Pragmatism and Management Inquiry

PRAGMATISM AND
MANAGEMENT
INQUIRY:
Insights from the Thought
of Charles S. Peirce
JUAN FONTRODONA
QUORUM BOOKS
PRAGMATISM AND
MANAGEMENT INQUIRY
Insights from the Thought of
Charles S. Peirce
JUAN FONTRODONA
QUORUM BOOKS
Westport, Connecitcut London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fontrodona, Juan, 1963
Pragmatism and management inquiry : insights from the thought of Charles S. Peirce /
Juan Fontrodona.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 1567205151 (alk. paper)
1. Peirce, Charles S. (Charles Sanders), 18391914. 2. ManagementPhilosophy. I.
Title.
B945.P44.F66 2002
128.4092dc21
2001048118
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright 2002 by Juan Fontrodona
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001048118
ISBN: 1567205151
First published in 2001
Quorum Books, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.quorumbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.481984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword by W. Michael Hoffman

Prolog to the Spanish Edition by Antonio Argandoa
Abbreviations
vii
xi
xvii
Introduction
PART I
Human Action in the Thought of Charles S. Peirce
Charles S. Peirce: A Life Devoted to Science
11
The Triadic Conception of Human Action
41
The World in Which Humans Act
55
The Task of Knowing and Interpreting the World
73
PART II The Scientific Character of Management

5
The Decision-Making Process
Decision Criteria in Management
89
91
115
vi
Contents
The Synthetical Character of Management
129
The Scientific Attitude in Management
141
PART III Three Principles for Management

9
149
Creativity: The Logical Principle of Action
151
10
Community: The Ethical Principle of Action
171
11
Character: The Esthetic Principle of Action
183
12
Epilog for Entrepreneurs: A Challenge for the

Twenty-first Century
193
References
199
Index
211
Foreword
There are a number of reasons why I am pleased to write this foreword to

Juan Fontrodonas book Pragmatism and Management Inquiry: Insights from
the Thought of Charles S. Peirce. First, the insights Fontrodona brings forth in
this work clearly relate to business ethics, a field in which I have worked for
the past twenty-five years. Second, the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley
College, which I have directed since its founding in 1976, has had as one of
its core objectives the meaningful interaction of theory and practice, ethical
thought and effective action. This integration is at the heart of Fontrodonas
management inquiry and his understanding of C.S. Peirces pragmatism.
Third, and on a more personal note, I had the rewarding experience of getting to know Juan during the 20002001 academic year, when he spent a
year at the Center as a Research Scholar. In addition to his being a man full
of humanity and sensitivity, he has a first-class mindexemplified in the
writing of this work, which is of considerable significance to business and
the values that ought to guide it.
Both business and Peirce are concerned with action and decision making. Undoubtedly this is why Fontrodona finds the writings of Peirce an appropriate medium through which to analyze management theory and
practice. But many have reduced both management and Peirce to equating
action with simply the external results of that which is pursued. Thus,
Peirces philosophy has frequently been characterized by the phrase that
what is effective is true, and management success has all too often been
isolated to what can be measured in economic terms or the hitting of finan-
viii
Foreword
cial targets. But, as Fontrodona convincingly argues, such interpretations

do a disservice to both.
Fontrodona reveals that truth for Peirce is the process whereby the person, through action, reveals and develops him- or herself, which involves
values and virtues. To translate this to business, the good manager is not
merely one who is effective, who gets things done, but also one who is ethical, who does the right things. In fact, one way of seeing Fontrodonas work
is through the lens of ethical leadership. For both Peirce and Fontrodona,
action is understood and judged, not only through operational techniques,
but, more important, through intentions and the moral values that formulate and drive those intentions. Fontrodonas book, therefore, is a study of
business ethics theory and managerial moral action and, I might add, a discovery of Fontrodona himself as business ethicist.
By using Peirces thought, Fontrodona puts forward a paradigm to explain and evaluate human action in organizations. He sees three principles
emerging from this paradigm, which are developed out of what he refers to
as the normative sciences that guide human activity: logic, ethics, and esthetics. First is the principle of creativity, which comes out of the logic of individual human rationality but must transcend the analytic to achieve the
vision and imagination necessary for innovation. Second is the principle of
community, born out of the ethical obligations one has to others and taking
one beyond mere individuality, while at the same time preserving ones individuality. In this ethical relationship of the individual and society, there is
a dynamic interaction of incorporating others perspectives into ones own,
thereby integrating individual creativity into social community. In the
business context, we sometimes refer to this principle in terms such as empowerment, teamwork, partnerships, and shared responsibilities.
However, for Fontrodona, the first two principles remain incomplete
without the third principle of charactera human dimension far too often
absent in todays discussions of good management activities. Without the
principle of character, individual creativity and social community remain
divided and fail to achieve their full potential and effectiveness. Character
deals with the ideals of human conduct and carrying out ones actions according to appropriate values.
Fontrodona speaks of this principle of character in his epilog, using the
concept of growth. Both he and his view of Peirce are opposed to the pursuit of quantitative results as the ultimate goal of business activity. Growth
is not merely about the accumulation of material wealth, but, more essentially about the growth of personal character. It is here that the reciprocity
between the individual and the community comes together in true fullness,
where each completes the other. The good manager is the effective ethical
leader who, through appropriate actions, creates opportunities for people
to morally lead themselves within productive moral societies.
Foreword
ix
Fontrodona has produced a book of immense richness and value. It exposes what I think is a fundamental truth of not only management theory,
but all of human actionthat successful endeavor, which furthers the
progress of business and of civilization generally, is dependent on the
proper balance and dynamics of the individual, institutions, and integrity.
Fontrodonas work is not only a book for business and for scholars of
Peirce, but truly a wor
k with wisdom for living life itself.
W. Michael Hoffman
Professor of Philosophy and Executive Director,
Center for Business Ethics, Bentley College
Prolog to the Spanish Edition
What can a philosopher say about the theory and practice of management?
And what does a philosopher, Juan Fontrodona, have to say about what another philosopher, Charles S. Peirce, says about management?
There is much to say, of course. I would venture to say that studying
management is vital for understanding human action. Indeed, management is a paradigm of human action. If we seek to understand how human
beings act, we will have to talk about purposes and motives, expected consequences or effects, rationality. And where can these elements be found
with greater clearness than in management decisions? The manager has
certain very clear ends in his or her action; he or she moves with a particular
rationality, looks for certain results, develops a specific methodology.
If we can understand how the manager decides, we will understand
much better what decision in general, that is, human action, consists of.
This is because the manager acts to achieve an immediate result that, at the
same time, does not compromise his or her future decisions.
Action thus links with behaviora relation that has an important place
in Peirces worksuch that the manager seeks to create in the company the
right conditions so that his or her future actions can continue to be optimal.
This is because decision making in the company does not consist of performing isolated actions.
Is it therefore necessary to coordinate commercial decisions with strategic, production, financial, and human management decisions? Yes it is, and
much more than that: each action must contribute to the creation of a body
of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values, both in the decision maker and
xii
in the men and women with whom he or she interacts, which guarantees
the fulfillment of the companys mission, the development of its distinctive
capabilitieswhich are vital for its strategic successand the creation,
consolidation, and development of certain values, virtues, and attitudes
that facilitate the companys unity and, by this means, the achievement of
its long-term goals. And this is precisely what the theory of human action
seeks to explain.
In his task, Juan Fontrodona enjoys a head start, being professor at IESE
Business School, which, for the last forty years, has devoted itself to the education and development of business executives. Obviously, he is well
versed in the works of Peirce. But he is also a depository of two important
backgrounds: one, a philosophical background, received in the classrooms
of the University of Navarras School of Philosophy, which has given him
an excellent foundation for understanding and judging Peirces work, and
the other background, received at IESE, where he has been working for several years on the development of a management theory.
In view of this, one could say that Juan Fontrodona cheats when understanding, explaining, and judging Peirces work. He is not working in a
vacuum, but grounded on a body of knowledge and experiences that enable him to go far beyond what Peirce was trying to say. Of course, that is
how knowledge progresses, and I am sure that Peirce would consider it
quite natural and highly positive.
This book will be very useful for people who are interested in human action in general, and management action in particular. Even if its author had
confined himself to explaining, ordering, and criticizing Peirce, the book
would still be a valuable work because Peirce is an author who is perhaps
little known, but profound, suggestive, full of ideas that contrast with the
paucity of thought that we find in many subsequent developments of corporate decision theory based on much poorer anthropologies. However,
Juan Fontrodona goes further and reconstructs Peirces ideas on a richer
philosophical foundation and on all the advances made by management
science in recent years. Thus, the reader holds two books in one: a magnificent study of Charles S. Peirce and an excellent approximation to corporate
decision theory, on the cutting edge of knowledge.
However, to get back to the question we asked at the beginning, what
does a North American philosopher who died almost a century ago have to
say about management theory and practice? I have already said that he has
a lot to say. The reader will find here many original and highly useful ideas.
It is true that Peirce was not concerned with the figure of the manager. As a
philosopher, he looked for a method for knowing reality. This method was
based precisely on the knowledge of reality, that is, of the full range of effects of human action: not only the effects on the environment, like some
mechanistic and biological theories of management, but all the effects, including those that operate on the agent him- or herself and on the other
xiii
people with whom he or she interacts: the learning of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values and their development.
That is why Peirces theory of action surpasses that of many other thinkers. That is why it remains free of many of the criticisms we could make of
certain later theories. And that is why reading Peirce can help us understand how the business decision maker acts. Peirce was not looking for a
decision theory for its own sake, but in order to guide action. That is why,
even today, it is still useful to read Peirce, as a step beyond many partial theories that have ended up doing more harm than good.
But does Peirce have anything to say to modern businesspeople? He
does, without doubt, especially when he is read through the philosophical
and practical prism offered by Juan Fontrodona. For example, Peirce says
that ideas must be discussed because there is no one truth on the company, but rather many partial truths, which we must reach by working with
others, because we are limited and need this social learning. Fontrodona
has probably had direct experience of this in the case method often used
at IESE, where the experience of some is confronted with the knowledge
and experience of the rest. Is this not something that is truly useful for guiding decision making?
Yes, butthe reader may objectdoes that not lead us to a nave
sociologism? No. Peirce grounds the core of his theory of action on truth.
The rest are not a guarantee of truth, but turning to others, being receptive to criticism, the humble recognition that two heads are better than
one and that the contemplation of reality from different angles is a form of
enriching our knowledge, is something that is necessary. And the manager
will find this position easy to understand. Is there pragmatism in Peirce?
Yes, but it is pragmatism based on truth. Partial theories may be useful but,
if they are taken as final, they lead us to theoretical and practical error, as
not a few modern versions of the theory of action have pitifully shown.
Another example of the relevance of this book: Peirce says that makers of
scienceof decisionsare people. Therefore, the companys reality is not
to be understood from a theoretical approximation to action, but through
people. It is therefore a collective task, both in the structuring of the science
and, above all, in its practical implementation. Peirceread by Juan
Fontrodonaappears before us as a humanistic philosopher, who gives us
the key for understanding the managers work as a leader of people for action, for changing reality, obtaining results to quote professor Juan Antonio Prez Lpez, a theorist of action whom Fontrodona knew well and
quotes very opportunely.
Thus, for us, Peirce views ethics as a component of human action. But
this is not an ethics imposed from without, as some schools advocate, seeking to add the humanistic dimension as if it were a cherry on the decision-making cake, but formulated from within and found in the nature
itself of action.
xiv
Peirce argues that, in pragmatism, the summum bonum does not consist
of action but a process by which the individual, through action, acquires
tendencies and habits, that is, progressively develops himself. This sentence by Juan Fontrodona is the key for understanding what Peirce has to
say to modern businesspeople. Managers learn by managing, not simply
because that is how they acquire the habit of managing, but because they
achieve their development as a person by managing: by managing well,
with a moral quality that requires the development of operational skills,
virtues, and values.
Sciencemanagement science, toodoes not advance by the accumulation of knowledge but by transcending certain erroneous or limited conceptions and creating other, richer, broader, and more explicative
conceptions. Peirce, in effect, views the progress of knowledge as a process by which the ideas that appear are incorporated into ideas that already
exist, so that the latter become increasingly broader. Organization science
would have saved itself quite a few blind alleys and retracings of its footsteps if it had taken notice of Peirce. And why did it ignore him? Perhaps it
is because it had not found out about his writings, or perhaps because
Peirces time had not yet come. Today, we are able to understand better
what Peirce brings us, because we are more aware of the failures to which
other schools of thought have led us. Juan Fontrodonas merit may lie in
drawing our attention, precisely now, to the weaknesses of those other
thinkers.
But Peirce is not simply an excuse for this book, but an excellent base for
attempting a reconstruction of decision science. Through the pen of
Fontrodona, Peirce tells us how we become involved in action and how, by
doing, action changes us: virtues are, therefore, key elements of action.
Through the writings of Fontrodona, Peirce tells that we understand others, and the nature itself of action, through experience: experience, therefore, once developed, consolidated, integrated within us as a habitnot
just an intellectual habit, but an operating habit, in the virtuesis essential
for correct decision making. Through Fontrodona Peirce also teaches us
that action cannot be understood without intention: ethics plays a fundamental role in this process.
A famous economist, John Maynard Keynes, said in 1936 that practical
men, who believe themselves to be completely free of any intellectual influence, are usually slaves to some deceased economist. Juan Fontrodona
says the same in a more profound way: in their decisions, people are
guided by systematic and complex visions of reality, philosophical conceptions, of which they are aware to a more or less clear degree but which, in
any case, shape their deepest habits and determine the direction of their
judgements. Yes, reading this book may help philosophers, organization
theorists and practical people to find a solid anchoring point, not only for
xv
their abstract ideas, but, above all, for their judgments and their deepest
habits, on which they build their actions.
When it comes down to basicsand this is another idea from Peirce that
is masterfully developed by Juan Fontrodonaa well-planned and
well-executed action is not recognized by comparing it with what action
theory says but by observing what effective, ethical managers dowhat
we call the profession. The ideal of conduct, Fontrodona tells us, thus
appears as making the world more reasonable, and also making ones own
life more reasonable. . . . [T]he ideal of conduct will be to perform our little
function in the operation of creation, giving a helping hand, to the extent
permitted by our capabilities, in the task of making the world more reasonable. Certainly this is a worthy endeavor.
Antonio Argandoa
Professor of Economic Analysis for Management
Chair of Economics and Ethics
IESE Business School, University of Navarra
Abbreviations
In the course of this book, the following abbreviations are used to reference various compilations of Peirces writings:
CP
HP
MS
Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss and A.W. Burks, 8
vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19311958). The references are quoted by
volume and paragraph number. For example, CP 1.253 corresponds to paragraph 253
of the first volume.
Historical Perspectives on Peirces Logic of Science, ed. C. Eisele, 2 vols. (The Hague: Mouton, 1985). The references are quoted by volume and page number. For example, HP
1.144 refers to page 144 of the first volume.
The Charles S. Peirce Papers, microfilm edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Library,
Photographic Service, 1966). The references are quoted using the manuscript numbering system established by R.S. Robin in his Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S.
Peirce (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1967). The manuscript number
given in Robins catalogue is quoted, followed by the page number. For example, MS
675, 9, indicates page 9 of manuscript 675 in the catalogue.
Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, ed. M.H. Fisch et al., 6 vols. to date
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 19822000). The references are quoted by volume and page number. For example, W 5:144 corresponds to page 144 of the fifth volume.
Introduction
The manager is, above all other things, a person of action, whose interest is
not focused on knowing things and devising increasingly comprehensive
theories about reality, but on doing things and, in particular, on solving practical problems. However, this practical dimension of management does not
mean that the manager must dispense with scientific knowledge in his decision-making, quite the contrary. Management is an art, but it is an art
grounded in knowledge obtained from a varied range of sciences in which
the manager must be skilled, wisely combining them in each particular situation.
Neither is it true that the focus on action must necessarily imply being
guided only by the principle of what is effective is true,1 thus reducing
the assessment of human action to the obtainment of the external results
that are pursued. Or rather, such an assessment of action must be an evaluation a priori and not an assessment a posteriori, and it must take into account all of the actions results and not just those external results that can be
measured in economic terms.
Although meeting targets is a necessary condition for good management, it is not a sufficient reason for a positive assessment of such management. The results do not depend only on the decision but also on other
exogenous factors that are beyond the decision makers control; it is impossible to take into account all possible circumstances and it is usual for collateral effects to occur that have not been originally foreseen. Consequently, it
is more important to be correct in the decision-making process than successful in action. The good manager is not content with observing a posteriori
Pragmatism and Management Inquiry
the consequences of his or her action but is also able to foresee a priori what
those consequences may be. Furthermore, within this task of foreseeing
possible outcomes, managers do not confine themselves to merely taking
into account the economic or material results of their actions. They are
aware that there are other consequences that do not change the world but
rather the subjects themselves and that have value, even though they cannot be quantified in economic terms, nor do they lend themselves to commercial transactions.
When it is said that the manager must be pragmatic and this adjective is
used to refer solely to economic results, one is doing justice neither to the
true nature of management nor to the concept of pragmatism itself, at least
in regard to its historical origin. If today it is commonplace in management
and business administration literature to read about the need for a new paradigm,2 this is so to a great extent because the principle of what is effective
is true has been proven to be ineffective and erroneous. It is not true that
the manager is only driven by economic efficiency, even though the reference to action continues to be fundamental for business management. Furthermore, the attitude of reducing analysis to its results cannot be defined
as pragmatic without distorting the meaning given to this term by the father of North American pragmatism, Charles S. Peirce.
One of Peirces great concerns was to formulate a method for ascertaining reality that would offer an alternative to the Aristotelian method. In a
way, Peirce found himself, at the end of modernity, bearing the legacy of the
intellectual chiaroscuros of that time. With all the paraphernalia of modernity, it was not easy to apply the categories of Aristotelian thought. Therefore, Peirce sought a means for gaining access to reality using categories
other than those used by Aristotle, whom, however, he had no qualms in
calling the prince of philosophy. Peirce found this starting point in the
pragmatic maxim, a term he uses to signify that the definition of an object
is obtained from the sum of all the possible effects that may arise from that
object. Subsequently, Peirces followers misinterpreted this maxims formulation, giving it a utilitarian bias, which is the one that has prevailed until now. As a result, the term pragmatic came to have the pejorative meaning
used today to describe the way of proceeding that reduces truth to the effectiveness of the results.
However, this is not at all the meaning of pragmatism formulated by
Peirce. It is true that the pragmatic maxim sees in action a principle for
knowing reality that goes beyond the modern ideals of clarity and distinction. However, the fact that action provides a means for gaining access to reality does not mean that reality must be reduced to action. Peirce would not
agree with the principle that What is effective is true. Indeed, he would
agree more with the reverse statement, What is true is effective, that is,
What is true shows itself to us in its effectiveness. For Peirce, the pragmatic maxim is only a gnoseological principle for knowing reality, and not
Introduction
an ontological principle that provides the rationale for the nature of things.
For Peirce, this utilitarian view of pragmatism was so distant from his
thinking that he invented a new term, pragmaticism, to differentiate himself
from those who had changed the original meaning of this thought, even
though they had contributed to popularizing it. Thus, if Peirce was able to
avoid the confusion about the meaning of pragmatism, if he was the first to
realize that a utilitarian view of the pragmatic maxim could lead away from
the true path and was able to correct the direction it was taking, his ideas
may help usin spite of the time that has passedin our attempt to formulate a theory of management that brings to the fore the true nature of human action, freeing it from the reductionist view of those who only seek
effectiveness and results.
This is not only a book about the history of thought. In recent years, there
has been a new surge of appreciation for Peirces contributions, which have
received abundant praise from leading figures in contemporary philosophy. Karl Popper has said that he is one of the greatest philosophers of all
time;3 Umberto Eco has classed him as the greatest American thinker4;
Karl-Otto Apel called him the Kant of American philosophy5; and Hilary
Putnam rated him as an outstanding giant among American philosophers6. Max Fisch, one of the most eminent experts on Peirce, went further
than Putnam and said that Peirce is the most versatile mind that has ever
existed in America, based on his contributions in a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines.7 Habermas has said that Peirce has the key for solving the
problem of modernity.8 And, in the same vein, Guy Debrock has suggested
that Peirce may be an invaluable help in addressing some of the most persistent problems of contemporary philosophy.9
Above all else, this book seeks to be a book about management, but a
book about management with a clear theoretical basis, because I am convinced that the managers first need is to understand the nature and rationale of his or her own activity. Management cannot rest on techniques
aloneno matter how sophisticated they may bebut also requires an adequate theoretical basis. I believe that the aphorism that there is nothing as
practical as a good theory continues to be true; the manager cannot rely
solely on one-minute recipes but also needs a theoretical background
able to provide a sense of perspective and increase his other awareness of
the nature of the work and the responsibility it implies.
From its inception, this book has deliberately sought an interdisciplinary approach. The dialog between businesspeople and philosophers is not
easyto a great extent, because of the different languages they usebut it
is enormously productive when achieved. This I have seen for myself, first,
since my involvement in the early work of what is today known as the
Instituto Empresa y Humanismoan entity created by the University of
Navarre and a number of Spanish companies whose purpose is to reflect on
the human and ethical dimension of managementand, later, in my teach-
ing work at IESE Business School, the University of Navarres International

