The Gentleman Saint

Today was the feast of St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church. From his most popular work, Introduction to the Devout Life:

... all true and living devotion presupposes the love of God;—and indeed it is neither more nor less than a very real love of God, though not always of the same kind; for that Love while shining on the soul we call grace, which makes us acceptable to His Divine Majesty;—when it strengthens us to do well, it is called Charity;—but when it attains its fullest perfection, in which it not only leads us to do well, but to act carefully, diligently, and promptly, then it is called Devotion. The ostrich never flies,—the hen rises with difficulty, and achieves but a brief and rare flight, but the eagle, the dove, and the swallow, are continually on the wing, and soar high;—even so sinners do not rise towards God, for all their movements are earthly and earthbound. Well-meaning people, who have not as yet attained a true devotion, attempt a manner of flight by means of their good actions, but rarely, slowly and heavily; while really devout men rise up to God frequently, and with a swift and soaring wing. In short, devotion is simply a spiritual activity and liveliness by means of which Divine Love works in us, and causes us to work briskly and lovingly; and just as charity leads us to a general practice of all God’s Commandments, so devotion leads us to practise them readily and diligently.

St. Francis did a great many great things, but he had a somewhat rocky start. He was a good-looking young man with great hair, long and thick and blond, and, despite thinking he had a vocation, and having renounced his title of Lord of Villaroget for it, he had so much difficulty with the fact that he would have to take a tonsure, he almost didn't go through with it. Fortunately, he did, and began to light up like a fire -- a necessary thing, because his first assignment was Geneva and the surrounding area, a very dangerous post as Geneva was Calvinist, and he set out, in his words, to tear down the walls of Geneva with charity. Geneva itself, of course, was completely closed to him. The Catholics were scattered and difficult to reach, and non-Catholics wouldn't even talk to him, so he launched a campaign of tracts, which is why he's patron saint of journalists. He had to survive a few assassination attempts, but people began to warm up to him. And perhaps more importantly for the broader church, it taught him an extraordinary patience and courtesy even with his avowed enemies and a sense of how to communicate with ordinary people struggling to make their way.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018)

Ursula K. Le Guin died on January 22. From her novel, The Other Wind:

Irian spoke: "Men fear death as dragons do not. Men want to own life, possess it, as if it were a jewel in a box. Those ancient mages craved everlasting life. They learned to use true names to keep men from dying. But those who cannot die can never be reborn."

[Ursula K. Le Guin, The Other Wind, Harcourt, Inc. (New York: 2001) pp. 225-226.]

Trahison des évêques

If true, this is utterly short-sighted and treacherous behavior:

The Holy See has reportedly asked two Chinese bishops to stand aside to make way for illicitly ordained, Chinese government-backed counterparts.

A Vatican delegation asked Bishop Peter Zhuang of Shantou and Bishop Jospeh Guo Xijin of Mindong to retire or accept demotion in order to smooth relations with the Chinese government.

Asia News, the outlet of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, reports that 88-year-old Bishop Zhuang received a letter dated 26 October asking him to resign to make way for the government-backed Bishop Huang Bingzhang.

There is nothing the Holy See could possibly gain from this that would be worth the harm that would come from this, and no feasible goal that the Holy See could have that would make the harm worthwhile. The Curia these days talks a lot about the margins; the people this would betray are nothing other than Catholics at the margins, faithful Catholics making sacrifices under a persecuting regime. It is a practically enraging malfeasance. I hope that there is some confusion somewhere in the reporting. Unfortunately, the Curia has a centuries-old reputation for doing short-sighted well, so I fear that this is all too in-character. God save us all from stupid and cowardly bishops. The Catholic Church in China has endured unimaginable interference and attack; it can survive it all, but the idea of treachery from within makes one tremble for it.

In any case, it will bear watching and praying; and it is not as if this is the first time we have been here.

