Plato's theory of knowledge does not identify knowledge with justified true belief. I've said it before, but I've recently come across several cases of people referring to the opposite as (for instance) "well-known"; to the extent that it is "well-known", it is one of those "well-known" things that is false and does not stand up to serious examination of evidence. The usual source identified, of course, is the Theaetetus. In this dialogue, Plato's Socrates examines three proposals for what knowledge is:
sensation
true judgment
true judgment with logos
Logos is always a tricky word, but here it means something like 'account', 'explanation', 'reason'. Whether "true judgment with logos" can be prodded and poked into a shape equivalent to "justified true belief" is a difficult question, depending heavily on what assumptions one makes, but suppose it does. Nonetheless, in this dialogue Socrates rejects all three positions. The last one he even calls a bunch of wind before he heads out to his trial. The problem with it is that, under any plausible theory of what counts as logos, the definition either (a) makes knowledge indistinguishable from various kinds of lucky opinion; or (b) just means "true judgment with whatever it is that would turn true judgment into knowledge". The famous Gettier cases against JTB as an analysis of knowledge are really taking advantage of what Plato had already pointed out in (a). Even if one takes Plato to have considered JTB as an account of knowledge -- which is controvertible -- he rejected it as obviously untenable. At least, he has Socrates do so.
Plato's account of knowledge is not a JTB account. It needs to be repeated until professional philosophers stop saying that it is.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Music on My Mind
Kate Miller-Heidke, "Politics in Space." About time someone wrote a genuine Generation X anthem. It has the requisite ironic mockery of Baby Boomers and their fixation on the 60s, as well as a recognition of the awfulness of the world and the right mix of sarcastic good cheer and resignation in facing it. I've never yet met a Millenial who understood the extraordinary importance of coolly acidic sarcasm, or even how to twist snarkiness in just the right way to get it; they try, but it's just not the same. Good kids, but they take themselves too seriously. It's a very sobering thing, looking on one of the important arts of truth and justice and realizing that you are apparently its pinnacle, that it seems to be all downhill from here. It makes me want to make a special effort to be sarcastic, just so it won't go to waste.
And the song has the Answer to Every Question:
Are you alright? Pretty much.
Are you okay? Pretty much.
You got your health? Pretty much.
You know the way? Pretty much.
You know your limit? Pretty much.
You understand? Pretty much.
Are you the man? Pretty much, pretty much, pretty much.
Plus, I like operatic sopranos singing pop songs.
In any case, since I brought it all up, it's worth pointing out that the stereotypes of GenX as the sour-faced materialistic slacker generation were mostly due to GenXers worrying about whether they were growing up to be sour-faced, or materialistic, or slackers. All statistical indications are that GenX is happier, more family-oriented, better educated, more actively interested in helping others, and more socially responsible than any other generation currently alive. It's statistics, so you know it has to be true. I've yet to come across statistics proving that we are more sarcastic than any other generation, though; so who will write the grant proposal?
Lent XXVIII
Oh tepidity! If those who give way to it only rightly understood what it is, they would less easily fall victims to it, for they would dread to become the slaves of so cruel a tyrant. If we are free from this vice, nothing we can do or suffer for God, even death itself, seems too great a burden, whereas the victim of tepidity finds a straw too heavy for him to carry. This vice ruins a man's spiritual life, and it not only stops all perseverance in the good he had commenced, but even causes him to repent of having begun it, thus turning into bitterness what should be sweeter than honey to his soul.
The Israelites who journeyed through the desert had appetites so disordered that they could not enjoy the manna "containing in itself all sweetness," which God sent them. Their blindness was so great that they did not find fault with themselves, or with the evil condition of their health, but with the food, which was of the most savoury kind. They asked for some other sort of viand with which they thought they would be better satisfied and pleased:—it was given them, but at the cost of their lives. We are to learn by this that even if the things of God are not always agreeable to us, still we must not wish for what is contrary to them, however delightful it may seem to us, for without doubt it would poison our souls. We should rather rid ourselves of the disgust we feel for religion, and then, when the appetites of our soul are healthy, we shall feel a right and pleasant relish for the food God gives His children.