Graduate School of Management. With this book, I would like to contribute
to this dialog. To develop a line of argument that, in its essence and form, is
acceptable to both philosophers and managers has not been an easy task. I
must admit that the final text has more in common with philosophical discourse than with the type of language that managers are more accustomed
to. However, it is my hope that those who work in areas related with the
business worldwhether in the university or in a companyand wish to
make the effort to explore with me the issues that are discussed here will
find in Peirces thought ideas that will help them in their own professional
activity.
The books working hypothesis is that Peirces thought may provide a
valid reference point for developing the new paradigm of action that organizational theory demand. Although the subject of human action was not
studied systematically by Peirce, the concept of action, given the nature of
the pragmatic maxim, is present throughout his work. The first part of the
book proposes a definition of the concept of action based on the main lines
of Peirces thought. The first chapter provides a biographical sketch of
Peirce, deriving from it a series of considerations about the ideas that are
developed in the rest of this book. The remaining three chapters in this first
part are concerned with three fundamental aspects of Peircean thought: the
phenomenological categories, the cosmological view, and semiotic theory.
With these three aspects, we have sufficient material to develop a description of the nature of human action. The second part is focused on decision.
The process of inquiry that enables us to progress from doubt to belief, the
methods for fixing beliefs, the fact that the person of action can adopt a scientific attitude in his or her decisions, depending on the different actions
that must be performed, and the classification of sciences to determine
those on which the decision is grounded are the basic aspects of Peircean
thought that can be used to describe a decision theory that is scientific in its
attitude and nature without losing its focus on practice. In the third part,
three principles are proposed for managementcreativity, community, and
characterwhich are derived from the characteristics of the three normative sciences. These, as will be explained at the end of the second part, are
the three sciences that guide and direct human action.
Finally, I must make two caveats about the books content. First, it is a
study of the thought of a North American author viewed in an eminently
European light. Far from diminishing the validity of the inquiry, I think that
this fact gives it an added value. Nowadays, immersed as we are in globalization and the elimination of frontiersnot only geographical but also
cultural and ideologicalthis sort of distinction is not very meaningful,
and even less so to deny the possibility of dialog between different traditions. On the contrary, this cross-cultural backdrop will enable us to relate
the North American pragmatic tradition with the Aristotelian tradition
Introduction
and offer management literature a vision that has not always been sufficiently appreciated and that can be of enormous help in understanding the
reality of business management.
My second caveat is that this book does not seek to be the conclusion or
demonstration of any theory. It should rather be seen as a proposal, a hypothesis to stimulate further thought. It is not an ending point, but rather a
starting point. Peirce thought that scientific inquiry should always be open
to future progress and that the most important thing was to avoid blocking
the road of inquiry. Therefore, without sacrificing the rigor demanded of
any inquiry, this book seeks to raise many questions, propose a number of
highly varied subjects for reflection, and challenge many assumptions that
have been accepted noncritically. The reader should not expect to find easy
answers or final conclusions because the subject matter does not allow it,
nor would it be acceptable to a mature audience such as that which this
book has been written for.
As a subject for scientific inquiry, management is relatively young and
has still a long distance to travel. This book seeks nothing more than to enable one more step to be taken along the road of management inquiry. Sometimes, in order to advance it is necessary to retrace ones steps and take a new
direction. To go back to Peirce may help us recover the original meaning of
pragmatism and advance in the study and practice of management.10
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Peirce assigned an important role to the scientific community in the advancement of knowledge. I can say that this book has been enormously favored by the scientific communities with which I have been involved
during these years.
First of all, the Faculty of the School of Philosophy of the University of
Navarre taught me not only the contents of philosophy, but also the philosophical attitude of love for wisdom. From Alejandro Llano, I learned that
the philosophical analysis is not at odds with the concern for the real and
living problems of our society. From Angel Luis Gonzlez, I always received very good advice.
The Peircean Studies Group (Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos), at the University of Navarre, under the direction of Jaime Nubiola, has become a reference for Peirces research in Spain and abroad. Jaime spurred me to begin
this book, gave me advice during its redaction, and helped me to find the
moment to bring it to an end. I hardly can think of a better place to study,
and to become familiar with, Peirce.
My first steps in business ethics coincided with the starting of the Institute Enterprise and Humanism (Instituto Empresa y Humanismo). To listen to Rafael Alvira and Leonardo Polo, among others, think about
business has been one of the most intellectually fruitful experiences in my
life. I am also thankful for the support of the institute in having made the
Spanish edition of this book possible.
During these years, IESE Business School has been the place where I
have developed my professional activity. Its faculty and my students have
given me the opportunity to challenge my own ideas. Domenec Mele has
been my mentor in business ethics. I hope to count on his example and support for many years. Pere Agell taught me much more than decision analysis and Bayesian statistics. Among the pieces of advice I give to my
students, the good ones are those he gave me when I was his student.
Carlos Snchez-Runde, my classmate in the M.B.A. program, is a colleague
now, but above all is a good friend. It is always good to listen to his opinions, and I will be glad if he can say the same thing about me.
The editing process of this book coincided with my stay as a visiting
scholar at the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College. I can hardly
imagine a better place to study business ethics. The launching of the center,
twenty-five years ago, is, without any doubt, a milestone in the history of
business ethics, and W. Michael Hoffman, its executive director, is a necessary reference in the field and most of all, a mentor and a friend during this
year; I hope to keep developing new projects with him for the advancement
of business ethics. I almost did not miss home thanks to the hospitality of
Mike, Mary Chiasson, Patricia Aucoin, Aaron Sato and the scholarship students of the center. Jacob Rendtorff and Mollie Painter-Morland visited the
center at this time also, and it was nice to know them.
In my research, I have had the fortune to link my name to other people
much better than I am. I have worked with Alfredo Rodrguez Sedano,
Manuel Guilln, Francisco Roa, Jos Luis Fernndez, and Javier
Gorosquieta (recently deceased), and I am currently working with Alejo
Sison, Iaki Velaz and Miguel Angel Ario. I feel very proud to have had
the opportunity to learn from them.
While I have had the chance to count on such good people in my professional life, it has been the same in my personal life. First of all, I thank my
family: although physically far away sometimes, they have always been
very near to my heart and my mind. Then I thank my many friends and acquaintances, from whom I have received more than I have given to them
and to whom I feel greatly indebted, inasmuch as there is no human way to
pay them back. Finally, during my stay in the United States, the residents
and friends of Elmbrook Center gave me the welcome and warmth that
make one feel always at home.
NOTES
1. For a good criticism of this principle from the management viewpoint, see
J. Le Moul, Critique de lefficacit (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1991).
2. A few years ago, Jeffrey Pfeffer wondered about the difficulty experienced
by organizational theorists in finding common principles upon which to build a
paradigm matched to the nature of organizations. Pfeffers article sparked an in-
Introduction
teresting debate in North American academic circles. See J. Pfeffer, Barriers to the
Advance of Organizational Science: Paradigm Development as a Dependent Variable, Academy of Management Review 18 (1993): 599620, and the reactions of C.
Perrow, Pfeffer Slips! Academy of Management Review 19 (1994): 191194, and
A.A. Cannella and R.L. Paetzold, Pfeffers Barrier to the Advance of Organizational Science: A Rejoinder, Academy of Management Review 19 (1994): 331341.
3. K. Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Oxford, U.K.;
Clarendon Press, 1972), 212.
4. U. Eco, Charles S. Peirce. Professione: Genio/nazionalit: Americana,
LEspresso, 11 June 1976, 5258; see also his Introduction in C.K. Ogden and I.A.
Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, 4th ed. (San Diego: Harcourt, 1989).
5. K.O. Apel, Transformation der Philosophie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973);
quoted from the Spanish version, La transformacin de la filosofa (Madrid: Taurus,
1985), 155.
6. H. Putnam, Realism with a Human Face (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1990), 252.
7. M.H. Fisch, The Range of Peirces Relevance, The Monist 63 (1980):
269276; The Monist 65 (1982): 123141. It is compiled in M.H. Fisch, Peirce,
Semeiotic and Pragmatism, ed. K.L. Ketner and C.J.W. Kloesel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 422446.
8. Quoted by J.P. Diggins, The Promise of Pragmatism (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994), 161.
9. G. Debrock, Peirce, a Philosopher for the 21st Century, Transactions of the
C.S. Peirce Society 28 (1992): 1.
10. To date, Peirces thought has received little attention from management literature. A highly interesting proposal is that of F. Byron Nahser, Learning to Read
the Signs: Reclaiming Pragmatism in Business (Woburn, Mass.: ButterworthHeinemann, 1997). Using Peirces ideas, Ron Nahser has formulated a pragmatic
method for corporate inquiry, discovery, interpretation and action. It has been an
enormous satisfaction for meand a reaffirmation of my hypothesesto see that
someone with the corporate sense of Ron Nahser has reached the same conclusions from practical application as I have reached from theoretical inquiry.
PART I
Human Action in the