Destroying Basic Goods

A while back there was some discussion at "Public Discourse" of whether the New Natural Law argument against capital punishment is viable. Christopher Tollefsen summarizes it:

Here is the basic argument: (A) human life is a basic, and not merely an instrumental, good for human persons; (B) no instance of a basic good should ever be destroyed as an end or a means; (C) capital punishment does destroy an instance of the basic human good of human life as a means; therefore (D) no one should ever perform capital punishment upon another human being.

Michael Pakaluk argues that this argument overshoots and Tollefsen replies:

Pakaluk worries that the pluralism of the basic goods approach commits it to too many moral absolutes. After all, if play and aesthetic experience are basic goods, then there should be no intentional damage or destruction of those goods. I think this is correct: to intend damage or destruction of a basic good is to seek its privation as an end or a means. It would be wrong to seek the privation of either of these goods as an end: depriving the world of play or beauty for its own sake is perverse. And I think it wrong to intend such privations as a means as well.

But a moment’s reflection shows that this view does not have the implications discovered by Pakaluk, who infers that a “police officer can no more stop the loud trumpeter from playing outside my window at night, it seems, than society can execute a murderer.” Well, what does the police officer seek to stop? Trumpets and trumpet playing? I doubt it. He seeks to stop untimely and unwelcome noise, and he accepts as a side effect that some musical enjoyment may be thwarted.

This argument, however, seems clearly to fail as a response. It can be granted, for it is surely right, that the basic goods identified by New Natural Law theorists are such that practical reason obligates us not to destroy them, as such. So, for instance, play is a basic good; trying to destroy the possibility for play, as such, or acting in such a way that is inconsistent with play, simpliciter, is morally wrong. But this is not relevant. When people argue in favor of the death penalty, they are not arguing in favor of the elimination of human life, as such; capital punishment is not an attempt to cause the extinction of the human race. Nor are proponents of capital punishment generally arguing that we should act in a way that is inimical to human life as such; a significant number of arguments for its legitimacy are arguments precisely that it is not necessarily such an act. Depriving the world of human life for its own sake would indeed be perverse, but this is not relevant, because (B) is not about the basic goods themselves but about particular instances. And it is not Pakaluk's argument that the excess of moral absolutes occurs at the general level.

When we are talking about the death penalty, we are not talking about human life as such, but an instance of human life; we are not dealing with the basic good per se but in one of its instances. And this is the point of Pakaluk's argument. Play is basic good. But stopping an instance of play is not in and of itself immoral. Principle (B) fails if it is understood as implying that it is always wrong to stop people playing. If children are playing a rowdy game, an instance of play, at a funeral, it is perfectly morally acceptable to make them stop playing. Indeed, arguably, it might not be morally acceptable to let them keep playing. Play is a basic good; it is not an unlimited good such that instances of it must be allowed no matter what the circumstances. What the police officer in the example seeks to stop in Pakaluk's example is quite clearly an instance of a basic good (either play or aesthetic experience, depending on how things go down). This is straightforwardly inconsistent with (B). Nor does it in this case make any sense whatsoever to say that the policeman merely "accepts as a side effect that some musical enjoyment may be thwarted"; he is directly thwarting it himself, as a means to stopping the noise. It's a violation of (B), destroying an instance of a basic good as a means; but it is obviously not immoral. (B) thus fails. It is not sufficiently precise to render the kind of conclusion that it is supposed to render.

The problem here reminds me of the old distinction between perfect and imperfect duties. (B) requires that any destruction of any instance of any basic good is a violation of a perfect duty. But a basic good like play obviously is not taken by practical reason to require the protection of perfect duties with respect to its instances; nobody takes it as doing so. Reason attributes imperfect duties to it -- play must be upheld as good, and given circumstances this will require things of us in particular instances, but no one is prohibited no matter what from shutting down instances of play. The same is obviously true of aesthetic experience; it is obviously true of sociability. To argue that it is not true of human life as a basic good requires arguing that reason handles the good of human life differently from the way it handles the good of aesthetic experience or play or sociability. If something like (B) applies in the case of human life, it is not due to the bare fact that human life is a basic good.

