Two New Poem Drafts

Privilege

It's a privilege to see the moon tonight:
the stars through cloudy covers peek,
the silver glow leaps over houses,
and big and full the moon is bright.
Upon the grass the droplets gleam.
The air is still and lightly cool.
On beam of moon my heart takes flight --
it's a privilege to see the moon tonight.

Snow Scene

The streams of light from silent stars
have lit the living earth below
with joyful laughter, bright to eye,
that lingers over fallen snow.
A litheful vision leaps aloft:
a flying bird on wings of night,
a shadow crossing moonlight soft
and painting form on heaven bright.

The Way of Perfection

Today is the feast of St. Teresa of Ávila, Doctor of the Church. From the Life (Chapter VIII, 10):

I do not understand what there can be to make them afraid who are afraid to begin mental prayer, nor do I know what it is they dread. The devil does well to bring this fear upon us, that he may really hurt us by putting me in fear, he can make me cease from thinking of my offences against God, of the great debt I owe Him, of the existence of heaven and hell, and of the great sorrows and trials He underwent for me. That was all my prayer, and had been, when I was in this dangerous state, and it was on those subjects I dwelt whenever I could; and very often, for some years, I was more occupied with the wish to see the end of the time I had appointed for myself to spend in prayer, and in watching the hour-glass, than with other thoughts that were good. If a sharp penance had been laid upon me, I know of none that I would not very often have willingly undertaken, rather than prepare myself for prayer by self-recollection. And certainly the violence with which Satan assailed me was so irresistible, or my evil habits were so strong, that I did not betake myself to prayer; and the sadness I felt on entering the oratory was so great, that it required all the courage I had to force myself in. They say of me that my courage is not slight, and it is known that God has given me a courage beyond that of a woman; but I have made a bad use of it. In the end, our Lord came to my help; and then, when I had done this violence to myself, I found greater peace and joy than I sometimes had when I had a desire to pray.

Dashed Off XXIV

"It belongs to the perfection of a being to be itself the author of its own good." Rosmini

Ecumenism requires common origins and ends.

instrumental powers of presence

Jn 15:12 as combining love of God and love of neighbor

using X as X
(1) proper use of X (wearing shoes)
(2) less proper use of X, taking into account its being X (selling shoes)
(2a) subordinated to proper use (selling shoes so that people might have shoes)
(2b) unsubordinated (selling shoes just to make money)

It is a curious distortion of our society that 'educating the young to be useful to society' does not include educating them to be proper mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, neighbors, compatriots and co-religionists, despite the fact that these are the kinds of roles that are actually useful to society.

John 3 & baptism // John 6 & eucharist

Jn 6:30-58 Christ as mediator most fully expressed in eucharist

The sacraments truly teach what pertains to salvation, and all that is in them teaches what pertains to salvation in a way we need to learn and know it.

Leech's tact, generosity, and approbation maxims would prob. be better not referring to beliefs.

Each sacrament is a sign of Christ's Resurrection as well as His Passion.

In the liturgy we imitate heaven and are purified in soul; we learn within it the story of Christ, which is the story of our salvation from sin, and study the mind of Christ in His teaching, given through the Church, which is reflected and expressed in discourse, song, and visual sign.

the necessary circulation, East to West to East, of sacred doctrine
the importance of remembering Greek West and Latin East

(1) The elements must change to Body and Blood
(2) but so as to become that very Body and Blood, not another
(3) and yet also to be still a sacrament, i.e., a sign or figure
(4) and to maintain the causal properties of the original elements (although others, of course, are added)

"A wise being, when intending to produce a given effect, will choose for that production the least cause possible." Rosmini
"The Law of the Least Action, then, is a law belonging solely to intelligence; yet it is found invariably maintained in all the real beings forming the universe. Consequently, the universe is directed and governed by an intelligence." Rosmini
NB that Rosmini derives Newton's first two rules from the principle of least means

temperance and the law of least means

To know the general as such is to know its potential for all of the specific for which it is general.

