C1 — What the Commitment Carries: A Study Note v0.1

 

C1 — What the Commitment Carries: A Study Note v0.1

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.

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I. Beginning

The chain: everyone wants happiness; complete happiness must lie wholly within control; only assent does; happiness is correct assent. C1 is studied at the joint “only assent is within control.” Canonical numbering: C1 Substance Dualism, C2 Libertarian Free Will, C3 Ethical Intuitionism, C4 Foundationalism, C5 Correspondence Theory, C6 Moral Realism. The aim is understanding, not persuasion.

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II. C1’s Own Work (Dave Kelly, 2 Oct 2026)

What C1 carries that C2 does not is the identity claim: I am the faculty and the body is something I have. The boundary is one of kind, not of location.

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III. Sterling Primary, by Date

• 20 Jan 2012. He is certain of qualitative mental experience and chooses on its content. Physics has no place for either. “My dualism is not developed in opposition to the ancient Stoic metaphysics, but to modern scientific physics.”
• 12 Mar 2013. “I do not have control over whether or not I exist.” “To the Stoics, I am my hegemonikon.” Where the faculty cannot function, “I effectively no longer exist.” The only question is whether, when capable of correct value judgments, he makes them.
• 25 and 27 Oct 2013. “I am my faculty of choice.” One faculty assents to everything. Bare hunger and cold belong to the body, “external to ‘me’ entirely.”
• 12 Dec 2018 (read as quoted) and 8 Jan 2019. Mental states have content and physical states do not. Brain states may generate mental states but do not constitute them. The mind is “only the entity that has those mental states.” Either mental states are epiphenomenal or they have causal powers.
• 30 Sep and 1 Oct 2019. If the neuroscientists’ conclusions held, “the entire edifice collapses.” Bodily state alters how things appear; anger when tired is “just as much in my control.”
• 2 Mar 2022. Stoic Ethics requires “some (meta-)Physical commitments and some (Epistemo-)Logical commitments,” but not the ancient ones. Cartesian dualism “seems to fit with it much better than materialism.”

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IV. Corpus Synthesis

The Argument v1.0 §1 holds that Th6 presupposes C1: without it the dichotomy is unstatable. The Finnis CPA run scores hylomorphism Partially Aligned on C1.

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V. Readings

• R1. The identity claim requires a self that is a subject and not a property, single, and not physical.
• R2. The ancient school had the first two with a corporeal soul. Modern physics removes that candidate, so the first two now force the third.
• R3. The body supplies and colours impressions, and is a condition of the faculty functioning. It never does the assenting.
• R4. C1 as the chain needs it asserts identity, not separability. Cartesian dualism would give more than the chain requires.
• R5. Sterling’s stated strength for Cartesian dualism is best fit. What he treats as necessary is the theory of mind, mental causation and the identity claim. Necessity for C1 as a whole is corpus synthesis.
• R6. The six commitments are the replacement Physics (C1, C2, C6) and Logic (C3, C4, C5).
• R7. Against epiphenomenalism the argument rests on the datum that he acts on reasons. This is the C4 limit.

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VI. Open Items

• Whether the faculty persists idle or ceases when it cannot function.
• Sterling’s two posts of 2 Oct 2019, unopened.
• The originals of the 12 Dec 2018 and 28 Feb 2022 posts, unopened.
• Whether the 2018–19 and 2022 posts are in Project Knowledge.
• No use of the phrase “substance dualism” found; the search is unreliable.

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VII. Sources

Opened in full: the Sterling posts in III, except as marked. Searched only: The Argument v1.0 §1, CPA Run — John Finnis, Nine Excerpts §4.

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Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.