To work slothfully and tepidly in God's service will cause you to lead so unhappy a life that you will be forced to change your ways. Besides, such a life is disloyal to our Saviour Who laboured with such ardent love to redeem us, and so willingly took up the cross that His love for us exceeded His suffering. The tepid soul cannot enjoy the world's pleasures, having given them up in the desire of doing right, and yet, for want of fervour, it does not find happiness in God. In this way such a soul is placed between two opposites, each of which is a torment to it; it suffers such severe afflictions that at last it leaves the right road, and with miserable fatuity seeks the flesh-pots of the Egypt it had left, because it cannot endure the hardships of the desert. Compare the trouble that is undergone by one who serves God diligently and fervently, with that which the tepid soul suffers through sloth, and you will find that the burden borne by tepidity is a thousand times the heavier. It is indeed wonderful that vigils, prayer, fasting, mortification and other works undertaken for our Lord should bring more pleasure to fervent souls than the tepid find in all their feasts, and riches, and other indulgences. The lukewarm Christian appears gay, but grief gnaws at his heart: while the just man, though his life be one of penance, has happiness within his soul.
St. John of Avila, from Letters of Blessed Juan de Avila, pp. 91-92.
Friday, March 15, 2013
'Moral Status'
The SEP has a new article up on The Grounds of Moral Status, by Agnieszka Jaworska and Julie Tannenbaum. According to the article, "An entity has moral status if and only if it or its interests morally matter to some degree for the entity's own sake, such that it can be wronged."
Of course, with a definition like this, the big questions become "What does it mean for something or its interests to matter morally for one's own sake?" and "What does it mean for something to be wronged?" In practice, of course, philosophers don't tend to ask this question, which is surprising; or perhaps not surprising, since the most natural answer to the first question is, "They can be considered in good moral reasoning as an end or valuable" and the most natural answer to the second is "Something is wronged when its value is not properly regarded". These answers, though, would make talk of moral status otiose -- it would contribute nothing that could not be said better another way, and almost anything could have 'moral status' in this sense at some point or another. What philosophers in practice use 'moral status' to do is to argue that things should be denied rights, and answers that give everything moral status, even if only contingently, even if only intermittently, would make 'moral status' nearly useless in such arguments. (It would still be possible to have such arguments, but 'moral status' wouldn't be very handy for them.) Yet there is very little reason to deny that things can morally matter for their own sake at least some of the time; and almost any account that did deny it would end up being very difficult to apply consistently without the kinds of actions that many people would consider egregiously unjust.
I think that virtually all discussions of 'moral status' are nonsense of the worst sort. The article, however, is quite good; it lays out the common positions fairly, and while it does not consider the whole problem head-on, it does consider part of the problem. As the authors state (FMS means 'full moral status'):
Of course, we could also accept the point instead of trying to save our accounts of 'moral status' by insisting that not all "adult cognitively unimpaired human beings" have full moral status, and conclude that accounts of 'moral status' don't really contribute anything of importance. But then we couldn't have a cottage industry of people just making up criteria for 'moral status', completely disconnected from common sense or any other way of determining whether they are even heading very roughly in the right direction.
Of course, with a definition like this, the big questions become "What does it mean for something or its interests to matter morally for one's own sake?" and "What does it mean for something to be wronged?" In practice, of course, philosophers don't tend to ask this question, which is surprising; or perhaps not surprising, since the most natural answer to the first question is, "They can be considered in good moral reasoning as an end or valuable" and the most natural answer to the second is "Something is wronged when its value is not properly regarded". These answers, though, would make talk of moral status otiose -- it would contribute nothing that could not be said better another way, and almost anything could have 'moral status' in this sense at some point or another. What philosophers in practice use 'moral status' to do is to argue that things should be denied rights, and answers that give everything moral status, even if only contingently, even if only intermittently, would make 'moral status' nearly useless in such arguments. (It would still be possible to have such arguments, but 'moral status' wouldn't be very handy for them.) Yet there is very little reason to deny that things can morally matter for their own sake at least some of the time; and almost any account that did deny it would end up being very difficult to apply consistently without the kinds of actions that many people would consider egregiously unjust.
