The Virtue of Amiability

The virtue of amiability results from the fusion of several strong virtues. It is the all things to all men that grows out of charity: the knowledge of self that humility teaches; the pure detachment found in mortification; the meekness born of patience; and the undaunted courage won of perseverance... The Code of Amiability obliges one:

1. To smile until a kindly smile forms readily on one's lips.
2. To repress a sign of impatience at the very start.
3. To add a word of benevolence when giving orders.
4. To reply positively when asked to do a favor.
5. To lend a helping hand to the unfortunate.
6. To please those toward whom one feels repugnance.
7. To study and satisfy the tastes of those with whom one lives.
8. To respect everyone.
9. To avoid complaining.
10. To correct, if one must, with kindness.
These are the dispositions which union with the amiable Virgin will place in our heart.

--the Venerable Maria Teresa Josefina Justina Gonzalez-Quevedo, a.k.a., Teresita Gonzalez-Quevedo (quoted from the biography here).

That's a Code I can live with. But, ah! So difficult in its simplicity!

Links and Notes

* John Samson has a nice post on divine foreknowledge at "Reformation Theology." (HT: Rebecca Writes)

* "The Crusty Curmudgeon" reviews a South Park episode on a certain religious organization associated with celebrities like Travolta and Cruise. I confess I'm a South Park fan; I've even used one of its episodes ("The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000") in a class for the purposes of review (a delightful subplot of the episode is Kyle's crisis of doubt when he finds out that the Tooth Fairy and Santa don't exist; the crisis is overcome in part by the reading of Descartes -- I had the students discuss what Descartes would agree with and what he wouldn't).

* Orac at "Respectful Insolence" discusses the recent arrest of David Irving in Austria for Holocaust denial.

* Mark Grimsley at "Blog Them Out of the Stone Age" critically discusses the concept of 'fourth generation warfare' in two posts (and soon to be three).

* Mark Roberts has a thirty-part series of posts on the question Are the New Testament Gospels Reliable? The posts strike a good balance between being readable and dealing with the technical issues. He's currently blogging on the question of churches and politics, which has become a big issue recently, given the recent furor about IRS action against All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California for the preaching of an anti-war sermon. Roberts's analysis, which I found a bit surprising (and with which I'm inclined to disagree), is that the sermon probably did violate IRC 501(c)(3).

* "Novum Testamentum" has a post giving a translation of Arius's Thalia, which sums up the heresiarch's theology.

* At "18th-Century Reading Room" a while back, there was a post with a selection from Hume's essay, The Epicurean. "The Epicurean" is the first of four essays on human happiness, the other three being The Stoic, The Platonist, and The Sceptic. None of these essays portray Hume's own view. The best way to see them is as a dialogue, in which each speech needs to be counterbalanced against the others. (There are two kinds of dialogue, according to Cicero, who is Hume's biggest influence in these matters; the more familiar dialectical, which emulates a conversation, and the rhetorical, in which the characters don't converse but give set speeches.) Each of the speeches is supposed to sum up a view of human happiness that naturally tends to arise among the human race. Hume clearly sympathizes most with the Sceptic, and least with the Platonist; but each of the speakers captures something of the truth, and the Sceptic's position doesn't strictly match Hume's position elsewhere. Both the Stoic and the Epicurean, for instance, say things with which Hume would clearly agree. In any case, I'm glad to see these essays out and about. They deserve to be better known, being some of Hume's better philosophical writing.

Heidegger and Nazi Ideology

Nathanael has a good post at The Rhine River on whether Heidegger's association with the Nazi party taints his philosophy. My position, in the comments, is the strong one that it does. It's OK to be influenced by Heidegger -- but only by rethinking Heideggerian thought so that it stands over against Nazi ideology and Heidegger himself insofar as he did not.

I confess I don't understand why people try to deny the connection between Heidegger's philosophy and his participation in the Nazi party; even in later life, when Heidegger tried to play down his earlier association with Nazi ideology (as in the Der Spiegel interview, or in letters to Herbert Marcuse), he still affirmed a link between his philosophical interests and his joining of the Nazi party.

The only evidence we have for the common narrative put forward by Heidegger defenders is Heidegger's own suspect testimony (suspect not merely because he's the one under suspicion and because it's the sort of thing people lie about, but also because we have the claims of some of his friends and colleagues that Heidegger had a bad habit of lying -- Hannah Arendt, one of Heidegger's most important defenders in later life, was very clear about it). The common narrative is, roughly, that he joined in the naive belief that he could provide a philosophy to the Nazi party, became rector in 1933, then "discovered his political mistake," resigned, and lectured from a completely non-Nazi standpoint then on out, moderating his opposition to the Nazis only in order to protect his family. If we set aside Heidegger's own testimony, the picture that seems suggested by the evidence is this: the common narrative is right up to the point of the rectorship; he resigned the rectorship not so much because of resistance by the Nazis to philosophical thought, but primarily because of resistance by the faculty to his zealous promotion of the Fuhrer-principle; after his resignation in 1934, he continued to affirm Nazi values ("the inner truth and greatness of National Socialism"), but successively distanced himself from the actual regime; even as late as 1938 he was working to block the advancement of academics on the excuse that they were "unfavorably disposed to the regime" (in the Max Müller incident); and on the rare occasions in later years when he mentioned the Holocaust, he always trivialized it.

