"...it is the function of feeling to act as a clue to something beyond itself." Pratima Bowes
"Metaphor is a tool for achieving economy in thought and expression and such economy is essential if we are not to lose our way in irrelevant wealth of detail."
Classification is how reasoning works back through judgment toward conception.
It seems common in ancient Middle Eastern literature to explore honestly a dark and difficult subject and then have an epilogue or close that makes clear that this honest discussion needs to be contextualized (Gilgamesh, Job, Ecclesiastes, etc.).
Burke's association of the sublime with terror is heavily focused on the sheer strength of the experience.
Ambrose, On Abraham 2.81,84, on infant baptism
Etiquette is a social power, both a tool and an armor, and one of the most accessible; thus the value of teaching it to children, as long as it is not done in an overly rigid way.
Many of our ideas of human beauty and attractiveness are organized (but not constituted) by signs of leisure.
Everything genius does is metaphor-like.
Prudence & art can both be externalized into other things; thus command and counsel for prudence and the work for art.
That someone is legally responsible, or guilty, or innocent, is both a matter of fact and a matter of value.
We know ourselves in great measure by triplex via.
We can be able to achieve a goal but not in a way that is relevant specifically to our being willing to do it, in the way we are willing to do it.
We treat as material causes not only material causes in the proper sense but also things that have as an end to provide a material cause, considered precisely insofar as they have this end. The same is true of formal causes (e.g., moulds).
The dust when raised / reveals the beam.
One important function of law is to establish default standards of equality for just action (i.e., what will we agree at least usually makes people 'even'?).
The Protevangelium represents Mary as symbolic Temple, and Joseph is chosen like Aaron to care for Mary.
Ex 26:31 & 2 Chr 3:14 -- the temple veil is woven from four colors (blue, scarlet, purple, linen)
-- Philo (Mos 2.88) and Josephus (BJ 5.5.4) interpret these as symbolic of the four elements
Protev 15:15 as a possible Trinitarian formula (cf. 1 Clem 58:2, Asc. Is. 3:13)
ens ut primum cognitum : intellectual experience :: ens inquantum ens : intellectual knowledge
quod quid est : intellectual experience :: causae : intellectual knowledge
Education is a drawing-out process.
definitional vs judicative concepts
Concepts are as it were the mediating coin of understanding, judgment, and reasoning.
The best times in life are draining, exhausting, sometimes impoverishing, sometimes exasperating or even frightening, and worth it all.
"He gave you the praanaa, the breath of life, and your mind and body." Sri Guru Granth Sahib 51
We imitate the Formless Lord by renouncing selfishness.
To improve flow of any kind, one must increase pressure or reduce impeding and resisting forces.
"You cannot love a fellow creature fully till you love God." CS Lewis
'X is imaginable in such a way that we can expect it to continue to be imaginable without paradox the more we know' -> 'X is probably possible'
'X is imaginable in such a way that we can in a regular way imagine the causes that would be necessary for it' -> 'X is probably possible'
'X is imaginable in a way that adequately conforms to our actual experience' -> 'X is probably possible'
'X is imaginable and serious study can find no reason to think it impossible, without any reason to think our study inadequate' -> 'X is probably possible'
[It seems like all of these imaginability to probable-possibility inferences are getting us subtly different kinds of possibility.]
It's notable that across many contexts and cultures, human beings describe authoritative positions and offices metonymically.
Even instrumentalist theories require realism about their grounds.
Great art and literature integrates the world into human life in ways that bring out their value, both inherent and newly acquired.
"Although the sense of hearing concerns consonance, nevertheless reason is the final judge." Boethius
Music as it were creates an ecosystem in which we find ourselves.
NB the Problemata's conception of music as having a character like moral character
music as a liberal art // prudence
Like prudence, music coordinates and integrates other actions, both internal and external.
habits of aimlessness
Wisdom, as that which sets in order, is fundamentally exemplar, and the pinnacle of exemplar causes.
"Man is not only a political but a speculative animal; and where he is left to himself he will fashion for himself a philosophy of life, never quite in harmony with his neighbours." Ronald Knox
"What is good is the fulfillment of being." John Wild
When Paul describes his argument with Peter, he clearly is implying that the matter was of such importance that he *even* argued with Peter, *even* to his face.
It is important for laity to be gracious to clergy and for clergy to be gracious to laity, and it is remarkable how often this breaks down in one or the other direction, and also how often it degenerates into a mere formality. It seems to be a point on which balance is difficult -- perhaps because clergy and laity alike are often careless about acting in ways with respect to which it would be easy to be gracious.
The moral hierarchy in episcopal office
(1) learned, competent, and holy
(2) competent and holy
(3) learned and holy
(4) holy, though neither learned nor competent
(5) learned and competent
(6) competent
(7) learned
(8) neither learned, nor competent, nor holy
the importance of presumptive rights in preserving liberties
"Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and remained until the time of Anicetus." Irenaeus
The last definite historical evidence of the Valentinians is from 388, where we have evidence in Callinicum of an accidental fire that destroyed a Valentinian church. [Ambrose, Letter 40.16]
"multitudo est quoddam unum, et malum est quoddam bonum, et non ens est quoddam ens." Aquinas ST 1.11.2 ad 1
"Truth consists in being and falsehoold only in non-being, so that the idea of the infinite, which includes all being, includes all that there is of truth in things." Descartes to Clerselier 23 April 1649 (AT V 356)
It is acting therefore it is // cogito ergo sum
The nunc ut primum cognitum is not a point and extends pastward and futureward.
