The Well
Amid the stones stands an ancient well;
perhaps the druids chanted its rites,
or some fair nymph gave it sacred gifts.
Through long years the endless caravans
cross the seas, cross barren lands,
through forests deep and wild wastes,
to seek the well, its darkened depth,
to cast their kingdoms in.
You too one day will seek that well,
with all your heart's unturning hope;
you too will treasures cast inside,
into the well most dearly sought,
and from your heart of hearts will cry,
"Unwishing well, undo my wish!"
Heritage
A tree without roots is overturned by the wind,
unable to battle the storms that descend;
and how, my friend, how can you hold your head high
when your past is now nothing but shadows that die?
The building is lost when the ground gives away;
the crumbled-down base will the rest then betray.
And how, my friend, how can you hold your head high,
when nothing remains but the tears that you cry?
When the grain is not stored, the seed will be lost,
no spring will be sown, with harvest its cost;
and how, my friend, how can you hold your head high
with no food for the children save breezes that sigh?
Wisdom
Wisdom walks on kitten feet,
padding softly down the way,
stretching out in sunlight sweet,
taking joy in gentle day,
soft of bite in play and pounce,
growing by the quarter-ounce.
Endless flurry, flicking tail,
rumble-romp, no hint of harm,
wisdom walks along the rail,
tumbles down with kitten charm.
Purring, wisdom curls to sleep
on your lap, for you to keep.
Saturday, June 20, 2020
Bhagavad Gita: The Song Celestial
Introduction
Opening Passage:
Summary: The Kuru people are divided into two major clans, the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Through a rigged game of dice, the Kauravas cheated the Pandavas out of their territory for a period of thirteen years and then refused to return it. Thus the Pandavas are going to war against the Kauravas. The blind Kaurava king, Dhritarashtra, unable to fight in the battle due to his age and blindness, is worried about what is happening, but this charioteer, Sanjaya, has divine sight, and tells the king of what he sees. On the verge of the great eighteen-day Battle of Kurukshetra, the Pandavan Arjuna looks out on the Kauravan host, foes that are related to him and his family, and is horrified at the thought of the mutual slaughter and how insignificant territory is in comparison to the death of even one of these. He throws his bow and arrow to the ground, sick at heart. But his charioteer, Madhusadan, criticizes Arjuna and encourages him to the fight, gradually revealing himself as the god Krishna.
It's important to recognize, I think, that Krishna never criticizes Arjuna for his compassion, but for his irresolution. Krishna's point is that Arjuna has let the mutable substitute for the immutable, and under the guise of compassion and kinship-feeling has in fact let himself rest with a superficial perception of the world, including the people on whom he takes himself to have compassion and for whom he has kinship-feeling. It is not a superior view of the world because it is wavering. The external expression of the immutable in human life, on the other hand, is found in duty; its internal expression is self-discipline; and its innermost core is pure regard for the divine.
We see this not only in the progression of Krishna's discourse, which goes through these very stages, but also in the narrative structure of the work. While the discussion is between Krishna and the Pandavan Arjuna, this is mediated by Sanjaya, who has been given divine sight by Krishna and is describing it to Dhritarashtra. Both Dhritarashtra and Sanjaya are Kauravan; Krishna's revelation transcends the divide of the civil war. But the Bhagavad Gita is itself part of the Mahabharata, which itself claims that it was recited by Ugrasrava Sauti, who was reciting what he had learned from Janamejaya, the great-grandson of Arjuna, who had learned it from Vaisampayana, who had learned it from the sage Vyasa, who is communicating Sanjaya's revelation of Krishna's self-revelation to Arjuna. Thus the Mahabharata, including the Bhagavad Gita, is attributed to the sage Vyasa; Vyasa is not an uncommon name, but 'Vyasa' literally means something like 'editor, compiler, arranger, or redactor', and Vyasa is also supposed to have compiled the Vedas and the Puranas, thus making his editorial career over a thousand years long, although perhaps he thinks of it as a very short period in his life, given that he is also said to be one of the Chiranjivis, the 'permanent livers', and is said to have been born at the end of the Tretayuga period of the universe, having lived through the entire 864,000 years of the Dvapara Yuga, and will live the entire 432,000 years of the current Kali Yuga (of which we have travered about 5000 years). Vyasa himself only writes, directly or indirectly, what is in the one Eternal Veda, which has no beginning and no ending. But the idea is that Vyasa took unitary forms of knowledge too great for human beings easily to grasp and 'divided' or articulated them so that they could be understood more widely. I think this captures something important about the canonical literature of India, namely, that it was often written, whatever its accidental features, as from the perspective of something unchanging and undivided, a depiction of a presumed unity through a present diversity, and it has likewise been read in the same manner. One of the reasons for the popularity of the Gita, I think, is that it exemplifies this in a preeminent and obvious way. Krishna talks about many things, but you get a clear sense that he is at all times talking about the same things, while the Song seems structured to convey the impression of an ever-deepening exploration of that First Unity. All of the many must be traced back to the One, which they reflect.
The particular Heritage Press edition that I read is illustrated by Y. G. Srimati, and the illustrations are excellent. (You can see some here.) Her notes explaining her artistic choices for each illustration are also given in an appendix, and you could have very nice little booklet standing on its own, just from the illustrations and the notes -- a sort of beginner's Bhagavad Gita. Here is part of the note for the illustration in Discourse 10, when Krisha reveals his universal manifestation:
You can see the illustration it is describing here, about ten images down.
