals. At no point so far has he actually connected habitude and volitional acts of use; it comes out of left field here, but I think his idea is that properly speaking the brute animal gets the quasi-habitude, or habitude in a loose sense, that we call 'tameness', through use by a human will, and therefore the selection out of multiple possibilities is actually extrinsic to the disposition here.

This is a point on which St. Thomas seems very much to be deviating from Aristotle; but, Aristotle's remarks being somewhat scattered, it's difficult to say how far. I think one can argue that he is not so much differing as to substance as making a terminological adjustment, so that habitude in a strict sense is more closely connected to intellect and will; trained animals have habitudes in an extended sense by their connection to intellect and will, which in their case is outside the actual disposition. This raises a few questions that are not an issue in Aristotle's somewhat looser terminology, such as those with tool-use in other animals. I suspect St. Thomas would give the same answer to such questions that he gave in 2-1.16.2 about beasts using their members, that they do this from natural stimulation (or instinct; the Latin instinctus is not as narrow as the English 'instinct'), and thus not from use in the proper sense. It is very clear that we need to distinguish rational habitudes from other kinds; rational habitudes on every point of the definition of habitude fit the definition more 'tightly' than other habitudes do. But it's at least arguable that we should see Aristotle's looser sense of habitude as a sort of genus, in which they can differ in precisely how the multiple possibilities are involved, and Aquinas as concerned with the primary species of that genus, those that have volitional use as part of how we understand the multiple possibilities. 

While Aquinas flatly denies habitude in nutritive powers, the allowance of a habitude-in-a-broad-sense in the case of tame animals also raises the question of whether there might not be possible something similar in nutritive powers in plants (through horticulture) or in animals (through veterinary medicine).

These sorts of questions arise, I think, from the fact that St. Thomas does not give extensive explanations for some of his reasons, so there are unstated gaps. My guess is also that St. Thomas that, since in context he is building up to a discussion of virtues, the most proper habitudes, that he is really just thinking about virtue in these discussions, and thus not fully following through on the lesser questions of how this relates to the various roles dispositional qualities take in explaining animal behavior.

Intellect and will are in any case the primary and most proper subjects for habitudes, and thus should be kept for their own discussions.

A New Poem Draft

 Holy

the womb
and the tomb
is holy

and holy
the battle-field
of sorrow

the one alone
on the throne
is holy

and holy
rising sun
in the morrow

our deepest fear
drawing near
is holy

and holy
is the hope
beyond merit

the church-light
at midnight
is holy

and holy
the heaven
we inherit

Links of Note

 * Matt Whiteley, His Reason is Love, on Julian of Norwich, at "This Isle is Full of Noises"

* Daniel D. De Haan, Freeing the Will from Neurophilosophy: Voluntary Action in Thomas Aquians and Libet-Style Experiments (PDF)

* The Medieval Purse, at "Medieval Histories"

* Dean Zimmerman, The Metaphysics of Divine Presence and the Appropriateness of Worship (PDF)

* Kitten, College kids can't do math, either, at "Adorable and Harmless"

* Aaron Wells, Arguments for the Continuity of Matter in Kant and Du Chatelet (PDF)

* Amelia McKee, Albert the Great in a Gothic Painting: Teacher, Preacher, and Saint, at "Art for the Liturgical Year"

* Jordan MacKenzie, Just humour me: humour, humourlessness, and mutual recognition (PDF)

* Flame & Light, Speech Acts and Fictions II: The Fictive Use of Language, on Richard Gale's speech act theory of fiction

* Giulia Piredda, What is an affective artifact? A further development in situated affectivity (PDF)

* Gregory B. Sadler, Five States of Nature in Hobbes' Leviathan

* Miguel Garcia-Godinez, Easy Social Ontology (PDF)

Morning and Evening

 Now the commemoration of the passion that takes place daily on the altar in the offering of this sacrifice is signified by the perpetual sacrifice that was made at morning and evening. In the morning for the grace of strength, since in this life we require it in the morning that we may merit, but in the evening in dangerous weakness, since then we need the sacrament for viaticum. Both of these are spoken of in Psalm 141.2, "Let my prayer be directed as" -- supply "morning" -- "incense in your sight; the lifting up of my hand" -- supply "in the commendation of [my] soul" -- "as the evening sacrifice." [Eccl 11.6] "In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening let not your hand cease; for you know not which may rather spring up, this or that: and if both together, it shall be better."

[Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord, Surmanski, tr., The Catholic University of America Press (Washington, DC: 2017.]

Habitude V

 To the fourth one proceeds thus.  It seems that it is not necessary that there be habitudes. For habitude is that by which something is disposed well or badly to something, as was said. But something is disposed well or badly by its form, for something is good according to its form, as also being. Therefore it is not a necessity that there is habitude.

Further, habitude involves order to act. But power sufficiently involves principle of act, for even natural powers without habitudes are principles for act. Therefore it is not necessary that there be habitude.

Further, just as power has itself toward good and bad, so also habitude, and just as power does not always act, so neither does habitude. Powers existing, therefore, it is superfluous that there be habitude.

But contrariwise is that habitudes are sorts of completions, as is said in Phys. VII, but completion is maximally necessary for a thing, because it has the notion of an end. Therefore it is necessary that there be habitude.

I reply that it must be said that, just as it was said above, that habitude involves a sort of disposition in order to the nature of a thing, and to its operation or end, according to which something is disposed well or badly to it. But to this, that something needs to be disposed to another, three things are required. 

(1) First, that what is disposed be other than that to which it is disposed, and thus that it have itself to it as potential to actual. Thus if there is something whose nature is not composed of potential and actual, and whose substance is its working, so that it is for itself, then habitude or disposition has no place, as is clear with God. 

(2) Second, it is required that what is potential to another is determined in many ways and to diverse things. Thus if something is potential to another, but in such a way that it is not potential except to the same thing, then disposition and habitude have no place, because such subject from its nature has due having [habitudinem] to such act. Thus if heavenly body is composed from matter and form, then because that matter is not potential to another form, as was said in the first place, then disposition or habitude to form, or even to working, has no place there, because the nature of heavenly body is not potential except to one determinate change. 

(3) Third, it is required that several things, which are able to be commensurated in diverse ways, concur to disposing the subject to one of the things to which it is disposed, so that it is disposed well or badly to form or to working. Thus the simple qualities of the elements, which concur [conveniunt] in one determinate way to the natures of the elements, we do not call dispositions or habitudes, but simple qualities; but we call dispositions or habitudes health, or beauty, or suchlike, which involve a sort of commensuration of several things that can be commensurated in diverse ways. Because of this, the Philosopher says in Metaphys. V, that habitude is disposition, and disposition is order of what has parts either according to place or according to power or according to species; as was said above. 

Therefore because there are many beings to whose natures and workings it is necessary for several things to concur that can be commensurated in diverse ways, it is therefore necessary that there be habitudes.

Therefore to the first it must be said that the nature of a thing is completed by form, but it is necessary that in order to the form the subject be disposed by some disposition. But the form itself is further ordered to working, which is either an end or a way to an end. And if a form has only one determinate such working, no other disposition is required for the working, beyond the form itself. But if it is a form of such kind that it can work in diverse ways, as is a soul, it must be disposed to its workings by some habitudes.

To the second it must be said that power sometimes has itself toward many things, and then it must be determined by something other; but if there is some power that does not have itself toward many things, it does not need a determining habitude, as was said. And because of this natural forces do not enact their workings by way of some habitudes, because according to themselves they are determinate to one.

To the third it must be said that it is not the same habitude that has itself toward good and bad, as will be clear below, but the same power has itself toward good and bad. And therefore habitudes are necessary so that the powers may be determined to good.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.49.4, my translation. The Latin is here, the Dominican Fathers translation is here.]

