Fides Quaerens Sanitatem

Since the time of writing this I discovered that w...

2012-03-19T14:59:43.181-07:00

Since the time of writing this I discovered that while Aquinas uses virtualiter often, virtual "presence" is a special case of this, as "presence" is not used to describe the lower souls being dynamically present in the higher, for example. But this does not invalidate my point, I think, since it is just a needed distinction to say that in some cases involving material virtualities like Decaen describes it is proper to call it "virtual presence", and in the more broad cases, to say one is in the other "virtually" suffices.

(To clarify: the perfect Catholic is one who inten...

2012-01-11T19:05:07.526-08:00

(To clarify: the perfect Catholic is one who intends the revealed good according to virtue and does it; the imperfect one is one who intends the good but does not succeed in it; the nominal Catholic one who, while professing to be one of the former two, does not even intend the good, let alone perform it.)

Weeeell...there's a tacit distinction, I suppo...

2012-01-11T19:03:49.475-08:00

Weeeell...there's a tacit distinction, I suppose, that I'm using. A nominal Catholic is one who professes the name but not the content; as the content involves actions, so you have "imperfect" and "perfect" Catholics contained under "real Catholics." The "perfect" is the one I used because incontinence is a sort of hypocrisy, but is oftentimes involuntary; and I made that distinction when I said "they are not like those who have never been truly tested, who have some excuse." In that sense, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, whereas for the nominal Catholic (the small-c catholic) the spirit is not even willing, and the flesh is still more unwilling (to do the right thing.)

So when I say the "real Catholic" I do not mean to exclude the incontinent Catholic who is a sinner, especially because we are all that Catholic at times one way or another, but to highlight the one in the act, so to speak, of being authentically and perfectly Catholic. A saint, for instance. Saints are most definitely people we can say for sure were "real Catholics"; though even saints fall to sin at times, while it is understood that they nevertheless have true repentance.

And far from repudiating them, I would invite them to be real Catholics, and even pray that they become so. But like Augustine in the first books of City of God, recognizing that they are not representative of the Church as they are, I am trying to explain why the Church cannot be blamed for their sins.

I think that you should be wary of determining who...

2012-01-10T06:33:35.886-08:00

I think that you should be wary of determining who is a "real Catholic" - particularly based on hypocrisy. We are all hypocrites, for we all sin and deny the teachings of the Church at one point or another. It is our Baptism that makes us Catholic, and thus it is God, not ourselves, who wills for us to be Catholic. And He meets us where we are in order to lift us to Him, and that includes seedy bars where no Catholic should be wasting his time. It is true, we should not engage in these sins, nor in any sin, and we should not live as hypocrites in this manner, but those that do are still Catholic for God has willed them so, and that should be cause for jubilation, not repudiation, for they have been infused with His supernatural virtues, by which their repentence and conversion might come to pass! And so for them, for ourselves as well whenever we sin.

Perhaps a better use of time than such writings would be to visit some shady bars and talk with Catholic men about being Catholic men? I bet you could do an excellent Theology on Tap...

Thank you, Brother! Do spread it around if you li...

2011-06-03T19:35:00.216-07:00

Thank you, Brother! Do spread it around if you like it!

This is really well written.

2011-06-02T22:41:09.389-07:00

This is really well written.

More enlightening; thank you!

2010-11-10T13:30:45.677-08:00

More enlightening; thank you!

I like the way you think. But my first attempt to...

2010-11-09T11:44:02.709-08:00

I like the way you think. But my first attempt to comment had an error, so I'll give the short summary.

Think back to Driesch. You cut the blastomere and you get it growing back into a whole. But at each place there is "equipotential" to be this or that. What makes it "harmonious" such that it always grows into a whole thing of this sort? Or for the map example: my stewards all have maps of my kingdom, but what makes them decide to go to Cambridge or Croydon?

1. Not a chemical; such a chemical interpreter of what is in every cell would deplete after repeated regrowths.

2. Not a machine; the continuous divisibility which still produces regrowth would evidence a machine which is the same in all of its parts, which is absurd.