Favorite Passage: From Chapter 6, 'Religion by Self-Restraint':
Recommendation: Highly Recommended.
Opening Passage:
DHRITARASHTRA: Ranged thus for battle on the sacred plain--
On Krukshetra--say Sanjaya! say
What wrought my people and the Pandavas?
Summary: The Kuru people are divided into two major clans, the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Through a rigged game of dice, the Kauravas cheated the Pandavas out of their territory for a period of thirteen years and then refused to return it. Thus the Pandavas are going to war against the Kauravas. The blind Kaurava king, Dhritarashtra, unable to fight in the battle due to his age and blindness, is worried about what is happening, but this charioteer, Sanjaya, has divine sight, and tells the king of what he sees. On the verge of the great eighteen-day Battle of Kurukshetra, the Pandavan Arjuna looks out on the Kauravan host, foes that are related to him and his family, and is horrified at the thought of the mutual slaughter and how insignificant territory is in comparison to the death of even one of these. He throws his bow and arrow to the ground, sick at heart. But his charioteer, Madhusadan, criticizes Arjuna and encourages him to the fight, gradually revealing himself as the god Krishna.
It's important to recognize, I think, that Krishna never criticizes Arjuna for his compassion, but for his irresolution. Krishna's point is that Arjuna has let the mutable substitute for the immutable, and under the guise of compassion and kinship-feeling has in fact let himself rest with a superficial perception of the world, including the people on whom he takes himself to have compassion and for whom he has kinship-feeling. It is not a superior view of the world because it is wavering. The external expression of the immutable in human life, on the other hand, is found in duty; its internal expression is self-discipline; and its innermost core is pure regard for the divine.
We see this not only in the progression of Krishna's discourse, which goes through these very stages, but also in the narrative structure of the work. While the discussion is between Krishna and the Pandavan Arjuna, this is mediated by Sanjaya, who has been given divine sight by Krishna and is describing it to Dhritarashtra. Both Dhritarashtra and Sanjaya are Kauravan; Krishna's revelation transcends the divide of the civil war. But the Bhagavad Gita is itself part of the Mahabharata, which itself claims that it was recited by Ugrasrava Sauti, who was reciting what he had learned from Janamejaya, the great-grandson of Arjuna, who had learned it from Vaisampayana, who had learned it from the sage Vyasa, who is communicating Sanjaya's revelation of Krishna's self-revelation to Arjuna. Thus the Mahabharata, including the Bhagavad Gita, is attributed to the sage Vyasa; Vyasa is not an uncommon name, but 'Vyasa' literally means something like 'editor, compiler, arranger, or redactor', and Vyasa is also supposed to have compiled the Vedas and the Puranas, thus making his editorial career over a thousand years long, although perhaps he thinks of it as a very short period in his life, given that he is also said to be one of the Chiranjivis, the 'permanent livers', and is said to have been born at the end of the Tretayuga period of the universe, having lived through the entire 864,000 years of the Dvapara Yuga, and will live the entire 432,000 years of the current Kali Yuga (of which we have travered about 5000 years). Vyasa himself only writes, directly or indirectly, what is in the one Eternal Veda, which has no beginning and no ending. But the idea is that Vyasa took unitary forms of knowledge too great for human beings easily to grasp and 'divided' or articulated them so that they could be understood more widely. I think this captures something important about the canonical literature of India, namely, that it was often written, whatever its accidental features, as from the perspective of something unchanging and undivided, a depiction of a presumed unity through a present diversity, and it has likewise been read in the same manner. One of the reasons for the popularity of the Gita, I think, is that it exemplifies this in a preeminent and obvious way. Krishna talks about many things, but you get a clear sense that he is at all times talking about the same things, while the Song seems structured to convey the impression of an ever-deepening exploration of that First Unity. All of the many must be traced back to the One, which they reflect.
The particular Heritage Press edition that I read is illustrated by Y. G. Srimati, and the illustrations are excellent. (You can see some here.) Her notes explaining her artistic choices for each illustration are also given in an appendix, and you could have very nice little booklet standing on its own, just from the illustrations and the notes -- a sort of beginner's Bhagavad Gita. Here is part of the note for the illustration in Discourse 10, when Krisha reveals his universal manifestation:
Krishna assumes the Visvarupa or colossal, all-pervading, all-engrossing form of the Supreme Being, to impress upon Arjuna that He is everything and contains everything. He is portrayed with the countless faces of His various creations --Gods, sages, demons, animals, etc.-- infinite in form on all sides, with innumerable arms, trunks, and legs, with no end, middle, nor beginning, only the waist showing that He is one entity.
You can see the illustration it is describing here, about ten images down.
Favorite Passage: From Chapter 6, 'Religion by Self-Restraint':
Let each man raise
The Self by Soul, not trample down his Self,
Since Soul that is Self's friend may grow Self's foe.
Soul is Self's friend when Self doth rule o'er Self,
But Self turns enemy if Soul's own self
Hates Self as not itself.
Recommendation: Highly Recommended.
Friday, June 19, 2020
Dashed Off XIII
This completes the notebook finished in April 2019, and starts the next notebook.
creation myths as metaphors for discovery and for artistic invention, different myths capturing different aspects
the whole sacramental economy as an image of heaven and future glory
warrants as ways of documenting the apparent connection between police action and common good
enlightening
-- primarily (formal & final): baptism
-- secondarily (formal): penance
-- secondarily (final): unction
perfecting
-- formal: confirmation
-- final: eucharist
luck as coincidence suggestive of final cause
inculturation as cleansing, enlightening, and perfecting
participatio vs. quaedam participatio: Sent 1d36q2a3arg4
quaedam participatio as *grant* of imitation
"That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature. It ought to know its greatness and littleness, and the reason of both." Pascal
hyperpublic, public, semipublic, and private evidential contexts
self-signification (part signifying whole, whole signifying part, self-presentation in signifying context, manifestation)
Mutual aid requires self-restraint in habit and in customary practice.