Thought of Charles S. Peirce
This first part will be concerned primarily with the definition of human action using the main concepts of Peircean thought. It cannot be said that
Peirces writings contain a systematic study of action. However, given the
nature of pragmatism, references to action are present throughout his
thinking.
The first chapter is a biographical overview, with the purpose of making
the reader familiar with the life and work of Peirce. At the same time, it provides a first approach to action, not from the realm of ideas, but from action
itself in life. To know how Peirce acted may help us understand what he
thought about action.
The other chapters develop different aspects of Peirces thought. The
second chapter addresses action from the triadic system of the categories,
which is one of the pillars of his thought and his way of escaping from the
dualisms of modernity. The category of thirdness is a key point for endowing human action with a rational character that is irreducible to the mere
succession of forces. The third chapter presents Peirces metaphysical
thought and provides insights into how human action takes place in an environment dominated by spontaneity and chance, going beyond both the
mechanistic hypotheses and Darwinian evolutionism, which was very
popular at that time. In the fourth chapter, human action is related with the
environment through the study of certain concepts of Peircean semiotic
theory.
CHAPTER 1
Charles S. Peirce: A Life

Devoted to Science
Who is the most original and the most versatile intellect that the Americas
have so far produced? Max Fisch asked this question in the early 1960s
and immediately said that the answer, Charles S. Peirce, was
uncontestable because any other would be so far behind as not be worth
nominating.1 It therefore seems justified to devote the first chapter of this
book to a brief biography of Charles S. Peirce. Perhaps in other studies of
better known authors, this chapter can be dispensed with, but, in this case,
given the fact that most people know very little about the life and works of
Peirce, it seems indispensable to us to include this chapter.
However, the purpose of this first chapter is not merely to offer a biographical portrait of Peirce, but to see how in his own life, Peirce was able to
reconcile his scientific interests with the needs and demands of day-to-day
life. This analysis will also enable us to qualify certain remarks that are often made about the apparent inconsistencies between what Peirce said and
how he lived.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Max Fisch,2 one of the most widely acknowledged scholars of Peircean
thought, distinguishes three periods in the life of Peirce: the Cambridge period (18511870); the cosmopolitan period (18701887); and the Arisbe period (18871914).
12
The Cambridge Period (18511870)

Charles Sanders Peirce was born on September 10, 1839, in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.3 His father, Benjamin Peirce, was a professor of mathematics and astronomy at Harvard University, who was considered to be one of
the leading North American scientists of his time. He was one of the founders of the Smithsonian Institution and the Harvard Observatory, an active
member of various associations that sought to improve education in America, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
during the academic year 18531854, and cofounder of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. He was also superintendent of the United States
Coast and Geodetic SurveyCoast Surveyfrom 1867 to 1874. In addition
was also a member of several clubs in Harvard that brought together eminent figures from the scientific community. These clubs sometimes met at
Peirces house, which enabled Charles to see firsthand the importance of
discussion between colleagues to advance in the knowledge of science, in
spite of the diversity of opinions that, no doubt, was heard in these meetings. Charles had the fortune to be able to grow in a family atmosphere permeated with interest in science, literature, and the theater. Louis Agassiz,
for example, lived very close to the Peirce home and was a frequent visitor.
Benjamin Peirce sought to convey to his five children his interest in philosophy and science, although he devoted particular attention to Charles, developing the boys mathematical and scientific talents from a very young
age, not only by reading books on philosophy and mathematics but also
through chess problems, crosswords, number games, and similar pastimes.
Peirce was a pupil at Cambridge High School from 1849 to 1854. Accustomed to the family atmosphere, he did not adapt well either to the ambience of the school or to the teaching method, which led him to appear
unruly and to not reflect in his work the brilliance and originality that could
have been expected from him. However, he continued to pursue his preoccupations and his scientific training on his own. As a boy just over twelve,
he read a book on logicRichard Whatelys Elements of Logicwhich his elder brother was using as a textbook in his studies. At the age of thirteen, he
was already reading the classic treatises on logic of his time and had his
own chemistry laboratory, which he had inherited from his uncle. His father gave him Kants Critique of Pure Reason to study when he had just
turned sixteen. From then on, Kants influence would always be present in
his thinking.
In 1855, after working on mathematics with his father and following a
private preparatory course for the university, he entered Harvard College.
He continued his education there, more on his own initiative than through
the classes. His grades during those years were always among the lowest of
his class. The lack of interest in the rigid system of teachingwhich contrasted with the considerable freedom of thought that he had experienced
at homewas aggravated by his unruly behavior and his illnesses. An in-
A Life Devoted to Science
13
terest in philosophy continued to occupy a prominent position in Peirces