ADDED LATER: Here is a point that I think is relevant to the above, although it is distinct. No good generates an obligation unless it belongs to common good for some kind of complete society (a state, the Church, the human race). A primary problem with (B) seems to me to be a failure to recognize the link between obligation and common good. Not every instance of a basic good is shared in common so as to unite a community; such instances can involve no obligation of the kind (B) suggests, although they may involve default presumptions as to what is reasonable or not, worthwhile or not, and so forth. Since it lacks any recognition of common good as essential to any adequate account of obligation, (B) is inevitably going to be defective.

Lamb of the Lamb

A Poem of St. Agnes

The little lambs on heaven's field
remind me of a girl who fought
against the darkness, for the fair,
whose heart was free from trembling fear,
who would not falter, did not fail,
but held her ground against the foe.
"I faithful stay to Spouse and Friend,
my Jesus; I am truly free
with him," she said, her voice not faint.
And then she bent her head, with faith
exposed her neck. The death-stroke fell.

Agnes and Emerentiana

The world in rage will not endure
a girl who hears a higher call;
to blood it turns a prayer pure
and destines her to velvet pall.
And should a girl on girl depend
to keep her image to the end,
the world will hate as well her friend,
for friendship is the purest art.
It hates the pure -- such will not bend,
through grace transcending scripted part.
Then sword will fall, or stones descend --
they die unconquered, pure of heart.

Dashed Off II

Lacking aidos is a civic disease.

One of the common mistakes of the contemporary Catholic hierarchy is thinking one can teach by committee.

Few things seduce more effectively than the promise to change the world.

Suspension of judgment is teleological, and knowledge can be one of its ends.

philosophical inquiry in elenctic, aporetic, and aphoristic modes

The self-giving character of marriage is also self-forming.

the catholicity aspect ("space") and the apostolicity aspect ("time") of the sacrament
the sanctity aspect // "cause"

platonism, nominalism, etc., about argument-forms

objective traditionality vs meant traditionality

traditionality in mode of standing retention vs traditionality in mode of recollection vs traditionality in mode of reflective image

Sacred tradition is quasi-holographic in character; each part has reflections elsewhere.

Every present perception has a memorative and an anticipatory aspect.

introduction rules as an account of evidence; elimination rules as an account of use

The principle of charity in interpretation is a principle of evidence; sticking to the evidence is often the only way to be fair and reasonable, but this requires being open to evidence, rather than discounting it from the beginning. Thus charitable interpretation, to avoid prejudicial discounting of evidence. Treating someone as rational still allows, by evidence, the possibility of showing them wrong, confused, etc. Treating someone as irrational discounts evidence that could show them right or reasonable.

To learn a prayer is to pray.

Our interaction with the world is other-mind-ish; interacting with minds is our default stance, which we adapt to other things.

other minds & being able to think of oneself counterfactually

Life without parole is a kind of death sentence -- the difference between life without parole and what is called 'death' is just willingness to wait.

Every belief is also a normative evaluation of something as fit to be taken as true.

Ideas are not constitutive or regulative in themselves but as structuring this or that action or reason.

No quality capable of being measured in terms of both intensity and duration is such that intensity measures can be directly compared, much less added, to duration measures. An hour of travel cannot be added to instantaneous velocity. A minute of being hot cannot be added to absolute zero. And intensity of pleasure cannot be added to duration of pleasure, or even directly compared.

Pleasure does not come in discrete units but in layers, and while the layers are often distinguishable, they also bleed into each other.

acting in accordance with the principles suitable to one deciding on behalf of the whole Church

Kant links sublimity of maxims to independence of maxims from incentive G439 and sublimity of person to legislating moral law G440.

theory of value // theory of evidence

?: If A is evidence and it is true that when Z exists, A exists, then Z is also evidence.

evidentiality as binary modal operator (a is evidence of b) truthward fit

the exclusion of evidence vs the nonpossession of evidence

rank order for evidence (being more/less evidential of something)

evidence as value for belief
For every axiology, there is a corresponding theory of evidence.

