Joseph Ransdell on Charles Sanders Peirce

"When the truth about Peirce's life and accomplishments becomes generally known, it will be perceived that he was not only the most omnicompetent scientific mind of his time, perhaps never subsequently to be equalled, but also a moral hero of the intellect, of the stature of Socrates: a veritable icon or paradigm of philosophia--which really means devotion to the search for truth . . . ." Joseph Ransdell, Semiotic Objectivity in Frontiers in Semiotics 240 (John Deely et al. eds., 1986).

"Nature Hath Framed Strange Fellows" William Shakespeare and Natural Law

A. Introduction

             

             Natural law theorists might turn to The History of Troilus and Cressida to start building their case.  They might begin with Ulysses’ lofty outline of the “natural” order:

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this center          

Observe degree, priority, and place,                            

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,                    

Office, and custom, in all line of order,                       

And therefore is the glorious planet Sol                        

In noble eminence enthroned and sphered                         

Amidst the other; whose med'cinable eye                         

Corrects the influences of evil planets

And posts, like the commandment of a king . . . .[1]                      

Such theorists might then use Ulysses’ further stirring words to blend such “natural physical order” with a “natural order” in law and morality as well:

Take but degree away, untune that string,                      

And hark what discord follows. Each thing meets                

In mere oppugnancy.  The bounded waters                          

Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores              

And make a sop of all this solid globe;                         

Strength should be lord of imbecility,                          

And the rude son should strike his father dead;                 

Force should be right; or rather right and wrong,             

Between whose endless jar justice resides,                    

Should lose their names, and so should justice too.^[2]                             

As far as it goes, it is hard to imagine a more eloquent case for natural law than this.

Rethinking The Elect

                            The Elect

Take that long-suffering slave:  if she instead

Were master, could descent dissent and shed

Vile arrogance slaves shirk and in its stead

Renounce the life that life inherited?

Take that starved, broken pauper:  if instead

Of life so harsh he often would be dead

He had a fuller purse, was fuller fed

Would he have known to offer paupers bread?

Take that queer soul who's “different”:  if instead

He'd turned out “normal” would he think a dead

Queer's better than a live one, too, and spread

Intolerance majorities have bred?

Is this not Grace?  Spared from such tests as these,

Has God not favored his minorities?

In a time of Trump when I fear many devalue diversity and many more do not see the frequent grace in minority, struggle, and lack of material wealth, I highlight this poem from Charms and Knots.  I also highlight the poem for a time when many no longer appreciate the endless powers of formalist verse.  Apart from the inherent power of sonnet form, twelve same-rhymed lines followed by two fresh rhymes actually participate in the grace and rarity of difference (indexical expression of the point to use Peirce's terminology).

LBJ's Villanelle: Old Chamberlain & Chambers of the Heart (Addition to "The Apology Box")

The Johnson name shall live forevermore

At home and overseas.  Of virile heart,

I shall not risk the loss of any war.

I’ll slay Jim Crow and poverty before

Another president can steel the part--

The Johnson name shall live forevermore.

I shall not ape old Chamberlain though war

Endangers plans at home. I've rhetoric's art--

I shall not risk the loss of any war.

No hypocrite, I've nitroglycerin for

Myself as well and lob it at my heart--

The Johnson name shall live forevermore.

Though pills roll out my mouth, I've countless more
To keep me standing as I ply my art:

"I shall not risk the loss of any war.

No, we shall overcome Jim Crow, the gore,

The jungles, and old chambers of the heart.
The Johnson name shall live.  Forevermore,

I shall not risk the loss of any war."

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Pope Urban II's Double Sonnet: Red Fields and Lucious Palaces (Addition to "The Apology Box")

        Pope Urban II’s Double Sonnet

                               I.

Although we were God's advocate below,

We were a child of Adam, too, brought low

By sin.  We therefore beg forgiveness though

We did our duty.  Bravely, we brought low

The infidels.  Our rhetoric called men to

Jerusalem with swords in hand as Christ

Himself commanded.  Fields ran red with sliced-

Up children, men, expectant mothers, too--

The serpent crushed within the egg can't grow

To blaspheme God or strike at others.  Though

Much bloody work, we had no choice.  Our trust

As shepherds left no option--shepherds must

Protect their lambs.  The Eastern fields ran red

With menaces that shepherds rightly bled.

                                    II.

