Habitude XXII

 To the first one proceeds thus. It seems that speculative intellectual habitudes are not virtues. For virtue is working habitude, as was said above. But speculative habitudes are not working, since the speculative is distinguised from the practical, that is, the working. Therefore speculative intellectual habitudes are not virtues.

Further, virtue is that by which a human being becomes happy or blessed, because happiness is the reward of virtue, as is said in Ethic. I. But intellectual habitudes do not consider human acts or other human goods through which blessedness is attained by a human being, but rather natural and divine things. Thus habitudes of this sort are not able to be called virtues.

Further, knowledge is speculative habitude, but knowledge and virtue are distinguished as genera not put forward subalternately, as is obvious from the Philosopher in Topic. IV. Therefore speculative habitudes are not virtues.

Contrariwise, only speculative habitudes consider necessities such that it is impossible that they should have themselves otherwise. But the Philosopher posits, in Ethic. VI, sorts of intellectual virtues in the part of the soul that considers necessities that cannot have themselves otherwise. Therefore speculative intellectual habitudes are virtues.

I reply that it must be said that, because each virtue is called so in ordering to good, as was said above, habitude is called virtue in two ways, as was [also] said above: in one way, because it makes the faculty of working well; in another way, because, with the faculty, it also makes a good use, and this, as was said above, pertains only to those habitudes that regard the appetitive part, in that it is the appetitive part that makes use of all powers and habitudes. Therefore, because speculative intellectual habitudes do not complete the appetitive part, nor do they in some way regard it, but only the intellectual, they can be called virtues inasmuch as they make a faculty of working well, which is consideration of the true (which is the good work of intellect), but they are not called virtues in the second way, as making good use of power or habitude. For from this, that someone has a habitude of speculative knowledge, he is not inclined to using, but becomes capable of reflecting [speculari] on the true in those things of which he has knowledge, but that which uses the habitude of knowledge is the moving willing. And thus virtue that completes will, such as charity or justice, also makes good use of these speculative habitudes. And according to this also, there is able to be merit in acts of these habitudes, if they are done out of charity, as Gregory says in Moral. IV, that the contemplative has greater merit than the active.

To the first therefore it must be said that work is twofold, to wit, exterior and interior. Therefore the practical, or working, that is distinguished from the speculative, is drawn from the exterior work, to which speculative habitude has no ordering. Nonetheless, it has an ordering to the interior work of the intellect, which is to reflect on [speculari] the true. And according to this is it is working habitude.

To the second it must be said that virtue belongs to someone in two ways. In one way, as to objects; and thus these sorts of speculative virtues are not about those things through which the human being is made blessed, unless perhaps inasmuch as the 'through' names the efficient cause or complete object of blessedness, which is God, who is the highest object of reflection [summum speculabile]. In another way, virtue is said to belong to something as to acting, and in this way intellectual virtues are those through which a human being is made blessed, both because the acts of these virtues can be meritorious, as was said, and also because they are a sort of beginning [inchoatio] of complete blessedness, which consists in contemplation of the true, as was said above.

To the third it must be said that knowledge is distinguished from virtue according to the second way, which pertains to appetitive impulse.

[Thomas Aquinas, ST 2-1.57.1, my translation. The Dominican Fathers translation is here, the Latin is here.]

Multiplied Bearings

 I have said that all branches of knowledge are connected together, because the subject-matter of knowledge is intimately united in itself, as being the acts and the work of the Creator. Hence it is that the Sciences, into which our knowledge may be said to be cast, have multiplied bearings one on another, and an internal sympathy, and admit, or rather demand, comparison and adjustment. They complete, correct, balance each other.

[St. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University, Discourse 5: Knowledge Its Own End.]

Dashed Off III

 'freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters' as an intrinsic freedom of citizenship, arising from the citizen's responsibility for common good (this is much more robust than Kant's version; Kant still thinks like a subject in a Prussian autocracy, and therefore only comes close when he thinks of cosmopolitan citizenship)

Reading begins not with the text but with common humanity as context for the text.

