Luke's genealogy as showing that human genealogy points as a sign to God
work & the overflow of human dignity
subsidiarity as the maintenance of civil society as the end of political community
marriage as the sanctuary of civilization
the garden of Eden as an emblem of hospitality
The principle of parliamentary sovereignty works well only when there is some implicit higher authority to which parliament is beholden at a level higher than human law itself, e.g., reason, God, honor, and so forth. This seems to be true of sovereignty principles generally: they are not supreme-in-every-way principles (if coherent and reasonable) but principles of supremacy with respect to some particular thing, on the grounds of, and according to, the standards of a higher order of thing. Sovereignty in law presupposes a standard for its lawmaking that makes it sovereign lawmaking possible (and it does not have to be another sovereignty in law).
doctrine of precedent: Cases like in law and fact should be decided in like ways on like principles.
illustrative vs binding precedents (Diamond vs Box precedents)
precedent // counsel (allowing for differences introduced by law if we are considering legal precedent)
reasoned departure from precedent
(1) precedent overruled by higher authority
(2) precedent reasoning provably in error
(3) conflicting precedents in need of resolution
grammatical, schematic, teleological, and analogical interpretations of codified law
the implicit dialogue of courts
care of the environment & recognizing the world as cosmos
shalom as completeness (Is 9:5ff; Mic 5:14)
Song 8:10 and Christ's peace
jargon as crutch instead of clarification vs jargon as instrument of clarification
history of philosophy and philosophical field study
dualist arguments
(1) explanatory gap
(2) unity of consciousness
(3) unity of perception
(4) active/passive distinction
(5) immanent/transeunt action distinction
personal identity through changes of body // personal immortality
Promulgation makes law inherently semiotic.
In the overflow of glory we are made signs of Beatific Vision, not just personal signs (as in the sacraments of character) but personal signs in every aspect of our person.
the import of a text in an ecclesial context
doxastic, pragmatic, and social aspects of trust
Advice is structured by perspective; thus even good advisors will have varied advice given varied perspectives.
external-condition-based need vs nature-based need (this is not a sharp distinction but it seems sometimes to be important)
prediction of conclusion from premises
problems functioning as partial solutions to other problems
the Prophets as an immune system
The body, for all of its weakness, keeps dragging us out of ourselves and back to the goodness of creation, and also to the contrast between our thoughts and our deeds; without it we would all be Satans.
the spoken word as the intellectual word infusing the body as word
Ascension is the feast of hope; Christ's ascension is the beginning of our exaltation, we have a great intercessor in the heavenly courts, and in the sacraments ever receive the promise of His return.
- a version of Sense and Sensibility with the carnivalesque instead of the picturesque
- a verse novel on the Curse of the Alcmaeonids
vestige as the capacity to be sign of first cause
Parables outlast laws.
reasoning as energies, operations, pouring forth from a secret heart
memorial signs & the philosophy of memory
the overflow of doctrine into monument
The imperfection of an analogy does not imply the nonexistence of its resemblance.
Memories are received and anticipations are constructed.
hidden inferences, inferential leaps, shielding inferences, patching inferences
Revolutionaries always only want very specific revolutions.
superstition as a kind of forgetting
media as cognitive artillery (cf. Spengler)
"From the beginning of the Church Christ has been written about; but this is still not equal to the subject." Aquinas In Ioh 2660
Each sacrament unifies the Church in its own particular way.
preservation of the heritage of the Church as a responsibility arising from confirmation.
functional backformation in science-fictional worldbuilding
charity as divine evaluation
accumulation of errors & compensation for it in probable inference
analogous (nongeneric, nonspecific) likeness
creatures : God
potency : act
substance : accident
work : idea
instrument : principal cause
Aquinas on the material world as soul-making: DP 3.10ad3&4; DP 5.5, 5.9; SCG 3.22; SCG 4.97
We can be taught by 'people in general' insofar as they practically converge.
the Iliad and the Odyssey as about disagreements over justice and injustice (Alc 112b)
Education is the root of civic life.