Situation epistemologies in general seem to imply that an adequate epistemic logic will be hybrid -- the epistemic operators are themselves modalized by operators introducing situational information -- or, perhaps, the standard epistemic operators are analyzed into more primitive situation-based modalities.

faith as a germinant principle of society

bishops as caretakers of the sacramental common good
bishop as check and balance to bishop

Augustine on development of doctrine De Bap contra Don 4

A genus is not a species vaguely grasped -- a species vaguely grasped is just the species.

Representing a genus properly requires creating a classification system.

lives of truth, victory, and joy

Mary as type of all faithful in Luke-Acts (Nativity to Pentecost)

NB Several pandects of the Peshitta group Ruth, Susanna, Esther, and Judith together.

diplomatic text, majority text, and critical text approaches to traditions

aridity as rooted in evasion in confession (not necessarily culpable or intentional evasion)

the Metropolitan system as stabilizing consecration

"the Episcopate is one, and is a collective office exercised by individuals" Cyprian

the liturgical gravity of episcopal sees

the primacy of Peter as a principle of cooperation
Peter's authority of judgment in the book of Acts

Acts especially identifies two characteristics of the Church: authority and mission, both derived from Christ and His Spirit

the germinal principle of union in episcopal orders itself -- all structure of hierarchy flows from this as hierarchy in general flows from principles of coherence

the role of Rome in the 3 main antenicene controversies:
(1) Easter controversy
(2) validity of heretical baptism
(3) readmission of apostates

episcopate - episcopal hierarchy - papacy as a movement inward within episcopal orders

3 elements of papal supremacy
(1) right of final tribunal
(2) right of conciliar presidence (incl. right of papal legation)
(3) right of intervention in ecclesiastical appointments
(note that none of these rights actually have to be used to be possessed)

"All are one in the Church through the unity of hierarchy, faith, and sacraments; all are made one in the Christian State through justice and law; all must be one in natural charity and free co-operation. These three modes, or rather degrees, of unity are inseparably connected." Soloviev

Soloviev:
Christ as Rock (mystical union of divine & human)
Peter as Rock (social union of divine and human)
Believers as living stones of Temple (individual union of divine and human)
--
three divine name changes:
Abram (primal submission to God of humanity)
Jacob (national submission to God of Jews specifically)
Simon (universal submission to God of Church)
--
Christ Himself notes that Peter's confession is divine revelation.

"There are in Adam no virtues more noble or exalted than begetting and headship." Theodore Abu Qurra

Arguments, like soldiers, fight individually, but they make progress only in teams and conquer only in legions.

human-hearted, competent, civilized, conscientious, and consistent

unity, stability, and coherence with nature as key factors of governments, understood as means to preserve common good

persuasion as requiring a kind of equivalence of exchange
principles of persuasion: shared good and evil, fairness in distribution of good and evil, authority with respect to good and evil, negotiation/bargaining with respect to good and evil (all of these as felt)

Our homeland consists in our appropriation by Heaven to be that in which it resides.

the fine knotwork of an argument

motherhood as the first experience of providence

The seal of confession is a direct outflow of its nature as tribunal of mercy.

liturgy as theological language in its most proper form

The only real measure of the pragmatic is living and dying well.

Christian munificence and liturgia as public work.

"The Holy Spirit is the Church's living memory." CCC 1099 (note implication for Magisterium)

the eucharist as memory making present in the fullest sense
- thus eucharist as summit of ceremony

Development into full good is itself a good required for the full good of certain kinds of good things.

The fantasies that tempt us most are those that latch onto our desire to be more real.

form: participation in divine goodness :: matter : need to participate divine goodness in order to be

the good of being a sign or symbol of good

sacramental character as disposition, protection, and vocation

three levels of the good
(1) the attendable (detectible)
(2) the delectable
(3) the willable (electable)

Adam : earth :: Eve : vegetation and plants

martyr, virgin, and doctor as three kinds of sign

The natural destiny of everything is to be a sign of God.

sacramental chracter and triplex via
(1) causation: disposition for grace
(2) eminence: pledge of providence
(3) remotion: vocation to union

ecclesiastical law and the pope as a caretaker for the whole Church (ST 2-2.89.9ad3; QQ 4.13)

culture as poetic community

particular churches as fortified redoubts of faith
as refractions of the liturgy of heaven

sacramentals as the external material expression of spiritual battle

Each sacrament encourages particular forms of love of neighbor.

