Friday, February 24, 2017

Dashed Off V


Locke's four grounds for internal/external distinction
(1) causal reasoning about sense organs
(2) differences between sensations and memory
(3) differences between sensation and pleasure & pain
(4) testimonial assistance

Theology remits the errors of philosophy, integrates it into a greater body of truths, and transfigures it by use and association.

appropriate poetic expressions of rational arguments

Taking conscience seriously requires taking moral advice and moral education seriously.

The pope's full, supreme, and universal power of jurisdiction is a power whose end is the protection of the faith and the preservation of peace among the churches.

The philosophy of law in Marsilius of Padua's Defensor Pacis is quite clearly positivist.

law as cooperative assistance

The primary, essential, and efficient source of law is reason regarding common good.

A people legislating must consider not just their goods or wishes but also the true good of non-citizens among them.

As the good of the Church is a sacred good, the members of the Church have from that good a great authority to preserve and protect both it and their share in it, an authority which cannot be given limits except in light of that sacred good itself; and to the special guardians of that sacred good this authority must especially be attributed.

limits on papal power
(1) personal: baptismal, confirmational, ordinational
(2) official: patriarchal responsibility, unity and harmony of the churches
(3) divine: natural law, divine positive law, responsibility to Christ (stewardship)

Note Marsilius's attack on the Peter-Rome connection & his argument that Paul was the first bishop of Rome.

Note Ockham's argument for participation of women in general councils. (It follows pretty straightforwardly from his assumption that general councils are simply representative bodies.)

The authority of an ecumenical council is sacramental in its root.

"One of the greatest difficulties confronting a government which has entered on a wrong track is to retrace its steps and once more strike the right road." Ludwig von Pastor

One should fight on the fronts valuable to oneself, not taking the enemy's tastes as one's measure of a worthwhile fight.

By cultivating the incipient goodnesses of human nature, one may attain to good character. Good character begins to take from; taking form, it manifests itself; manifesting itself, it becomes splendid; being splendid, others are moved by it as the beloved moves the lover; moving others, it transforms them and enriches their lives. This enrichment of others is only found in the completion of good character. Good character is not merely the completing of one's nature; by means of it others are aided in becoming complete.

The Christian in charity honors both his nature an the grace that joins him to Christ. He achieves breadth and greatness of scope;he achieves subtlety and intensive precision. He attains to the sublime and splendid, and pursues the mean that endures. He draws from the old and learns the new, and devoted to mercy he esteems the liturgy. Given authority, he is not proud; under authority he is not seditious. Where the Christian faith prevails, he is rewarded; where it is persecuted, he endures. Although gentle as a dove, he is as cunning as a serpent.
For he is joined to Christ, and in Christ all grace is perfect. Through the grace of Christ he is able to set all social relations in order, to establish the human virtues, and know the first and fundamental things. On what else does he need to rely?
The excellence of charity does not cease; never ceasing, it endures; ever enduring, it pours forth as light; radiating as light, it extends far; extending far, it diffuses everywhere; diffusing everywhere, it is sublime and splendid. Because it is self-diffusive, it encompasses all things. Because it is sublime and splendid, it protects all things. Because it is far-extending and ever-enduring, it perfects all things. In its diffusiveness it equals the whole visible universe; in its sublimity and splendor, it equals the whole invisible world. Far-extending and ever-enduring, it is infinite. From its nature it radiates as light without showiness, it moves without moving, it perfects without effort. The Christian way can be expressed wholly in this word, charity, for the Christian way is Christ Himself, and Christ is broad, deep, sublime, splendid, far-extending, and ever-enduring. Great indeed is He! Abundantly, He produces and sustains all things. In His greatness He reaches Heaven. The requirements of goodness are endless; only in Him can they be achieved
The Christian in charity, wishing himself to be established in God, establishes others, and, wishing heavenly glory for himself, works for the heavenly glory of others. He learns widely, but is guided by liturgy and sacrament. Who does this will not turn his back on Christ the Way. He is neither anxious nor fearful, for in him is nothing wrong, and he is not a person of one virtue.