Toil expands to occupy the time
When people say, 'machine learning', substitute 'statistics'.
Pascal's primary concern in his discussions of perpetuity is the election of Israel.
"Ce dieu touche les coeurs lorsque moins on y pense." Corneille
hope as counter-habit, a kind of freedom for the new (Péguy)
the splash of hope
Progress is made by the separation of chaff and wheat; but it is not as if this were endless refinement -- every harvest, there is chaff and wheat.
Christ does not only fulfill the prophecies, He gives to the prophecies a new future.
the Annunciation as the perfection of prophecy, the prophecy that already begins its realization (Péguy)
It is a dangerous temptation for academics to confuse the progress of learning with the progress of their careers.
The Kesh Temple Hymn identifies as components of religion: heroes, a consecrated house or shrine, sacrifices, priests, temple & priestly implements (stone bowls, staves, instruments [drum, horn]), recitation.
Shuruppak:
"You should not speak improperly; later it will lay a trap for you."
"Heaven is far, earth is most precious, but it is with heaven that you multiply your goods, and all foreign lands breathe under it."
"Prayer is cool water that cools the heart."
"You should not serve things; things should serve you."
"The shepherd who stopped searching stopped bringing back the sheep."
sacral Israel as type of the Catholic Church
appropriated doctrine vs private opinion
filial piety toward the Apostles
You are free to the extent that nothing constrains you except common good.
(1) prudence over self
(2) prudence with respect to others
-- (a) by example
-- (b) by rule
-- (c) by advice
American Buddhism is primarily a translation of Enlightenment rationalism, Romantic idealism, and liberal Protestantism into a Buddhist vocabulary (McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism).
Xici: the I Ching as a learning tool for prudent reflection in light of change
baptism : citizenry :: confirmation : militia
"Prudence and justice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance." Johnson
"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason."
"What affirmation and negation are in thinking, pursuit and avoidance are in desire." Aristotle
"It is not absolution only which remits sin by the sacrament of penance, but contrition, which is not real if it does not seek the sacrament." Pascal
The notion of cause is part of our notion of the self.
The Matrix shifted the primary action-movie centerpiece from the chase to the fight.
the effect of one sacrament through another (ex consequentis)
coherence and the worldness of the world
External World
Part I: A History
-- Cartesian
-- Berkeleyan
-- Humean
-- Shepherdian
Part II: An Argument
-- Act/potency
-- Causation
-- 3 Properties
Part III: Expansions
-- Abstract Objects
-- Moral realism
-- Aesthetic realism
-- God
"It is the nature of power, always to press upon the boundaries which confine it." Paley
the essential features of standard logical assumption
(1) self-giving: Assuming A, you can conclude A.
(2) weakening: What is assumed may be ignored if not needed.
(3) bang: What is assumed can repeatedly be assumed.
(4) nonattachment: Assumptions do not change logical features if the order of assumptions is changed.
-- it's interesting to ask what happens if you drop each
Suarez on the signs of heresy
(1) origin infused by
-- (a) pride (Aug. De Pastor. ch. 8)
-- (b) envy (Chrys. hom 7 in Rom.)
-- (c) other vices (2 Tim 3:2ff)
(2) discord and separation from Rome (Cyprian, Aug)
(3) inconstancy and division of doctrine (Basil on Is 5)
(4) mutilation of the Word of God in its use (Vincent of Lerins, Basil; Ath. contra Arian. or. 1& 2)
(5) despising the Catholic Church (Vincent of Lerins; Aug, De unit. eccl.)
(6) refusal to acquiesce in the Councils (Ath. Contra Arian. 1)
(7) despising the authority of the Fathers (Aug. Contra Litter. bk 2 ch 61)
(8) being led by one's own spirit/arbitrating a religion for oneself (Hilary, De Trin Bk 1)
(9) colored eloquence that is precipitate and unrestrained (Naz or. 33; Gregory in Job Bk 7.2)
(10) novelty contrary to ancient doctrine (Chrys. hom 47 in Matt)
(11) loss of Catholic name and new denomination
(12) futile and earthly behavior
love, joy, and peace as paradisial acts
vices not consisting in any mean
vices consisting in what is only a mean with respect to something other than reason
vices consisting in a mean only according to imprudent reason
"Some hold that in the place of bliss, God is visible in His brightness but not in His nature. This is to indulge in overmuch subtlety. For in that simple and unchangeable essence, no division can be made between the nature and the brightness." Gregory, Moralia in Iob 18.90
We do not merely want good; we want good as contributing to a totality of good.
People misread the hypocrisy of their opponents as confirmation of their own sincerity.
Every mortal sin is
(a) a turning away from immutable good
(b) toward mutable good
(c) in violation of reason.
the human tradition
- the core part is received human nature itself
- this is integrated with received human society (being part of the human race)
Kant reduces all virtue to fortitude; Bentham cuts temperance out from the virtues.
the discernibility of symmetry as an aesthetic fact
As Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the teaching of the Church should partake of these, through accessibility, definiteness, and practicality.
evidence that a position is consistent, that it is true, that it is good, that it is beautiful
The perpetual challenge of tax law is that it must be done on the assumption that everyone is poor at mathematics, because with respect to taxes this is practically true.
eleos (mercy); elaion (oil)
human dignity // dignity of marriage
As a complete society, the Church has full moral and social powers of press, school, market, militia, and hospital, insofar as these are suitable for its supernatural end.
