the Decalogue & describing charity by remotion
Through the Incarnation we are made accustomed to the Beatific Vision
Nationalized churches inevitably lose all functions except curation and ceremonial organization.
the universe of discourse as a conceptual denominator
Treatise Book 1 Part 2 as account of contiguity
three Humean arguments for the separability principle (Garrett)
(1) liberty of imagination (poems & romances)
(2) copy principle + 'all impressions are separable'
(3) simple/complex distinction
last mentions of separability principle in Hume: letter to Hutcheson 16 March 1740 & Appendix to Treatise
Aristotle against separability principles Physics 185b3
Koehn's shared boundary argument against the separability principle
A rational distinction has a foundation in the mind either in its activity or in its unity with the thing.
magnificence/liberality, prodigality, and parsimony (parvificence) in matters of rationality (the vice of rational pinch-penny-ness and certain kinds of skepticism)
Complete humility must be consistent with magnanimity.
It is essential to education to leave each generation with a richer heritage than the one before.
three artifices of reason: conventions of general disputational appropriateness, conventions of reason exchange, and agreed-upon dispute formats.
->reason requires these for its sociorational purposes, but the particular details are not themselves requirements of reason
definitions as summations of discoveries
casuistics as systematic and principled classification of advice, with means of handling opposing counsels
Moral safety alone is not a morally safe guide.
Is it easier to predict social & economic movements under conditions of large-scale technological decline?
being -> act & potency -> cause -> possible & impossible task -> law of nature -> physical interaction -> measurement structure
box/bag as simple machine (containment)
In natural motion, "nothing moves itself, because nothing reflects upon itself due to being bound up in matter". Bonaventure (Sent 1d37a2q2n4)
analysis of poetic imagery in terms of revival sets
Truth is not so fragile a thing that it cannot be grasped in many ways.
stable vs. unstable relevance
evidential proof as underlap
abduction as theorematic search
Particles and waves are both propagations of measurable differences in space.
Wars begin with talking, with communication; war is a phenomenon deriving from communication.
Reasoning with precedents is teleological, a way of reasoning about means.
civilization as the inheritance of a conversation (Oakeshott)
propositions as imperatives for relating terms
Whitehead's philosophy as an account of the memory of nature, how the past is present for the present, and how the present is constituted by the manner of this presence
"No action can be requir'd of us as our duty, unless there be implanted in human nature some actuating passion or motive, capable of producing the action." T518
As it is clear that human beings incline to keep at least simple promises even when not considering obligation or duty, we have a natural inclination to observe promises. This natural inclination is a rational inclination, and related to the pursuit of truth.
experiments in artificial virtues (the advantageous concurrence of mankind, by habit, in a general scheme or system of action)
half-rights and semi-obligations
(1) What is not ordered to an end is not an effect.
(2) What is not an effect is not ordered to an end distinct from itself.
(3) What is not an effect is not material.
(4) What is not caused by extrinsic causes is not caused by intrinsic causes.
(5) Everything ordered to an end is so according to an excellence admitting of more and less.
(6) Everything ordered to an end is excelled.
the Socratic function as countering pathological distraction
Chance events can only be identified with respect to identifiable regular events.
three kinds of parsimony in scientific understanding
(1) Parsimony: Nature takes the shortest way.
(2) Continuity: Nature makes no leaps.
(3) Simplicity: Nature acts according to few laws.
Kant's Critique of Judgment as a treatise on the Idea of Nature (sense of nature?)
goods in common / mutual benefit / allegiance
succession, proportion, partition, rotation
the colloquial conception of a 'cult' implies something in religion analogous to despotism
analogy as relative structural indiscernibility of parts of descriptions
Opinions are admissible in metaphysics, without detriment to its certainty, if they occur within contexts recognizable as opinion-contexts (hypotheical contexts).
linear logic as a logic of imperatives
counterexample as not-Box
Subalternation systems minimize the impact of counterexamples, because for every universal there is a (logically) close particular. Nonsubalternation systems increase the impact of counterexamples.
statistics as a theory of tests
Fraternity is the requirement for joining liberty to equality.
means-end reasoning as reversing limit reasoning: we start with an ultimate form and then find a hypothetical construction whose progression has that ultimate form
predictability as a feature of instrumentality
Merely relative change is as good as unchanging for many purposes.
field as effect over space
Truth is the greatest resource of a free people.