All belief is belief that something is or is not.

the prior, the higher, the purer

Mercy is a directive virtue.

Treating potentiality as prior // treating the sensible as prior to the intelligible

values as concepts of practical reason

Each sacrament expresses an ecclesiology.

paraphyletic groups as artificial classifications suitable for building/converging on natural classifications

Loving your enemy is the essential princpile required for putting real good above political usefulness.

independence, continuation, and externality as issues arising with every measurement

number as that which allows naming without limit

+A+B A overlaps B
<+A+B> the overlap of A and B
+A+<+B+C> A overlaps the overlap of B and C
+A-B A overlaps nonB

patron saints and heroic language

gracefulness as bewgliche Shchönheit, movable beauty (Schiller) -- transient and can appear by chance

dignity approaching gracefulness: nobility; dignity approaching fearfulness: sublimity

"Just as bombast arises from the affectation of the sublime, preciosity arises from the affectation of the noble, and from affected grace comes fussiness and from affected dignity, ceremony and gravity." Schiller

The sublime is that which pleases by exceeding what can be seen. (But often this is by suggestion through what is seen.)

"atheism, conceptual of course, is only ever valid as far as the concept of 'God' that it mobilizes extends" Jean-Luc Marion
"Conceptual atheism becomes rigorous only by remaining regional."

The names of God are praising-names.

unum : memory :: verum : intellect :: bonum : will

goodness as incandescent truth

aliquid as the distinguishable

Human intellect is not intellect purely and in itself, but intellect in the sensible world of matter.

The theology of the Holy Spirit follows from the theology of the Father and the Son.

The rational response to grace is gratitude.

A description of the world at one time necessarily includes some description at other times.

All modern definitions of determinism entail that strict hard determinism, even if true, could only be known to be true by omniscience.

Things charm by the suggestion of beauty (which may or may not be their own).

For something to be an error, it must violate a norm that identifies rightness or correctness.

"rationality has at least four dimensions, intellectual, aesthetical, moral, and practical" James
(note similarity to Mill's Art of Life)

doxastic vs epistemic 'must'

"Moreover there are many cases in which it is our duty to act upon probabilities, although the evidence is not such as to justify present belief; because it is precisely by such action, and by observation of its fruits, that evidence is got which may justify future belief." Clifford
- Obviously raises two immediate questions: (1) If so, why can't belief sometimes be such an act upon probabilities? (2) If so, what of actions that require particular beliefs? James at least touches on both.

Clifford's spectroscope example seems clearly to concede one part of what James will argue -- that our 'passional natures' are involved in assessment of evidence.

Of any 'ethics of belief', ask how it is supposed to work with children. (Cp. Ward)

Clifford's argument in "The Ethics of Belief" seems to require a Knowledge Norm of Assertion, and to make any kind of deception an egregious moral wrong. (The moral argument Clifford gives transfers quite easily.)

central market, circuit market, and periodic market forms of law and justice

different kinds of analogical inference for different kinds of Diamond?

Infallible authority at any point in actual teaching can be (1) to truth as such; (2) to security or safety of position; (3) to suitability to either.

papal teaching by properly infallible authority vs papal teaching by universal ecclesiastical provision

respectful deference in conditions of doubt

Every theory of classification suggests a theory of concepts.

(1) To be a community both free and unified, ecclesial community must have some power of autonomy or legislation and of legitimate sanction, which is not subject to being overruled by other powers.
(2) Within a community, reasonable deference to law and sanction is loyal.
(3) Loyalty is a moral duty for those who belong to a community, where it may be had without violating natural or divine law.

Deference to spiritual authority is a case universal enough to fall under direction of natural law. It is confined to no age or clime, but universally obtains at all times and in all places where men live lives more exalted than the lives of beasts.