'But Knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her Temperance over Appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain.' (Milton)
"...since what orders the cosmos is double, we speak of one aspect of it as the Demiurge, and the other as the soul of the universe, and when we talk of Zeus, we are sometimes referring to the Demiurge and sometimes to the controlling principle of the universe." Plotinus (Enn 4.4.10)
On Plotinus's account of prayer, it is as it were pre-answered; that to which one prays is not responding to the prayer but acting according to its nature, ever sending forth emanations, and in prayer on harmonizes with these.
the consequentialist character of Eve's temptation in Milton: "Fair to the eye, inviting to the Taste /Of virtue to make wise".
-- Note that Satan in PL anticipates a sort of argument from evil: God would not be just if he punished you for doing what makes you happier.
In Paradise Lost, both Satan and fallen Eve assume that inferiority is inconsistent with freedom.
To distinguish coming into being from coming from elsewhere requires that the former be seen as causal. (Anscombe)
They are distinguishable *as effects*.
final causes as the root of the distinction between projectable and nonprojectable predicates
three types of public philosophy (Eugene Heath)
(1) situated in a public setting
(2) modified for varied public (public audience)
(3) functions as normative consensus (public expression)
-- Heath takes (2) to be the key one.
-- He notes that the classroom itself is a venue for public philosophy.
Nothing is so conducive to self-deception as ingratitude.
the family as first hospice/clinic, first school, first market, first church
"Every reform, however necessary, will be weak minds be carried to an excess, which will itself need reforming." Coleridge
"Every man that is not absolved by the water of regeneration, is tied and bound by the guilt of the original bond. But that which the water of Baptism avails for with us, this either faith alone did of old in behalf of infants, or, for those of riper years, the virtue of sacrifice, or, for all that came of the stock of Abraham, the mystery of circumcision." (Gregory Moralia 4.3 pref)
In architecture, sometimes the good we do extends far beyond any memory that may remain of us.
the impossibility of an error theory about the existence of error
the impossibility of fictionalism about the existence of fictions
'Some possible claims are false' is a necessary proposition.
as-if intentionality → causal tendency → causal capability
"To move one's body is to aim at things through it." Merleau-Ponty
tradition as a resistance to propaganda
Heretics "are loath to have a common sort of knowledge, lest they should be placed on a part with the rest of their fellow-creatures, and they are ever making out new things, which, whilst others known nothing of it, they plume their own selves on the preeminence of their knowledge before inexperienced minds." Gregory (Moralia 5.45)
Without intentionality there could be no -ism in eliminativism about intentionality.
-isms as intentional structures
Eliminativism in general is the deliberate elimination of some intentional element belonging to an intentional structure.
The notion of an equation does not occur as a solution in the equations of physics, and yet those equations are proof of the existence of equations. And so it is with many other things that have to do with the mind. The theories of physics exemplify things about the universe that they do not describe.
Values are intrinsic to the notion of a theoretical model, and are what we consider when considering the quality of the model.
'knowledge production' vs cultivation of the conditions for knowing
Most forms of naturalism that include the reduction of all sciences to physics make the universe a concretely existing mathematical object.
the platonism of one lonely Idea
illumination from within by aspiration, instruction from without by doctrine and sign
Reason is intrinsically aspiring.
Penance deals specifically with actual sin; but unction concerns not just actual sin but also things merely associated with sin. (When penance gives grace against these things, it does so *as anticipating unction*, just as when unction gives grace to remit actual sin it does so derivatively from penance.) [ex conseqentis effects of sacraments]
the Church as family (household), as militia, as hierarchy of grace
Contemporary modernity is a resistance to hierarchy. Nonetheless people are fascinated by hierarchies of angels, by stories about courts, by the impressiveness (for good or for evil) of a military.
quando accidents, mutable substance
Promises are part of the natural expression of love; lovers promise, friends promise, people promise on behalf of or for the sake of what they love, Love Himself makes covenants.
creation myths as metaphors for discovery and for artistic invention, different myths capturing different aspects
the whole sacramental economy as an image of heaven and future glory
warrants as ways of documenting the apparent connection between police action and common good
enlightening
-- primarily (formal & final): baptism
-- secondarily (formal): penance
-- secondarily (final): unction
perfecting
-- formal: confirmation
-- final: eucharist
luck as coincidence suggestive of final cause
inculturation as cleansing, enlightening, and perfecting
participatio vs. quaedam participatio: Sent 1d36q2a3arg4
quaedam participatio as *grant* of imitation
"That a religion may be true, it must have knowledge of our nature. It ought to know its greatness and littleness, and the reason of both." Pascal
hyperpublic, public, semipublic, and private evidential contexts
self-signification (part signifying whole, whole signifying part, self-presentation in signifying context, manifestation)
Mutual aid requires self-restraint in habit and in customary practice.
Toil expands to occupy the time
When people say, 'machine learning', substitute 'statistics'.
Pascal's primary concern in his discussions of perpetuity is the election of Israel.
"Ce dieu touche les coeurs lorsque moins on y pense." Corneille
hope as counter-habit, a kind of freedom for the new (Péguy)
the splash of hope
Progress is made by the separation of chaff and wheat; but it is not as if this were endless refinement -- every harvest, there is chaff and wheat.