Thus the definition of habitude that we have at this point is something like, Habitude is an acquired quality ordering the nature of some subject (either directly or by way of some power) either well or badly to some specific act (either form or operation) by mutually disposing several things to one out of several possibilities. In this definition, accidental quality involving order to act, seems to be the primarily formal cause; the act seems the final cause; the quasi-material cause seems to be the several things disposed; and the quasi-efficient cause the subject (as the principle of the accidental quality). But there are several ambiguities and thus parts that are still unclear. Note for instance, that this argument tells us that the following things don't need habitudes:

(a) simple things, like God
(b) things determinate to one action, like celestial bodies
(c) things where action does not arise from several mutually adjustable things, like natural forces or simple elemental qualities

But it's not clear that this is exhaustive, and there are several other questions Aquinas will have to answer to clarify the matter. Angels, for instance, are simple, but are they simple enough? (Aquinas will argue that they are not; angels also require habitudes, although in a different way than we do.) Beasts and plants can be classed as 'determinate to one' or not 'determinate to one', depending on how strictly we take that. Do they have habitudes? (This is a more complicated question; very briefly, Aquinas will say that plants don't, and beasts only incompletely sometimes, if we are talking about habitude in strict sense.) And what about cases, like the intellect, the will, or, for that matter, angels again, in which we don't have parts in the ordinary sense? (Aquinas will argue that integral parts are not necessary; potential parts are sufficient.)

Albertus Magnus

 Today is the feast of St. Albert the Great, Doctor of the Church. From the De domini corpori, on the Eucharist:

That it is nothing but grace is shown by the name, because it is and is named the Eucharist, which means "good grace". Although we receive grace in all the sacraments, there is in this sacrament the whole of grace, which we see, touch, and taste. Thus Zechariah 4.7 says about this sacrament, "And he will give equal grace to its grace." Whatever graces are scattered to be gathered in all the [other] sacraments and virtues, the whole is found here together in one grace. This is signified by the omer, which was the measure of the manna, which was sufficient for each one. [Exodus 16.16-17] 

 For the measure which is sufficient for man's salvation can only be that which contains the grace in which the whole Christ is contained.... 

 [Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord, Surmanski, OP, tr., CUA Press (Washington, DC: 2017) pp. 31-32.]

Beautiful Words

  The rhetorician ornaments [his speech] with the vox significativa, as when he says “April” and “May”, which are more beautiful words than when one says “October” and “November”, because they signify flowers and leaves, and the song of birds, and seasonal renewal and regeneration, whereas this is not true of “October” and “November”.

[Ramon Llull, from the Ars generalis ultima, quoted in Anthony Bonner, The Art and Logic of Ramon Llull, Brill (Boston: 2007) p. 200.]

Dashed Off XXVIII

 The spirituality and immortality of the soul establish that the state cannot be the source or fount of the most fundamental rights, and that it is illegitimate to subordinate the person entirely to the ends of the state.

natural rights of man -> God
inalienable rights of man -> God
sacred rights of man -> God

People do not just want a pleasant life, they want a pleasant life that they in some way deserve.

Dicey effectively makes parliamentary sovereignty to be the total subordination of every tribunal to Parliament when the latter acts formally as such.

No legal system in existence has a single well-defined 'rule of recognition'; recognition may not be regular or explicit; where there is any rule of recognition, it is more like a family of rules in complicated and loose relationships; there is never completely unified agreement about them; senior officials are usually operating in ways that suggest analogy and overlap rather than shared agreement.

A legal system, like a living thing, will eventually expel any purported law that has insufficient analogy or means of integration with the rest of itself.

Citizens are the primary enforcers of law, enforcing them on themselves and to a lesser extent on those around them.

Volitional differences are never overcome by the clash of opinions or any similar kind of friction.

our body as physically existing, as continually sensed, as attentively sensed, as continually imagined, as attentively imagined

our body as memory device -- we don't have to continually recollect our body's posture and position (e.g.) but often use these to remind ourselves of what we are doing -- if I get distracted, I can come back and say, "OK, why did I pick up this pen?"

