Saturday, January 16, 2016

Dashed Off I

As always, dashed off notes, to be taken with caution.

traditionality as the momentum of intelligence in motion

In passover the Lord passes judgment on the gods of the nations.

communities as structured by forms of integrity, attention, and cooperation

false goods as anicca, dukkha, and anatta

sacrament as the pedagogy of salvation

angelic speech as pure case of liturgy

Holy orders signifies Christ in Session, whose liturgy it brings down to earth in signs.

Incarnation : Baptism :: Messianic Mystery : Confirmation :: Session : Orders

vapor-like passions and liquid-like passions (volatility and diffusiveness as metaphors capturing aspects of passions)
-- ambiences and surges

baptism as the sacrament within every sacrament
matrimony as the all-reflecting sacrament

imaginative association, analogical proportion, formal implication, systemic structure (teleological fit)
poetics, rhetoric, prior analytics, posterior analytics
plausibility, persuasiveness, reasonableness, demonstrability

analytics as the theory of means of reasoning, considered as such

the reflex principles of good sense
the casuistics of theory preference

internal sense theory as a theory of saliences -- selection and association of experiences into ideational groupings not further reducible to the experiences themselves

One can see Hume's associationism as a degenerate (sparse desert) internal sense theory (or alternatively internal sense theories as supergenerate (dense-jungle) associationism, along the lines of Gerard).

'in the long run' used temporally vs. 'in the long run' used to indicate repeatability in principle

All explanation traces back to what boggles the mind without ceasing to explain.

the intrinsic themis of rite and liturgy giving birth to horae

accessibility relations among arguments

to stay the course (stick to it), to keep the end in sight, to act in the proper spirit -- three essentials of any great work

the I Ching, qua Confucian classic, as a schooling in order

laughter/humor as an instrument of temperance
kinds of humor tending to modesty, to caution, to proportionate judgment, to humility

rhetoric as a theory of cognitive resources pertaining to belief and inference

predicate calculus as propositional logic with multiple interrelated truth tables

All human knowledge requires the cooperation of the senses and something more than the senses.

proportion of part to part as more fundamental than distance?

What allows the lurid is not human strength but human weakness.

internally vs externally grounded versions of an argument (e.g., the argument from evil can be based either on an independent account of evil or on the theist's own)

intentionality as structured intelligibility (a higher order intelligibility of intelligibilities?)

Most of what most people say most of the time is extrapolative in some way.

renewal of faith // recurrence of Eucharist
faith as the constant accomplishment of the Paschal Sacrament in us

Ascension as the feast of hope (the salvific teleology)

The act of defining depends crucially on our ability to see one thing in two lights.

Human beings in general need their practical solutions to be in appropriate theater and symbol.

Let your symbolic gestures be practical improvements.

proximate vs. remote testimonial evidence
direct vs indirect testimonial evidence

The proper standard of training for priests is that they should be able to perform essential liturgical functions under conditions of persecution.

The triumphant saints will leave their doubts, the torrents of concupiscence will be stilled; free from misery they will cross the ocean of becoming and through Christ's teaching they will lead a holy life. No longer will they be attached to possessions, they will have no property, no gold or silver, no home to guard, no relatives for nepotism, but they will live a holy life of unity under Christ's guidance. They will have torn the net of the passions, they will enter contemplation, they will overflow with true happiness, for they will live holy lives through Christ.

rosary as elementary catechesis, divine office as a higher-order catechesis

the importance of visible majesty for law

to polish and to fortify what is human in us

Natural virtues are not suitable for overcoming supernatural opposition.

"All laws of nature are comprehended in one universal law, that similar qualities being in union, there will arise similar results...." (Shepherd; cp. Whewell and Maxwell)

The heart of freedom is the law of reason itself.

common cause & undesigned coincidences -- there is a generalized version of teh latter for all common cause situations. Think about this. --> cp. also Morelli method

the Socratic daimon of a civilization
daimon : Socrates :: God of the Oracle : Hellas

Creation is within ghte covenant-making act of God, as a material condition. (Cp. Barth)

The goddess Rumor is a minion of the Spirit of the Age.