Christ does not only fulfill the prophecies, He gives to the prophecies a new future.
the Annunciation as the perfection of prophecy, the prophecy that already begins its realization (Péguy)
It is a dangerous temptation for academics to confuse the progress of learning with the progress of their careers.
The Kesh Temple Hymn identifies as components of religion: heroes, a consecrated house or shrine, sacrifices, priests, temple & priestly implements (stone bowls, staves, instruments [drum, horn]), recitation.
Shuruppak:
"You should not speak improperly; later it will lay a trap for you."
"Heaven is far, earth is most precious, but it is with heaven that you multiply your goods, and all foreign lands breathe under it."
"Prayer is cool water that cools the heart."
"You should not serve things; things should serve you."
"The shepherd who stopped searching stopped bringing back the sheep."
sacral Israel as type of the Catholic Church
appropriated doctrine vs private opinion
filial piety toward the Apostles
You are free to the extent that nothing constrains you except common good.
(1) prudence over self
(2) prudence with respect to others
-- (a) by example
-- (b) by rule
-- (c) by advice
American Buddhism is primarily a translation of Enlightenment rationalism, Romantic idealism, and liberal Protestantism into a Buddhist vocabulary (McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism).
Xici: the I Ching as a learning tool for prudent reflection in light of change
baptism : citizenry :: confirmation : militia
"Prudence and justice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance." Johnson
"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason."
"What affirmation and negation are in thinking, pursuit and avoidance are in desire." Aristotle
"It is not absolution only which remits sin by the sacrament of penance, but contrition, which is not real if it does not seek the sacrament." Pascal
The notion of cause is part of our notion of the self.
The Matrix shifted the primary action-movie centerpiece from the chase to the fight.
the effect of one sacrament through another (ex consequentis)
coherence and the worldness of the world
External World
Part I: A History
-- Cartesian
-- Berkeleyan
-- Humean
-- Shepherdian
Part II: An Argument
-- Act/potency
-- Causation
-- 3 Properties
Part III: Expansions
-- Abstract Objects
-- Moral realism
-- Aesthetic realism
-- God
"It is the nature of power, always to press upon the boundaries which confine it." Paley
the essential features of standard logical assumption
(1) self-giving: Assuming A, you can conclude A.
(2) weakening: What is assumed may be ignored if not needed.
(3) bang: What is assumed can repeatedly be assumed.
(4) nonattachment: Assumptions do not change logical features if the order of assumptions is changed.
-- it's interesting to ask what happens if you drop each
Suarez on the signs of heresy
(1) origin infused by
-- (a) pride (Aug. De Pastor. ch. 8)
-- (b) envy (Chrys. hom 7 in Rom.)
-- (c) other vices (2 Tim 3:2ff)
(2) discord and separation from Rome (Cyprian, Aug)
(3) inconstancy and division of doctrine (Basil on Is 5)
(4) mutilation of the Word of God in its use (Vincent of Lerins, Basil; Ath. contra Arian. or. 1& 2)
(5) despising the Catholic Church (Vincent of Lerins; Aug, De unit. eccl.)
(6) refusal to acquiesce in the Councils (Ath. Contra Arian. 1)
(7) despising the authority of the Fathers (Aug. Contra Litter. bk 2 ch 61)
(8) being led by one's own spirit/arbitrating a religion for oneself (Hilary, De Trin Bk 1)
(9) colored eloquence that is precipitate and unrestrained (Naz or. 33; Gregory in Job Bk 7.2)
(10) novelty contrary to ancient doctrine (Chrys. hom 47 in Matt)
(11) loss of Catholic name and new denomination
(12) futile and earthly behavior
love, joy, and peace as paradisial acts
vices not consisting in any mean
vices consisting in what is only a mean with respect to something other than reason
vices consisting in a mean only according to imprudent reason
"Some hold that in the place of bliss, God is visible in His brightness but not in His nature. This is to indulge in overmuch subtlety. For in that simple and unchangeable essence, no division can be made between the nature and the brightness." Gregory, Moralia in Iob 18.90
We do not merely want good; we want good as contributing to a totality of good.
People misread the hypocrisy of their opponents as confirmation of their own sincerity.
Every mortal sin is
(a) a turning away from immutable good
(b) toward mutable good
(c) in violation of reason.
the human tradition
- the core part is received human nature itself
- this is integrated with received human society (being part of the human race)
Kant reduces all virtue to fortitude; Bentham cuts temperance out from the virtues.
the discernibility of symmetry as an aesthetic fact
As Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the teaching of the Church should partake of these, through accessibility, definiteness, and practicality.
evidence that a position is consistent, that it is true, that it is good, that it is beautiful
The perpetual challenge of tax law is that it must be done on the assumption that everyone is poor at mathematics, because with respect to taxes this is practically true.
eleos (mercy); elaion (oil)
human dignity // dignity of marriage
As a complete society, the Church has full moral and social powers of press, school, market, militia, and hospital, insofar as these are suitable for its supernatural end.
'But Knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her Temperance over Appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain.' (Milton)
"...since what orders the cosmos is double, we speak of one aspect of it as the Demiurge, and the other as the soul of the universe, and when we talk of Zeus, we are sometimes referring to the Demiurge and sometimes to the controlling principle of the universe." Plotinus (Enn 4.4.10)
On Plotinus's account of prayer, it is as it were pre-answered; that to which one prays is not responding to the prayer but acting according to its nature, ever sending forth emanations, and in prayer on harmonizes with these.
the consequentialist character of Eve's temptation in Milton: "Fair to the eye, inviting to the Taste /Of virtue to make wise".