Schaff on the Petrine Confession (HAC pp. 350-355) is quite good. What he chiefly misses from a Catholic perspective is that Christ's promise indicates that 'foundation' is not a temporal origin (indeed, as we would also gather from the most reasonable interpretation of the word itself, and thepermanent title given to Peter, so that Simon becomes Simon Rock just as Jesus is Jesus Anointed).
He is also good on Peter in Rome (HAC pp. 362-377), a topic on which he attempts to develop an evidence-guided position between extreme Protestant and extreme Catholic views; it is an imperfect solution, but an excellent attempt.

"A work of art has to be seen in many different lights and to test itself against many different kinds of capacity and experience before it finds its level." C. S. Lewis

Interpreting Mk 13:32 as a flat claim of ignorance doesn't make much sense in context, particularly of the man on a journey analogy to which it is directly tied.

Augustine in various places compares Mk 13:32 to places in the OT apparently implicating nonknowledge of God (Gn 22:12, Dn 13:3).

The piety of a society is often associated with a willingness to maintain the institutions that unify the society.

poetry as "the universal symbolical art" (Schlegel)

Designs are constructed from material constraints, functions, and values, which when organized constitute solutions to problems.

no intrinsic limitations as to being: simplicity, immutability
no extrinsic limitations as to being: aseity, infinity, immateriality
no intrinsic limitations as to ontic presence: immensity, eternity
no extrinsic limitations as to ontic presence
--- --- (1) as to measure of presence itself: alocality, atemporality
--- --- (2) as to measure of that to which it is present: omnipresence, omnitemporality
no intrinsic limitations as to moral and jural presence: sublimity, sovereignty
no intrinsic limitations as to sacral presence: glory
no extrinsic limitations as to moral, jural, and sacral presence: sanctity

"If the government of the Church could be defined, it might be called an immense aristocracy, directed by an oligarchical power placed in the hands of an absolute king, whose duty is to perpetually offer himself in holocaust for the salvation of the people." Donoso Cortes
"The Church is love and will burn the world in love."
"The supernatural is above us, without us, and within us. The supernatural surrounds the natural, and permeates through all its parts."
"When we say of one being that it has understanding and will, and of another that it is free, we say the same thing of both, but expressed in two different ways."

"The world demands as its ground a God who need not have made it." E. L. Mascall

One may by mercy uphold justice, as when one pays for another what is due.

God as that whose presence makes all other presences possible

We only think of time having a forward and backward because counting numbers do.

Time as such has order and not direction, properly speaking; we use direction to symbolize order when we analogize temporal measurements to lines and include caused, especially deliberately imposed, incipits and desinits.

Free will is the personal power of attaining to contingent good.

 People regularly use equality as a justification for not helping others; the same is true of liberty.

One Welsh Triad says that Cadoc, Illtyd, and Peredur became Keepers of the Grail.

Causation is implicit in being.

Being is open to being, truth is seed of truth, goodness sparks goodness. These are imitations and reflections of divine creation.

The analogy between sin and dying is worth more consideration than it is usually given.

"Everything purely human Christianity attracts, develops, and perfects." Schaff

diakonia
of the word: Acts 6:4
of the Spirit: 2 Cor 3:8
of justice: 2 Cor 3:9
of restoration: 2 Cor 5:18

In understanding the Eucharist as commemoration, one must recognize that in the Old Testament, certain forms of prayer are treated as a kind of shared or public memory.

The priest by sacramental character represents Christ as Priest, the bishop by sacramental characer represents Christ as High Priest and Head.

Matthew, Hebrews, James, and Jude make a pretty good representation of the spectrum of fourth-century Judaism.

There is a tension in the first two sentences of Hume's Treatise, which tells us that all perceptions of the mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, and the difference between the two is a matter of degree. Hume does admit this oddity, but claims that they are "in general very different" so that it is still makes sense to rank them as distinct. This however does not suffice to address the scruple, particularly given how Hume relates the two in the copy principle.

The Eucharist is not an 'encounter' but a union.

Christ deliberately made apostolic testimony essential to knowing Him, an apostolic testimony not merely direct but also for us indirect and mediated through others. It is a grave error to think one can leap over it.

Democratic societies turn everything into aesthetics.

Hypocrites will be found whenever there is an appearance of the divine.