intellectual work. It was during this period that he read, among others,
Friedrich Schillers book Aesthetiche Briefe, and he would organize and frequent various discussion groups with his fellow students. However, at the
same time, he avoided the official meeting forums. With his timid, evasive character, he found it difficult to integrate himself in the scientific society around him and he would show a certain air of intellectual arrogance
and indifference toward the formal requirements of official education and
a rejection of any authority other than his fathers. He graduated in 1859
with very unexceptional grades.
Although it seemed obvious that Peirce would continue his studies in
chemistry, he wished to work for one year before returning to the university, in part because of his health problems and in part because he wanted to
start to earn a living. He got a job at the Coast Survey through that institutions superintendent and a friend of his father, Alexander D. Bache, who
offered him a position in a field survey that he was going to carry out in
Maine in fall 1859 and on the Mississippi in the following months of the
winter and spring. During that second expedition, Peirce wrote a letter to
his brother James, dated December 18, searching his counsel. A mans first
business is to earn a living for himselfand for his family if he has any. Scientific research is for such leisure as that may leave him; society cannot be
expected to pay for what it may have for nothing (W 1:xix). From the
wording of the letter, it seems that Peirce was concerned about how to make
the need to work to earn a living compatible with having enough free time
to devote himself to scientific investigations. A few days later, his brother
answered him by saying that society pays for science if the scientist is able
to discover the practical side of his profession; and if a person has a strong
leaning for science, he will never be content in any other occupation. Upon
his return from the expeditions to the Mississippi, Peirce worked for a few
months as a tutor at Harvard College and studied classification methods
with Agassiz. A few months earlier, Darwins Origin of Species had appeared and Agassiz had published his Essay on Classification. Biology and
chemistry were thus presented as classificatory sciences.
In summer 1861, Peirce had obtained stable employment as a scientific
researcher with the Coast Survey. He would be professionally linked with
this institution for more than thirty years, which would give him the opportunity to perform a very varied range of investigations and to become internationally known for his pendular measurements of gravity and the
brilliance of stars. That same year, he entered the Lawrence Scientific
School where, two years later, he would be awarded his B.Sc. in chemistry
with the highest possible grade. The study method used during that period, based on laboratory work rather than lectures, was instrumental in
enabling Peirce to obtain a grade that no student at the Lawrence
Schoolwhich started teaching in 1847had obtained until then.
14
In 1862, Peirce married Harriet Melusina Fay. With his job at the Coast
Survey, he earned $35 a month, and consequently, to make ends meet, they
needed financial assistance from Charless parents. Zina was much more
practical minded than her husband, became renowned for her advocacy of
womens rights. She played an active role in the creation of the Cambridge
Co-operative Housekeeping Society, which sought to lighten womens domestic work; she was an active member of the Womens Parliament and
chaired this movements first convention in 1869; and she promoted higher
education among women through the Womens Education Association of
Boston. Zina accompanied her husband on some of the scientific expeditions that he made in subsequent years.
The financial straits did not prevent the following years from being extraordinarily fertile, with an intellectual output that encompassed very
varied fields of knowledge: chemistry, astronomy, geodesy, metrology,
spectroscopy, and also literature and rhetoric. However, the discipline that
would receive most attention from Peirce during these early years of intellectual activity was logic. At that time, chemistry offered the best access to
the experimental sciences and was the best field in which to carry out postgraduate studies. Chemical engineering was also the most promising science for earning a living with science. However, Peirce never had the
intentionjudging by subsequent eventsof working solely in chemistry.
It is true that his first publication, in 1863, was a chemical study, The Chemical Theory of Interpenetration, and in 1869, he published a table of elements
along the lines of the table that Dmitri Mendeleev would publish a few
months later. However, during those years, the idea began to take form in
Peirce that logic was the science that gives unity to all the different scientific
disciplines. Any scientist who is not a scholar of logicjust as with any logician who is not a scientistwill be unfit to analyze scientific reasoning.
Logic is also a classificatory sciencelike biology and chemistryand,
thus, one of his early writings on logic would be given the title On a Natural
Classification of Arguments.
The interest in logic was also evident in his academic activity. During the
academic year 18641865, he taught Philosophy of Science at Harvard. In
spring 1865, he gave a series of twelve lectures at Harvard on the logic of
science; during fall 1866, he gave another series of lectures at the Lowell Institute with the generic title The Logic of Science and Induction. During
the academic year 18691870, he gave a second series of lectures at Harvard, on the British logicians. In the course of his life, he would give several
such series of lectures: some, particularly during the early years, would be
due to his prestige among the academic community; others, particularly toward the end of his life, would be a way of earning a little money. Peirce
would often astonish his audience with the clarity and brilliance of his argument, and on occasion, he would even lecture without notes.
15
The term hypothesis, which would have a major role in the scientific
method of inquiry, appears for the first time in the lectures Peirce gave at
the Lowell Institute in 1866. Using as his starting point Kants distinction
between analytic judgments and synthetic judgments, Peirce proposed a
distinction between explicative argumentswhich belonged to the logic of
deductionand ampliative arguments, which, in turn, were divided into
induction and hypothesis. It was a commonplace to assume that the logic of
mathematics was the logic of deduction and that the logic of experimental
science was the logic of induction, but it was not so customary to assume
that, given that the advancement of the empirical and experimental sciences depends on the formation and verification of hypotheses, these
should be understood as a different class of inference.
The year 1867 was an important one in the life of Charles Peirce. He was
promoted in his job at the Coast Surveywhere his father now held the position of superintendentand he also started to work from the astronomical observatory at Harvard. The observation of solar eclipses would take up
part of his scientific work, together with geodesic studies on the pendulum
and the law of gravity. During that same year, he became a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he presented five essays
on formal logic and the doctrine of categories. The essay titled On a New
List of Categories reflects his interest during those years in Kants and
Hegels formulations of the categories of knowledge. The theory of categories, which Peirce would start to develop during this period, would be one
of the keys to interpreting Peircean thought. Another of these essays was titled On an Improvement in Booles Calculus of Logic. Peirce had already
stated clearly his interest in Boole in the 1865 series of lectures at Harvard,
in which Peirce said that Booles book, Investigation of the Laws of Thought,
would mark a major epoch in logic. In 1870, he returned to these subjects in
Description of a Notation for the Logic of Relatives, resulting from an Amplification of the Conceptions of Booles Calculus of Logic, which can be
considered as one of the most important works of the history of modern
logic for its attempt to extend Booles class algebra to the logic of relatives.
During the same year, he would present a refined version of Augustus De
Morgans notation. Peirce identified himself with the mathematical tradition of algebraic logic, which differed from the mathematical logic of
Gottlob Frege, Alfred North Whitehead, or Bertrand Russell. It is in this second school that the logistic project was developed. Peirce applied mathematics to logic, whereas logical positivism applies logic to mathematics.4
By way of a curious anecdotewhich also shows how Peirce was able to
put his scientific knowledge to practical usein 1867 he was involved in
determining a legacy. He was asked to study whether the signature appearing on a will was valid. If it was, the will would be less favorable to the heiress. Peirce analyzed the signature and concluded, together with his father,
that the probability of the signatures matching was very small. The judge
16
ruled against the validity of the will, although it is not clear whether the
judgment was based on Peirces arguments.
At about the same time, he started to write original contributions and reviews of scientific books for journals such as Atlantic Almanac and The Nation. Between 1868 and 1869, he published a series of three articles in the
Journal of Speculative Philosophy on intuitive knowledge, in which he put forward his arguments against Cartesian thought.5 These articles, together
with On a New List of Categories and the review of the new edition of
Berkeleys works, which he would publish in October 1871 in the North
American Review, were the starting point for the modern study of semiotics.
They also show the evolution of Peirces thought during these years, from
an openalthough qualifiednominalism to a scholastic realism based on
Duns Scotuss ideas.6
In 1869, Charles W. Eliot was elected president of Harvard University.
One of his goals was to give added weight to postgraduate studies and,
consequently, he thought of making the lectures that were customarily
given at the university part of these studies. For the academic year
18691870, several series of lectures in modern literature and philosophy
were scheduled. Among the professors commissioned to give the series on
philosophy was Peirce, who, between December and January, gave a series
of fifteen lectures on the history of logic in Great Britain, from John Duns
Scotus to John Stuart Mill. One of the students who attended these lectures
was William James, who would be a major influence in the future in Peirces
life and thought. Peirces interest in logic had led him to purchase numerous books on the history of logic and to even make a Catalog of Medieval
Logic Books Available at Cambridge.
In August 1869, the first of two solar eclipses that would occur in a very
short space of time took place. The report written by Peirces observation
team, like those of other teams, contributed new theories on the composition of the sun, which were received with some skepticism by European scientists. The second of the eclipses, which occurred in December 1870, was
presented as an opportunity to confirm these theories, in what could be
proof of North American scientists coming of age vis--vis their European colleagues. In order to observe this eclipse, Peirce made his first trip to
Europe, during which he would have the opportunity to discuss his ideas
on Boolean logic with various European logicians and mathematicians
such as Augustus De Morgan and William Jevons.
These early years of professional life denote in Peirce a tendency toward
experimental research in broad fields of scientific knowledge. His initial interest in chemistry was extended to many other sciences. His work at the
Coast Survey enabled him to combine research with remunerated employment. However, science took preference over practice. If his primary interest had been to live from science, he would have done much better to devote
himself to chemistry, but it seems that Peirce chose to live for science, which
17
led him to explore other sciences. Even in these early years, logic was already starting to occupy a primordial position and his investigations, even
if they had specific goals, were always referenced to logic.
The Cosmopolitan Period (18701887)

The second period corresponds to the time of public recognition of the
figure of Peirce. During this period, he performed numerous geodesic and
astronomical investigations as part of his work at the Coast Survey, and for
which he achieved international recognition. Moreover, he visited Europe
on five occasions between 1870 and 1883. Although the reasons for these
visits were related to his work at the Coast Survey, he also had the opportunity to exchange opinions with well-known mathematicians and scientists
of the time, either in person or by correspondence.
Peirce started his first trip to Europe in 1870. The purpose of this first trip
was to study the best locations for observing the solar eclipse forecast for
December 22 that same year. In the course of this trip, Peirce visited Spain.7
In London, he had the opportunity to talk with De Morgan, who would die
a few months later and to whom he was able to give a copy of his writings
on Boolean logic. This was the first time that Peirce was able to see the importance of the scientific community in the evaluation and validation of hypotheses. The favorable criticism his writings received may have
influenced the role that Peirce would attribute to the scientific community
in his thinking.
When he returned from his first trip to Europe, Peirce, together with
other individuals, created the Cambridge Metaphysical Club. This clubs
meetingswhich took place between winter 1871 and the end of 1872are
usually pointed out as one of the times that mark the birth of pragmatism.8
Years later, William James, who was also a member of the club, would identify Peirce as the father of pragmatism (CP 8.253), whereas Peirce, in turn,
would refer to Nicholas St. John Green as the movements grandfather
because of his insistence in applying Alexander Bains definition of belief
as that upon which a man is prepared to act (CP 5.12). The following
years would show the influence that this notion of belief was to have on the
development of Peircean thought.
Through the text of several letters, we know that, at least after 1871,
Peirce was interested in subjects related with economics.9 Two of his favorite authors were David Ricardo and Antoine Cournot. When, some years
later, in 1883, Peirce taught at Johns Hopkins University, he included
Ricardo in the list of his study on Great Men, placing him above Adam
Smith. In a letter addressed to Simon Newcomb, dated December 17, 1871,
and referring to a conversation they had had a few hours earlier, he discussed the law of supply and demand and made a reference to Cournot.10
In a letter to his wife, Zina, written on the same day, he referred to the visit
18
by Simon Newcomb and the nights he had spent studying political economy.11 On December 28, a meeting was held at Benjamin Peirces home, at
which Benjamin addressed the application of mathematics to certain political economy issues. Charles prepared some diagrams for his father for
this meeting. In a letter written to his father on December 19, he explained
that there was a point at which he had reached a result that differed from
that found by Cournot,which led him to doubt the truth of the maximization of profit as a principle for economic activity.12 This provides evidence
of Peirces interest in finding new mathematical approaches to the research of economic theory, which he would publish some years later, in
1877, in his Notes on the Theory of the Economy of Research.
The years between 1872 and 1878 can be considered Peirces years of
most intense scientific activity. During this period, he neither taught nor
gave lectures; instead, he devoted himself entirely to his scientific work at
the Coast Survey, where his workload steadily increased. Until then, his
work there had been focused on astronomical investigations but, from now
on, his responsibilities would revolve around geodesic investigations.
From 1871 onward, he was assigned a project to more accurately calculate
the earths ellipse, and the following year, he was put in charge of the investigations on the pendulum. In the course of these investigations, he contributed to the theory of the pendulums oscillations as a method for
measuring the force of gravity. The need to perform accurate measurements of the transversal movements of the pendulum led him, in turn, to
carry out the first determinations of the length of the meter in terms of the
wavelength of certain light patterns. In 1872, he was put in charge of the
Coast Surveys office in Washington, D.C., and of the weights and measures
office attached to the former office. All these new occupations would take
up a large part of Peirces work, and he found himself forced to stop his
work at the Harvard College Observatory and move to Washington with
his wife. Between 1873 and 1874, he continued his investigations on the
pendulum, together with his photometric research, whose results he would
not publish until 1878 in the book Photometric Researches. The book deals
with a more accurate determination of the shape of the Milky Way, in which
he would include a new edition of Ptolemys catalog of stars.
In 1874, Peirces father left his post as director of the Coast Survey. The
new director sent Peirce to Europe again with the purpose of collecting a reversible pendulum that Peirce had ordered in 1872 and to study the
gravimetric research techniques that were being applied there. The trip
started in April 1875 and would continue for one year. In the report of his
trip, Peirce would say that geodesy is the science whose success depends
totally on international solidarity. During this trip, he met the editor of Popular Science Monthly, who commissioned from him a series of articles,
which would be considered the first written texts on pragmatism. They
would be published under the generic name Illustrations of the Logic of Sci-
19
ence. Peirce put forward his first formulations of pragmatismeven

though the term does not appear explicitlyin the first two essays, The
Fixation of Belief and How to Make Our Ideas Clear.
While in Europe, in addition to meeting a large number of scientists with
whom he had the opportunity to contrast his own ideas, he also visited instrumentation manufacturers and took part in several scientific meetings.
He attended the meeting of the International Geodetic Associations Standing Committee, presided over at that time by the Spaniard General Carlos
Ibez e Ibez de Ibero,13 and he reported on his progress at the Special
Committee on the Pendulum. He became one of the few Americans of his
time to take part directly in the deliberations of an international scientific
association. From the scientific viewpoint, and for public recognition of
Peirces worth and the work of the Coast Survey, this trip can be considered
as the most fruitful of the five he made. Peirce came to enjoy better consideration among the international scientific community than among his compatriots, who, with the exception of William James and Josiah Royce, were
unable to perceive the originality and value of Peirces thought and were
more influenced by his sometimes eccentric, unpredictable and unsociable
character.
There are two events in this trip that are particularly interesting. Peirce
could not be considered a good administrator. Together with his personal
extravagances, which led him to be considered a dandy in certain circles, he
would spare no expense in carrying out his investigations. Peirce reached a
point at which he did not have a penny left and suffered a nervous breakdown. He finally recovered and was able to embark on the trip back home.
The second event is that, during this trip, while in Paris, his wife, Zina, left
him. On his return to America in 1876, Charles filed a formal separation
from his wife.
The activity carried out by Peirce during these years shows him to be not
only a philosopher or logician with scientific knowledge, but also a professional scientist who incorporated his philosophical and logical preoccupations in his work. Thus, for example, when he wrote his Illustrations of the
Logic of Science, he had already made significant professional contributions
to the issues of statistics and probability, which he would discuss in his articles. The closing years of the decade would be years of intense scientific
work. In 1877 and 1878, he continued with his experiments on the pendulum and the measurement of the meter, using a spectrometer that he had
made himself. In 1877, he was elected a member of the National Academy
of Sciences. He returned to Europe that same year to present the results of
his investigations at the Congress of the International Geodetic Association
in Stuttgart, which he attended on that occasion as official representative of
the Coast Survey. This was the first time that an official North American
representative attended an international scientific meeting.
20
In 1878, Peirce asked for a salary increase from $2,870 to $3,500 dollars,
threatening to leave his job if it was not approved. This request led to an exchange of letters between the directors of the Coast Survey and the Department of the Treasury. The reports sent by the Coast Survey emphasized the
considerable scientific value of Peirces work and how it had contributed to
putting the Coast Surveys work and North American science on a par with
the worlds best. In the end, he was not given the raise, but by then, Peirce
had accepted a position as professor at Johns Hopkins University, and he
thought that, considering the controversy that his request had caused, the
Coast Survey would not have any objections to him combining the two
jobs.
Indeed, in June 1879, he had accepted a position as a part-time professor
at the recently created Johns Hopkins University. His relations with this
university dated back to several years earlier. In 1875, William James had
recommended Peirce for the position of professor of logic, and later, his father had also recommended him as professor of physics. In 1878, Johns
Hopkins had offered him a position as a part-time professor of logic, but in
the end, he did not accept it. Peirce wrote to Daniel Gilman, the universitys
president, telling him that his main difficulty in accepting the offer was that
the job would take up all his energy and that it would not be sufficient to devote half of his time to it. Peirce accepted the job the following year, following the controversy that had been stirred up by his request for a salary
increase at the Coast Survey, after making sure that the position was going
to be part time and he would only give logic classes. Thus, Peirce was now
working in two of North Americas most renowned institutions of the time:
as a scientist, in the U.S. governments most prestigious agency; as a professor, in Americas most advanced university. The demands of the two jobs
would mean that he would have to travel continually between Baltimore
and Washington and this would severely affect his always delicate health.
His writings of the time would clearly reflect this dual career: his scientific
work would show through in his academic work, and vice versa.
Johns Hopkins University had been created in 1876 by a group of
wealthy men in the city of Baltimore who wished to make the university a
leading center in research and postgraduate training. During the years he
was at the university, in addition to giving his classes, Peirce also took part
in many other activities. He created a new Metaphysical Club and also took
part in some of the sessions of the Mathematical Seminary and the Scientific
Association. Peirce was highly respected by his students, who considered
his classes to be particularly interesting even though sometimes difficult to
follow.
During his years at Johns Hopkins, Peirce devoted himself with all the
energy he had to his teaching and research work in logic. In the opening lecture of his logic course, in the academic year 18821883, he presented his
ideas on the value of studying this science. In the text of that lecture, he re-
21
ferred to the importance of adapting one sciences knowledge to another