A key skill in mathematics is being able to distinguish relevant and irrelevant abuses of notation.

Set theory mostly succeeds by conforming fairly closely to what mathematicians usually do, taking a bunch of things together and considering relations on them, etc. The intuitiveness of set theory lies entirely in mathematical practice.

CEO's have an excessive tendency to see themselves as leaders when in fact they are just coordinators.

idea-based theistic arguments mapped on rationalism vs empiricism
Can the senses convey ideas of infinity, &c.?
YES: [weak empiricism] -- religious perception arguments
NO: Then do we have such ideas?
--- --- NO: [strong empiricism]: analogical design arguments
--- --- YES: [rationalism]: Then can we think them without language?
--- --- --- --- NO: [weak rationalism] traditionary arguments
--- --- --- --- YES: [strong rationalism] Then can we do so immediately?
--- --- --- --- --- --- NO: causal infinite intelligible arguments
--- --- --- --- --- --- YES: ontological arguments

Scientific inquiry requires a memory much larger than one person can hold.

heroism proper vs relative heroism in narrative

How a right should be protected depends on what makes it a right.

the internal dogmatism of practice

"Matter is never without some privation; insofar as it possesses one form, it lacks another, and vice versa." Aquinas
"It is on account of matter that a singular is both one in number and divided from other things."
"Every body is potential, because a continuous object, as such, is infinitely divisible."
"Although art is not able to introduce a substantial form by itself, it can nevertheless introduce such a form by the power of nature, which it uses as an instrument in its own operation."
"Meriting reward requires the grace of a disposition."
"People can make more or less use of the natural love they have for God over everything."

domain-relative mereological fusion

transformation, transmateriation, transubstantiation

God has typically destined human beings for at least three states, each of which is to contribute to our full completion as human:
(1) our natally embodied state
(2) our mortally disembodied (immaterial) state
(3) our resurrected state.
Whether there are others, we do not know. There is reason to think that (2) will not in the end be universal.

being in place by being contained by a boundary vs. being in a place by objectively containing the place through exercise of power vs. being in a place by being a precondition of place (place itself being contained as under a condition)

Scripture : innate human immune system of the Church :: Creed : adaptive immune system of the Church
-- Scriptures provides part of the Church's non-specific defense, good for some immediate and common problems; the Creed, building on this as background, provides a framework for specific targeting that requries recognition of the exact type of problem.

In physics, geometry describes effects on measuring devices.

We are close to understanding when we doubt that we doubt.

"As the garments of the saints still retain wondrous powers, so is many a word sanctified through some splendid memory, and has become a poem almost on its own." Novalis
"He who cannot make poems will also only be able to judge them negatively. True criticism requires the ability to create the product to be criticized oneself. Taste alone only judges negatively."
"Whoever first understood how to count to two, even if he still found it difficult to keep on counting, saw nonetheless the possibility of infinite counting according to the same laws."

The regular use of materials for signs makes the materials themselves signs.

stage/film acting as using oneself as a sign for a particular kind of context

relics as physical memory

The material of a text modulates its functions.

precepts, rights, rites

The literal sense has in it aspects analogous to the spiritual senses, but distinct from them as being in the text and not its objects.

The two questions people often are reluctant to answer carefully in any matters of reparation, but which must have exact answers for reparation to succeed: Reparation from whom? What, specifically, is required for actual repair and restoration?

That there are many things therapy cannot heal can be seen simply from the fact that nothing can be guaranteed from therapy that cannot be paid for.

The human form is called 'soul' or 'life' in this individual considered as such, and 'humanity' insofar as as this individual is considered as related to others with the form.

We say that God is one substance to deny division and that He is three Persons to deny confusion; attempts to reject such formulae are premised on the idea that all unconfused are divided and all undivided are confused. Neither of these is true, and it would be wrong to say that they are true even for all creatures, nor is it difficult to find counterexamples.

polyonym: different names, common meaning

The common/proper distinction is a distinction in applied functionality of names, not names as such.

We can only base human ethical reasoning in reason insofar as reason involves a template of orderly good for human persons.

From our earliest days, we answer to those who answer for us.