The book of Revelation is an unveiling in vision of what is behind history.

'Worldbuilding' is an exploration of the preconditions and possibilities for narrative (which is distinct from the preconditions and possibilities *of* narrative).

All human beings have a protective resistance to wholehearted relationships.

Nothing about divine love requires that God love us one way rather than another; indeed, as divine love is wholly free, the ways God can love us surpass all human conceiving.

We improve common sense by increasing experience and improving classifications in light of experience and practice.

"Not even a deterministic (nonstochastic) law statement describes only what is actually the case: *every law statement describes possibles* -- without of course the help of modal operators." Bunge
(he links this to the fact that laws identify possible behavior depending on initial conditions)

There is a weirdly schizophrenic character to everything Bunge writes; he will develop an interesting formal system and give it an interpretation on the most vague and inadequate grounds; at times he will discuss scientific practice in an interesting way and then refer it to a formal system whose adequacy in describing that practice is nowhere established.

Bunge's definition of the cell (Def 3.2) seems to require us to say that biological cells are not Bungian cells, due to mitochondria being both components and biosystems. Indeed, this seems to highlight the flaw in Bunge's entire approach to the sciences; however Bunge's definitions may fit a given state of inquiry, eventually many of the things defined become fixed ostensively, not by abstract definitions. The cell is the cell, whether it lacks components that are biosystems or not.

As probability is abstraction from finite frequences (coins, marbles, etc.), a serious interpretation of probability should simply be / reduce to the frequency itnerpretation in such cases, which are the anchoring cases of the theory.

Huntington's df of the point: a sphere such that it includes no other sphere

Introspection includes environmental factors in its object; we do nto have introspection of every thought but introspection of, e.g., thinking of a dog. Thus the object of introspection is not identical to the object of brain examination, although the two can be correlated in various ways. Thus far, at least, the dualist is right.

Contiguity is inferred, not directly experienced, and is inferred on causal grounds. If I see two things, I must distinguish apparent contiguity (e.g., due to perspective) from real contiguity by means of causes.

What we call reciprocal action or interaction is the cooperative production of an effect.

All scientific explanation grows in a soil of everyday, common-sense explanation.

The history of science shows that scientific methods diversify about as fast as they unify, and that fields multiply about as fast as they jump together in consilience.

Animal learning involves many subsystems of the organism, including digestion and muscle development.

The external world is that which continues to exist independently of an contrastively to our minds, but each of these three admits of different kinds and variations.

Physical laws are not propositions but systems.

"...every physical theory presupposes the *philosophical hypotheses* that there are physical objects (mind-independent things), that most of them are imperceptible (Hertz 1894), and that some of them are available if only in part (Thomson 1963). Should these hypotheses be dropped we would turn to introspection and mysticism." Bunge
"The effective approach to problems is both creative and critical."

causes as productive vs causes as historical ingredients

Much great art involves bringing out the glory of the simple.

Teaching is a poetical art, using analogy, metaphor, and example to convey the universal.

Most scientific theories have a 'pictorial' element, namely, abstract representation of concrete experiments to which things outside of the experiment are analogous or assimilated.

Hypothetico-deductive structure is a format into which scientific theories are forced, not the natural form of scientific theories.

Most metaphorical statements are no more ambiguous than most literal statements.

Pr 9:1 literally says, "Wisdoms [hakhemot] has built her house"; the plural perhaps indicates the highest sort of wisdom.

the serpent's question: Why did God allow there to be wrong?

surreal numbers as the nodes of the complete infinite binary tree

free will as a capacity for graciously receiving grace, of choosing aspects of one's relation to God

The analogy between art and nature is essential to the development of many arts.

(1) Human reason requires testimony.
(2) Human independence requires assistance.
(3) Human autarchy requires providence.

The 'tone' or 'coloring' of a term is often what relates it to its context in such a way that its sense and reference can be properly determined.

Interactions are overlaps of changes, where part of one change is also part of another change.

forces as negative potential energy gradients

You should never try to steal from physicists what you have not earned in philosophy of physics; physicalists regularly violate this principle.