There really can be no serious argument that Heidegger's philosophy was not (at least at one period of his life) Nazi. We can only manage such a claim by gerrymandering Heidegger's thought under the Nazi regime. And I am always very disappointed by the weasely evasions put forward by Heidegger and some of his defenders. There is no doubt that Heidegger was a brilliant man; and there is no doubt that one can learn a great deal from his thought. But people who approach Heidegger need to approach him in a way that does not trivialize the seriousness of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. It is surprising how many people are willing to do precisely that in order to give Heidegger's philosophy a clean bill of health. There can be no sharp distinction between Heidegger the man and the philosophy he put forward. The one was the Nazi; the other was the philosophy of a Nazi who saw it in one period of his life as the core expression of the true spirit of National Socialism. I have no problem with people who are influenced by Heidegger, or who wish to appropriate Heideggerian themes. But we have a moral responsibility to do so (if we do so) only by purgation. The themes and ideas must become part of a system resolutely against everything the Nazis stood for; yes, and resolutely against Heidegger insofar as he supported the Nazis, and Heidegger's philosophy, insofar as it was adapted to being the philosophy of the "inner truth and greatness of National Socialism". Even at the very most optimistic assessment, Heidegger's association with the Nazis, an association he always depicted as philosophical, show serious and dangerous lacunae in Heidegger's own philosophical views. However one cuts the cake, if Heidegger is to be saved, Heidegger must be overcome.

Dashed Off

As I've said before, I'm constantly scribbling down thoughts. Here's a semi-random sample of some of them; some are promising, some less so, some are barely coherent.

When people are infused through and through with a story, they begin to allegorize it, and to treat it as more than a bare anrration, but as a template for understanding other things.

The just application of law is impossible unless we allow moral judgment to play a role in the application.

That something is unearned does not mean that we have no claim to it (e.g., if I freely give you a bite of my sandwich, you have not earned the gift, but you have some claim to it because I had claim to it and gave it to you).

we can have claim to something by
desert
gift
need

Work does not ennoble. We ennoble work, by bringing into it a radiant goodness. (God working in us.)

Inferring what will happen in the future on teh basis of the past is only one form of induction, which need not take temporal form at all, and, if it does, could just as easily conclude to something about the present. (Of course, the latter would ordinarily be collapsed into the past->future case -- but that shows that temporality, real temporality, is not relevant to induction at all, and that the eral issue in induction is movement from the known to the unknown. But when we see it in that light, we see that the known is the best basis for any inference, even if we sometimes, or even very often, infer the wrong conclusion: we go with what we have, and there's nothign unreasonable about that unless one treats one's inference --the 'It is this way for cases we know, so let's go with that unless we have reason tor egard this case as different' inference --as something needing magic powers or supernal reliability. It's not magic; it's just reasonable.) In any case, time is a red herring, or at best a crutch. Past and present have no special role to play as past or present.

Induction is not the most general form of reasoning about matters of fact. (Lady Mary Shepherd essentially shows this.)

I hit the desk. Crack! The sound echoes off the wall. You have sensed causation. Do you deny it? I will show you again. Crack! Crack! Crack! -- until you impatiently recognize me as the cause of the noise.

If we have a means to an end, it is not necessary to 'use it as a means', for it might be a means in the sense of a subsidiary or contributive end. Not all means are valued only as means (virtues are a good example, since virtues are certainly means, but not 'merely' so).

Faith is needed in inquiry because patience is needed in inquiry.

A truthmaker entails and explains the truth of a proposition-- it is in that sense that it makes it true.

More than one thing can be a truthmaker for a proposition; and propositions can also have a collective for their truthmaker.

Truthmakers are truthmakers under a description.

To be is to be a truthmaker.

In the real world, the benefits of cooperation and defection are not stable unless made so.

We do not extend teleology to nonhumans by metaphyr; we restrict teleology from them by education and analysis, i.e., by sorting them into 'metaphorically teleological' and 'literally teleological'.

the intellect as
1) potens omnia facere
2) potens omnia fieri
Intellect as intellect is infinite.

What Kant calls indirect duties, Hume would call natural virtues.

Philosophy, like good wine, must age to be appreciated properly and with good taste. Leting things ferment productively is the greater part of any good taste.