I think that virtually all discussions of 'moral status' are nonsense of the worst sort. The article, however, is quite good; it lays out the common positions fairly, and while it does not consider the whole problem head-on, it does consider part of the problem. As the authors state (FMS means 'full moral status'):
Nonetheless, providing an adequate theory to account for the FMS of unimpaired infants and cognitively impaired human beings without attributing the same status to most animals has proven very difficult. In fact, our survey in section 4 suggests that this challenge has not been met by any of the existing accounts of the grounds of moral status. Some philosophers have, as a result, questioned or even abandoned this seemingly commonsense view, including the aspect that holds all adult cognitively unimpaired human beings have FMS (see the end of section 4.1).
Of course, we could also accept the point instead of trying to save our accounts of 'moral status' by insisting that not all "adult cognitively unimpaired human beings" have full moral status, and conclude that accounts of 'moral status' don't really contribute anything of importance. But then we couldn't have a cottage industry of people just making up criteria for 'moral status', completely disconnected from common sense or any other way of determining whether they are even heading very roughly in the right direction.
Lent XXVII
Man is a vessel which God fashioned for himself, which he imbued with his spirit, so that he might accomplish his works in him; for God does not work as man does but by the order of his command all things are carried out. Grasses, brush, and trees appeared; the sun, the moon, and the stars also came about by his care, and the waters produced fish and birds, and flocks and beasts arose as well, which minister all things to men, as God commanded. Man alone did not recognize Him. For when God prepared great knowledge for man, man lifted himself up in his spirit and turned himself away from God. For God looked on man to perfect all his works in him, but the ancient deceiver beguiled him and infected him with the crime of disobedience, the love of the unstable wind, when he sought more than he should have....
...Who desire to accomplish the works of God, let them always consider that they are earthen vessels, since they are men, and let them always reflect on what they are and what they will be, and leave heavenly things to [him] who is of heaven, since they are exiles, not knowing heavenly things, but only reciting the mysteries of God, just as a trumpet only makes sounds, but does not cause them; someone blows in it in order to make the sound. But the mild put on the cuirass of faith, being gentle, poor, and unfortunate, having the simple habits of children, just as he whose trumpet sounds they are was a Lamb, since God always scourges those who sing in his trumpet, taking care lest their earthen vessel perish, except as it pleases Him.
St. Hildegard of Bingen, Letter to Elisabeth of Schoenau. That last sentence takes some cracking, but yes, it does make sense.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Dashed Off
As always, just some notes, jottings, and ideas; take with grain of salt.
Validity requires only truth-preservation, not that the conclusion assert no more than the premises. (It is simply that the latter scenario is the easiest to prove truth-preserving.)
observation, colligation, iteration, erasure (cf. Peirce on the general elements of reasoning)
outward vs inward element of sacrifice
language, culture, and genealogy as tradition
the Church as exhibiting infallibility in principle, in consensus (confidelity), and in convergent terminus
Logos as the source of all merit
the need for a constition to recognize extra-constitutional powers
Simply having words down on a paper does not establish a right; there must be custom among the people.
With saints, at least generally, one must start with learning, not admiration.
the Church as a society oriented toward virtue
- requires at its source
(1) principle of peaceful union
(2) direction to good
(3) instruments of action
- requires for maintenance
(4) orderly succession
(5) instruments of sanction
(6) defense against external danger
- and in addition, for all of these
(7) means of improvement
(8) means of reformation
The Liturgy of the Word is catechetical (and note that the older equivalent was called the Liturgy of the Catechumen).
truly, really, substantially
truly: at least by sign
really: not merely by sign but at least with what signifies
substantially: not merely with what signifies
One of the crucial truths of government is that rule of administration is not rule of law. There is not a tinpot dictatorship that does not have as full an administrative apparatus, as elobrate a ssytem of administrative proceeding, as active an officialdom, as one could want. But this is all merely a parody of the rule of law.