All erotic love is everywhere structures by rules of expression.

Laws are means to good survival, good preservation of human societies, and good life; they are instruments whose design can only be accurately evaluated in these terms.

Athanasius: 'from the essence' and 'of one essence' remove or negate 'creature', 'made', and the like (De Decretis)

accuracy, adroitness, and aptness in various skills

intentionality, process, and development in final causation

three forms of defective causation:
mis-disposition (defective aim to end)
mis-process (defective means used in tending to end)
mis-development (defect in growth itself, e.g., from impediment or from compounding error)

Large-scale rhetoric works more by suppression than by attrition.

consistency of principle, honesty, conscientiousness, tastefulness

rites as theological coordinate systems

Said the Joker to the Thief

Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, which is somewhat unexpected.



Bob Dylan, "All Along the Watchtower"; Bob Dylan (with Bruce Springsteen), "Forever Young".

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”

The Three Roots of Ritual

Ritual has three roots. Heaven and Earth are the root of life. Forefathers and ancestors are the root of one's kind. Lords and teachers are the root of order. Without Heaven and Earth, how would one live? Without forefathers and ancestors, how would one have come forth? Without lords and teachers, how would there be order? If even one of these roots is neglected, no one will be safe. And so, ritual serves Heaven above and Earth below, it honors forefathers and ancestors, and it exalts lords and teachers. These are the three roots of ritual.

Xunzi, "Discourse on Ritual", in Xunzi: The Complete Text, Eric L. Hutton, tr., Princeton University Press [Princeton, NJ: 2014] p. 202.

Xenophon's Anabasis, Books I and II

Written around 370 BC, the Anabasis is easily Xenophon's most famous work, and one of the major works of Greek historical writing. It records the events involved in the ill-fated journey of the Ten Thousand, a collection of Greek mercenaries gathered together by Cyrus the Younger to take the throne of Persia from his brother Artaxerxes. The term 'anabasis' literally means something like a trip from the coast into the interior; 'katabasis' is the opposite direction. Scholars have sometimes exercised themselves over the fact that Xenophon's actual journey is there-and-back-again, so the up-country trip occupies less than half the actual account -- most of the book is about the return home. But it's very likely the case that Xenophon is using the term more figuratively and less literally than scholars have sometimes read it, and taking his work to be not just about the expedition inland but everything resulting from it as well.

You can read the Anabasis in Brownson's translation at the Perseus Project and in Dakyns's translation at Project Gutenberg.

Book I

It all begins with a succession dispute for the Persian throne. After the death of Darius, the elder brother, Artaxerxes, becomes king; and due to an accusation by Tissaphernes, the younger brother, Cyrus, is accused of plotting to assassinate the elder. Through the intervention of their mother, he is saved from execution and simply banished to the provinces, but Cyrus, having once been entirely in the power of his brother, determined to make sure it could never happen again. He had friends at court, and he set out to build an army of Greek mercenaries. However, he did so in a clever way that made Artaxerxes think he was in fact squabbling against Tissaphernes; he continued to pay tribute to the king. Through connections among the Greeks he built up a sizable army. When he began his anabasis, he continued under this kind of cover for as long as he could -- fighting local enemies. But Tissaphernes was not a fool, and recognized that Cyrus's preparations were far too great to have no other aim than driving away local tribes; he warned Artaxerxes, and the war was on.

Cyrus marched inward, but as he did so, the soldiers increasingly began to be suspicious about what he was doing, and finally, recognizing that he was really marching against the king, they began to resist. One of his commanders, Clearchus, realizing that he was in danger of losing control of his troops, assured them he had no intention of going any further. But Clearchus was playing a savvy game, and used the occasion to make clear to the soldiers just how dangerous and difficult it would be to stop and go back home right then, and that, while the should head back to Greece, they should consider the best way to do so; at their behest, he sent questions to Cyrus, and Cyrus assured the soldiers that he was only marching against his enemy Abrocomas, to punish him; and if he had already fled, the army would then be at liberty to deliberate about what to do next. He also increased their pay. So they continued on, although Xenophon is fairly clear that they still generally thought he was trying to march against the Great King. Xenias and Pasion, two of the commanders, left, probably because their troops were effectively under the control of Clearchus now; because Cyrus knows where their wives and children are, he could have been severe, but instead councils leniency because of their previous excellent service -- which turns out to be the clever thing to do, because it increases Cyrus's favorability among the other Greeks.