the cheng of transfigured nature, the cheng appropriate to grace

the relation of Christian as minister to Christ as King; as child of God to God the Father; as younger sibling to Christ as Firstborn; to Christ as friend to friend; of the Church as Bride of Christ to Christ as Groom

foundation, vocation, perfection

the virtual mortality of all human action

Combining the Silver Rule with our responsibilities to and under God yields the Golden Rule.

tradition as a kind of counsel

part of how matrimony functions as a school of charity is that it trains one to see others as sacred signs

In filial piety as children of God and fraternal respect toward our Christian brothers and sisters we learn to practice charity; the Christian in charity cares for these things.

To practice charity requires repentance and sacrament.

Butler's natural providence & Locke's comments on pleasure and pain

evidential tendency // function
as regular historical association // etiological
as probabilistic // survival-enhancement
as role in rational system // causal role

philosophical systematizing // architecture as art of organizing design solutions
(obviously it's not surprising that architectonic philosophy is analogous to architecture, but it's worthwhile to think about the analogy in terms of various philosophical accounts of architecture)

x is a part of y since t
x is a part of y until t

diagrams as analogies

The Initiated receive the robe of glory (Hoosoyo for Sundays of Epiphany; Maronite Rite of Chrismation) which is itself the robe of glory of the Church (Qolo for the Commons of Prophets, the Just, and Confessors).

scale-differences between analogues
field-of-inquiry-differences between analogues

the credible marvelous as a subject of poetry

Doxastic logic as usually developed is better interpreted as being about belief norms than about beliefs.

'temporal logic' for inward/outward; upward downward
'above' as some T in that which is covered by Box-up; 'below' as some T in all that covered by Box-down
in: boundary + inward
inward, outward boundary, contact, upward, downward, leftward, rightward

Shehtman & Goldblatt: the modal logic for relativistic spacetime is S4.2, i.e., S4 with confluence [Diamond][Box] -> [Box][Diamond].

Evidence suggests what ought to be the case.

justified true belief // permitted satisfied desire

analogy vs. representation of analogue by analogue

temperance & moral neatness/messiness

impartial spectator & the moral picturesque

neatness/messiness of argument

the morally gratifying and the morally beautiful

neatness and messiness of means to ends
fit of means to ends

isomorphism, contact, dependence

charity working in us, charity linking persons, charity unifying communities

causation, remotion, & eminence in each sacrament (sacrament as instrument, as beyond nature, as inexhaustible mystery)

natural filiation, adopted filiation, metaphorical filiation

asceticism : remotion :: devotion : eminence

the sympathy-like tending and approximation to that which exceeds what we can sympathize with

human ultra-sociality
note that this is not something merely in hand; it is something arising from the human ability to develop institutions and customs that over great lengths of time can be linked to other institutions & customs in new ways with new features

Market exchange depends on informal practices and customs -- for trust, reputation, customs of available quick solutions to common problems -- these affect transaction costs and the kinds of transaction even available.

Strong rule of law blocks the effects of people inclined to disrupt social connections.

Commonplaces as forms of relevance.

The Church on earth is actively and spiritually linked to the Church that has passed through death by two great works of charity: intercession and purgatorial suffrage.

doing good works for the dead
doing good works in the name of the dead
doing good works with the dead

'I am a worm, and no man': I am cut off from the things required to live a human life of reason and friendship and the like' I am reduced to devoting everything to preservation of the body, which I am powerless to guarantee or even make likely, to attending only to surviving this very moment, and the next, and the next, until I fail.

possibility, relevance, probability

Different ethical approaches loosely converge because they all have to be developed by reason.

The entire Part IV of Book I of Hume's Treatise can be tollensed into an argument that cogitative-imaginative accounts of mind do not suffice, that there is need of an intellect capable of abstracting in order to account for human life and reason.

facets of tradition
(1) memorative
(2) recollective
(3) experiential
(4) anticipatory
(5) divinatory