Laws unenforced fade in promulgation.
Worry or frustration about things out of one's control can easily become a moral defect.
purity as a form of intrinsic rationality
the Eucharist as figure of conversion to God
(1) we are not merely made signs of God
(2) we are not merely recipients of grace
(3) we do not merely have something of God's presence in us
(4) we also put off the old Adam and put on new Christ
The Calvinist account of Scripture gives to it the features Catholics give to sacraments.
Hesed: Eucharist
Din: Reconciliation
Rahamim: Confirmation
Hod: Unction
Nezach: Orders
Yesod: Baptism
Malkhut: Matrimony
The sacrament of Orders is the sacrament of Apostolic Succession, apostolic succession as a sacrament.
(1) the aspect of the sacrament in its prefiguration
(2) the aspect of the sacrament in the Passion of Christ
(3) the aspect of the sacrament in its place in the sacramental ministry
(4) the aspect of the sacrament in its relation to other sacraments
(5) the aspect of the sacrament in the relation of other sacraments to it
The line between the rational and the irrational is drawn between planning and refusing to change one's plans.
Testable predictions are only of value if they are rational predictions.
modal operators as searches
immaculate conception -> perfect mediation and redemption
(1) somatic homogeneity
(2) nuptial meaning
(3) mutual self-giving
(4) internal fidelity
(5) sacramental bond
plasticity of scholarship
All expiation is cooperative.
What is implicit in faith is drawn out by the impetus of love.
translation as communication among scholars
order of ordinations
image of God -> Baptismal character -> Confirmation character -> Ordained character
(successive transformations of image, which makes one priestly)
That the image of God is a proto-character explains why marriage, without conferring a character, has a hieratic side: it is a natural venue for the priestly character, the proto-character, we have by nature.
Men who play chess with the devil will lose; but it is harder to avoid the game than one might think.
(1) Human beings have a natural desire to know the causes of effects, as seen in wonder.
(2) This natural desire would be in vain if the human mind could not attain to a first cause of things.
All long-enduring human customs have an intrinsic rationality. It is sometimes limited and sometimes unlovely, but nothing can be human for long and lack rationality completely.
the natural inclination to attribute personal attributes to moral principles
materia plenaformis (seminal principles)
forma plena virtute (active power)
virtus plena effectibus (causation)
rhetoric as the study of rational cascades.
Everything grasped by the intellect is either nonbeing, or potential, or actual.
Intellectual cowardice is too often mistaken for intellectual humility.
A moral vocabulary and language requires a habitation appropriate to it, and a history by means of which it can be shaped.
Descartes's entire approach is an attempt to build a logic of discovery (see esp. the Principles).
apocalyptic literature as indirect moral discourse
People regularly confuse certainty with authority; this is a very bad habit.
skepticism as an autoimmune disorder
Giving thanks is a human way of multiplying good.
The horizon of the past is constantly changing.
the Church as the general motive of credibility
In charging human beings to subdue and have dominion, the Lord gave human beings a role, a participation, in His work of adornment.
"For art was the especial gift of the Children of Ilúvatar." Ainulindale B
The sacraments are enigmas of glory.
sexuality as otherness within
Invalid sacraments may still be occasions of grace, if there was innocent intent; they just aren't themselves acts of grace.
Greatness lies not in battle, but in endurance and in victory, even if sometimes that victory is the victory of death.
Shaftesbury's account of ridicule makes the adornment the test of the adorned, like judging a man by his clothes.