3. It's a principle of teleology in the thing. Driesch thought it was vitalistic, and that Aristotle was a "vitalist"; but I don't think substantial form is a spooky immaterial being; it's a principle of a being. So hylomophism is not dualistic like vitalism. Plus, we don't "see" the substantial form; we see the material correlation, because sensation is of particulars, and the material cause is the cause of individuation and particularity. We have to induce the form from looking at the thing. In this case we see virtual parts of the organism doing stuff virtual parts don't have the ruling wisdom to do themselves; they have to be ordered by some intelligence or analogous principle to intelligence (something caused by an intelligence, as analogy arises from being the effect of such-and-such a cause.) This is formal cause of the whole organism, expressing itself THROUGH THE POWERS of the parts; in a way, this is the neatest way to talk about virtual presence, because we see the powers of lesser forms acting under the direction of the higher form of the whole.

Hm, yes, I think bringing in the element/compound ...

2010-11-09T07:45:24.644-08:00

Hm, yes, I think bringing in the element/compound distinction helps--but there's a lot left to be fleshed out. Paper, indeed!

Incidentally, I'm a bit puzzled (perhaps because I don't know as much about DNA as I should) as to why the ubiquity of DNA would seem to make a human form unnecessary. Seems that the very fact of its being unique to each individual, and in some sense governing the development of the body, implies a bodily unity of a sort that pluriformists would want to deny. Why can't it be the material expression of a formal unity? Like officers of one king who carry the same maps of the kingdom, but work differently in the different places where they're assigned?

But as I say, I don't know much about how DNA works. Interesting, though . . .

After this, by the way, Woods never responded, whi...

2010-10-09T11:19:31.643-07:00

After this, by the way, Woods never responded, which I think rather predictable of him.

(mind you, I was a bit taken aback by Woods' f...

2010-10-06T13:35:50.221-07:00

(mind you, I was a bit taken aback by Woods' flat denunciation of my professed ability, since he had no idea of who I was or why I might hold my particular views...so as far as his protests of my caricaturing his views, it was funny to me that he then proceeded to deny the common good, which is precisely where Libertarian economics and Catholic politics butt heads.)

oh duh. Hi, Mr. Friedman! Rookie grammar error o...

2010-10-06T13:33:48.444-07:00

oh duh. Hi, Mr. Friedman! Rookie grammar error on my part. How have you been since Cedarwood?

"I went to school with David Friedman's g...

2010-10-06T01:18:14.802-07:00

"I went to school with David Friedman's grandkids"

Tovar is almost old enough to go school, but his sister was born less than a month ago.

Perhaps you meant my father's grandkids?

hahahaha good to see that SOME things change in th...

2010-08-03T10:02:56.462-07:00

hahahaha good to see that SOME things change in this world. :-D

I thought you'd like that. :D Although you sho...

2010-08-03T07:16:34.391-07:00

I thought you'd like that. :D Although you should note that this time I called it "morally dubious."

Of course she brings up the insider trading. ALWA...

2010-08-01T13:40:57.904-07:00

Of course she brings up the insider trading. ALWAYS with the insider trading. :-D heehee

I see what you mean, there, and I'd agree, as long as that's what Saturday was saying.

May I interject? I think at least part of Miss Sat...

2010-07-31T22:11:00.394-07:00

May I interject? I think at least part of Miss Saturday's point is that, in libertarian philosophy, the virtuous man is one who exercises his freedom as far as he can without violating someone else's freedom. This is distinct from the notion of the virtuous man which Miss Saturday(hopefully) adheres to, i.e. the man who has come to the perfection of his nature as a rational being. For the virtuous libertarian, then, something morally dubious such as trading stocks using information that is not universally available is only wrong if it violates fiduciary agreements. That is, it's only wrong if it violates someone else's rights. The Catholic understanding of virtue, according to the libertarian, is nice and all, but it's perhaps somewhat arbitrary because it extends beyond the sacred notion of rights. It *is* a rather freakish form of moral relativism.