Scientific understanding grows within a social ontology of theories, experiments, and inquiries.

pre-designated vs post-designated evidence

No one likes all the parts of a vocation; no one has a vocation to the fun and easy.

orbitronics: uses orbital angular momentum rather than charge or spin

In the Principia, Newton takes geometry to get its principles from "mechanical practice" and to be "nothing other than that part of *universal mechanics* which reduces the art of measuring to exact proportions and demonstrations." Taking this to be so, he holds that geometry applies to magnitudes and mechanics to motions only in the most common cases.

In Carnap's understanding of verification, the verification principle has to identify meaning with an ideal series of possible confirmations tending toward complete verification, one that is probabilistic and infinite -- which corresponds to a 'method of verification' that unifies the series.

A sentence has many different contexts at once; the 'context change potential' of any given sentence is an extremely complicated matter, since one has to consider the likely contexts and their interactions or relations with each other.

In even very simple conversations, the 'current state of the conversation' is multi-layered, as are the 'information states of the conversational participants' -- e.g., we assess from a sentence something about the world., something suggested or implied or implicated about the world, the mood of the conversation, the emotional state of the participants, the wya this conversation relates to other conversations, etc.

Any account of language understanding that first requires identifying the literal meaning is a nonstarter; literal vs figurative is a post-hoc comparative distinction, not one immediately discernible or even discernible without serious thought.

Language understanding involves many things, most of which are not particularly associated with belief.

Whether or not a proposition is such as to allow one to determine a weight or degree of probability for it, depends on that to which one compares it.

Logical empiricists tended to confuse observation sentences with lists of measurements; but actual observations are perspective- and method-based unifiecations into a given set of relations that are selected for specific reasons, and observation sentences describe these observations.

(object -> value) -> evidence

evidence as value for conclusion-drawing in an inquiry

"When the same, similar, equal, or congruent principium is posited (i.e., efficient, defiicent, or occasional causes), then the same, similar, equal, or congruent  principiates, causes, effects, occasions, etc., are posited as well; and vice versa." Baumgarten
--Baumgarten takes this to generalize Newton's 2nd Rule and Gravesande

experiments as premise-generators

Whether or not we can release ourselves from duties to ourselves depends on whether we can dissolve our relevant moral personhood, or, in other words, whether we can dissolve the moral situation in which the duty occurs.

Promises to oneself are taken to be binding to the extent that they are before a tribunal (conscience, public opinion, the gods, God, etc.).

Pr 29:27 -- being hated is not a sign of injustice, nor being loved a sign of justice, for one may be justly or unjustly loved or hated

The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Amendments to the Constitution all block common means by which tyrants use state power to dominate people.

"The Lamb who is at the center of the Throne will lead them to the Springs of the waters of life." (Communion for St. Catherine of Alexandria, cf. Rv 7:17)

presential gratitude for gratitude and reflective gratitude for gratitude

War crimes often lie in the organization of martial actions rather than in the actions organized; this is why it can sometimes happen tthat one giving the orders commits a war crime although none of his subordinates do.

Falsifiability is important for physical theories because it is a guide for empirical interpretability, which is in fact more important.

Accurate probabilities presuppose correct classifications.

The regulative/constitutive distinction, if it does not simply reduce to practical/theoretical, presupposes assumptions about the nature of the world.

intelligible, ordered, enduring harmony

When one cannot find a solution, it is often because one misconceives the problem.

The Spirit of Inspiration

 It is by no means to be denied that the man who subjects himself to studies too severe does violence to his nature; and, although he may sharpen his intellect on one point, yet whatever he does wants the grace and facility natural to those who, proceeding temperately, preserve the calmness of their intelligence, and the force of their judgment, keeping all things in their proper place, and avoiding those subtleties which rarely produce any better effect than that of imparting a laboured, dry, and ungraceful character to the production, whatever it may be, which is better calculated to move the spectator to pity than awaken his admiration. It is only when the spirit of inspiration is roused, when the intellect demands to be in action, that effectual labour is secured; then only are thoughts worthy of expression conceived, and things great, excellent, and sublime accomplished. 