-- Note that Satan in PL anticipates a sort of argument from evil: God would not be just if he punished you for doing what makes you happier.
In Paradise Lost, both Satan and fallen Eve assume that inferiority is inconsistent with freedom.
To distinguish coming into being from coming from elsewhere requires that the former be seen as causal. (Anscombe)
They are distinguishable *as effects*.
final causes as the root of the distinction between projectable and nonprojectable predicates
three types of public philosophy (Eugene Heath)
(1) situated in a public setting
(2) modified for varied public (public audience)
(3) functions as normative consensus (public expression)
-- Heath takes (2) to be the key one.
-- He notes that the classroom itself is a venue for public philosophy.
Nothing is so conducive to self-deception as ingratitude.
the family as first hospice/clinic, first school, first market, first church
"Every reform, however necessary, will be weak minds be carried to an excess, which will itself need reforming." Coleridge
"Every man that is not absolved by the water of regeneration, is tied and bound by the guilt of the original bond. But that which the water of Baptism avails for with us, this either faith alone did of old in behalf of infants, or, for those of riper years, the virtue of sacrifice, or, for all that came of the stock of Abraham, the mystery of circumcision." (Gregory Moralia 4.3 pref)
In architecture, sometimes the good we do extends far beyond any memory that may remain of us.
the impossibility of an error theory about the existence of error
the impossibility of fictionalism about the existence of fictions
'Some possible claims are false' is a necessary proposition.
as-if intentionality → causal tendency → causal capability
"To move one's body is to aim at things through it." Merleau-Ponty
tradition as a resistance to propaganda
Heretics "are loath to have a common sort of knowledge, lest they should be placed on a part with the rest of their fellow-creatures, and they are ever making out new things, which, whilst others known nothing of it, they plume their own selves on the preeminence of their knowledge before inexperienced minds." Gregory (Moralia 5.45)
Without intentionality there could be no -ism in eliminativism about intentionality.
-isms as intentional structures
Eliminativism in general is the deliberate elimination of some intentional element belonging to an intentional structure.
The notion of an equation does not occur as a solution in the equations of physics, and yet those equations are proof of the existence of equations. And so it is with many other things that have to do with the mind. The theories of physics exemplify things about the universe that they do not describe.
Values are intrinsic to the notion of a theoretical model, and are what we consider when considering the quality of the model.
'knowledge production' vs cultivation of the conditions for knowing
Most forms of naturalism that include the reduction of all sciences to physics make the universe a concretely existing mathematical object.
the platonism of one lonely Idea
illumination from within by aspiration, instruction from without by doctrine and sign
Reason is intrinsically aspiring.
Penance deals specifically with actual sin; but unction concerns not just actual sin but also things merely associated with sin. (When penance gives grace against these things, it does so *as anticipating unction*, just as when unction gives grace to remit actual sin it does so derivatively from penance.) [ex conseqentis effects of sacraments]
the Church as family (household), as militia, as hierarchy of grace
Contemporary modernity is a resistance to hierarchy. Nonetheless people are fascinated by hierarchies of angels, by stories about courts, by the impressiveness (for good or for evil) of a military.
quando accidents, mutable substance
Promises are part of the natural expression of love; lovers promise, friends promise, people promise on behalf of or for the sake of what they love, Love Himself makes covenants.
Rising or Falling? Men or Things?
To America
by James Weldon Johnson
How would you have us, as we are?
Or sinking 'neath the load we bear?
Our eyes fixed forward on a star?
Or gazing empty at despair?
Rising or falling? Men or things?
With dragging pace or footsteps fleet?
Strong, willing sinews in your wings?
Or tightening chains about your feet?
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Two Poem Drafts and a Re-Draft
Cycle of Time
Silent skies
looking down,
sun and moon
round and round;
round and round,
sun and moon
looking down.
Turning night,
rolling day,
silver beam,
golden ray;
golden ray,
silver beam,
roll away.
Breezes soft
kiss my ear,
bringing words
whispered clear;
whisper clear,
bring me words,
kiss my ear.
Silent skies
round and round;
you and I
lost and found;
lost and found,
round and round,
you and I.
The Honor
How splendid it is to die;
it humbles us all.
However high we think ourselves,
we do not want the honor.
We think it more deserved
by another.
C. S. Peirce
Upon the empty page the pen
With reason writes, dividing thought;
As in life, line cancels line,
Breaking borders, erasing bounds,
Turning sheet into the sought;
And you, the pen, on truth's white page
The universal seize by sign,
By cunning, laws from cases find,
And muse that meaning may be found.
By practice mind may make the world:
By love and chance the world is wrought.
Silent skies
looking down,
sun and moon
round and round;
round and round,
sun and moon
looking down.
Turning night,
rolling day,
silver beam,
golden ray;
golden ray,
silver beam,
roll away.
Breezes soft
kiss my ear,
bringing words
whispered clear;
whisper clear,
bring me words,
kiss my ear.
Silent skies
round and round;
you and I
lost and found;
lost and found,
round and round,
you and I.
The Honor
How splendid it is to die;
it humbles us all.
However high we think ourselves,
we do not want the honor.
We think it more deserved
by another.