Eventually, however, the truth has to come out, and when it does as they are camped by the Euphrates, the Greeks are obviously not happy, and complain that their generals must have been lying to them the entire time. But through some negotiation and the promise of considerable sums of money, most are convinced to continue on. In the meantime, however, one of the generals -- a Thessalian named Menon, or Meno, the very same one from the Platonic dialogue named after him -- had seized the initiative, and convinced his troops to cross the river already to get in Cyrus's good graces. And it certainly does succeed. The armies of Meno and Clearchus, however, will soon come almost to blows, and only Cyrus by skillful management will prevent the disaster -- a noteworthy foreshadowing of difficulties to come. One of Cyrus's Persian allies, Orontas, also betrayed him and was put to death.

All of these problems did not bode well for the ultimate end. The armies of Cyrus and Artaxerxes would eventually meet, at the Battle of Cunaxa. In the battle, the Greeks gave Cyrus a decided advantage, but Cyrus himself was killed. And thus we have the set up of the problem. Deep within hostile territory is an army of well over ten thousand Greeks and no obvious way to get home. But the Greeks themselves did not yet know this; as far as they knew, they had won the battle.

Book II

The Greeks did not learn of Cyrus's death until the next morning; they were puzzling over why Cyrus was late in meeting them when the news came. Artaxerxes demanded that they surrender, but the Greeks replied that it was not custom for victors to surrender to the people they defeated. Miltocythes the Thracian deserted to the Great King, but the rest of the Greek commanders joined forces under the de facto leadership of Clearchus. They began to try to return home, but Tissaphernes came to them, saying that he had tried to suggest the King of the possibility of simply allowing them to leave, but the King wanted to know first why they had come against him in the first place. So the Greeks under Clearchus told how Cyrus had drawn them in under pretense, and saying that they had no desire to harm the King in any way, but just wanted to go home. After a while Tissaphernes came back, saying that he had convinced the King, albeit with difficulty, and that the Persians would gladly lead the Greeks back home, and even provide a market to go with them, in exchange for a promise not to pillage. This was all arranged, although it had to be handled very carefully, since the Greeks and Tissaphernes's Persians were liable to come to blows if ever they came too close to each other.

At the Tigris River we get Xenophon's first mention of himself (2.4.15-17), in company with his friend Proxenus, one of the Greek commanders:

After the evening meal Proxenus and Xenophon chanced to be walking in front of the place where the arms were stacked, when a man came up and asked the outposts where he could see Proxenus or Clearchus—he did not ask for Menon, despite the fact that he came from Ariaeus, Menon's friend. And when Proxenus said “I am the one you are looking for,” the man made this statement: “I was sent here by Ariaeus and Artaozus, who were faithful to Cyrus and are friendly to you; they bid you be on your guard lest the barbarians attack you during the night, for there is a large army in the neighbouring park. They also bid you send a guard to the bridge over the Tigris river, because Tissaphernes intends to destroy it during the night, if he can, so that you may not cross, but may be cut off between the river and the canal.”

Clearchus was agitated when told, but a "young man" -- likely Xenophon himself -- noted that there was an inconsistency between these two purported plans; destroying the bridge would be a foolish thing for the Persians to do, no matter what they planned or expected. Further inquiry uncovered that it was, indeed, a ruse by the barbarian army. But the situation showed a problem -- increasing suspicion among the Greeks that the Persians were really just waiting for the right moment to destroy them. So Clearchus met with Tissaphernes to air their concerns and possibly negotiate some way to allay them. Tissaphernes received him pleasantly, and they mutually agreed that they would share information about anyone trying to stir up suspicion against each other; Clearchus agreed to this in part because he suspected that Meno was one of the ones stirring up trouble in order to seize control of the Greek army. Tissaphernes invited the Greek commanders to a great feast in order to seal the agreement, and five generals and twenty captains went to the feast, with about 200 soldiers along who were going to buy provisions at the market. And Tissaphernes seized the five generals, killed the captains, and had his men slaughter all of the soldiers they could find.