"Each thing, insofar as it is simple and undivided, always remains in the same state, as far as it can, and never changes except from an external cause." Descartes, Principia Phil II sect. 37
-- NB that he takes motus to be relevantly simplex in sect. 41, and thus as the foundation of conservation of motion.
ens amplissimum
ens ut primum cognitum -> ens ut causatum -> ens ut causans -> ens ut primum
Evil exists because limited good exists; limited good exists because unlimited good exists.
In a virtuous society, the principle of utility would be a fairly good approximation; in a very vicious society, it is often not. The more vice, the more perverse our preferences and pleasures.
The earliest modern evidence for atoms were from chemistry (Dalton's ratios) and botany (Brown's microscopic studies of Clarkia pulchella, i.e., Brownian motion); the latter became clear evidence, however, only with Einstein.
"Assuredly all the just from the beginning of the world have Christ for their head." Augustine
"Clock time requires that we hold two motions together, the motion that is easily numbered and the one we wish to measure." Sokolowski
"For the motion to be involved clock timing, it has to be placed against some other motion, at least against some vague, undifferentiated process."
"Skills, virtues, and the ability to handle risk are required because there is imprecision and indeterminacy in being."
"Intelligence in discourse does not involve just saying and understanding a lot of things: it also involves being able to sustain a reference through a long period of disclosure, that is, being able to bring out a lot about the *same* issue, or being able to let the same issue present itself through many manifestations. Allowing a reference to slip out of place, not being able to hold onto a single theme, is a form of failure in thinking."
"The first principles of natural law are not a beginning for deductions but a perpetual engagement that we can never circumvent."
clocks & changes articulatable into distinct similars (articulatable self-similar changes)
sources of indeterminacy in measurement (Sokolowski)
(1) measuring interferes with measured
(2) measuring cannot be guaranteed adequately invariant (for level of precision)
(3) measured is not wholly stable or distinguishable
The Decalogue is given in a context in which the ethical and the cultic overlap.
As time passes, the written word becomes more and not less important.
"The creation of the world is a moral act (p'ula musarit) that finds its perfection in the Sinaitic revelation. The materialization of the revelational-ethics command constitutes a creative act. Mending reality constitutes a moral act (ma'aseh musari). In creating the world, the Creator materialized the highest ethical purpose (tachlit musarit). The source of morality (makor hamusari) is God, and its revelation is the creation." R. Joseph Dov Soloveitchik
"Man is destined by God to rule and be victorious. In the most important sense of sovereignty, it is an ethical purpose and man's efforts to acquire it is an ethical effort so long as he will be supplied with the appropriate tools."
"The peak of religious ethical perfection to which Judaism aspires is man as creator."
"The craving for beauty is nothing but the eternal longing for eternal noumeanl Being."
"The creation of the world is the materialization of God's kindness."
Gen 1:26 shows that the intention is to create man in God's image (tzelem) & likeness (demut); the actual creation in Gn 1:27 is explicitly of man in God's image.
Ta'anit 2:a -- "And what is that service which is of the heart? It is prayer." (on Dt 11:13)
-- the importance of prayer *as service*
"If a work of music means something, then, this is a fact about the way it sounds." Roger Scruton
"Musical communication is possible only because certain sounds are heard as music -- are heard as exhibiting the 'intentional order' of rhythm, melody and harmony. This order is not a material property of the physical world; it resides in the perceptual experience of those who hear with understanding."
"...music is not sound, it is sound understood in response. To aim to produce music is to aim to produce a musical response."
Dewey claims that teaching & learning are necessary complementary opposites like selling and buying, but fails to recognize the senses in which one may sell before and during the period no one is buying. The merchant booth sells things before the buyer buys them; the selling is only completed in the buying, but exists distinctly and dispositively.
Zen teachers often teach with the expectation that the student will not yet learn, may never learn, and indeed may teach with the expectation that the sutdent will not and cannot learn directly. For such a teacher, teaching is often seen as a provoking rather than itself a source of learning.
In general, good teachers do not teach to make students learn but to dispose students to learning. This is a matter of broad agreement between Platonism and Confucianism, for instance.
Pedagogical neutrality is not a matter of restraining the teacher (who may be frank and still exhibit it) but a matter of not restraining the student.
"The Church teaches us that God is a Being who has His cause in Himself and Who, apart from Himself, has no being that is independent and parallel to Him. She speaks to us of the perfect, living God Who is, consequently, 'pure act'. But when our understanding stops before this Being, He appears as a 'pure fact' on account of His primordial and absolute perfection." Sophrony Sakharov
Dietrich von Hildebrand claims that every good possessing a value imposes a sort of obligation to give it an adequate response, but this is certainly not true of most values. (It would be different if the claim were about *essential/integral* values and *common good*.)
Emergencies by their nature require prudence.
Attacks on marriage seem inevitably to become attacks on motherhood.
Consciousness as cognitive presence to the presentness of what is present to us. (NB the distinction of our presence and what is present to us.)
Consciousness is inherently reduplicative.
The freedom of every free society is home-brewed and custom-built.