C. S. Peirce
Upon the empty page the pen
With reason writes, dividing thought;
As in life, line cancels line,
Breaking borders, erasing bounds,
Turning sheet into the sought;
And you, the pen, on truth's white page
The universal seize by sign,
By cunning, laws from cases find,
And muse that meaning may be found.
By practice mind may make the world:
By love and chance the world is wrought.
Wednesday, June 17, 2020
On Baggini on Monuments
Julian Baggini has an article on monument-breaking; unfortunately it has the complete arbitrariness of almost all discussions. He identifies three questions to ask in order to decide which monuments to break ("Is the achievement for which they are being celebrated intimately or causally tied to their sins? Were they significantly worse than others of their time? How recent was the offence?"), and then says,
This is a shining example of philosophers and academics giving themselves free passes that have not been earned even on their own principles. Baggini had previously argued that Nelson, whose life overlaps Hume's (he was around 18 when Hume died), fails the test because, "Nelson was not just a racist in a racist world, but a defender of racism against contemporaries who were challenging it." Hume's racism was not "no more than was sadly normal at the time"; it was highly controversial at the time. Beattie's Essay on Truth, which was very popular and well-regarded at the time, spends pages and pages attacking Hume on precisely this point, and was occasionally lauded on precisely this point. Baggini says that Hume's racism "had nothing to do with what made his philosophy great", but this has been a matter of controversy among Hume scholars interested in the question for a long time. The most famous argument that Hume's comments on race are intimately tied to the particular form of empiricism he espouses is still that of Eric Morton's 2002, "Race and Racism in the Works of David Hume", but it has by no means been the only one. And certainly that "bigot" Beattie, as Hume called him, thought that it was a significant and seriously important element in Hume's philosophy. Why does Baggini's judgment count more than Morton's or Beattie's?
Suppose we grant, though, that it was not "what made his philosophy great". Was it a part of his historical work? Hume's name was made as much in his historical work as in his philosophical work. Was it part of his essay work? Hume's essays were highly influential in a number of ways, and certainly Hume didn't write them in order not to exert influence. When people think of Lord Nelson's achievements, they are not generally thinking of his politics but of his military career; but Baggini still counts his politics. The only reason Baggini is not doing the same to Hume is that Baggini wants to support the monument-breaking but wants Hume not to be a target, despite Hume's explicit comments.
But the real question, of course, is not statues. Books are monuments to their author; they are far more widely available than statues; they are far more effective and influential, since books, unlike statues, have a long history of making converts and bolstering support for positions; they are themselves tied far more closely to ideas. So the real question of whether Baggini is serious comes down to the results of applying his three-pronged test,
(1) Is the achievement for which they are being celebrated closely tied to their sins?
(2) Were they significantly worse relative to others in their period?
(3) How recent was the offense?
to the banning and burning of books. Should we support, as the "moral high ground", the banning and burning of Hume's Essays, which are monuments to Hume that make explicitly racist comments, and which were written to convince people (admittedly among many other things) of those comments, and which were worse relative to others in Hume's day on this very point? And if Nelson doesn't get off on being too distant in time, surely neither does Hume. It seems like Hume's Essays do not pass a test like that, and so fall down into "the abyss of iniquity". There are obvious reasons why a philosopher would oppose the precedent of banning and burning books of philosophy; but if the argument is purely a matter of moral principle, there is absolutely no reason to exempt philosophy books from the same test as public statues. Any statue or picture of Heidegger is pocket-change in influence and effect compared to Heidegger's Being and Time.
As I've said, of course, moral principle is not particularly relevant, and attempts like Baggini's to moralize monument-breaking are doomed to collapse into either incoherence or question-begging; moral principles may be involved in monument-breaking, but only indirectly by way of contributing to people's self-image in the act itself. They don't give a reason for toppling statues in particular; there is a vast range of other actions you might do on exactly the same moral principles. This is why, contrary to Baggini's argument, the slippery slope is a worry: if you treat it as a purely moral question, as Baggini still does, you can't just decide when to get off the ride. Moral principles are not taxi-cabs.
Monument-breaking, like monument-building, is an attempt to send a message about who has power, about what kind of society is in place. Our society has tended to treat book-burning and monument-breaking as both bad acts, and has tended in the past to punish them by opprobium, the sanction of public opinion, as Mill would have it, and occasionally by harsh and strict enforcement of property and anti-vandalism laws, because both book-burning and monument-breaking are anti-liberal. Allowing them lets stand a message that you do not have to justify yourself before liberal processes (like convincing a democratic government) or institutions, that the liberal regime does not inherit the good of past generations while rising above their often serious defects (indeed, it implies that liberal regimes are complicit with them in their defects, as has been explicitly stated by some people supporting the monument-breaking), that liberal institutions and procedures can be bypassed on these matters for moral reasons to which political liberalism must itself be held account and judged guilty.
Since Baggini wants to allow monument-breaking, trying to maintain himself in simultaneous superposition between the liberal and the anti-liberal position, he needs to explain how far he is willing to go with book-burning, with the removal of books from curricula and libraries, and the like. After all, he tells us it is a matter of moral high ground; so he should stop treating it like something that can be managed by tactical maneuvering.
By any reasonable test, David Hume should be safe. (He’s not yet listed on toppletheracists.org.) Hume’s racism was no more than was sadly normal at the time and it had nothing to do with what made his philosophy great.
