La Bruyère on Human Inconstancy

It's a shame so many Anglophones don't read or even know of La Bruyère.  Here's some food for thought from his clever pen (as translated by Jean Stewart):  "After making a close and mature study of men, and recognizing the wrongness of their thoughts, their feelings, their tastes and affections, one is forced to admit that they have less to lose by inconstancy than by persistence."

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).

Making Good Sense: Pragmatism’s Mastery of Meaning, Truth, and Workable Rule of Law

Here is the abstract for my latest article forthcoming in the Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy. In the article, I try to take a middle path between two types of error plaguing present times: "post-truthism" and formalism.

Abstract

The hermeneutic pragmatism explored in this article timely examines how “post-truth” claims over-estimate semantic freedoms while at the same time underestimating semantic and pre-semantic restraints. Such pragmatism also timely examines how formalists err by committing the reverse errors. Drawing on insights from James, Peirce, Putnam, Rorty, Gadamer, Derrida, and others, such hermeneutic pragmatism explores (1) the necessary role of both internal and objective experience in meaning,  (2) the resulting instrumental nature of concepts required to deal with such experience, (3) the related need for workability to apply to the “the collectivity of experience’s demands, nothing being omitted,” (4) the inherent role of morality and other norms in measuring such workability, (5) the semantic as well as experiential nature of our workable realities,  (6) the semantic freedoms involved in constructing, framing, and retaining our workable realities and concepts, and (6) the semantic, pre-semantic, and other restraints on constructing, framing, and retaining our workable realities and concepts.

Such hermeneutic pragmatism also introduces Eunomia, a real-world alternative to Dworkin’s superhuman judge Hercules.  Named after the Greek goddess of good order, the human Eunomia represents the reasonable judge excellently versed in (among other things) legal theory, legal practice, linguistics, and philosophy of language.  Additionally, in its appendices, this article surveys the pragmatic restraints of “implementives” and provides a detailed overview of pragmatic “workability” restraints for both law and fact.

In addition to countering formalist error, such hermeneutic pragmatism thus timely counters troubling “post-truth” claims in certain segments of government and society. For example, The Washington Post tells us that President Trump is “known for trafficking in mistruths and even outright lies;” that “The president often seeks to paint a self-serving and self-affirming alternate reality for himself and his supporters;” that, through May 31, 2018; “Trump had made 3,251 false or misleading claims in 497 days--an average of 6.5 such claims per day of his presidency;” and that  Donald Trump, Jr. has posted poorly-doctored images making “his father’s Gallup presidential approval rating look [ten points] higher than it actually is” while claiming “I guess there is a magic wand to make things happen and @realdonaldtrump seems to have it.”  Additionally, the President’s attorney Rudy Giuliani has expressly claimed that “Truth isn’t truth.” Competent and ethical lawyers must of course reject such mendacity.

("Sense" in the title of this article means not only “meaning conveyed or intended” but also “capacity for effective application of the powers of the mind as a basis for action or response.” See Sense, MERRIAM-WEBSTER’S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2014) “Workable” has the broad meaning discussed in Sections II, IV, and Appendix C of the Article.)

A Sonnet on the Jerusalem Cross

For me, the Jerusalem Cross is endlessly inspiring:  Christ before Paul; the Kingdom that’s within; the wisdom of the Buddha; William Blake and all he tried to do, say, draw, and paint; the semiotics of the endless signified and signifier; the freedom and choice in how we frame; the crosses we bare and bear; the number 5 that I somehow took as “my” number when I was a child.  Such crosses cross beyond mere prose:

               The Jerusalem Cross

Her references are kingdoms built within,

Are centers of what is, are plots of peace,

Are emanations of Blake’s Albions,
Are heavenly vistas of Jerusalems,

Are fresh imaginations testing worlds,

Are fourfold noble truths, are eight crossed paths

That frame a centered cross that wisdom bares

To study all the crosses that it bears.

Her signifiers are two crossing lines,

Four smaller pairs, too, eight paths framing round

Just four right angles centering sixteen more

That also form at most a single square--

Or four or five depending on the count.†

                          *****


†(The cross's lines are personal as well
  In ways they interweave both "H" and "L,"
  In ways they cover Everyone with "E"
  Should some find some initials tough to see.)