The five generals were taken to the king and executed. Clearchus was one of them, as was Xenophon's friend Proxenus; he gives us a laudatory summation of their lives. He does the same for two others. Meno was also one of them, and it is not laudatory at all -- Xenophon despised Meno, and there is no one in his entire works whom he criticizes so furiously.

So now the Greeks are not only in enemy territory, many of their leaders have been killed by treachery. The dangers of chaos and rout are worse than they have ever been before.

And into this void of leadership will step a young man named Xenophon. But that takes us into Book III.

Additional Comments

* The distances in the Anabasis are often given in parasangs. According to Herodotus, an army could march about five parasangs a day (Histories V.53); this is confirmed by the fact that Xenophon (2.2.6, although this is sometimes regarded as a later interpolation) gives the same Greek approximation as Herodotus, 30 stadia. It was probably not an exact length, but a rough unit based on travel, and it is certainly so in Xenophon -- how long in real terms his parasang estimates are depends on things like weather and terrain (as noted in Tim Rood (2010), "Xenophon's Parasangs", Journal of Hellenic Studies, 130: 51–66).

* It's worth noting the occasional mentions of the market (agora). Greek soldiers were not given provisions; they were paid and then had to buy what they needed from a traveling market -- one of the standard duties of a commander, in fact, was to guarantee that such a market was available.

* We get very little actual view of Cyrus the Younger, but Xenophon's eulogistic descriptions after his death are of a kind he usually reserves only for the very greatest leaders, like the older Cyrus in Cyropaedia or Agesilaus.

* Proxenus of Boeotia was a student of Gorgias; it was he who invited Xenophon to join Cyrus's Ten Thousand. Xenophon depicts him as ambitious but holding himself to high standards of integrity. He was thirty years old at his death.

Responsibility and Reckless Driving

A very strange argument:

Should those who refuse vaccination be considered responsible even if they do not intend to harm others? We argue that they should, at least if vaccines are easily available and they have been adequately informed about the risks of transmitting disease to others. In any case, there are many situations in which we consider (and hold) people responsible for unintended harms that result from their imposition of risk on others. Consider, for example, reckless driving.

Reckless drivers, though, are not held responsible for "unintended harms that result from their imposition of risk on others"; they are held responsible for harms that result from their doing a potentially harmful action that turned out to be harmful, even if they did not intend to do harm. Obviously if their actions did not themselves turn out to be harmful they could not be held responsible for resulting harms, but only for something else. I suppose the idea could be that we take reckless drivers to be responsible for their active imposition of risk on others, and therefore for any harms that happen because of it. But this would then seem to beg the question in this context, since the question at hand is whether nonvaccination is in fact an analogous active imposition of risk (rather than, for instance, simply a non-reduction of risk that does not work in an analogous way), not whether nonvaccinators would be responsible for harms if it were. And the actual paper doesn't help clarify this much:

This response is implausible because there are numerous examples—unrelated to vaccination—which illustrate the credibility of considering individuals responsible for harms that they both (i) did not intend and (ii) did not cause directly by their actions, but merely failed to prevent. Consider:

Intoxicated driver. A driver is driving while intoxicated at a safe and reasonable speed. Due to her intoxication, however, she blacks out briefly. During the blackout, she runs a red light, and her vehicle collides with a pedestrian, killing him.

In such cases, the relevant agent does not intend the harm: the harm comes about as a result of failures to act.

This is even more baffling; the harm doesn't come about as a result of failures to act, but as a result of driving while intoxicated, which is not a failure to act but an action that is in itself dangerous to other drivers because in itself it tends to harm. The reason for the 'failure to act' line is that the driver goes unconscious and so fails to brake; but if it happened not due to intoxication but unexpectedly and entirely for reasons the driver could not have prevented -- for instance, a medical condition of which they were unaware -- such a failure to act would not be relevant to any moral responsibility. It's only because the driver is already actively doing something dangerous that the failure to brake becomes morally significant.

Moral responsibility in cases involve driving always seem to require a specific action that itself serves as the framework for assessing any responsibility for consequences for failures to act; they don't seem suitably analogous for this kind of comparison.