This is a shining example of philosophers and academics giving themselves free passes that have not been earned even on their own principles. Baggini had previously argued that Nelson, whose life overlaps Hume's (he was around 18 when Hume died), fails the test because, "Nelson was not just a racist in a racist world, but a defender of racism against contemporaries who were challenging it." Hume's racism was not "no more than was sadly normal at the time"; it was highly controversial at the time. Beattie's Essay on Truth, which was very popular and well-regarded at the time, spends pages and pages attacking Hume on precisely this point, and was occasionally lauded on precisely this point. Baggini says that Hume's racism "had nothing to do with what made his philosophy great", but this has been a matter of controversy among Hume scholars interested in the question for a long time. The most famous argument that Hume's comments on race are intimately tied to the particular form of empiricism he espouses is still that of Eric Morton's 2002, "Race and Racism in the Works of David Hume", but it has by no means been the only one. And certainly that "bigot" Beattie, as Hume called him, thought that it was a significant and seriously important element in Hume's philosophy. Why does Baggini's judgment count more than Morton's or Beattie's?
Suppose we grant, though, that it was not "what made his philosophy great". Was it a part of his historical work? Hume's name was made as much in his historical work as in his philosophical work. Was it part of his essay work? Hume's essays were highly influential in a number of ways, and certainly Hume didn't write them in order not to exert influence. When people think of Lord Nelson's achievements, they are not generally thinking of his politics but of his military career; but Baggini still counts his politics. The only reason Baggini is not doing the same to Hume is that Baggini wants to support the monument-breaking but wants Hume not to be a target, despite Hume's explicit comments.
But the real question, of course, is not statues. Books are monuments to their author; they are far more widely available than statues; they are far more effective and influential, since books, unlike statues, have a long history of making converts and bolstering support for positions; they are themselves tied far more closely to ideas. So the real question of whether Baggini is serious comes down to the results of applying his three-pronged test,
(1) Is the achievement for which they are being celebrated closely tied to their sins?
(2) Were they significantly worse relative to others in their period?
(3) How recent was the offense?
to the banning and burning of books. Should we support, as the "moral high ground", the banning and burning of Hume's Essays, which are monuments to Hume that make explicitly racist comments, and which were written to convince people (admittedly among many other things) of those comments, and which were worse relative to others in Hume's day on this very point? And if Nelson doesn't get off on being too distant in time, surely neither does Hume. It seems like Hume's Essays do not pass a test like that, and so fall down into "the abyss of iniquity". There are obvious reasons why a philosopher would oppose the precedent of banning and burning books of philosophy; but if the argument is purely a matter of moral principle, there is absolutely no reason to exempt philosophy books from the same test as public statues. Any statue or picture of Heidegger is pocket-change in influence and effect compared to Heidegger's Being and Time.
As I've said, of course, moral principle is not particularly relevant, and attempts like Baggini's to moralize monument-breaking are doomed to collapse into either incoherence or question-begging; moral principles may be involved in monument-breaking, but only indirectly by way of contributing to people's self-image in the act itself. They don't give a reason for toppling statues in particular; there is a vast range of other actions you might do on exactly the same moral principles. This is why, contrary to Baggini's argument, the slippery slope is a worry: if you treat it as a purely moral question, as Baggini still does, you can't just decide when to get off the ride. Moral principles are not taxi-cabs.
Monument-breaking, like monument-building, is an attempt to send a message about who has power, about what kind of society is in place. Our society has tended to treat book-burning and monument-breaking as both bad acts, and has tended in the past to punish them by opprobium, the sanction of public opinion, as Mill would have it, and occasionally by harsh and strict enforcement of property and anti-vandalism laws, because both book-burning and monument-breaking are anti-liberal. Allowing them lets stand a message that you do not have to justify yourself before liberal processes (like convincing a democratic government) or institutions, that the liberal regime does not inherit the good of past generations while rising above their often serious defects (indeed, it implies that liberal regimes are complicit with them in their defects, as has been explicitly stated by some people supporting the monument-breaking), that liberal institutions and procedures can be bypassed on these matters for moral reasons to which political liberalism must itself be held account and judged guilty.
Since Baggini wants to allow monument-breaking, trying to maintain himself in simultaneous superposition between the liberal and the anti-liberal position, he needs to explain how far he is willing to go with book-burning, with the removal of books from curricula and libraries, and the like. After all, he tells us it is a matter of moral high ground; so he should stop treating it like something that can be managed by tactical maneuvering.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Shepherd at Home
Putting together the final version of my notes for an online lecture on causation in Hume and Shepherd in my Introduction to Philosophy class later today, I was put in mind for some reason of this comment by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (who knew Lady Mary Shepherd's daughter, Mary Shepherd, very well, and had met Lady Mary Shepherd a few times), on the relationship between Lady Mary Shepherd and Sir Henry Shepherd:
[Letter 59 in The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford 1836-1854, Volume I, Meredith B. Raymond and Mary Rose Sullivan, eds. Wedgestone Press (Winfield, KS: 1983) pp. 154-155.]
There was love too in abundance, I am sure, between the metaphysician & the dramatist--& Lady Mary used to say jestingly--"We are very much in love with each other". Notwithstanding which, he used by her own account to take up his hat & walk out whenever she began to dissert (she does dissert you know) upon primary & secondary qualities in matter--and she on the other hand was the authority in all domestic matters & would'nt suffer any interference--"What can he know about children? Why he was only a boy when I married him". Just those words! I am certain this time about the syllables. They are unforgettable.
[Letter 59 in The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford 1836-1854, Volume I, Meredith B. Raymond and Mary Rose Sullivan, eds. Wedgestone Press (Winfield, KS: 1983) pp. 154-155.]
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