Saturday, June 10, 2017

Dashed Off XII

restoration with sublation as the unified response of healthy tradition to deformations of tradition (redemption and transfiguration in sacred Tradition)

key principles of formalized iconography
(1) indentifiability by intellect
(2) definite representation
(3) purified form (removal of anything inappropriate)
- spontaneous devotional iconography may violate strict application of principles, sticking to the spirit rather than the letter
- causation : definite representation :: remotion :purified form :: eminence : intellectual identification

the principle of progressive solemnity applied to iconography

Part of the point of argument is to build shared reasoning.
the withwardness of reason

A dangerous feature of modern life that infects the 'liturgy wars' is the temptation of thinking that if you just find the Magical Method, all things will automatically fall into place; for all sides in the 'liturgy wars' tend often to treat liturgy as method.

incoherent plausibilities as a contributor to discovery (development of aporia)

universalism // indifferentism

The Church is as it already was, and it is what it already was. It is its past, not only in that its past pushes along behind it, and that the Church possesses what is past as something present-at-hand and effective, but also that hte Church has grown up in a traditional way of interpreting and understanding itself, and by this understanding its possibilities are disclosed and regulated.

It is an error to treat tradition and its primordial sources as opposed.

signs as gear (Heidegger)

Vestments are both signs and gear, but they involve the notion of carrying so as to express a being-related to the world.

the traditionary character of clothing practice

the analogy between vestment and office or role (complicated by vestment also, and because of this, being an instrument of office -- role gear)
- uniforms are standardized role-gear

the aroundness of clothing vs the aroundness of environs

As role-gear, clothing differs from characteristic tools by being not merely carried (like a hammer in the hand) but in some sense carrying itself in being carried. We carry our clothes in wearing them by arranging them so that they do the carrying (hanging, buttoning and fastening, tying, conforming).

the protecting and displaying functions of garments
- the displaying function has an interesting relation to the hiding subfunction of protecting
- the protecting function may be moral as well as physical

the analogies between garment and home (note turtles and snails and hermit crabs here)

The being of the Church Militant is the Passion of Christ; its traditionary sojourn through the world is its fulfillment by the Passion.

Kant's refutation of idealism as a sort of ontological argument (Heidegger)

analogy between knowing causal power | knowing external world
sensation | sensation
one's own volition | analogy to violation
endeavor | resistance
volition of God | occasion
regularity | coherence
readiness to act | readiness to appear

Sacramental vocation is the vocation of Christ's Passion.
sacramental vocation as anticipatory martyrdom

the Church's mode of unwellness (uneasiness in the world, queasiness at the world)
the mood of drudging

The fortitude of the Church: its founded-on-the-Rock-ness; the prudence: its helped-by-the-Spirit-of-Truth-ness; the justice: its many-members-in-one-Body-ness; the temperance: its chasteness-as-the-Bride-of-the-Lamb-ness.

The cultural goods of the Church as material for the disclosure of the Church as it has been.

The Church is based on Tradition, and its calendarizing of its worship is a way of making accessible the Tradition within which it works. but the Church works with many calendars, as it were spreading out and shifting around within this Tradition.

the calendar of saints as providing a rough sketch of the content of Tradition

hylomorphism of ideas and means of production

Imagination is naturally eclectic.

Even a stupid man's traditions have a sort of dignity.

methods of seeking the right vantage for problem-solving.

forms of promulgation: creation, command, shared practice

Peirce's 3 conditions for the existence of a sign (MS 221)
(1) characters distinguishing it from other objects
(2) must be causally linked to its object in some way
(3) address to the mind such as to relate the mind to the object

distinction, principiation, manifestation

nouns as less sparse pronouns

as-if-it-were as a modal operator

Our world is such that it works in several ways as if it were a world in which a detective named Sherlock Holmes lived on Baker Street and vanquished Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. (Our world is such that it also works in several ways as if it were a world in which a general named Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and was slain by Brutus and others.) It isalso such that it works in several ways as if there were no such detective at all. This has to be stronger than mere consistency, but of course much weaker than requirement, or even apparent requirement.

Our capacity to invent fictions arises naturally from our ability to inquire into things.

inquiry as a process of story-making

fictional characters // geometrical diagrams // arithmetical calculations // sentence formations

primary reference, collateral reference, qua-reference

objects of thought as proximate ends of means to the remote ends of truth

The orthopraxy relevant to the liturgy consists of acts of faith, hope, and love.

goodness of inquiry in terms of results, of coherence of inquiry, of contribution to understanding

the maximizing of what tends to solve intellectual problems

∃xFx Allow F's
∀xFx Do not allow non-F's (Allow only F's)

cast from Eden -> long period of rebellious wandering -> judgment -> covenant
liberation from slavery in Egypt -> long period of rebellious wandering with judgment -> covenant

"When we speak of Christ's priesthood, what else do we mean than the incarnation?" Fulgentius
"For it is in him that our human nature becomes a redemptive offering."

convalidation of reference

black holes as supertask-like

aesthetics and the splendor of ethics

the principle of overflow (redundantia) in fine arts

being with a work of art
works of art as presenting th eworld to us
works of art and the salience of space and time
the quasi-vocative characters of certain works of art

From the craving of the world springs impatience and cruelty, jealousy and conceit and self-exaltation, boorishness and selfishness and irritability, retaliation and self-indulgence and lie, despair, and, in the end, death.

Patience is required for the full fructification of love.

causation, remotion, and eminence in interpretation of Scripture

one : prudence :: holy : justice :: catholic : temperance :: apostolic : fortitude

"Our pilgrimage on earth cannot be exempt from trial. We progress by means of trial. No one knows himself except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or strives except against an enemy or temptation." Augustine

The body of the Church is a picture of the Spirit.

'straw man' requires that are determine
(1) the structure of A
(2) the structure of B
(3) an end in light of which A is not adequate to represent B

Straw man and idealization are both based on one argument/position representing or modeling another.

straw man as a case of defective type (relative to archetype)
fallacies and defective causes in inquiry

examination of inquiry // examination of conscience
- inquiry : true :: conscience : good
- things fatal to inquiry:
distraction from inquiry
despair of inquiry
distortion of inquiry (wrath, envy, pride)

the moral discipline implicit in inquiry