Transcendental arguments are not just from actual to possible but from actual knowledge to the mode making it possible.
the capacity for universalization in practical matters as establishing the possibility of ethics
Only through humility can a free people remain free.
"Unsatisfactory answers do not become satisfactory by being tentative." C. S. Lewis
Plato: dialogical method :: Aristotle : didactic method :: Proclus : geometrical method
Vico: literal meaning is abstracted from actual use
Disjunctive addition is a clumsy logical trick for approximating the inference: "p, therefore at least p, whatever else may e true"
->perhaps disjunctions could admit of weighting (at-least weighting) -- we know pvq is true because at least p is true, or we could have a function that covered 'whatever candidates for true that we may have'
current flow in arguments (series, parallel, true = current)
consensus gentium & ius gentium in civil theology (the common nature of nations)
Risibility presupposes the capacity to attend to multiple things simultaneously.
humor as simulation implying a limit
poetry as augury -- of divine conception, of noble conception, of mundane conception, of moderated passions, of extreme passions
Ps 23 as the divine pastoral
casuistic principles in aesthetic contexts
Speculative fiction describes worlds that work like ideas.
Our intuition is not merely sensible but also intelligible; that is, we receive the world intelligibly as well as sensibly, and it is on the basis of this that we think the world.
mathematics as universal aesthetics
(manifestation of integral proportions and harmonies)
->symmetries, isomorphisms, structure arising from simplicity
Clausewitz's Kritik as generalized wargaming
inherence, causation, constitution
predication, consequence, division
problematic : understanding :: assertoric : judgment :: apodeictic : reasoning
->could this be generalized to Kant's full table of judgments?
u - univ - aff - cat - probl
j - part - neg - hyp - assert
r - sing - inf - disj - apod
think about htis
juries and due process as the primary framework of common law
Becoming children of God, it behooves us to remember that inheritance descends,; it does not ascend. God has no need to inherit the Kingdom from us.
(1) common liberty
(2) common counsel
(3) common law
(4) common right
Prisons are for detention and guard, not punishment as such.
Law, as rational ordering, does not compel impossibilities or enforce vanities.
time out of mind + constant and peaceable usage without lawful interruption -> custom as law
Hume's artificial virtues are customary law.
Hume's account of sympathy as an account of customary law
Every priest should be a spiritual son of St. Joseph, who built, and the Holy Virgin, who contemplated in her heart.
Well-founded trust entitles one to things that are not obvious.
Influence-structures are not trees because they admit of self-influence and mutual influence.
partially coextensive transcendentals (cf. Vico's verum et factum convertuntur, which applies within certain domains, e.g., jurisprudence)
utilities defined with respect to necessity, comfort, and pleasure
religion & the idea of greater civilization
Babbage's analogizing of the Analytical Engine to a factory shows a key insight: there is a general theory convering both production and computation (Lovelace's appeal to operations suggests and element of this general theory)
-> the analogies seem to go quite far: computation time // production time ; both allow serial and parallel processes; tractability // feasibility; input, algorithm // procedure, output, etc.
reason (in art/craft) as first technology
It is learned that a kind of error is absent insofar as a procedure of inquiry tending to detect that kind of error when it occurs fails to dos, producing instead results that are appropriate to the absence of the error.
chunk and permeate as a simulation strategy
paraconsistent logic & simulation in general (cross-comparison, perhaps)
discussive logics & positional truth (links modal and paraconsistent for simulations)
De facto legitimacy is established by actually working for common good.
Presumption of innocence is founded on the principle that there are things worse than evil people doing harm.
No account of experimentation can ignore the role of chance, because no experiment can isolate entirely from all external causal lines.
Objections need to be matched to the same domains or universes of discourse as the arguments to which they object; it is remarkable how often this avoids futile argument.
The primary purpose of a model in the context of inquiry is to uncover or to rule out error.