Saturday, can you clarify what you mean by saying ...

2010-07-31T18:24:19.986-07:00

Saturday, can you clarify what you mean by saying that virtue is of "debatable value"? I think I know what you mean but want to be sure; we did, after all, have a similar education. :-D

Love the point about market correction taking time...

2010-07-31T13:15:21.560-07:00

Love the point about market correction taking time. "Before truth has its boots on" indeed!

The sad thing is, that many smart libertarians will acknowledge these flaws, and go on to say that IT DOESN'T MATTER. Freedom is more important than any other good, because it is the only good that can be proven to belong naturally to man, and all other goods (virtue, talent, material possessions, etc.) are of debatable value. It's a freakish kind of moral relativism . . .

Now, with regard to the philosophy of interaction ...

2010-07-31T12:16:30.732-07:00

Now, with regard to the philosophy of interaction between social beings, I agree with you, you might be surprised to find, entirely. That is precisely my problem with both socialist and libertarian economics, that they atomize people as economic actors or generalize people as economic classes. But the difficulty I have with claims that democracy as such is better because of this is that I am not entirely sure, owing to my Aristotelian conscience, that democracy is the best FOR A GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCE. If all the members of the school were equal and strong in virtue, then democracy would be great, and I'd say go ahead. But the second you get people who start jockeying for control that goes out the window. There was a wonderful short story by Larry Niven, "Cloak of Anarchy", on this subject...and as I try to be a gracious host and not let guests go from my blog without something edifying in hand, here's the full text, courtesy of the author!

http://www.larryniven.net/stories/cloak_of_anarchy.shtml

Anyways, that sums up better than I what take I have on pseudo-anarcho-libertarianism.

I should say this, that the point on reciprocality is most well taken. But I don't think it can exist alone as a backbone for a democratic society unless every person in that society, or a majority of the people have a very sound understanding or experience of that fact, and I am convinced that that is less easy to secure than people think. Just look at how many libertarians and socialists there are.

Don Berg: When I was applying those pejorative ad...

2010-07-31T12:16:14.931-07:00

Don Berg:

When I was applying those pejorative adjectives to children (among whom I did, you will not, include myself, so I was not trying to be scurrilous) I was exaggerating a mite bit, and I can assure you I was grinning mischievously as I wrote them.

Let me ensure I get your understanding right before I respond:

You think I was saying that the choice offered at Cedarwood was a problem;

you think nothing "bad" happened at the school;

you think I am "blaming" the school for my bad choices.

As far as your take on people in society, you are of the understanding that individual actors are not atoms outside of a social interactive matrix;

and you prefer democratic educational environments because that system most makes use of that reciprocality.

Now, my response, which I hope will make you feel more hopeful about the lot of us libertarian experiments. :-D

I was fully aware, as I wrote those pejorative adjectives, that there is a whole different side to children. After all, I myself was homeschooled ("unschooled", more properly, as libertarian proponents refer to my particular style) and I ended up going to a high school run by a libertarian who had originally thought to teach at Cedarwood. Of course, you couldn't know that, so this does need some bearing-out.

I was not against the choice offered at Cedarwood, but against the idea that liberty is all that is necessary, especially when given to kids who, as a function of their youth, may be very clever and precocious but still usually don't like to eat their veggies. And not all kids are this way, mind you; I myself liked Brussels sprouts when I was a kid. (Now, not so much. I was a weird kid.) But to say that this is the norm is to ignore all the other parental experience going in the other direction additionally; there are a good many kids who may be very clever but who are also very immature in their cleverness. If one wishes to teach a kid to love freedom, one needs to get the kid to recognize the need for virtue, cause without it, there is no freedom; just libertines. In schools, this recognition comes about through pedagogy and the role of the parents, which I mentioned; in other places, through other means, but always first through the parents.

I would also agree that nothing really "bad" happened at the school, for a given value of "bad", (nobody got shanked, there were not more than two kids that I knew of using drugs, etc) but on another level, kids voting themselves into an educational tyranny on their unknowing parents' dime is a very BIG bad. And in another respect, while there was no material badness there, there was an analogy there to it, for those who could see it, in the politics of the place.