We tended, too, our wandering sheep inside
The one true church. Thus, to our eastern side
We led the roaming churches back to Rome
While bringing, too, more unity at home

Among the many Occidentals who

Now shared a common venture.  Joined anew,
They focused on a foreign infidel

And Grace that comes from others sent to Hell--

Though we regret our actual person could

Not quit Rome's luscious palaces.  We would

Have joined the foreign danger, blood, and grind

Had our position not kept us behind.

A headless body could not wage a war.

We were the head and lodged in Rome therefore.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016
  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Ishmael's Sonnet: Built As "Normal" Boys (Addition to "The Apology Box")

            Ishmael’s Sonnet

                        

They called me Ishmael.  I was a first

Who wrestled with the "bastard" name though I
Was built as "normal" boys.  With Mother, I

Was cast into the desert.  Struggling first,

 

I'd often hide myself.  I'd lie about

My essence in some feint of normalcy

That let me pass.  As I was outwardly

A normal boy, I need not always out

Myself.  And yet the loss of me within

Such phantom lives did further damage. In

Such feints I slandered parents, slandered, too,

The Lord whose kingdom lay within me, too.

I therefore washed my mouth.  "I am" replaced
The "stain" of "bastard" washing had erased.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Simon Magus: Beyond Your Heaven and Beyond Your Hell (Addition to "The Apology Box")

        Simon Magus's Case*

Stand back, Jehovah!  I do not concede
Your jurisdiction over me. Instead,
I’ve secret knowledge shared among the wise

Of greater gods that reign above your head
And rest unstained by your Creation here.

Before this secret knowledge made me wise,

Men used to drag me to your temples where
They made me watch the helpless lambs within

Writhe as men slit their bleeding, bleating throats.

It was no better outside than within. 
There children starved and there poor animals

Would tear themselves apart in roles you made

Of prey and predator.  I saw the scrolls

Recounting other evils you had done.

You made the devil.  You made man without

A sense of right and wrong then punished him

For disobeying orders not to learn

That difference giving knowledge of your wrongs. 

You tainted Lilith and her progeny

Though she obeyed and never bit the fruit.

You baited Cain to murder by your whim

Of arbitrary anger at his gift.

You killed by indiscriminate deluge

Both beasts and infants that could not have sinned.

The common language of survivors you

Destroyed at Babel where (to add insult)

You forced your syllables on men though you

Had once told Adam he could name the world.

You tortured Abraham with felony,

Made him conspire with you to kill his son.

You baited Sodom with slick angels so

You might destroy again--this time with fire.
You burned up infants, animals, and turned

Flesh salt before a husband's frightened eyes.

You tortured your good servant Joseph in

A foreign land whose tongue he did not know

In a repeat of Babel’s cruelty.

Your mind on Egypt then, you unleashed plagues

So horrid I would rather not recount

The sufferings of men or beasts whose blood

You craved on doors or threw down from the sky

Or swallowed up attached to chariots

Beneath the crashing waves that closed on those

Not choked in waters turned to blood before.

For forty years you marched men in the sand

Where you dispensed bizarre rules governing

Such things as beards and testicles of priests.

You called these “laws” so you could claim the right

And pleasure of your awful penalties.

Bored with the desert, you then turned to war

Both in the taking and the keeping of

A “promised land,” an oxymoron of

Word rightly kept to steal another’s ground.

Not only does such evil bring you down.

Your very mouth betrays you, too: "I am

A jealous god!”  Such jealousy requires

An object.  By your own admission you

Have competition and are not supreme. 
Consistent with us both, I thus reject

Your sovereignty Jehovah.  I would dwell

Beyond your heaven and beyond your hell.

*Simon Magus was a Gnostic who tried to solve the problem of evil by creating another and better realm beyond the one in which we live.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Sonnet of John The Baptist (Addition to "The Apology Box")

             John The Baptist’s Sonnet

                    (A nomadic herald)

My one principal was God and as

His agent my one principle was God.

One principal and principle meant I

Ignored all call of urban artifice.

God tailored camels for a desert life.

Therefore, I clothed myself in camel skins--

How could mere John design a better wrap? 
With similar logic, I would not  rethink

The locust beans and honey God served there

That I preferred to any urban fare.

I was God's pristine voice that wilderness

Kept pure enough for Christ himself to hear--
Though urban folk were deaf and  Salome
Would have the mouth, not words upon a tray. 

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

  
The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

The Nicodemus Paradox (Addition to "The Apology Box")

            Nicodemus's Double Sonnet

I saw the merit of that holy man.  I showed

Him bold respect in public and I sat

Beside him as my teacher.   I raised up

My hand in public when I was confused

By his instruction:  “How could an old man

Be born again?”  I asked.  He answered me.