The Spirit of the Age is seen in the hardening of thought and understanding, leading to disobedience toward reason, authority, and wise counsel.

doctrines intrinsic to a teaching authority vs. doctrines instrumental to a teaching authority

The compassion that is the end of matrimony as a sacrament cannot be achieved except by mortifications.

satisficing under conditions in which it is unknown what optimization should be

The amount of testing required to confirm a model increases faster than the number of variables in the model.

The basic principles of Tolkien's On Fairy Stories generalize to other signs.

prudence & 'center of mass' for many passions and actions at one time

liturgy // covenant (both reflect higher order)

drama : tragedy :: fairy-tale : eucatastrophe

Perception is something that can be cultivated.

Creation, as such, makes servants; Incarnation makes created sons.

the image of God in us as an anticipation of the Incarnation

the cultivation of equity as a control problem for political philosophy

Magisterium is not something that turns off and on.

Coventry Patmore on Mary: "Our only Saviour from an abstract Christ"

disposition to end (intention), interaction, resistance, equilibration

Counterfactual accounts of causation are just generalized behaviorisms.

laws as instruments for distinguishing component causalities in phenomena

All experiments are causal situations; it is from and by means of these causal situations that we abstract scientific laws, it is the finality or teleology of the experiment that allows us to do so.

causal regularities as facts about what does not happen

regularities --> final causes
instrumentalities --> final causes
nomologies --> final causes
dispositions --> final causes

The distinction between categorical and dispositional properties seems based on false assumptions about both.

formal distinction // middle knowledge

Agency detection is moral fact detection.

PSR as the principle of principiation

If there are rationally social animals, moral facts are facts in the natural environments of such animals.

Rational inquiry depends on moral facts.

natural place as at infinity

problem of change // problem of multiplicity

The existence of social capital is not a debt owed to the government but a contribution we have already collectively made to each other and to the government.

Social capital is constituted by individual efforts.

Lord & Bondslave // Doctrine of Mean

convergence of guess-work on the basis of snippet evidence (jigsaw puzzle)

lullaby as communication

government as an instrument for increasing foresight
government as a summary representation of the potential of its citizens' lives

generalizing hypothetico-deductive accounts of explanation to many modalities

If validity is Box, then Diamond must be 'If the premises are true, the conclusion can be true' (a case of not-Diamond would be where premises and conclusion are contradictory -- although dialetheism makes this more complicated).

Baptism makes a space for the theological virtues; a community and a tradition for them, a profession in favor of them, and a sign of God's giving them.

The unity of philosophy lies in the analogy of being; the goodness of philosophy in the discipline of virtue; the universailty of philosophy in rational thought; and the tradition of philosophy in the fight against 'might makes right' sophistry.

purgatory as rehab

Youth is a rush of venturing forth.

Medicine has a political or social structure, and as such may be practiced in a way analogous to the politics of the rhetors or in a way analogous to the politics of Socrates.

Love drawn from wisdom is the mother of consolation.

If morality is in any way connected with the fullness of human potential, there are moral facts.

The remedium concupscientiae is usually treated as if it were a scratching of an itch; but in reality it is a healing, a venturing forth to bring light to places where otherwise only darkness would be. IT is not a satisfaction of wayward craving but a reduction of it in favor of rest in a good. Greedy desire is pushed out by generous love; even if sometimes it is only party, by the minor generosity of a minor love, like affection for home and rest in its hospitalities. The very contractual character of it limits pleonexia in a matter where otherwise it can run rampant.

ordinary language & problem-shaping

graduate study & the parochial prima donna problem

Converse Barcan as the modality for exhaustive induction

Justice is based not on abstract equality but concrete equation.

Because 'truth' is said in many ways, 'truthmaker' is said in many ways.

I Pt 2:20ff clearly has links to the Suffering Servant passages in Isaiah

Truth is made our own by a worthy way of life.

Faith federates, hope progresses, love binds together.

the general principle of overflow: The lower is moved according to the action of the higher.

We are taught by images because we are images.