Socrates as philosophical Hephaestus (cp. Socrates as Daedelus)
the cardinal virtues as each opposing a kind of slavishness (Alc 121e-122a)
the doubly divine mission of philosophy: Delphic Oracle, Socratic daemon
To be both philosopher & poet runs in Plato's family; Charmides 155a.
temperance as cultivated by beautiful discourse
virtue is knowledge // person is mind
the direct connections between temperance and health
anticipations of virtues in animal survival
Duhem sees esprit de finesse as teleological. Thus the concern of the intuitive or French mind for illumination is a concern for explanatory ends.
marriage as oriented to the salvation of others
Alc 132d-133c & the love of neighbor as needed for proper self-knowledge (indeed, love of God as well, in order to see in others what is divine in them)
philosophical vs nonphilosophical polymathy
"Fear the gods, honor your parents, respect your friends, obey the laws." Isocrates Speech to Demonicus.
"Give honor to all, love the community, fear God, honor the king." 1 Peter 2:17
Scripture insinuates more in Tradition than it explicitly covers.
the collection and curation of exemplar arguments
the filaments of just friendships running throughout a healthy society
'to dwell in mind among heavenly things'
Rational conversions tend to be by exhaustion.
Intelligence is an at least possible cause of intelligibility.
- meaning of intelligence
- different modes of diamond
- meaning of intelligibility
- whether it is analytic
Xenophon and Plato disagree about whether the daimonion suggested courses of action or only restrained. Xenophon is clear that it covered right and wrong; Plato can be read as suggesting that it only covered the inexpedient (although this distinction is not itself very clear).
Resurrection : Ascension : Pentecost :: faith : hope : love
the perpetual coronation of the Church // the coronation of Mary // sacrament of matrimony as sacrament of coronation
Buddhism's relation to polytheism is based on the recognition that there must be something purer than the gods.
Other philosophers do philosophy as individuals; Plato does it as a multitude.
the human being as an ecosystem (temperance as its cultivation, preservation, conservation)
terms as nullary modalities
Thirst for obvious novelty is a sign of a life of bland repetition.
episcopal ordination: confers a special outpouring of the Spirit (LG 21), confers the fullness of orders, establishes a high priesthood, confers offices (teaching, ruling, sanctifying), impresses a character, constitutes authoritative teachers
ordinational character: in person of Christ as Head
methods as having syllogistic structure (Duhem)
the relation between temperance and discretion
Holy Family & sacrament of matrimony
A 'pure land' is a Buddha-aspiration; it falls short of pure enlightenment by being only one vision of it, but through it one receives the teaching one requires. Infinite compassion is the most accessible/shareable vision, so the pure land of Amitabha, expressing this aspiration, is itself the most accessible.
sunyata, boundless light (mirror knowledge), supreme giving, boundless compassion, perfected action
the problem of developing the advantages of centralization without its dependencies
fear management & hope construction in rhetorical reasoning
three forms of education: cultivating, artificial, inspired (Theages)
Dialectic must begin with an internal agreement with oneself.
Phaedrus & the pursuit of pleasure as dehumanizing
agent intellect as like a memory of divine truth
devoting one's life to love through philosophical discussions
lawmaking as speechwriting
Calliope & Urania as the Muses of philosophical life
prophet, mystic, poet, lover
Rhetoric draws the soul to dialectic.
sophrosyne vs. hybris
honor and courtesy as restraints on government
Inquiry, where fruitful, is more interesting the longer it continues.
Long-term sustaining of scholarship requires not just scholarly devotion but also the interest of dabblers.
logical positivism as taboo avoidance
To maintain troth one must serve the truth.
asceticism as a rhetoric of the body
"if someone wants to praise martyrs, let them imitate martyrs" (Chrysostom On St. Barlaam)
translation as an ecumenical act
the Platonic dialogues as a moral analysis of the Peloponnesian War
aristocracies of aspiration
law, honor, calculation as the three expressions of political reason
critique as working backwards to principles (this would make it a branch of dialectics)
We develop prudence by learning how to evaluate and apply advice.
the academic vice of substituting pseudo-dialogue for dialogue
the papacy as personal union, as symbolic union, as sign of union
achieving effortlessness without carelessness
Good sense is the first root of authority.
proverbs as wards of virtue
explanatory gap argument against pantheism (complicated by asymmetry of explanation)
experience machine as the beginning of an argument for the ethical importance of thymos
testimony as a component factor in memories (e.g., people remember earlier memories from childhood if they have been reinforced by detailed testimony, people bridge gaps in memory with testimonial reconstruction, etc.,)
Learning requires exemplar causation.
Sacramental form is a structure of activity in a context.
defeat in detail as a rhetorical (eristic) goal
