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Richard Cobb-Stevens on Sokolowski on ideal measurement in geometry... and what this has to do with the reflexio

In his CUA lecture in honor of Fr. Sokolowski, Richard Cobb-Stevens notes how Soko completes Husserl's account of idealization in geometry by pointing out how in geometry, we measure the sides of a figure against itself. That is, instead of taking a ruler as a unit of measure, we measure the different sides of the figure against each other, using one as a unit of measure. This sort of bending of a whole upon itself can be done in geometry but not with real figures.

This kinda reminds me of how, when we think of our own happiness or fulfillment, we think about ourselves in a manner (only very loosely) analogous to the above example of geometry. There is a kind of bending of a whole upon itself.

Ditto with our awareness of ourselves as bearers and conveyers of truth.

It occurs to me, furthermore, that Aquinas's talk of a reflexio involved in judgment is not of some purely spiritual part of us that, because of its angel-like simplicity, its lack of parts, is able to reflect upon itself.... rather, it is of the whole person engaged, as a whole, in communicative behavior. Speech involves a kind of reflexio.

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