There is nothing to which pride will not descend.
the sense of wonder at excellently crafted arguments
Curiously, almost every argument against hell parallels some argument against utilitarianism. Think about this.
Ritual is poetry of action.
apocalypse as a source of vocabulary for considering moral and spiritual pathology
Due process cannot be foregone because it is always already owed.
You can measure how bad your life is by how much you have to do to enjoy it.
the degenerative series for ethics
virtue -> duty -> profit (utility) -> self-affirmation -> imposition of will
utilitarianism as bourgeois ethics
By our capacity to appreciate the sublimity of the physical universe we show ourselves to be mroe than can be found in it. (cp Kant)
Human playfulness is closely related to our capability for grasping counterfactuals. Even little children can simulate extremely complicated counterfactual situations in play.
Preferences by their very nature are not determinative for decision; nor are they rigorously exclusive; nor are they natural candidates for optimizing rather than satisficing.
Preferences are highly transient and conditionalized -- even highly stable preferences are closely tied to actual circumstances, and they are highly superable -- everyone has the experience of getting things better than originally preferred.
Knowledge presupposes understanding and is therefore not quantifiable.
Part of the point of Northanger Abbey is that the ordinary and mundane course of human life is itself a worthwhile adventure, even without all the Gothic accoutrements.
Expecting democracy as such to yield an ordered society is like expecting tiles thrown down to tesselate. Some principle interrelating individual tiles is necessary.
Recollection (reminiscentia) is tropical / figurative by its very nature.
Test procedures have each their own saliences or 'affordances', thus suiting them for a role in an adequate theory of belief change.
beauty as the salience of a well-ordered whole
Symbolic authority more than almost any other allows for orderly succession.
Impetratory prayer is required for there to be prayer of resignation.
inquiry rituals as establishing presumptions of quality
Epiphany is the fulfillment of philosophy.
We must give to Christ the gold of our success, and the incense of our prayer, and the myrrh of our suffering.
The Church is a ceasleess activity of offering Christ as a gift of Christ.
Bacon's philosophy of science as a general theory of examples
Human beings scale up important services and infrastructures by standardized packaging.
longevity, fecundity, and fidelity in tradition
An initial condition is merely posited for a model; in itself it has no real significance.
Experiments are more reasonably accounted simulations than vice versa; ones in which we can make certain kinds of assumptions.
Higher mathematics is rooted in intellectual play.
energetics as a theory of resource use
Mutual consent presupposes mutual benefit.
Beauty is the salience of coherent unity.
The essentials of management are mathematics and morals.
As intelligence increases, the good and bad of human temperament is magnified.
Interpretation, even interpretation of mathematical symbols, is a moral activity.
Memetics faces the same general problems as associationism.
liturgy as the civil theology of the Church
far-futurism as gnosticism
apocalypse as a vocabulary for the moral sublime
prayer as itself philosophical inquiry (eros for Sophia)
the didactic & heraldic functions of patron saint designation
Parables require the initiative of the student, and this is true even if the parable is given some explanation.
Every cause of an actual effect is a principle of possible effects.
The private & the public are capable of nesting within each other: you can be private in public and public in private.
All human speculative thought is tinged by the practical; speculative or theoretical reason is never not also practical reason.
poisoning the well // scorched earth
Great arguments are easily diversified.
practical interest (fruitfulness, utility), speculative interest (simplicity, coherence with independent lines of inquiry, completeness), dialogical interest (availability to common understanding = accessibility)
Kant's heuristic Epicureanism
The major failing of the merely pseudo-critical thinker is almost always uncritical intepretation, i.e., failure to interpret in a way that recognizes it as an activity accountable to reason & evidence.
magnanimity: 'disdain of trick and littleness' (Emma)
The joys of others may sometimes be penance or mortification for us. Envy is the failure of mortification under these conditions.
repentance as a theme in Emma
Rational society is one that allows for virtuous conversation among friends.
the press as check and balance to the military
Baptism is the sacrament of adoption because through Christ's death we are made one with Christ, as his Mystical Body, so that on us the saying form Heaven falls: This is my beloved Son.