The strength of Latin and Greek is that they served simultaneously as languages of high speech and of common speech (in the sense of common rather than colloquial).
the world as an ascetic economy (Origen, Butler)
Price is not the only measure used in buying and selling; people also consider estimates of quality and overall value by classifying into folk economic categories. (Not in Rubin's sense of 'folk economics', which shows neither any grasp of heuristic character, nor any ability to distinguish cognitive tendency and prevalent opinion.)
Saruman errs by preferring to be a Power to being one of the Wise.
We think ourselves decent for lacking slaves; but our society is structured in such a way that we only lack slaves because we have substitutes for what slaves would do. We may thank God for that, but we should still be suspicious of the fact that our decency looks largely accidental.
Hume in effect concedes Malebranche's main vision in God argument, but simply goes skeptical on the conclusion to be drawn. (Treatise 1.1.7)
"The best defense against hypocrisy is love" Kierkegaard
God alone are we asked to love more than ourselves. Angels we are to love as ourselves; saints as ourselves; the Virgin as ourselves; no matter how high a thing may be above us, or in what way, except for God we are to love them as ourselves.
To love well, one must win one's way to love.
Love 'faiths' everything, hopes everything.
Augustine: marriage as union for procreation is nonfradulent sexual companionship (every association abhors fraudulent companionship) -- it is that kind of sexual partnership in which the partners do not defraud each other or themselves
Remedy for concupiscence arises fo rAugustine not from marriage as such but from conjugal chastity, which he understands as involving a desire not merely for children but for children who are children of God.
For any human court to claim unrestricted jurisdiction over human rights, which is to claim jurisdiction as extensive as human reason, is a violation of human rights. This is a sometimes difficult truth, but it cannot be ignored.
Many philosophical evaluations of reasoning fail by not distinguishing what's good in the market and what's good in the workshop.
To love our neighbor as ourselves we must love them in a way we can love ourselves, and we must love ourselves in a way that we can love our neighbor.
'Knowledge by acquaintance' is just acquaintance.
the Eucharist as source & summit of preaching -- it is the sacrament of preaching (cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis 5)
When talking about bodily integrity rights, people often conflate two different kinds of rights: bodily integrity and bodily dominion.
In marriage one is not merely human but elect.
Privative terms are domain-relative.
Occasional causation reequires that the intention fo the effect include the occasion. Occasionality links to disposition.
Time is the serially enumerable relation of change to change by means of change.
intrinsic & extrinsic title to dissent
time as the quantitative measure of incomplete actuality
To use instruments to discover things that cannot be sensed requires that scientists use the principle taht what begins to exist (in the instrument) has a cause.
reading as a reparative activity
Mathematics arises not from sense but from experience; it requires deliberate intellectual experiments involving sense and imagination.
Bias is just the word for the influence of the merely contingent and accidental on reasoning.
Heroes of any kind are presented in minimally counterintuitive (minimally schema-inconsistent) ways, regardless of character (consider Victorian treatment of Newton, our treatment of Einstein). This is a storytelling function: no one is heroic or a role model except within the context of at least a basic story; and the greater the need or desire to emphasize their importance, the more purely heroic their role-performance or activity must become, hence the MCI. This in turn gives them a sort of social dominance in terms of exemplarity or influencel contributing to social cohesion by way of honor and shame (e.g., Einstein or Newton as paradigms for scientific honor).
inheritance as the link between genealogy and covenant (cf. Galatians)
Nature knows no inefficiencies because inefficiency presupposes art. In this it is different from, say, inefficacy. What acts in a way to which skill is not relevant cannot be inefficient.
Politicians teach people by example what kind of power to seek.
Etiology is as useless as fortunetelling without an accurate understanding of its object; structural & functional analysis comes first, etiology comes after and at most revises.
Text is context put in a frame, or, rather, text and context are distinguished only by the frame.
Since history is complex and ever more complex, too much for anyone to grasp in full, historians need ways of establishing acceptable simplifications.