When hypocrites would kill him in the name

Of “God” and “Church,” I interposed myself

And spoke in his defense.  I took the risk

Without a moment’s hesitation, and

When they had murdered him, I helped embalm

And carry the cadaver to a tomb.
With greater powers, I would have helped him more.
But born without them, I could do no more.

Why did I yet remain a “Pharisee”?

There only is one true assembly of

God’s people.  Words cannot change that.  I'd not

Concede my notion of a "Pharisee" to frauds.
Instead, I would protect it by my deeds

That would instead preserve exalted words.

I worshiped with God’s words while others lied

With them.  It was confusing.  Yet, I fought

And even gave my quandary a name:

The “Nicodemus Paradox.”  If we

Use “Church” with scoundrels it’s hypocrisy

Yet if we give them “Church” it’s blasphemy.

With greater powers, I would have wrestled more.
But born without them, I could do no more.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Judas & Pilate Defend Themselves (Additions to "The Apology Box")

            Acrostic of Judas

Justice never punishes a deed

Unless it's evil, willed, and freely done.

Did I betray?  I did.  But fate forced me, 

And thus I did unfreely what the Lord

Set up instead as I shall briefly show.

Impelled by love, God had to make a world

Since isolation is love’s opposite.

Creation needed freedom all around--

An object of one’s love is not enslaved

Raising a contradiction:  what is free

Is free to sin and has a license that

Offends morality.  God's fix required

The incarnation penalty--not me.

Old Testament Words & Rhetoric: Ehud, Elisha, & Jonah (Additions to "The Apology Box")

           Ehud’s Solid Rhetoric

     (Left-handed judge who killed Fat King Eglon)

Somehow it seems we have reversed our roles.

I was to speak for you in judgment, Lord,

In Eglon’s case, yet now must plead my own

Which I presume cannot be severed from

The former.  I shall, therefore, make my case

By how I made your own where you required

More rhetoric than mortals could possess.

With words more flawed and limited than yours,

My noises, meanings, grammars would blaspheme

Should they pretend to speak as you would do.

With proper language absent for the task,

I would but mock ineffability

Were I to mouth in any way the scope

Or purpose of such sacred agency.

Instead I thus used your own elements.

My iron blade made your point. Although his fat

Made heavy armor, it did not deflect

But swallowed up the knife.  His fatty folds

Released a stench that summarized him well,

That underscored your judgment as he fell,

And yet misled his guards by such a smell.^*

Although the spectacle was horrid, it

Avoided sacrilege of words not fit

For godhead or good agents serving it.

*They thought Eglon was relieving himself thereby giving Ehud more time to escape.

            Elisha’s Apology

I watched Elijah leave in fiery flight.

The sound of nothingness roared in my ears.

I was alone.  I trembled, was in tears.

I only had his cloak to calm my fears

As I stepped in to bear bare heaven's light.

Persuasion's manifold.  Elijah thought

The fastest and the surest lesson taught

Was by the rod.  I tried another way:

Example of good deeds can also sway.

I salted down the spring of Jericho

And caused pure waters once again to flow.

I turned the poison gourds into a soup

That safely fed a desperate, hungry group.

I made the axe-head float back to the top

Of that deep Jordan where they’d let it drop.

I took a little bit of barley bread

And made a feast where many mouths were fed.

I filled a widow's empty jars so she

Could pay her debts and set her children free.

I cured the awful curse of leprosy,

And moved men with my skills of prophecy.

Example and good deeds were rhetoric
That served me better than Elijah's stick,
And though no fiery chariot brings me
I trust the light I carry shines on me.

            Jonah’s Defense

With just eight words* I brought a city round.

In rhetoric’s annals nowhere else is found

A rival.  I will move the heavens, too,
And once again will keep my phrases few.

                                                      

I erred once I admit--although I should

Feel gross aversion handling pagan things.

Aversion keeps good order.  God would not

Condemn disgust toward anything unclean.
Instead he counseled that sometimes one should
Endure the filth he'd have one remedy.
Thus, for two reasons he unleashed the whale:
To right my course and in its belly train
Me for the stench ahead.  (I spent three days

Within its filthy gut till I was heaved

A chunk of living vomit on the shore.)

I made my way to Nineveh and gave

The famous speech.  I then withdrew to watch

The consequence. Beyond doubt I'm devout

To take a journey here, too, past the bounds

Of any maps or terms I’ve known.  I've come

(Although in fear) because God called.  I would

Give that as further proof of Jonah’s good.

*"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"  

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here. 