'Production' is broader than 'causation' understood efficiently.

The Golden Rule is not a simplification of the law, but a sumamry: in actual cases, it diversifies as widely as the law properly understood.

We often talk about respect for persons and forget to talk about solidarity with them.

In oral poetry a word is a unit of meaning rather than a unit of form.

Regresses of causal chains are all, or often, potentially infinite; this tells us nothing about whether actual infinite regress is possible.

The horror genre is centered on the monstrous. The monstrous is in some way unknown--a purely analyzed monster ceases to be monstrous. The monstrous baffles our sense of the why.

Frankenstein & Dr. Moreau: the monster as a means for showing the monstrous in the man

In belief, as in murder, the agent must have motive, means, and opportunity.

In theological compatibilism, hell is ultimately an expression of the glory and power of God, and only a punishment as a means thereto. It is determinism itself that pushes it in that direction.

The united testimony of mankind is that life is usually pretty good and sometimes very miserable.

It is not enlightenment of the oppressed that frees, but transformation of the oppressor into a nonoppressor. Slaves are not freed by rebellions, nor by recognizing their slavery, but by the slavers ceasing to be slavers.

Zohar III, 65b: "First came Ehyeh, the dark womb of all; then asher ehyeh, indicating the readiness of the Mother to beget all."

Informal fallacies are often defenses against sophism that have been misused.

Legal obligation can be studied independently of the consequences following on its violation (e.g., as legal convention, as something regarded as having moral force, etc.). Sanction is a (higher-level) superinduction on an obligation that already exists, where it is legitimate (it imposes a legal obligation about how to handle violations of legal obligations).

In historical as in other causes, the total cause must be adequate for the effect.

It is not enough to study each parable in isolation; they play off each other and qualify each other, bringing out different aspects that others ignore.

It is a mistake to assume that all signs are used; i.e. that every sign is constituted a sign by use. If a dog by long experience associates laying out the napkins with appearance of food, the laying out of napkins will be recognized by teh dog as a sign of the food; but it is not, or need not be, the case that the sign is 'used' by the dog. Nor does the sign require 'rules of use', since all it requires is the potential for association. Nor does the sign of itself ahve to 'mean' anything, unless one simply identifies meaning with signification.

Are there really any 'epistemic obligations'? Who imposes them? With what authority? What is the nature of these obligations?--Note that the fact of sanction is not strong enough to make an obligation.--Are they moral obligations?--But there has never been a good reason for treating the matters discussed in this way as an ethics of belief (as opposed, to say, an ethics of profession or an ethics of investigation).

Perhaps also all this talk about 'warranted belief' is a red herring. Teh important issue is perhaps not whether beliefs have 'warrant' but whether this thing believed is better to believe than that thing believed. And the truly unreasonable person is the person who refuses to recognize that some things are better to believe than others.

A blogger can never take himself too lightly.

Albertus Magnus

I'm a little late (his feast day is November 15), but I do want to do something to mark the occasion. Albert the Great, the Doctor Universalis, is the patron saint of scientists and best known for being the teacher of Thomas Aquinas. Discussing the life of plants, he laid down the principle, Experimentum solum certificat in talibus (experience alone is the judge in such matters); and in discussing minerals, he said, "The aim of science of nature is not simply to accept the statements of others, but to investigate the causes that are at work in nature." There's an enthusiastic biography of him online. One of the most famous paintings of the Doctor Universalis is here.

Weblogs and the Conversible World

I confess, bloggers puzzle me.

As you might know, Scott Adams of 'Dilbert' fame has his own weblog. Recently he had a post about the intelligent design debate, written in his usual barely coherent and not-very-serious way; PZ Myers responded, in a post in which he said that Adams had blindly accepted the claims of the IDers; Adams protested Myers's representation of his post, mocking him in the process; and then Myers responded with a reply that, I must confess, I find so completely mystifying I must be missing something, since the only thing PZ attributes to Adams that I can actually find in Adams's post is Adams's claim that he's not an IDer (which he had already said in the first post). The dust-up actually doesn't interest me much, except insofar as it, particularly as represented in the comments on the posts in question, illustrates a characteristic of the blogosphere that sometimes worries me, namely, the ease with which it slides into reactionary, Us vs. Them responses. There is a side of blogging that is very progressive and constructive, in the sense that it encourages people to expand their horizons and try to understand each other better -- one sees this most clearly in interactions between academic bloggers and (often, although not always) in Carnivals. There is also a side of blogging that is exactly the opposite, reactionary and destructive. Part of this, I think, is the ease with which blogging turns into ranting. Everyone lets off a little steam occasionally; but for some people blogging, or commenting on blogs, becomes simply an occasion for ranting at other people, and ranting can get a little contagious (a rant from one side inspires a rant from the other; one rant is confirmed by a chorus of supporting rants; etc.). Part of it is that weblogs are a quick-reading medium; a weblog is not a forum that naturally encourages close or careful reading of what other people write. As such, it is easy for people to be misinterpreted. There are, I'm sure, other reasons (e.g., I have very little doubt that political punditry is a contributor).