Eucharist as simultaneously Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot
When you think in centuries you must be able to build products of mind that can last.
Without strong traditions of honor and virtue-conducive institutions, democracy is passive-aggressive savagery, each person out for himself or herself, but by whining rather than beating; and in such a society the most savagely passive-aggressive begin to dominate others. THis can, however, be resisted, dampened, or redirected by traditions and institutions.
Validity doesn't tell us that a claim is a reason for another claim, but only that they have a structural link. Validity is nothing more than a structuring of claims with cretain formal properties.
Positive law can only prohibit thinkable crimes.
Where authority is found, pretense at authority, flim-flam, will grow; and, if unchecked, utnil the true and the sham are hard to distinguish.
To prove anything requires modal assumptions.
Odyssey: Coming home to the home we know
Aeneid: Coming home to the home we don't know
Rule of Benedict as spiritual georgic
Freedom to act and not to act is completed in the good, on both sides.
simultaneity as a spatial concept (Dooyeweerd)
Christ is the true central basic motive of Scripture; salvation history (Dooyeweerd) is secondary and not exhaustive: Christ is more than even creation-fall-redemption can encompass.
Every gift opens to reveal a responsibility.
computing as executive rather than legislative logic (Plana)
Validity requires only truth-preservation, not that the conclusion assert no more than the premises. (It is simply that the latter scenario is the easiest to prove truth-preserving.)
observation, colligation, iteration, erasure (cf. Peirce on the general elements of reasoning)
outward vs inward element of sacrifice
language, culture, and genealogy as tradition
the Church as exhibiting infallibility in principle, in consensus (confidelity), and in convergent terminus
Logos as the source of all merit
the need for a constition to recognize extra-constitutional powers
Simply having words down on a paper does not establish a right; there must be custom among the people.
With saints, at least generally, one must start with learning, not admiration.
the Church as a society oriented toward virtue
- requires at its source
(1) principle of peaceful union
(2) direction to good
(3) instruments of action
- requires for maintenance
(4) orderly succession
(5) instruments of sanction
(6) defense against external danger
- and in addition, for all of these
(7) means of improvement
(8) means of reformation
The Liturgy of the Word is catechetical (and note that the older equivalent was called the Liturgy of the Catechumen).
truly, really, substantially
truly: at least by sign
really: not merely by sign but at least with what signifies
substantially: not merely with what signifies
One of the crucial truths of government is that rule of administration is not rule of law. There is not a tinpot dictatorship that does not have as full an administrative apparatus, as elobrate a ssytem of administrative proceeding, as active an officialdom, as one could want. But this is all merely a parody of the rule of law.
Laws unenforced fade in promulgation.
Worry or frustration about things out of one's control can easily become a moral defect.
purity as a form of intrinsic rationality
the Eucharist as figure of conversion to God
(1) we are not merely made signs of God
(2) we are not merely recipients of grace
(3) we do not merely have something of God's presence in us
(4) we also put off the old Adam and put on new Christ
The Calvinist account of Scripture gives to it the features Catholics give to sacraments.
Hesed: Eucharist
Din: Reconciliation
Rahamim: Confirmation
Hod: Unction
Nezach: Orders
Yesod: Baptism
Malkhut: Matrimony
The sacrament of Orders is the sacrament of Apostolic Succession, apostolic succession as a sacrament.
(1) the aspect of the sacrament in its prefiguration
(2) the aspect of the sacrament in the Passion of Christ
(3) the aspect of the sacrament in its place in the sacramental ministry
(4) the aspect of the sacrament in its relation to other sacraments
(5) the aspect of the sacrament in the relation of other sacraments to it
The line between the rational and the irrational is drawn between planning and refusing to change one's plans.
Testable predictions are only of value if they are rational predictions.
modal operators as searches
immaculate conception -> perfect mediation and redemption
(1) somatic homogeneity
(2) nuptial meaning
(3) mutual self-giving
(4) internal fidelity
(5) sacramental bond
plasticity of scholarship
All expiation is cooperative.