Abelard: The Peril & the Price of Careless Thought (Addition to the Apology Box)

                         Abelard’s Ballade

Thought is the cruelest place where charts mark no

Fixed latitude or constancy of shore

For shifting airy coasts and courses.  Though

Polaris holds without, within one's oar

Has no such brilliant constant marker for

Safe navigation.  Vague, obscure and fraught

With shifting inner shoals, one can’t ignore

The peril and the price of careless thought.

Did man precede the beasts?  Both “yes” and “no”

Say Testaments where just a pair yet more

Go in the ark, where Eve’s made second though

She’s simultaneous in lines before,

Where we’re commanded to love yet restore

Slaves to a master, where it’s said we ought

Not judge yet brook no sin.  We’re fodder for

The peril and the price of careless thought.

There’s such confusion--turn the cheek yet go

Acquire a sword as well?  Why wasn’t more

Care taken in the drafting?  All should know

That words have consequences.  Maimed, I bore

The scars of mixed-up syllables.  Before

More suffer needless butchery, one ought

To master language.  I explored, therefore,

The peril and the price of careless thought.

Lord, thus I did my volumes.  Since they store

All I discovered, I can rest.  Full taught

Below, no suffering here would teach me more

The peril and the price of careless thought. 

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.

Five Warriors: Hannibal, Charlemagne, Roland, William the Conqueror, & Henry V (Additions to "The Apology Box)

                    Short Ballade of Henry V            
                             (esse quam videri)

Although my youth was rough, I may defend

It.  By its terms, one's immaturity

Is that imperfect era one must spend

Developing, that time when logically

The mind and morals both are raw and we

Are all inferior.  I would not scheme

Like lesser youths and falsely polish me--

Hypocrisy's a sin.  I'd be, not seem.

When I was crowned, my youth was at its end.

Therefore, I ended my frivolity

Lest I live on a lie, lest I pretend

I somehow kept that younger quality

That I had lost.  I acted honestly

Instead when grown.  I battled till supreme

At Agincourt without distorting me--

Hypocrisy's a sin. I'd be, not seem.

Lord, now I'm but a spirit, I should be

In Heaven with the bodiless.  I’d dream

Of nothing else.  I’d feign no firmer me--

Hypocrisy's a sin.  I'd be, not seem.

Three Religious Warriors: Richard I, Saladin, & Charles Martel (Additions to "The Apology Box")

              Richard I’s Sonnet

Christ is my only standard. As he drove

The money changers from the temple who

Profaned it, I in imitation strove

To save God's temples from blasphemers, too.

If smaller groups of money changers must

Be driven out, much more so should we drive

Out hordes of unbelievers.  I was just

Therefore in how I chose to reign and live.

Although great men have critics and I'm not

Immune, I'm confident the worst they’ve said

Of me is I craved men and therefore led

Men East.  If true, such charge condemns me not.

In judging right and wrong, Christ is the test.

I've read his words.  The topic's not addressed.

               Saladin's Round

            (By a Kurdish hero)

There is no God but God and he is Lord

Of every atom of creation.  He

Is thus by his own essence rightfully

The Lord of old Jerusalem and all

Her Asian territories rather than

Someone whose agent sits in far-off Rome.

Someone whose agent sits in far-off Rome

Abstractly drinking blood and eating flesh

With wine and broken bread in temples there

Has brokered more than mere abstractions here.

This broker's swords have broken men and spilled

Real blood and gore throughout God’s Holy Land.

Real blood and gore throughout God’s Holy Land

Required response and we have given aid.

We’ve had to use swords doing that though we

Preferred the use of reason.  Though we’ve won

Upon the field, our greater victory comes

Through favoring mercy over death instead.

Through favoring mercy over death instead

Of other attitudes, we’ve followed God

And done his work.  Though evil trembles at

Such simple logic, we find rest in it--

God favors mercy and believers know

There is no God but God and he is Lord.

                Charles Martel’s Sonnet

Though God is three in one, it’s blasphemy

To tolerate an earthly trinity

Of Christian, Jew, and Muslim. There can be

Just one true faith since Christianity

Alone is scriptural.  Of course God knew

Martel means “hammer” and called me to do

The labor.  Although just a bastard to

That beast Plectude, great battle plans I drew

For plated men and beasts.  At Poitiers,

Design met field.  There my troops held at bay

The foreign hordes our armor drove away

From Christendom forever.  Lord, I pray

For Heavenly inclusion having fought

For God and Christendom as scriptures taught.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

The current contents of "The Apology Box" can be found here.