 

Two Performance Review Mantras (“Mercy and Truth Are Met Together; Righteousness & Peace Have Kissed”)

I. Mantra For Myself

I smile if I have shown a light.

I smile if I if I have aimed at right.

I smile if I have done my best.

Imperfect, I’ve no other test.

II. Mantra For Others

I smile if they have shown a light.

I smile if they have aimed at right.

I smile if they have done their best.

Imperfect, they’ve no other test.

Fourth Circuit Strikes Down Discriminatory Provisions of Gov. Pat McCrory's North Carolina Voter Suppression Law

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down provisions of Gov. Pat McCrory’s “omnibus” election law requiring photo identification in form blacks are less likely to have and requiring changes to early voting, same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting, and preregistration all in ways carefully calculated to adversely affect black voters.  The full text of the opinion merits careful reading and can be found here. The bill’s “almost surgical precision” (the Court’s words) in disenfranchising black voters should shock everyone’s conscience regardless of party affiliation.

Though highlights of the opinion are no substitute for reading the entire opinion, I realize not everyone will have time to read the entire opinion.  I therefore have redacted some of the critical language and insert it below in the order appearing in the opinion.  I have omitted or shortened internal citations and have bolded certain provisions that seemed particularly important to me.  Although this is no substitute for reading the opinion in full, here goes:

Ballade of Charles Sanders Peirce: That Common Measure of the Number Three (An Addition to "The Apology Box")

      Ballade of Charles Sanders Peirce

A "candle" burns a finger, lights a room--

The only sense that "candle" has is how

It might unfold in our experience.

Experience is "firstness" unified.

It's "secondness" upon division.  And

It's "thirdness" in relating separate parts.

Three categories mix.  We'll often see

That common measure of the number three.

A "candle" is a sign one can dissect.

Such word's a signifier pointing to

An object and a meaning of the word.

Since arbitrary, words are symbols though

Resemblance also signifies (icons)

As does participation (indices).

In parts and types of signs, again we see

That common measure of the number three.

We'd waste our time to doubt a sign unless

We're given cause within experience.

If so, we question what is plausible.

We then inquire what might be probable.

That done, we then examine likelihood.

In threes, hypotheses, deductions, and

Inductions wrestle doubt.  Again we see

That common measure of the number three.

James erred in his conception of the truth.

Instead, life's trinities are tilting toward

Real truth that casts a shadow we can see:

That common measure of the number three.


© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

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

Wittgenstein's Sonnet: No Pictures See Themselves (Addition to "The Apology Box")

    Wittgenstein’s Sonnet

When I was young, words worked a different way.

We hung them round like pictures on a wall

To replicate real objects.  Words used ink

Instead of photographic plates and dyes.

In replication either method worked

So long as illustration captured truth

By rendering objects as they really are.

What more to say?  It all seemed obvious

Until I pictured pictures without us.

No pictures see themselves, their objects, or
A world that is unfiltered by a mind.

Words and their objects are no different.  Thus,

Duck-rabbits now play games within the mind
Where certainty's more difficult to find.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

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

Double Sonnet of William James: Grace That Brings Good Order in the Head (Addition to "The Apology Box")

            Double Sonnet of William James

                                   I.
  
Descartes, pure mind and body can't be kept

Apart as claimed.  Drawn from experience,

They share a common nature, common sense

That both derive from shared experience.

I am therefore a monist.  I accept
That all is drawn from pure experience:
The body, mind, and all relations.  Hence,
Truth, too, must come from shared experience.

Truth is what works in shared experience.
With free will, physics is indifferent.  Hence,
Determinism turns on how we find

An absence of free will.  Because we find
Determinism horrid, we are led

To free will's higher order in the head.

                            II.

Descartes, why suffer needless doubt except

When something fails to work.  There's little sense

In doubting for the sake of doubt. I've kept

So many years of James I see no sense

In doubting James.  Efficiencies accept

That James exists until experience

Astounds such thinking--I of course accept

Doubt when thought stumbles with experience.

For me, religious doubt makes little sense.
Belief in God disturbs no physics.  Hence,

If God brings better order to my mind,

I'd err denying God.  Of tender mind,

I savor God and angels overhead,
And grace that brings good order in the head.

© Harold Anthony Lloyd 2016

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