What is implicit in faith is drawn out by the impetus of love.
translation as communication among scholars
order of ordinations
image of God -> Baptismal character -> Confirmation character -> Ordained character
(successive transformations of image, which makes one priestly)
That the image of God is a proto-character explains why marriage, without conferring a character, has a hieratic side: it is a natural venue for the priestly character, the proto-character, we have by nature.
Men who play chess with the devil will lose; but it is harder to avoid the game than one might think.
(1) Human beings have a natural desire to know the causes of effects, as seen in wonder.
(2) This natural desire would be in vain if the human mind could not attain to a first cause of things.
All long-enduring human customs have an intrinsic rationality. It is sometimes limited and sometimes unlovely, but nothing can be human for long and lack rationality completely.
the natural inclination to attribute personal attributes to moral principles
materia plenaformis (seminal principles)
forma plena virtute (active power)
virtus plena effectibus (causation)
rhetoric as the study of rational cascades.
Everything grasped by the intellect is either nonbeing, or potential, or actual.
Intellectual cowardice is too often mistaken for intellectual humility.
A moral vocabulary and language requires a habitation appropriate to it, and a history by means of which it can be shaped.
Descartes's entire approach is an attempt to build a logic of discovery (see esp. the Principles).
apocalyptic literature as indirect moral discourse
People regularly confuse certainty with authority; this is a very bad habit.
skepticism as an autoimmune disorder
Giving thanks is a human way of multiplying good.
The horizon of the past is constantly changing.
the Church as the general motive of credibility
In charging human beings to subdue and have dominion, the Lord gave human beings a role, a participation, in His work of adornment.
"For art was the especial gift of the Children of Ilúvatar." Ainulindale B
The sacraments are enigmas of glory.
sexuality as otherness within
Invalid sacraments may still be occasions of grace, if there was innocent intent; they just aren't themselves acts of grace.
Greatness lies not in battle, but in endurance and in victory, even if sometimes that victory is the victory of death.
Shaftesbury's account of ridicule makes the adornment the test of the adorned, like judging a man by his clothes.
The strength of Latin and Greek is that they served simultaneously as languages of high speech and of common speech (in the sense of common rather than colloquial).
the world as an ascetic economy (Origen, Butler)
Price is not the only measure used in buying and selling; people also consider estimates of quality and overall value by classifying into folk economic categories. (Not in Rubin's sense of 'folk economics', which shows neither any grasp of heuristic character, nor any ability to distinguish cognitive tendency and prevalent opinion.)
Saruman errs by preferring to be a Power to being one of the Wise.
We think ourselves decent for lacking slaves; but our society is structured in such a way that we only lack slaves because we have substitutes for what slaves would do. We may thank God for that, but we should still be suspicious of the fact that our decency looks largely accidental.
Hume in effect concedes Malebranche's main vision in God argument, but simply goes skeptical on the conclusion to be drawn. (Treatise 1.1.7)
"The best defense against hypocrisy is love" Kierkegaard
God alone are we asked to love more than ourselves. Angels we are to love as ourselves; saints as ourselves; the Virgin as ourselves; no matter how high a thing may be above us, or in what way, except for God we are to love them as ourselves.
To love well, one must win one's way to love.
Love 'faiths' everything, hopes everything.
Augustine: marriage as union for procreation is nonfradulent sexual companionship (every association abhors fraudulent companionship) -- it is that kind of sexual partnership in which the partners do not defraud each other or themselves
Remedy for concupiscence arises fo rAugustine not from marriage as such but from conjugal chastity, which he understands as involving a desire not merely for children but for children who are children of God.
For any human court to claim unrestricted jurisdiction over human rights, which is to claim jurisdiction as extensive as human reason, is a violation of human rights. This is a sometimes difficult truth, but it cannot be ignored.
Many philosophical evaluations of reasoning fail by not distinguishing what's good in the market and what's good in the workshop.
