Stoic News: DTI Run — The Object of Shame v0.5

DTI Run — The Object of Shame v0.5 — Version 1.0

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

Instrument: The Derivation Trace Instrument (DTI) v0.3.

Step 0 — Halt and Input Restatement

Document under trace. “The Object of Shame — A Core Stoic Reply on Shame and Self-Government” v0.5, the rendered fragment.

Thesis, from the document. “What has gone missing is the thing shame is about.”

Unit. Whole-document run. The document’s Sources, Declared Gaps and Version Note are part of the text under trace, so support named there counts.

Self-audit. The thesis is located in the text. Nothing supplied.

Step 1 — Proposition Extraction

86 propositions. 11 sentences are excluded as rhetorical or illustrative. 5 are recorded as the document’s own namings and declarations. Each proposition is shown with its type from Step 2: F Foundational, D Derived, E Empirical, Def Definitional, R Restatement. Propositions new or reworded since the run on v0.2 are marked.

Opening.

1–3. Kang’s question; the familiar answer; both have failed in America (E).
4. The thesis (D).

The Beginning.

5. Every argument ends in propositions too basic to be argued for (F, C4).
6. So an honest argument states them (D).
7–10. Good and evil are real; they are known directly; a judgment is true when it matches the fact; a man’s assent is his own (F: C6, C3, C5, C2).
11. Only virtue is good and only vice is evil (F, Th10).
12. Nothing outside a man’s control is good or evil (D, Core Stoicism lines 11–12).
13. Only a man’s beliefs and will are in his control (F, Th6).
14. Desire follows from what we judge good or evil (F, Th7).
15. Feeling follows from the judgment we assent to (presented as a premise; Sterling’s post of 20 June 2018).
16. The argument below derives from these, with two further supports named where they enter (D, the claim under test; reworded).

What Shame Is.

17. Shame follows from a judgment we assent to (D).
18. By correspondence, that judgment is true or false (D).
19. By the tenth theorem, it is false when I am ashamed of an indifferent (D).
20. The man unashamed of vice has not judged evil what was evil (D; new).
21. By the seventh theorem, a man who judged vice evil would desire to avoid it (R; new).
22. The act is past and cannot be chosen again (Def, by ruling R-2026-10-08-10, where it is numbered 20).
23. Vice is an act of will (R).
24. By the sixth theorem, my will is in my control (R).
25. The only act of will still open to me is the next (D).
26. What rightly follows is caution about that one (D).
27. On Sterling’s account all moral imperfection comes from the belief that externals have value (presented as a premise; Nine Excerpts, §6; new).
28. So the caution reaches the judgment that produced the act, and not the act alone (D; new).
29. The ancient Stoics classed the two words (E).
30. The definitions of aischunē and aidōs (Def).
31. Most modern writing blends the two (E).
32. That blending is the whole problem (D).

Why Audience-Shame Fails.

33. Its force depends entirely on the audience (D).
34. Divide the audience and you divide the shame (D).
35. The Pew figures (E).
36. America has two audiences; audience-shame split (E).
37. Audience-shame has no authority over the powerful beyond the audience’s own (D; replaces an Empirical claim).
38. Whoever commands a crowd is beyond audience-shame by definition (D).

Why Realist Shame Holds.

39. That he did wrong is true whether or not anyone saw it (D).
40. The next act is his alone to choose (D).
41. What aidōs is about is deserved blame: that an act of will can be evil in fact, whoever is watching (D; new).
42. Such shame binds by a common object (D).
43. It checks power, because a fact does not depend on power (D).

The Objection.

44. On Sterling’s account of impressions, to hold something true is to assent to it (D).
45–46. Assent is free; an impression can be refused or accepted (R).
47. Accept it, and shame follows the external (D).
48. Both audiences have made that one judgment (E).
49. Their quarrel is a single error made in two directions (D).
50. It tells against realism no more than a wrong sum tells against arithmetic (D).
51. Each person can correct it alone (D).

What Democracy Borrows.

52. A people governs itself only so far as it can hold to account those who act for it (presented as the document’s own premise).
53. That relies on premises it seldom states (D).
54–57. The four glosses (R).
58. What it is to hold a man to account (Def, by ruling R-2026-10-08-09, where it is numbered 51).
59. Each of those is one of the four (D).
60. Remove them and accountability has nothing to grip (D).
61. Together the denials make shame impossible (D).

The Defense.

62. Public shaming is audience-shame at higher volume (D).
63. It has already failed (E).
64. The remedy is to restore the object of shame, one rational faculty at a time (D).
65. That is the aim of the corpus I keep (E, the author’s own statement).
66–68. The three disciplines (R).
69. To sign is to own the assent (Def).
70. Shame follows only from a judgment someone has assented to (R).
71. To be wrong is to assent to what is false (Def, by ruling R-2026-10-08-10, where it is numbered 66).
72. An assertion nobody has assented to has no one who could be wrong about it, and so no one rightly ashamed (D).
73. What a machine puts out is handled the same way: it becomes a judgment only when a man assents to it (D; new).
74. Stating the beginning and the audit answer to foundationalism (D).
75. The signature answers to free will and to correspondence truth (D).
76. A citizen who keeps them answers for his own assents (D).
77. That is the ground aidōs, or the beginnings of it, stands on (D).
78. The crowd’s opinion is an external, so aischunē has no true judgment behind it (D).

No Compromise.

79. A procedure is for finding what is true (Def; new).
80. Without a truth that holds whoever speaks, it has nothing to find and can only record who won: it is a contest (D; replaces the Loosened sentence).
81. To tolerate is to bear with what is wrong (Def; new).
82. Without good and evil in fact there is nothing wrong to bear with: it is indifference (D; new).
83. That settlement is what failed (E).
84. The judgment behind shame is true or false (R).
85. A people who forget this have lost the means to govern themselves (D).
86. The cure is judgment of good and evil that does not depend on the powerful (D).

Self-audit. Joining sentences into single propositions is the auditor’s consolidation. No claim is added.

Step 2 — Type Assignment

Foundational: 11 (5, 7–11, 13, 14, 15, 27, 52).
Derived: 43.
Empirical: 11 (1, 2, 3, 29, 31, 35, 36, 48, 63, 65, 83).
Definitional: 7 (22, 30, 58, 69, 71, 79, 81).
Restatement: 14 (21, 23, 24, 45, 46, 54–57, 66–68, 70, 84).

Self-audit. Propositions 15, 27 and 52 are typed as the document presents them, as premises. All three go to Step 6.

Step 3 — Upward Trace

Located at named support (18): 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 28, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 49, 51, 73, 78, 86.
Located internally (24): 4, 6, 25, 26, 32, 33, 34, 37, 38, 50, 53, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 80, 82, 85.
Unlocatable: none.

Proposition 16 is the claim under test and is answered by the trace as a whole. Proposition 41 is located by the document’s Version Note, which names its ground. Proposition 73 is located at The Logic of Assent Instrument v0.2, Section XVII, a support The Beginning itself names.