So this has started me wondering whether there are any ways to improve the blogosphere in regard to this -- a sort of grass-roots movement devoted to improved exchange in the blogospheric sector of the Republic of Letters. I haven't been able to think of much. But it occurs to me that bloggers might be well-advised to start thinking of themselves more explicitly as part of a Republic of Letters, a system of thoughtful correspondence in which members cooperate with the goal of mutual improvement and progress -- blogging as a civilizing process in which we carry civilization to new heights. Hume in one of his essays (Of Essay-Writing) makes a distinction between the learned and the conversible realms of rational discourse ("The elegant Part of Mankind, who are not immers'd in the animal Life, but employ themselves in the Operations of the Mind, may be divided into the learned and conversible"). Both are of importance and, Hume says, the separation of the two is a defect; there needs to be a free communication and correspondence between the two worlds. One of the things academic bloggers often like about blogging is that, since they are ordinarily engaged in learned discourse, it provides them a convenient forum for participating in conversible discourse -- they get to be, as Hume considered himself to be, "a Kind of Resident or Ambassador from the Dominions of Learning to those of Conversation"; likewise, they get to take the materials of common conversation and reflect on them as members of a learned community (manufacture, is Hume's metaphor). Learning suffers when shut off from the conversible world. This is one reason why I think academic blogs are often so good: they are at least trying to unite the two worlds into one Commonwealth.

For this approach to blogging to work, however, it is necessary for the blogosphere to make of itself a reputable Conversible World, a polite society ('polite' here not meaning 'nice', but the old sense of 'civilized', 'exhibiting cultivated taste'). It's a world that doesn't have to be pedantic or academic or even, in the strict sense, scholarly:

The conversible World join to a sociable Disposition, and a Taste of Pleasure, an Inclination to the easier and more gentle Exercises of the Understanding, to obvious Reflections on human Affairs, and the Duties of common Life, and to the Observation of the Blemishes or Perfections of the particular Objects, that surround them. Such Subjects of Thought furnish not sufficient Employment in Solitude, but require the Company and Conversation of our Fellow-Creatures, to render them a proper Exercise for the Mind: And this brings Mankind together in Society, where every one displays his Thoughts and Observations in the best Manner he is able, and mutually gives and receives Information, as well as Pleasure.

Surely that sounds rather like blogging at its best? This requires that the conversible world be treated as part of the Republic of Letters, however; when it is not, problems arise:

Must our whole Discourse be a continued Series of gossipping Stories and idle Remarks? Must the Mind never rise higher, but be perpetually

Stun'd and worn out with endless Chat
Of WILL did this, and NAN said that.

This wou'd be to render the Time spent in Company the most unentertaining, as well as the most unprofitable Part of our Lives.

And that sounds too much like blogging at its worst, and not merely on the personal-journal weblogs (which, after all, have an excuse): bloggers when they rant are just devoting themselves to a less benign set of 'gossipping Stories and idle Remarks'. There must be ways to cultivate the blogosphere as a more successful Conversible World than we have yet done. Any ideas?

Norris's Prayer

O God of Order and Beauty, who sweetly disposest all things, and hast establish'd a Regular course in the visible World, who hast appointed the Moon for certain Seasons, and by whose decree the Sun knoweth his going down, let the Moral world be as Regular and Harmonious as the Natural, and both conspire to the declaration of thy Glory. And to this End grant that the Motion of our Minds may be as orderly as the Motion of Bodyes, and that we may move as regularly by Choice and free Election, as they do by Natural instinct and Necessity.

O God of Light and Love, warm and invigorate my Light, and direct and regulate my Love. In thy Light let me see Light, and in thy Love let me ever Love. Lord I am more apt to err in my Love than in my understanding, and one Errour in Love is of worse Consequence than a thousand in Judgment, O do thou therefore watch over the Motions of my Love with a peculiar governance, and grant that I my self may keep this Part with all diligence, seeing hence are the issues of Life and Death.

O Spirit of Love, who art the very Essence, Fountain and Perfection of Love, be thou also its Object, Rule, and Guide. Grant I may Love thee, and what thou love'st, and as thou love'st. O Clarify and refine, inlighten and actuate my Love, that it may mount upward to the Center and Element of Love, with a Steddy, Chast, and unsullied Flame; make it unselvish, universal, liberal, generous and Divine, that loving as I ought I may contribute to the Order of thy Creation here, and be perfectly Happy in loving thee, and in being lov'd by thee Eternally hereafter. Amen.

From John Norris, The Theory and Regulation of Love (1688) pp. 142-143.