To love our neighbor as ourselves we must love them in a way we can love ourselves, and we must love ourselves in a way that we can love our neighbor.
'Knowledge by acquaintance' is just acquaintance.
the Eucharist as source & summit of preaching -- it is the sacrament of preaching (cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis 5)
When talking about bodily integrity rights, people often conflate two different kinds of rights: bodily integrity and bodily dominion.
In marriage one is not merely human but elect.
Privative terms are domain-relative.
Occasional causation reequires that the intention fo the effect include the occasion. Occasionality links to disposition.
Time is the serially enumerable relation of change to change by means of change.
intrinsic & extrinsic title to dissent
time as the quantitative measure of incomplete actuality
To use instruments to discover things that cannot be sensed requires that scientists use the principle taht what begins to exist (in the instrument) has a cause.
reading as a reparative activity
Mathematics arises not from sense but from experience; it requires deliberate intellectual experiments involving sense and imagination.
Bias is just the word for the influence of the merely contingent and accidental on reasoning.
Heroes of any kind are presented in minimally counterintuitive (minimally schema-inconsistent) ways, regardless of character (consider Victorian treatment of Newton, our treatment of Einstein). This is a storytelling function: no one is heroic or a role model except within the context of at least a basic story; and the greater the need or desire to emphasize their importance, the more purely heroic their role-performance or activity must become, hence the MCI. This in turn gives them a sort of social dominance in terms of exemplarity or influencel contributing to social cohesion by way of honor and shame (e.g., Einstein or Newton as paradigms for scientific honor).
inheritance as the link between genealogy and covenant (cf. Galatians)
Nature knows no inefficiencies because inefficiency presupposes art. In this it is different from, say, inefficacy. What acts in a way to which skill is not relevant cannot be inefficient.
Politicians teach people by example what kind of power to seek.
Etiology is as useless as fortunetelling without an accurate understanding of its object; structural & functional analysis comes first, etiology comes after and at most revises.
Text is context put in a frame, or, rather, text and context are distinguished only by the frame.
Since history is complex and ever more complex, too much for anyone to grasp in full, historians need ways of establishing acceptable simplifications.
Eucharist as simultaneously Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot
When you think in centuries you must be able to build products of mind that can last.
Without strong traditions of honor and virtue-conducive institutions, democracy is passive-aggressive savagery, each person out for himself or herself, but by whining rather than beating; and in such a society the most savagely passive-aggressive begin to dominate others. THis can, however, be resisted, dampened, or redirected by traditions and institutions.
Validity doesn't tell us that a claim is a reason for another claim, but only that they have a structural link. Validity is nothing more than a structuring of claims with cretain formal properties.
Positive law can only prohibit thinkable crimes.
Where authority is found, pretense at authority, flim-flam, will grow; and, if unchecked, utnil the true and the sham are hard to distinguish.
To prove anything requires modal assumptions.
Odyssey: Coming home to the home we know
Aeneid: Coming home to the home we don't know
Rule of Benedict as spiritual georgic
Freedom to act and not to act is completed in the good, on both sides.
simultaneity as a spatial concept (Dooyeweerd)
Christ is the true central basic motive of Scripture; salvation history (Dooyeweerd) is secondary and not exhaustive: Christ is more than even creation-fall-redemption can encompass.
Every gift opens to reveal a responsibility.
computing as executive rather than legislative logic (Plana)
Lent XXVI
We worship God by external sacrifices and gifts, not for His own profit, but for that of ourselves and our neighbor. For He needs not our sacrifices, but wishes them to be offered to Him, in order to arouse our devotion and to profit our neighbor. Hence mercy, whereby we supply others' defects is a sacrifice more acceptable to Him, as conducing more directly to our neighbor's well-being, according to Hebrews 13:16: "Do not forget to do good and to impart, for by such sacrifices God's favor is obtained."
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2-2.30.4 ad 1
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