Ends excel means intrinsically; whether one thing excels another in other cases depends on ends in light of which something may be determined to excel.

Anderson suggests that the battle referred to in Charmides is Spartolas, not Potidaea, and thus that Socrates was in one of the early contingents.

Socrates on war
- it is kalon and agathon (Prot 359e)
- actions in it may be just (Gorg 468b-470b)
- life of commander second only to life of philosophers (Phaed 248a)
- art of war contributes to joyful life (Mem 11.1.19, IV.5.10)
- he doesn't discourage Xenophon from war as such (Anab 3.1.5)
- service in fleet is noble (Rep 396b, cp Laws 707a-c); cp land battles make bitter men in Laws 707c)

In Big Medicine, there is an ever-present danger of health care professionals being treated only as means; this danger is compounded in legislated health issues.

the personalist principle & humanitarian traditions

1) What has no contraries is both ingenerable and indestructible.
2) The world as a whole has no contrary from which it can be generated; it is therefore, as far as its nature is concerned, indestructible.
3) Angels have no substrate that can have contraries for generation and destruction; they are therefore neither generable nor destructible.

architecture and the suggestion of gracefulness

presentational vs representational art
presentational vs representational scholarship

holy and one: Creed
holy and apostolic: sacraments
holy and catholic: saints

At His Baptism, the Father acknowledges His Beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased. At the Transfiguration, the Father also acknowledges His Son. But on the Cross no acknowledgement comes, and the Son cries out in the anguish of it.

Sloppiness of detail is often a symptom of a lack of mercy toward others.

Success is a form of victory, not a form of pleasure.

People devote themselves to money for three reasons: to survive, to increase pleasure, and to win what they see as a sort of sport or game. Notably, it is the latter of these that creates the most intensive pursuit of money.

pleasure, success, friendship, truth

The more brilliant one is, the more thoroughly one can err -- no one takes the errors of a slug to be great errors.

natura daedala rerum

the at-your-service-ness of hope

"The acuity of genius is the acute use of acuity." Novalis

the sublimity-suggestive

A Platonic or philosophical myth is a syllogism of allusions.

"Humor is lyrical...." Kierkegaard

Mendlesohn's fantasy forms
(1) portal fantasy: involve a point of entry, from which the fantastic is reached and learned
(2) immersive fantasy: the fatastic is within the story just the ordinary, and we treat it as supposed for the story
(3) intrusion fantasy: the fantastic remains immune to discovery as it enters the ordinary
(5) liminal fantasy: the apparently ordinary on the edge of the fantastic -- within the story, the fantastic is ordinary and we are estranged from it as part of the story
(6) miscellaneous
-- really these should be seen as act-packages, sets of things one may do; a single work may blend them or nest them.
-- portal stories tend to be healing stories; immersive stories tend to be stories of the loss of the fantastic

The Lord of the Rings is a text on ascetic discipline: the quest to give up power in favor the good.

The terminus of divine acts of omnipotence in the world, taht to which they tend, is always Sabbath peace.

"Drink loosens the tongue. But it also opens the heart wide, and it is a vehicle instrumental to a moral quality, that is openheartedness." Kant

"Man is destined by his reason to live in a society of other people." Kant

credibility : truth :: gracefulness : beauty :: manners? : good

"error serves truth in spite of itself" Maritain

Satisfaction of what is owed is a necessary part of purification.

Hyperbole and idealization have one root.

Music on My Mind

Hà Okio, "Sài Gòn Cà Phê Sữa Đá". A very cute song. Cà phê, of course, is coffee; cà phê sữa đá is the preferred Vietnamese way of taking it, with ice and sweet condensed milk. It's a nostalgia song, remembering times, sometimes sunny, sometimes rainy, when you just hung out with friends, sometimes coming, sometimes going, drinking cà phê sữa đá in the parks in the city center.