and that asserted in the future, interdisciplinary research would have
greater scientific importance than highly specialized investigations (CP
7.66). Peirce was starting to see that his task was to apply the methods of
logicparticularly induction and hypothesisto philosophy and science.
In the following months, he would reflect on the statistical methodwhich
Darwin had used to good effectand would pay attention to chance as an
active element in the evolution of the universe and its laws. His first ideas
on semiotics, or sign theory, also dated from those years. In 1883, Studies of
Logic was published. This book contained a number of papers written by
Peirce and his students on mathematical logic. This was his main contribution to logic and helped pave the way for the development of symbolic
logic in the twentieth century. However, Studies of Logic was, above all, a
concrete manifestation of Peirces conception of university education. Although Peirce was the books editor, his name does not appear on the title
page, where there is only a reference to Members of the Johns Hopkins
University. This was the spirit of Johns Hopkins in its early years and
Peirces ideal of university work: students and teachers working together
in the search for truth.14
From 1879 to 1884, Peirce was in charge of a half-dozen pendulum observation projects located in various parts of the country. At the same time, he
continued with his work in Washington and his metric investigations. His
scientific activity during those years generated a considerable volume of
publications. Of these, two can be mentioned as being most directly related
to this research. The first is a document that Peirce presented at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and which he subsequently published
in the American Journal of Mathematics, with the title On the Projections of
the Sphere Which Preserve the Angles. In this paper, he offered a way of
projecting the terrestrial globe onto a map, which was used during World
War II to plot international air routes, a proposal that illustrates the practical implications of the scientific inquiries performed by Peirce. The second
paper is entitled Note on the Theory of the Economy of Research and was
published in the 1876 Coast Survey Report (W 4:7278). The theory presented
in this writing sought to provide a guide for scientific investigators in their
efforts to balance the benefits of progress in scientific knowledge with the
cost of the inquiry. The problem raised by Peirce is howgiven a certain
quantity of money, time and energyto obtain the best value-added to increase our knowledge.
As can be seen, Peirces interest for the economy also influenced the development of his epistemological theory. For Peirce, scientific inquiry
reaches the truth after a prolonged effort, in an indefinite future, and by
means of a careful, select use of means. Consequently, it is necessary to develop techniques that enable the process to be shortened: economics can
help the investigator to profitably use the scarce resources available. The art
22
of discovering the truthfor the analysis both of problems in general and

of historical, logical, philosophical, and scientific issuesthus becomes an
issue of economy. Over the years, Peirce would come back to these questions.
In April 1880, he traveled for the fourth time to Europe, although this
trip was cut short by the illness of his father, who would die in October of
the same year. In August 1881, Paterson, the Coast Surveys superintendent, also died. Thus, two of Peirces main supports in the scientific community disappeared from his life. Afflicted by these two deaths, Peirce
seems to have wandered rather aimlessly in his scientific interests. He became interested in mathematics and busied himself with annotating and
preparing the publication of a book by his father titled Linear Associative Algebra. In the early months of 1881, he concentrated on the construction of
four pendulums, which he himself invented to work on the effects of viscosity. He also performed field studies in different parts of the country. In
1882, he was contracted by the editor of the Century Dictionary to write the
dictionarys terms corresponding to logic and philosophy, mathematics,
mechanics, astronomy, and weights and measures, as well as those referring to the university. Such diversity in his work affected his performance,
bringing him problems at the Coast Survey. The new director, Julius
Hilgard, warned him that he would be less understanding than this predecessor with the delays in the reports Peirce had to submit and with his
methods which, in his search for maximum precision, consumed disproportionate amounts of time and effort. The fact is that, during those years,
the productivity of his scientific work was not affected by juggling the demands of his two jobs at the Coast Survey and Johns Hopkins. However,
the reports he had to regularly submit on the status of the investigations he
was conducting did suffer from his divided time.
In one of his trips to Canada to direct the experiments on the pendulum,
he was accompanied by a young French woman, Juliette Pourtalai, which
did not go unnoticed to the surveys new director and other university colleagues. Peirce obtained his divorce from Zina in April 1883, and two days
later, he married Juliette. He then embarked on a fifth trip to Europe with
the purpose of performing new investigations related to his studies of the
pendulum. On his return, he resumed his occupations at the university and
the Coast Survey as well as writing the definitions for the Century Dictionary. As if this was not enough, he added a new course on philosophical terminology.
In the fall 1883 semester, Peirce invited a group of students to work on a
study of the great men of history. It was an ambitious study, which sought
to ascertain these mens biographies, obtain specific data from them, draw
up lists, and process the data statistically. Peirce wanted to show that statistical analysis can be useful even when it is applied to those situations in
which one starts from mere impressions. Although this study was never
23
completed, in 1901 he wrote an article on The Centurys Great Men of Science in which he used part of the work performed during those years. At
the beginning of 1884, he was informed that his contract with Johns
Hopkins would not be renewed. The reasons for his dismissal are not clear,
although everything seems to indicate that it was because of his relationship with Juliette and certain personal differences with his colleagues, such
as Simon Newcomb, who taught political economy at Johns Hopkins.
The episodes of Peirces private life, exacerbated by his personality and
his total disinterest in financial affairs, led him to be ostracized in the social
circles he frequented. Particularly important was the figure of Simon Newcomb, who showed a strong antagonism for Peirce in both personal and scientific life, sometimes fueled by Peirces criticismsnot always done
consciouslyof Newcombs ideas. Newcomb had been a protg and
friend of Peirces father and the relationship with Charles would last almost to the end of the latters life. In Peirces correspondence with Newcomb, it seems as if Peirce was not aware of the role played by Newcomb in
some of the most dramatic episodes of his career, just as he was not aware
either of the harshness of the criticisms he sometimes made of his colleagues work. But the truth is that Newcomb played a significant role, both
in his dismissal as professor at Johns Hopkins University in 1884 and in his
dismissal from the Coast Survey years later. Thus, in a letter addressed to
Gilman and dated December 22, 1883, Newcomb refered to a recent conversation the two men had had, in which names had been mentioned of people
whose only error had been their lack of prudence, although he reaffirmed
the veracity of the information discussed in that conversation. The letter referred without doubt to Peirce, and the events recounted in that conversation could be Peirces relationship with Juliette.15
Peirces exit from Johns Hopkins was to have profound effects. Although he never totally relinquished the idea of continuing to work in
teaching, he would never regain the intense, fruitful relationship he had
achieved with his logic students in that university. Peirce now had time for
a more solitary speculation, which would lead him to organize his grand
architectonic structures of the 1880s and 1890s. The most notable sign of
this new period was the paper he presented at one of his last attendances of
the Johns Hopkins Metaphysical Club, which he entitled Design and
Chance. In this text, for the first time we find the reference to chance as a
truly operative element in the universe, including in its laws. Peirce was interested in the controversy that had been stirred up by Darwinism and saw
in evolution a theory that could be generalized to develop a first-order cosmological principle, insofar as it provided space for the individuals freedom within a rigorous scientific logic.16
In October 1884, Peirce was made head of the Weights and Measures Office in Washington. This new position forced him to travel frequently and to
meet with machinery manufacturers in order to implement the metric stan-
24
dards established at the U.S. Electrical Conference. At a meeting of the

American Metrological Society, he presented a paper on the determination
of gravity and played an active part in the discussions on the harmonization of the U.S. weights and measures standards, giving detailed information on some of the shortcomings of the current system. As a result of his
presentation, a motion was approved to ask for the formation of a committee to advise the Congress and the secretary of the treasury on the need to
create a national standards office that would be effective. In November
1884, he published an article entitled The Numerical Measure of the Success of Predictions in Science, which showed his continued interest in
quantifying the evaluative elements of scientific work, as he had already
shown in his previous writings on the Economy of Research. Two letters
sent to the editor of The Nation, in December 1884 and January 1885 (on the
occasion of the signing of the reciprocity treaty between United States and
Spain), discussing how the signing of this treaty could affect the price of the
sugar imported from the Spanish colonies, highlight his interest in economic issues (W 5:144148).17
The arrival at the White House of President Grover Cleveland was not
well viewed by the scientific community, as his party, the Democratic Party,
was clearly antiscientific in its sentiments and was prepared to investigate
and cut back on government spending on scientific research and to measure the works value by its immediate economic benefits. Peirce was not
exempted from this new scrutiny. The Coast Survey was one of the first
agencies to be investigated. In 1885, Hilgard was fired and Peirce was accused of carrying out his experiments on the pendulum without imposing
any restriction or limitation on spending, with the value of his work clearly
surpassed by its cost. It is surprising that, in the accusations made against
Peirce, the same arguments were used that, years before, he himself had put
forward in The Economy of Research. Peirce refused to accept these accusations and published an answer in which he expressed his surprise that
men unrelated to the scientific world could express their opinions with
such certainty about the value of the investigations carried out by the Coast
Survey; he further announced that he would resign if these accusations
were supported by his superiors. Peirce received the support of the entire
scientific community, including his own colleagues at the Coast Survey. Although the accusations against Peirce were eventually softened, the scandal this caused, together with his dismissal from Johns Hopkins University,
severely tarnished his reputation, and from then on, he would never again
find stable employment.
Peirce tried to forget all these vexations by immersing himself in field research, although he very likely received instructions from the Coast Surveys new managers to limit the time spent on the experiments on the
pendulum and concentrate on completing the studies on gravitation,
which had been left for a long while in an incomplete state. If he did not re-
25
sign at that time, it was for financial reasons: without the salary from the
University, his income had fallen drastically; Juliettes health was delicate
and needed medical attention; and there was also the work with the Century Dictionary, which he had to finish. In 1885, while the inquiry into the
Coast Surveys activities was in progress, Peirce worked on a new formalization of logic, in which he applied his theory of signs to algebraic logic.
Peirce tried to get his results published in the American Journal of Mathematics, but the journals editor at that time, Simon Newcomb, imposed as a condition for publication that Peirce say that the article was not about logic but
about mathematics. Peirce did not accept this condition and, in the end, the
article was not published. In another manuscript on qualitative logic,
Peirce seemed to insist on his new formulation of algebraic logic. This
manuscript is interesting for our study because in it, Peirce distinguished
between those actions of daily life that seem to be performed unconsciously, those others whose importance requires that they be performed
through a critical reflection, and, finally, the actions in between that are
performed through habits that have been acquired by means of a critical reflection. This distinction would again come under study in the Lectures on
Pragmatism that he would give at Harvard in 1903.
Whether it was the scandal about the Coast Survey, which disillusioned
him about his scientific work; Newcombs refusal to publish his article on
logic; his decision to return to the university (he had written to William
James in June inquiring about the possibility of giving a course at Harvard
of twelve lectures on advanced logic and another letter to his brother Jem in
which he said that teaching was the life he wished); or the publication of
Josiah Royces book, Religious Aspects of Philosophy, for which Peirce wrote a
review, which, although in the end it was not published, led him to work
again on his sign theory; the fact is that in summer 1885, Peirce radically
changed his interests and devoted himself to philosophy. All his ideas
which were latent in Design and Chance would find their articulation in
A Guess at the Riddle, which Peirce wrote between 1887 and 1888, and
which, like so many other writings, would never be published. Although
the general thesis of an evolving universe subject to the original influence
of an absolute chance was crucial in his theory, it was not sufficient by itself.
Only after revising his theory of categories (which he had not thought
about since 1867), having been stimulated by Royces book, could Peirce
formulate his theory of the universe. He also felt drawn by the need to construct a philosophical system akin to the Kantian architectonic. Peirce
thought that by combining his evolutionary speculations with his revised
theory of categories, he was moving toward something very big.
One event of that time is illustrative of the breadth of Peirces interests. In
a letter to a former pupil of his, Allan Marquand, Peirce referred to a machine that Marquand was working on. Peirce referred in his letter to the potential of electricity for facilitating mathematical calculation and drew
26
circuit diagrams that could be considered as a precursor of the computer.18