And actually, I'm not blaming the school at all. Or, in a way I am, but not in a way for which "blame" would be the right word. We "blame" people for having the culpability for an act. The school was not the direct volitional cause of my act, I was. So in that sense I don't blame the school. But in the sense that one might blame a permissive culture of sports for providing a venue for steroid use on the principle that "everyone does it so you have to", or in the sense that one might blame someone for selling weed to a child on the principle that weed is "harmless", one might say I'd "blame" the school for that; but even there, blame wouldn't be the right word, or if there is blame, the offense was small. I agree that the experience of the errors of a libertarian polis and of the human beings who follow it was a valuable enough result; but I don't think it was the intended one.

...

With over 15 years of experience working with chil...

2010-07-31T07:56:13.604-07:00

With over 15 years of experience working with children in a variety of settings and having spent several years leading them in democratic forms of governance, I find your assumptions and speculations about children and their inclinations to be mistaken.

As best I can tell you seem to be lamenting your own choice to play computer games and not to take a math class during your time at the school.
What is not clear to me is why that choice is a problem. It seems to me that you may have, in fact, gained some valuable insight into the consequences of your own power to make choices in your life. Which is, IMHO, a central lesson of setting up the kind of pedagogical environment that you've described.

From what you've described nothing bad happened in that school, but you lament the lost opportunity to do something better than what you actually chose at the time. You made choices that you feel bad about in retrospect and want to blame the school for your choice of taking the opportunity to learn the relative value of video games and delaying your opportunity to learn math. I don't see a problem with the lessons you've learned, in fact, it seems to me that it's better to learn that lesson earlier rather than later.

FYI- I'm more inclined to communitarian thinking and find most libertarian and socialist rhetoric to be off base. This means that I recognize the influence of groups and individuals as reciprocal interactions. I reject notions of atomistic individuals because we are always, and always have been, embedded in social contexts that shape our behavior in important ways. I prefer democratic educational environments because they encourage the active exersize of influence in both directions, not just one or the other.

In my view children are capable of being exactly as you speculate, but they are also capable of being exactly the opposite. The determinants of their behavior are complex interactions between the individual and the groups in which he is embedded. The possibilities are vast, but not unlimited, and it is the responsibility of adults to ensure that the overall patterns of behavior are functional, not that every single behavior is "correct." Thus, it is fine to allow extensive video gaming (an "incorrect" choice) given that it takes place within a community that cares enough to ensure that choice is functional in the long term.

In this case, it appears to me that your experience seems to have been valuable in the long run, despite your assumptions about the inherent nature of children and your speculations about the political viability of democratic decision making.

--
Enjoy,

Don Berg

Site: http://www.teach-kids-attitude-1st.com

Free E-book: The Attitude Problem in Education

I like it. :) You know, though, now that consider...

2010-07-30T15:56:31.892-07:00

I like it. :)

You know, though, now that considerable time has passed between the time I was taking economics from a Libertarian and now, I think I can sum up the problem with libertarianism in a few words: it doesn't make sense because it's contrary to experience.

It's contrary to experience that all that's required for a "just" wage is agreement between the employer and the employee, because even well-informed people can be deceived.

It's contrary to experience that, if one sector of the economy fails, people can simply switch careers and relocate. Anyone who's ever moved should be aware that even the act of moving itself could throw a wrench in the works.

It's contrary to experience that "acting in one's self-interest" will result in what's best for the economy, because people often don't know what's good for them. Also, sometimes truly acting in one's self-interest would involve buying fewer goods.

Finally, the idea that most people, most of the time, act quickly, decisively, and in a well-informed manner is contrary to experience.

Fixed. Nice catch.

2010-07-30T13:03:02.878-07:00

Fixed. Nice catch.

I think you mean that legislation is dull, though ...

2010-07-30T12:40:25.412-07:00

I think you mean that legislation is dull, though some of the livelier bodies have their droll moments.