[Giorgio Vasari, "Paolo Uccello" in The Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, vol. 1, Lavin, ed., Heritage Press (New York: 1967) p. 107.]

Common Doctor

 Today is the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church. From his commentary on Ephesians (lect. 6, sect. 124)

A city possesses a political community whereas a household has a domestic one, and these differ in two respects. For those who belong to the domestic community share with one another private activities; but those belonging to the civil community have in common with one another public activities. Second, the head of the family governs the domestic community; while those in the civil community are ruled by a king. Hence, what the king is in the realm, this the father is in the home. 

 The community of the faithful contains within it something of the city and something of the home. If the ruler of the community is thought of, he is a father: our Father, who is in heaven (Matt 6:9); you will call me Father and will not turn from following me (Jer 3:19). In this perspective, the community is a home. But if you consider the subjects themselves, it is a city since they have in common with one another the particular acts of faith, hope and charity. In this way, if the faithful are considered in themselves, the community is a civil one; if, however, the ruler is thought of, it is a domestic community.

Mereological Fallacies of Distribution

Due to the analogy between categorical syllogisms and mereological inferences, fallacies of distribution have mereological analogues. Some examples:

Undistributed Middle

Categorical Syllogism:

All C is B
All A is B
Therefore All A is C.

Mereological Syllogism:

C is part of B
A is part of B
Therefore A is part of C.

Illicit Process of Major

Categorical Syllogism:

All C is B
No A is C
Therefore No A is B.

Mereological Syllogism:

C is part of B
A does not overlap C
Therefore A is not part of B.

Illicit Process of Minor

Categorical Syllogism:

All A is B
All A is C
Therefore All B is C.

Mereological Syllogism:

A is part of B
A is part of C
Therefore B is part of C.

The matter, of course, is quite general. For mereological propositions in the form 'A is part of B', A is distributed and B is undistributed; for the form 'A overlaps B', both are undistributed; in the form 'A is not part of B', both are distributed; in the form 'A does not overlap B', A is undistributed and B is distributed. In mereological syllogisms, the same rules for distribution apply: middle terms must be distributed, and what is distributed in the conclusion must be distributed in the premises.

None of this is particularly surprising, since historically the mereological syllogisms seem to have come first, and the concept of distribution for categorical syllogisms seems to derive from thinking about mereological syllogisms. But sometimes it's worthwhile to think about things explicitly.

Links of Note

 * Céline Leboeuf, Walking in Simone de Beauvoir's Footsteps, at "Why Philosophy?"

* Marco Montagnino, Gadamer's Return to Parmenides (PDF)

* Gregory B. Sadler, By the Content of Their Character: Christian Love and Virtue Ethics in Martin Luther King's Writings

* Andrea Roselli & Gauvain Leconte-Chevillard, What a Powerful World (PDF)

* Kelsey Hartley, Kristin Lavransdatter Resource Roundup, at "Reading Revisited"

* Susanna Schwartz, The Enchanted Windows of Jane Austen, at "The Enchanted Window"

* Sergiu Margan, The Structural Necessity of Valuation: Why Biological Explanation Requires More than Selection (PDF)

* William Lambert, On Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, at "Short Views"

* Virginia Weaver, critic as physician, at "Overlong Memories"

* Matthew Minerd, A Noetic Taxonomy of Discursive Wisdom, at "A Thomist"

* Luke Russell and Brandom Warmke, Forgiveness, at the SEP

* Laurenz Ramsauer, Kant's Casuistical Questions (PDF)

* Ian Gubbenet, Did Tolkien's Elves Have Pointed/Pointy Ears?, at "Arda Rediscovered"; it also along the way discusses why pointed ears are often associated with fairy creatures today.

* D. Luscinius, Ennead I.3: On Dialectic [The Upward Way], at "Nelle parole"

* C. S. Lewis and the Greatest Arthurian Epic, at "The Library of Lewis and Tolkien"

* Dimitra Fimi, Where (or What) is Neverland? Peter Pan and the Fantasy Tradition, at "A kind of elvish craft"