In any case, Peirce did not pursue his exploration of what can only be considered initial intuitions, to a great extent because he was fairly skeptical
about the possibilities of using computers for inductive reasoning, which
was, in his opinion, the foundation of human intelligence.
To summarize, the mid-1880s were, for Peirce, a period of great personal
and intellectual changehe lost his job at the university and had problems
with his work at the Coast Surveybut, at the same time, they are years
when ideas matured that had originated many years before and other ideas
were born that would set the direction of his intellectual work for the coming years. Above all, they are years when Peirce brought to a close his life as
a scientist and began the development of his mature philosophical thought.
Peirce would not ignore the problems of ordinary life and the means to give
a decent standard of living to Juliette, who was accustomed to living in
some luxury. Peirce was torn between serving humanity and doing his
best for his wife. The question Peirce asked himself was whether it would
not be possible to earn a living with what he knew best, logic. With the passing of the years, the question he asked his brother during his period as an
undergraduate took on a new meaning.
The next event shows to what extent Peirce was convinced that his professional future lay in logic. In 1887, he considered the possibility of organizing correspondence courses in logic. He thought of inserting one
hundred thousand circulars in journals as a means of ascertaining how
many circulars must be sent in order to obtain one pupil. His hypothesis
was that one thousand circulars would be needed to obtain one reply.
Peirce confided his project to his cousin Henry Cabot Lodge in the hope
that he would lend him the money he needed to start the business. However, he did not succeed in convincing his cousin. One of the paradoxes of
Peirce is the fact that, having written about the economic conditions in
which scientific inquiry must be performed, he did not seem to apply his
ideas when it came to his own investigations or projects for earning a living.
In future years, Peirce tried to make his way in all sorts of business ventures, but always with the same result. He dreamed of becoming a millionaire through projects, most of which, if the criteria of his economy of
research were to be applied to them, could only be called completely off the
wall.
In 1887, Charles and Juliette moved to Milford, Pennsylvania. A few
months later, with money inherited from Peirces mother and auntwho
died in October 1887 and March 1888, respectivelyand a little money that
Juliette had, they bought a property and started to rebuild the house that already stood on it, which they would call Arisbe and which would be
their home for the rest of their lives.
27
The Arisbe Period (18871914)

The reasons for the move to Milford are not clear. Brent speculates that it
was to obtain the patronage of the new affluent society that was living in
that area, improving his financial situation by becoming a consultant in
practical scientific matters, chemistry, and an extensive variety of subjects;
or to take Juliette to an area that was better for her health; or to convert
Arisbe into a summer school for teaching logic; or, last, to have more time to
write his philosophical works.19
In 1889, the superintendent of the Coast Survey resigned and was replaced by a former pupil of Newcombs who had spent several years researching and teaching in Japan. Although Peirce initially felt optimistic
about this appointment, the new director soon showed himself to be more
preoccupied with the administrative aspects than the practice of science.
By the end of the year, Peirce had submitted a large part of the study on
gravitation that was pending and which had been the cause of his disputes
with the previous director. Although the report presented by Peirce was
harshly criticized by Newcomb, the Coast Surveys new director supported Pierce before the Congress, assuring it that the report would shortly
be fully completed. However, this did not happen, and Peirce was removed
from his post in the Coast Survey on December 31, 1891. Peirce had been expecting this to happen for the last six years. However, after thirty years
working for the institution, his dismissal was no less painful.
From then on, Peirce worked for himself in Arisbe. Although they now
had virtually no income, the Peirces continued spending at the same high
rate. They continued to keep their apartment in New York, to which they
traveled frequently. The loss of a steady job, together with some bad luck in
certain investments (aggravated by the 1893 depression), the chaotic management of the domestic economy, the extravagant lifestyle, and the medical expenses to care for the delicate health of Juliette and, sometimes, of
Charles himself, led to a very difficult financial situation, to the point that
they sometimes lacked money for food. Peirce had lots of projects for becoming rich, but they flopped, one after the other. He was also interested in
publishing and disseminating his system of thought and his discoveries in
logic and mathematics, but he found virtually no support. Although
money came to Arisbe, the debts steadily mounted. On occasions, Peirce
was sought by the police to pay his debts or answer accusations of theft.
During those years, many of Peirces writings were done simply to earn
money: book reviews for journals and newspapers, translations or philosophy articles commissioned by his editors. But they were also years of great
intellectual maturity, in which Peirce was able to give unity to his entire system of thought. The Nation and a new journal that requested his contributions, The Monist, started to publish his writings regularly. The first issue of
The Monist, which appeared in 1891, published the first of a series of five articles in which Peirce would present his cosmological ideas. These articles
28
did not receive the acceptance that Peirce expected among the scientific
community, who interpreted them as further proof of the eccentricities of a
mind in decline.
Peirce sought support to find a steady job in university circles, but without success. In 1893, through an old friend at Harvard, he was invited to
give the Lowell Lectures on the History of Science. He started to be sued
for unpaid debts, to the point that his brother Jem had to come to his aid to
save his library, which was going to be to seized to pay part of the debts. Another friend of his, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, commissioned several translations from him, paying a price above that which was
usual. He also worked for George Morrison, a well-known civil engineer,
performing mathematical calculations for the construction of a bridge that
was to cross the Hudson River to join New York and New Jersey. Today, this
bridge is known as the George Washington Bridge.
In 1895, Juliettes health worsened and they had to move to New York
City. There, Peirce tried to start up businesses with well-off friends. He
never lost the hope that one day he would make his fortune with one or another of his inventions, which were devised as a result of his practical
knowledge of chemistry and physics. The first of these business ventures
was the development in 1892 of a washing apparatus using electrolysis. He
was sure that he could manufacture millions of these devices. However, in
spite of seeking the support of well-known businessmen, his project never
came to fruition. Peirce found himself immersed in a world that, in the
1880s and 1890s, was full of entrepreneurs who were looking for a way to
get rich with brilliant ideas and elegant manners. Peirce referred to them in
the last of the series of articles published in The Monist, Evolutionary
Love, in which he opposed greed to the commandment of love (CP 6.292).
Later on, Peirce tried to venture into the construction of acetylene gas
generators. He involved several acquaintances of his in the project, men
who could provide capital, contacts, or organization skills. The enterprise
finally became a hydroelectric power plant whose location was discovered
by Peirce and which was called the St. Lawrence Power Company. Due to
his financial situation and a certain lack of experience in interacting with
the business world, he was not able to buy shares in the new company and
had to settle for being the companys consultant chemical engineer. He continued to work intensely on his ideas on acetylene. To earn money and keep
out of the clutches of poverty, he worked on the translation of a book and
continued to write for journals. He even tried to be appointed Paris correspondent for the New York Tribune. However, his financial situation did not
improve, and this, together with the idea that he could have been a millionaire if he had only found someone to lend him money to buy shares in the
new company, plunged him into a state of depression that even took him to
the point of contemplating suicide. Indeed, the hydroelectric company
29
proved to be a fabulous business; not so the acetylene lamp business,

which, once again, ended in failure.
In 1897, Juliettes health improved and they were able to return to
Arisbe. They rented out some of the rooms in the house and leased some of
the land for pasturing, which enabled them to earn a little more money. In
March 1898, William James managed to have Peirce commissioned to give a
series of eight lectures in Cambridge, with the title, Reasoning and the
Logic of Things, although he was not allowed to give the lectures at Harvard University.
In May 1898, with war raging between Spain and the United States, he
offered to develop a device for sending and reading coded messages. The
following year, he applied for a job as standards inspector for the weights
and measures office. In spite of his experience and some lobbying by his
brother in his favorand a further intervention from Newcomb, who excused himself from writing a letter of recommendation for the jobhe was
not chosen. There were also other attempts by his friends to get him various
jobs, in a library or as editor of the scientific section of an encyclopedia. The
only job he was accepted for was as an encyclopedia salesman. With the
start of the new century, his hopes in his inventions as a means for getting
out of his financial straits and maintaining himself and his wife gradually
were whittled away. Peirce looked for a way to sell Arisbe so that the couple
could move to New York in search of a good climate for Juliette and a job for
himself but he could find no interested buyers. The group of friends who
were loyal to PeirceJames, Garrison, Langley, the Pinchots (neighbors of
his in Milford), his brother James, and a few moregot him all the sporadic
jobs they could and tried by various means to find him a steady job. However, invariably, Peirces personality and the events of his past life proved to
be insurmountable obstacles.
Peirce continued to write and publish in journals such as the American
Journal of Psychology, Science, and Popular Science Monthly. In 1901, he publishedthanks to the help of Garrison, editor of The Nationthe study on
great men, which would be reedited as The Centurys Great Men of Science and published in the Annual Report of the President of the Smithsonian Institution. That year, he also received an offer from James Baldwin,
editor of the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, to provide the definitions of logic. He would accept the offer although, seeing himself very limited for doing all the work alone, he would request the assistance of a
former pupil, Christine Ladd-Franklin. It was with this commission that
the exchange of letters took place with James with respect to the origin of
the term pragmatism, in which the latter would clarify that it was Peirce who
used the term for the first time. This dictionary would also contain terms
defined by Newcomb, some of which would cause angry protests by Peirce
to the editor of the dictionary for the lack of scientific rigor with which they
30
were written. Once again, Peirce preferred scientific truth above other,
more practical considerations.
In 1902, Peirce applied for a grant from the Carnegie Institution. For
Peirce, this grant would have meant having enough money to dedicate
himself entirely to writing and publishing his philosophical works. However, previous acquaintances of his, such as Gilman, who was president of
Johns Hopkins University at the time when Peirce was hired and dismissed
from that university and current president of the Carnegie Institution, and
Simon Newcomb, were members of the committee responsible for awarding the grants. This committee considered that, considering Peirces personality and track record, there were not sufficient guarantees that he
would actually finish the work, and therefore it decided to not award him
the grant. The report Peirce submitted to the Carnegie Institution contained
a section on the Economy of Research. At the beginning of this section, he
mentioned political economy as an effective example of the logical
method.20
Over the last few years, Peirce had given his attention to this subject on at
least a couple of occasions. In the projected book on the history of science,
the last lesson was going to discuss the economy of research. He concluded there that it was not worthwhile in any state of science to take the investigation beyond a certain point of precision (CP 1.122125): the product
of dividing the likely profits by the likely costs would give, any given time,
the urgency for preferring one investigation or another. The second occasion is in On the Logic of Drawing History from Ancient Documents,
dated about 1901. On this occasion, he referred to the criteria that should be
taken into account when formulating and choosing hypotheses, as the true
hypothesis is one among an innumerable multitude of false hypotheses. He
also referred in this text to the natural instinct that guides us toward the true
hypothesis and the preference for hypotheses that are simple to human apprehension (CP 7.164255).21
In 1903, William James obtained a further series of lectures for Peirce. Although this time Peirce was able to give them at Harvard University, the
universitys directors did not offer any remuneration, which James had to
find by other routes. In total, there were seven lectures. Peirce tried to publish them but James persuaded him not to, as they were obscure and unintelligible. At these lectures, Peirce returned to the subjects that he had
discussed in a draft of a book in 1892, which he titled The Law of Mind.
Among the ideas presented at the lectures is the formulation of the hypothetical inference, or abduction, as mediating between perceptions, and the
perceptional judgment that enables knowledge by experience. That same
year, he gave a further series of lectures at the Lowell Institute, which he titled Some Topics of Logic Bearing on Questions Now Vexed. At about
this time, he started to outline his final description of the classification of
sciences and, in particular, the role played by the normative sciences in the
31
scientific architectonic. Also at this time, he started to correspond on various philosophical issues with Victoria Lady Welby, an English aristocrat
who had written a book on the theory of meaning. Peirce continued to look
for ways to make ends meet and explored all possible avenues: he even
considered the possibility of being appointed consul in Ceylon, using his
brother Herberts position in the North American foreign service; in 1906,
he would try to be appointed secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
In 1905, he published a further series of articles in The Monist, in which he
presented pragmaticism as a way of setting himself apart from the direction taken by pragmatism, especially through the ideas of William James
and Ferdinand Schiller. He only published three of the five articles initially
planned. Peirce, who had always been in favor of an ethics of terminology,
which led him to use terms with caution to avoid confusion, on this occasion decided to put into practice his own ideas and to coin a new term,
pragmaticism, in order to avoid confusion with those who had popularized
pragmatism, giving it a meaning that he did not share. His desire to distance himself from the nominalistic and individualistic ideas of James and
others is basically due to the transformation of the entire Peircean architectonic, which had been gradually evolving since the turn of the century. The
original conception of a logic of normative and methodological inquiry,
which appeared with the formulation of the pragmatic maxim in his writings of 18771878, was transformed, in pragmaticism, into a metaphysical
conception justified by a critical commonsensism and a realistic theory of universals. In a text that takes on a high emotive tone, Peirce announces the
birth of pragmaticism, a name, he says, that is ugly enough to be safe from
kidnappers (CP 5.414). From then on, Peirce would have to be called a
pragmaticist.
In 1906, Garrison left his position as editor of The Nation, and with that,
Peirce lost almost his only source of income. His financial situation was so
serious that he had to sell part of his library. William James and some neighbors, the Pinchots, helped him in his needs. William James created an endowment fund in 1907 to help Peirce. Peirce would be very grateful to
William James for his support, to the point of taking Santiago as his third
forename in tribute to James and writing a will in which he indicated that, if
Juliette should die before him, all his belongings would pass to William
Jamess eldest son. He never desisted in his attempts to earn money and return the money that had been lent to him.22 In 1909, he was still making
plans to rent out parts of the house or sell pieces of land so that he could pay
his debts.
In 1907, Newcomb gave a heated reply to a review by Peirce of the complete works of the mathematician George William Hill, to which Peirce responded with unusual force. In 1908, Peirce published in Hibberts Journal
an article entitled A Neglected Argument of the Reality of God, in which
he explained his idea of musement as that activity that arises naturally and
32
spontaneously from the formulation of hypotheses. In the final years of his

life, Peirce felt drawn toward an empirical justification of religion, which
he himself called theism. That same year, he started the publication of a
series of articles on card games in The Monist, with the idea of presenting his
logical system to a more popular audience. These would be his last published writings.
William James died in August 1910, and Lady Welby, in 1912. Peirce now
only had the company of Juliette, the friendship of the Pinchots and the endowment fund created by James, which he left prepared so that it would
continue functioning without him. Ill with cancer and deeply saddened by
these events, Peirce died on April 19, 1914, totally forgotten by the countrys academic circles. Such an end cannot but be dramatic for a man who
had placed his ideal of research in cooperative work within the scientific
community. With the help of Josiah Royceperhaps Peirces most faithful
discipleJuliette sold Peirces manuscripts (which numbered several
thousand) and books to Harvards Philosophy Department for a few hundred dollars. Juliette continued to live at Arisbe until her death in October
1934.
LIMITS AND PARADOXES OF A LIFE DEVOTED TO THE
SEARCH FOR TRUTH
The interpretation of Peirces thought, and its evolution from his first
writings in 1865 to his death, has given rise to significant discrepancies
among Peirce scholars. The same can be said about his life. It is true that neither his personality nor the circumstances of his life are easy to consider,
but, for the same reason, one must be careful with conclusions that have
sometimes been drawn in which Peirce is portrayed as a contradictory person in his actions. Taking a more positive reading of Peirces life, one should
perhaps dwell on three points that may be useful for the purposes of this
book, while also enabling some of these interpretations to be qualified: the
relation between scientific interests and vital necessities, the role of the scientific community, and the progression from pragmatism to pragmaticism.
Scientific Attitude and Practical Interests
It cannot be said that there is an opposition between science and practice
in Peirces life. From the time he was young, Peirce asked himself how he
could combine professional work with his scientific interests. While he was
working at the Coast Survey, he acted as a scientist who incorporates his
philosophical and logical preoccupations in his work. After he left Johns
Hopkins University, he asked himself how he could earn a living with what
he knew best, logic. He was also able to utilize the practical implications of
his scientific investigations while, at the same time, being able to avoid un-
33
interesting research activities. If he did not obtain better results, it was because of circumstances unrelated to his scientific work. Peirce cultivated a
broad and varied range of sciences: in some of them he was innovative, and
in all of them he worked with scientific rigor. He was interested in chemistry, physics, astronomy, geodesy, metrology, cartography, psychology,
philology, history of science, mathematics, logic, metaphysics, semiotics,
and also in practical applications in engineering, photometry, economics,
and many other sciences.
However, although science and the vital world were complementary,
Peirce always gave preference to science. If he had not, he would have
worked in chemistry, which offered better professional openings than
logic. He spared no expense in his investigations. His interests led him to
research in very varied subjects, skipping from one to another. Peirces scientific mentality was not prepared to apply rigid bureaucratic systems to
his scientific interests. His interest was not in writing reports or in concluding inquiries that had lost interest for him, simply to comply with certain
administrative procedures. Although he found pleasure in the university
world, he thought of the university as a place where everyonestudents
and teacherswent to learn, rather than a place where some taught and
others learned.
On many occasions, Peirce was able to see for himself how practical occupations interfere with scientific life. On such occasions, science can
readily become an instrument at the mercy of other interests. This was not
the attitude taken by Peirce, but he experienced how scientific interests
may be limited by the occupations of life. Peirce would have liked to devote
himself entirely to his work at Johns Hopkins, but he had to limit it to a
part-time occupation because of his work at the Coast Survey. He had to
spend time writing reports on investigations that no longer interested him
and, when he did not do this, he was dismissed. He had to write book reviews and perform other scientific activities in order to earn a living and,
while it cannot be said that they were lacking in the expected scientific quality, they did limit the time he could devote to his writings on logic and the
formalization of the architectonic of the sciences.
Finally, although the difficulties he encountered in his life are to be attributed to many factorssuch as his health and his personalityone cannot help but think that they would have been a lot less if he had applied to
his own life the scientific criteria that he postulated in his work. In the
1890s, we see Peirce immersed in the business activity of Wall Street and
failing in one business venture after another. In part, the causes were his
lack of familiarity with the business world, but a large part of the blame is to
placed on the precise fact that he was unable to approach these business
ventures with a scientific mentality, and he did not analyze them with the
criteria of the economy of research that he himself had developed. The
same thing can be said of his work at the Coast Survey. No doubt, there
34
were undercover interests, personal animosities, and other causes out of

Peirces control that played a role in his dismissal from the Coast Survey,
but the objective facts that Peirce spared no expense in his investigationswhich he then left uncompleted to start new onesand his total
lack of concern for the order of his own financial affairs are unquestionable.
If he had been more cautious in some of his business undertakingsif he
had been a better administrator of his own finances, or more careful in his
criticisms and behaviorperhaps his life would have followed another
path.
In short, science and practice are complementary. Within this
complementariness, Peirce gave priority to science over his practical interests. The relation between science and practice leads us to think, first, that
practice may sometimes constrain scientific interestsalthough this need
not prevent one from continuing to maintain a scientific attitudeand, second, that it may be very advisable to apply scientific criteria to practical decisions.
Scientific Community and the Search for Truth

A point that is often made is the contradiction between Peirces insistence on the value of the scientific community for reaching the truth and the
animosity that most of his countrys scientific community felt for him. This
fact contrasts with the recognition he gained among the international scientific community. What is the reason for this difference? The latter only knew
Peirce the researcher, who took part in scientific meetings; the former knew
the fellow faculty member, neighbor, commentator, and book critic. And
Peirce, as I have already pointed out, was not an easy person to get along
with.
An illustrative point is the different attitudes he had toward Newcomb
and William James. The reason could be sought in the help he received from
James, which induced him to be more respectful with the latter, but, from
the strictly scientific viewpoint, there are also important differences. Peirce,
an unwavering champion of scientific fallibilism, was not concerned if
someone came to an erroneous result in his scientific investigations because, if his reasoning had been rigorous, he would nonetheless contribute
in some way to the progress of science; this was the case with James. However, the lack of a true scientific attitude could only lead to the impoverishment of science; this was the case with Newcomb.
In the scientific communitywhich must not be understood solely in a
physical sense of a group of people, but, above all, in a normative
sensethere is a place even for those who are wrong. After all, science progresses when it is realized that hypotheses that, at one time, were believed
to be true are, in fact, wrong. But those who do not have any place in the scientific community are those who subordinate science to other interests, use
35
it for their own prestige or to win academic posts, restrict science to administrative procedures or make its validity dependent upon short-term results, or adopt dogmatic attitudes, clinging to their own ideas against all
the evidence. If Peirce fell out with those people, he did not fall out with the
scientific community. If ideas are what binds the scientific community together, Peirce continued to be a member of that community, even though
he was alone and isolated in Arisbe.
It seems as if Peirce made a distinction, when considering science, between people and ideas: in science, ideas must undergo an exhaustive critical analysis, irrespective of the people who formulated them. In his
opinion, science progresses in the discussion of ideas, and that is what
unites the scientific community, rather than good relations between scientists. Peirce did not seem to realize that whereas the first part of the statement is true, the second part is not: science is made by people, and,
therefore, they must be taken into account. Although, in laboratory experiments, we separate out those variables that we do not want to investigate,
in daily life it is not possible to proceed in the same manner, and even less so
if these variables are the individuals performing the actions (even though
the activity in question is scientific research, whose nature is different from
practical activity). It is not possible to work with ideas in the belief that the
people who thought these ideas are variables that can be isolated. This is a
mistake that Peirce made, and its consequences were very tangible.
In the last chapter of the biography Charles S. Peirce: A Life (1993), J. Brent
tried to make a conceptual interpretation of Peirces life by applying the
Peircean theory of categories. He wrote that Peirce could be viewed as a
dandy, that is, as someone who is as he is, without worrying about anything
else; someone who, up to a point, is irresponsible, indifferent to the consequences, impulsive, original. Just as the dandy encounters resistance in the
outside world, so Peirce encountered the resistance of the society of his
time, with respect to some of his ideas but, above all, with respect to his behavior. It was in the experience of this resistance that Peirce had to face continual failures. Pierce was awarehe talked about itthat in ordinary life
there are certain social customs, a morality that one must live by and that
cannot be changed overnight. He must have been aware, therefore, that his
actions would be censured by that society, and yet it not only seemed that
he did not care, he did not even seem to reckon the practical consequences
that they could have for him.
Peirce believed in a science conducted by a community of investigators
who, through the use of a suitable method, can, in the long term, come increasingly closer to truth. However, he did not see the danger of isolating
scientific activity from peoples social and moral life until the closing years
of his life, when he stated that logic, which marks the normative character
of scientific activity, is governed by the principles of ethics and esthetics
(the names Peirce gave to the sciences that inquired about the normative
36
character of human action and the definition of the ultimate good, respectively). It could be said that in the closing years of his life, Peirce realized
that his dandyismfirst categoryclashed with the society around
himsecond categorybecause he was unable to follow a conduct that
could mediate between himself and his environmentthird categorya
conduct that would make him act, not only as a scientist but, above all, as a
moral being. Peirce the pragmaticist finally understood what Peirce the
pragmatist had been unable to understand: that the scientific method is
not sufficient. After many years, he understood the individual as a moral
agent who must be guided in action both by his or her own personal development and by the enrichment of the community of investigators.23
Pragmatism and Pragmaticism

The meetings of the Cambridge Metaphysical Club between 1871 and
1872 were an ambivalent period in Peirces thought, during which the ideas
of a critical realism that had guided his first steps in philosophy (due to the
influence, particularly, of Kant and Duns Scotus and, to a lesser extent, of
Hegel, Royce, and Schelling) coexisted with an empirical-nominalistic tradition espoused by some of the men who took part in these meetings, such
as Chauncey Wright, who defended positivistic positions and was an admirer of Darwins doctrines, and Nicholas St. John Green, the spokesman
for Alexander Bains psychology. However, as Karl Otto Apel pointed
out,24 although the influence of these nominalistic tendencies would be
more visible in William Jameswho was also a member of the Metaphysical ClubPeirces encounter with these ideas would only serve to reaffirm
his own way of thinking, as would become apparent after the publication
by William James in 1898 of his book Pragmatism, which would bring sudden fame for Peirce, but at the same time the need to clarify his own ideas.
Peirce wished to free philosophy from tautological metaphysical propositions that were bereft of meaning and bring it as close as possible to the
methods of the natural sciences (CP 5.423, 5.6). His interest in finding a
maxim that would provide clearness of apprehension (CP 5.2) led him to
formulate the pragmatic maxim in the following terms: if one can define accurately all the conceivable experimental phenomena that the affirmation
or denial of a concept could imply, one will have therein a complete definition of the concept (CP 5.412).
Peirce makes clear that pragmatism does not seek to be a Weltanschauung
(a vision of the world), but rather a method of reflection whose sole purpose is to give clarity to ideas (CP 5.13, n. 1). Pragmatism, understood as the
conception of a normative and methodological logic of scientific inquiry, is
much more concrete and limited than the interpretation developed by
James and Schiller (CP 8.258). These authors did, in fact, view it as a Weltanschauung, and this was the characterization of pragmatism that was popu-
37
larized. Even so, his was an ambitious project. Peirce declared his interest
in making a philosophy like that of Aristotle, a philosophy so comprehensive that, for a long time to come, it would continue to be present in all the
fields of knowledge (CP 1.1). This also explains his increased interest in the
final part of his life in completing an architectonic of sciences that would
clearly show the relation between the different sciences and the need to understand logic within the context of the other sciences. The lectures he gave
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1898, together with the material prepared
for the Carnegie Institution, are his most resolute attempt to compile a summary of his ideas.
The critics of pragmatism usually say that this current of thought is a glorification of action, an American idealization of business life and the large
multinational corporations, an exaltation of the supremacy of results.
However, a careful study of the ideas that gave rise to pragmatism by no
means leads to this conclusion, at least as far as Peirce is concerned.25 Although action has an important place in Peircean thought, it has an intermediary character. In order to able to give a meaning to concepts, one must
be able to apply them to existence, as there is an order of clearness that is not
attained until one has determined the practical consequences of stating a
certain truth about an object. Therefore, it is through action that the concepts meaning can be properly defined: through the modification of existence that is produced as a result of performing a specific action. However,
this does not mean considering action as the ultimate end. Even though
Peircean thought may use the practical results to judge human actions,
such actions are not its sole preoccupation.26 Peirce argues that, in pragmatism, the summum bonum does not consist of action but rather is a process
by which the individual, through action, acquires tendencies and habits,
that is, progressively develops him- or herself.
By placing action in its appropriate place in the body of Peirces thought,
it follows as a corollary that, on the one hand, Peirce is contrary to placing
thought at the service of any interest, whether monetary or otherwise.27 On
the other hand, it is not correct either to associate pragmatism with the idealization of the large industrial corporations,28 which have nothing more in
common with pragmatism than the fact that both phenomena originated in
America.
NOTES
1. M.H. Fisch, Introductory Note, in T.A. Sebeok, The Play of Musement
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), 17.
2. M.H. Fisch, Peirces Arisbe: The Greek Influence in His Later Philosophy, in M.H. Fisch, Peirce, Semeiotic and Pragmatism, ed. K.L. Kettner and C.J.W.
Kloesel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 227.
3. The most extensive biography published to date is that of J. Brent, Charles S.
Peirce: A Life (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), although it has not
38
been received favorably by all Peircean scholars. The Introductions to the volumes
of the Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, ed. M.H. Fisch et al., 6
vols. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 19822000), also provide an excellent point of reference. These are the two main sources used in this chapter.
4. J. Nubiola, C.S. Peirce: Pragmatismo y logicismo, Philosophica 17 (1994):
215216.
5. In the 1860s, Peirces friendship with Chauncey Wright and Frank Abbot
led him to consider Descartes as the thinker who had led modern philosophy
along the path to skepticism. See J.P. Murphy, Pragmatism: From Peirce to Davidson
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990), 8.
6. M.H. Fisch, Peirces Progress from Nominalism towards Realism, in
Fisch, Peirce, Semeiotic and Pragmatism, 184187.
7. For bibliographical references regarding Peirces stay in Spain, see the following articles by J. Nubiola, Peirce en Espaa y Espaa en Peirce, Signa 1
(1992): 225231, and Peirce y Espaa: Hacia una mejor comprensin, in Semitica
y Modernidad. Investigaciones semiticas V, ed. J.M. Paz Gago (La Corunna, Spain:
Publications Service, University of La Corunna, 1994), 183191. In a letter written
to his mother on November 16, 1870, he tells her that during his travels he has
heard eighteen different languages, seventeen of which (including Basque) were
being spoken in their regions of origin.
8. M.H. Fisch, Was There a Metaphysical Club in Cambridge? in Studies in
the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. E.C. Moore and R.S. Robin, Second Series (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1964), 332; and H.H. Fisch,
Was There a Metaphysical Club in Cambridge?A Postscript, Transactions of
the Charles S. Peirce Society 17 (1981): 128130.
9. For a study of Peirces references to economics, see the introduction to volume 3 of The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce, ed. C. Eisele, 4 vols.
(The Hague: Mouton, 1976), and the article by M.H. Fisch, The Decisive Year and
Its Early Consequences, in W 2:xxxvxxxvi.
10. The letter was published by C. Eisele, The Charles S. PeirceSimon Newcomb Correspondence, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 101
(1957): 409433. This reference to Cournot has led to Peirce being considered one
of the forerunners of Mathematical Economics. See W.J. Baumol and S.M. Goldfield, Precursors in Mathematical Economics: An Anthology (London: London School
of Economics, 1968), quoted in C. Eisele, Studies in the Scientific and Mathematical
Philosophy of Charles S. Peirce, ed. R.M. Martin (The Hague: Mouton, 1979), 253.
11. The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce, v. 3:xxviiixxxiv.
12. The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce, v. 3:xxiiixxvii.
13. Historical Perspectives on Peirces Logic of Science, ed. C. Eisele, v. 2 (The
Hague: Mouton, 1985), 2:597.
14. For a study of those years, see M.H. Fisch, Peirce at the Johns Hopkins
University, in Fisch, Peirce, Semeiotic and Pragmatism, 3578. Peirces students
during those years included John Dewey, Joseph Jastrow, Christine Ladd Franklin, and Thorstein Veblen. The professors with whom Peirce worked at Johns
Hopkins included James Joseph Sylvester, Simon Newcomb and Charles D. Morris.
15. Brent, Charles S. Peirce: A Life, 150151.
39
16. P.P. Wiener, Peirces Evolutionary Interpretations of the History of Science, in Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, ed. P.P. Wiener and F.H.
Young (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1952), 143152. See also Fisch,
Peirce at the Johns Hopkins University, 3578.
17. C.J.W. Kloesel, Charles Peirce and Honor de Clairefont, Versus:
Quaderni de studi semiotici 1988:1516.
18. K.L. Ketner, The Early History of Computer Design, Princeton University
Library Chronicle 45 (1984): 187224. Fisch also refers to this event: At a time in
1970 when IBMs great Computer Perspective exhibit was in preparation, Preston Tuttle was examining the Allan Marquand papers at Princeton University. He
came upon a letter from Peirce dated 1886 Dec. 30 containing the first known design for an electric switching circuit machine for performing logical and mathematical operations. The letter became a feature of the exhibit and was published in
the book that grew out of it. See Fisch, The Range of Peirces Relevance, 425.
19. Brent, Charles S. Peirce: A Life, 185187. See also E.T. Oakes, Discovering
the American Aristotle, in First Things 38 (December 1993): 26.
20. Eisele, Studies in the Scientific and Mathematical Philosophy of Charles S. Peirce,
251.
21. Eisele, Studies in the Scientific and Mathematical Philosophy of Charles S. Peirce,
254.
22. Kloesel, Charles Peirce and Honor de Clairefont, 14. See also Brent,
Charles S. Peirce: A Life, 313.
23. Brent, Charles S. Peirce: A Life, 340341. See also J.W. Dauben, Searching for
the Glassy Essence: Recent Studies on Charles Sanders Peirce, Isis 86 (1995): 297
n. 14.
24. K.O. Apel, Charles S. Peirce: From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism (Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), 15.
25. H.S. Thayer, Pragmatism: The Classic Writings (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987),
25.
26. H.S. Thayer, Meaning and Action (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1984), 6.
27. Thayer, Pragmatism: The Classic Writings, 25.
28. Thayer, Pragmatism: The Classic Writings, 12.
CHAPTER 2
The Triadic Conception of

Human Action
Any exploration of Charles S. Peirces thought brings one into contact with
a triadic scheme of thought that permeates all levels and all the subjects
studied. From time to time, Peirce refers to this insistence of his in conceiving all aspects of reality from a triadic viewpoint and points out that it is not
due to any cabalistic reasons but rather to his intent to go beyond the
dualistic conceptions of modernity (CP 1.355). This is one of the keys to interpreting Peircean thought. For Peirce, modernity is characterized by
dyadic schemes of thought, which account for reality by means of the
contraposition of ideas, starting with the Cartesian opposition between res
cogitans and res extensa. However, for Peirce, these dualistic interpretations
are insufficient to fully account for reality and, therefore, it is necessary to
go beyond them by means of a triadic scheme of categories.1 In this chapter,
we will first study the three categories proposed by Peirce, followed by a
presentation of a definition of human action based on the three categories.
THE THREE ELEMENTS COMPRISING REALITY
The study of the three categories forms part of the science of phenomenology or phaneroscopy, which is the science that investigates and describes
the phaneron. The term phaneron is understood by Peirce as being that which
is manifest, that which appears. Refuting the Kantian distinction between
phenomenon and noumenon, Peirce argues that there is nothing that is
incognizable, that everything is cognizable because everything is representable (MS 908, 5).
42
External reality is not a phaneron because it is not totally open to observation; in any observation, there are always aspects of reality that are not
known at the time of observing. Neither is the phaneron restricted to what
appears to our senses. All that is required from the phaneron is that it
seem, not that it appear (CP 2.197). Peirce distinguishes between appearing and seeming because the former has a narrower extension the latter. We
may doubt that something appears, but we cannot doubt that it seems to
appear. Seeming is sufficient for Peirce: what it seems to me to be is sufficient as a starting point for scientific inquiry, although it is never sufficient
as an ending point. Thus, Peirce overcomes Cartesian doubt, because I cannot doubt what seems to me to be. However, whereas for Descartes the
problem was how to overcome doubt, for Peirce the key point was how to
found truth based on what only seems to be.
The phaneron is not something that reveals itself in a process that takes
place independently of the mind, because the light by which it is made to
appear does not come from outside but rather from the very subject contemplating it. However, at the same time, as there is no distance between
the phaneron and the mind that knows it, the phaneron is not an object that
the mind can manipulate as it wishes, because there is no distance that
would make such manipulation possible. Thus, the phaneron is open to
mental observation, the most important feature of which is immediacy:
nothing mediates between the phaneron and the mind.
The basic elements comprising the phenomenon can be attained by
means of a subtle analysis, which can be likened to chemical analysis, with
which Peirce was well acquainted through his university studies. Through
this analysis, we reach the conclusion that that all phanerons contain three
categories of simple, undecomposable elements (CP 1.299) that are universally present, although one or other may predominate in any given situation. The three universal categories that emerge from phenomenological
inquiry and which he finds no reason to doubt (MS 1228, 26) are the ideas of
firstness, secondness, and thirdness. If he gives them this name, it is to
avoidin accordance with the ethics of terminologyany term that
may have been used previously and may cause confusion with respect to
the nature of these ideas. These three categories are to be found in any aspect of reality that one cares to analyze. However, at the same time, they are
not separate in experience (CP 1.249), nor is it possible to find in experience
a fourth category that is different from these three (CP 1.292). All reality is
composed of these three categories of elementsalways, and only, these
three.
Such is the importance of categories for understanding Peirces thought
that in a letter he wrote to William James in late 1902, he points out that the
true nature of pragmatism cannot be understood without them (CP 8.256),
and, three years later, in a letter addressed to Calderoni, he says that the
concept has been his one contribution to philosophy (CP 8.213). The catego-
43
ries appear time and time again in all of Peirces writings, which may be a
drawback when trying to give a succinct description of them. A particularly useful reference is the text of the Lectures on Pragmatism which he gave
in Harvard in 1903. The third lecture is devoted especially to the categories.2
The category of firstness is the idea of the phenomenon that appears as it
is, independently of any other thing. The difficulty in understanding this
first category is obvious, as it contains within it the paradox that as soon as
someone attempts to describe it, it ceases to be firstnessit ceases to be independentand becomes related with the subject describing it. To try to
get a rough idea of what Peirce understands by firstness, we can think of
looking at something as a whole, completely ignoring the parts of which it
is composed. Firstness has a sense of quality, but understood not so much as
a quality in itself but as a condition of quality that is indeterminate, awaiting determination. It is pure possibility, independent of time and any relation (CP 1.25, 1.420422, 8.267). It cannot be understood as an abstraction,
because that implies a relation with something, nor can it be understood as
something individual because individuality implies a contrast. It is more
like a certain vagueness, something that is not yet in a condition to be analyzed and is awaiting future determinations. Firstness can also be understood from its presentness (CP 5.44). Viewed from the category of firstness,
the phaneron is that which becomes present and immediate to the mind.3 In
firstness, the ideas of life, freedom, and freshness are predominant (CP
1.302).
The category of secondness is the idea of the phenomenon insofar as it has
a relation of dependence with another, to which it is connected without the
mediation of a third (CP 5.66). The category of secondness reveals the dependence of all things on each other. The cause-and-effect relationship
may be the most illustrative example of this category (CP 1.322325). Another aspect of the universe in which secondness becomes apparent is in the
subjects relationship with the outside world. When one expects something
to happen and something else happens instead, such a situation is experienced as a double awareness, that of the expected idea and that of the unexpected event. This duality is characteristic of secondness (CP 5.53).
Therefore, the idea of secondness is expressed in the ideas of resistance and
struggle, of effort and reaction. Its essence is the experiences hereness and
nowness (CP 8.266). Secondness may be viewed as the category of actuality.
Its mode of being is the actual fact (CP 1.2324). It is the mode by which
firstness finds its fit with the world, enabling it to be related with something
more than itself.
Finally, the category of thirdness refers to the phenomenon insofar as it
implies a mediation between a second and a first (CP 8.268, 5.104, 1.530).
Thirdness is the phenomenons intelligible aspect. As such, it is characterized by thought and law. Things are not significant or intelligible simply be-
44
cause they are associated with each other; they must form part of a system.
The interdependence that is established within the system requires something more than the interrelated elements. For actions to be meaningful,
certain relationships are implied that go beyond the mere dyadic relationship between the elements involved. Following the example given by
Peirce, if A gives B to C, there is a relationship that goes beyond the mere
dyadic relationship between A, B and C: the action of giving does not
mean that A lays down B and C picks B up, as if they were two isolated, unrelated actions. By stating that thirdness implies a relationship that goes beyond the component elements, one is saying that thirdness has a generality,
that is, that it is possible to find general rules (CP 1.353).4 Thus, the category
of thirdness, through the general rules that exist in reality, enables predictions to be made about future events. If firstness finds in secondness the
means to become present in the world of facts, secondness finds in
thirdness the means to endure in time and give continuity to events that follow each other historically (CP 1.26). Thirdness is, therefore, the category
that not only accounts for the mediation and intelligibility of things, but is
also that which manifests continuity and future (CP 1.343).
The three categories are, in themselves, simple: firstness denotes possibility; secondness denotes existence; and thirdness denotes rationality. In
their simplicity, the categories of secondness and thirdness contain a certain degree of complexity. They are categories of complexity even though
they are not complex categories. Secondness expresses the complexity of
two objects action and reaction; thirdness, for its part, expresses the complexity of the mediation of a third subject with respect to two others. However, the fact that they are categories entailing a certain degree of
complexity does not mean that they are complex, that is, that secondness
can be divided into two firstnesses or that thirdness is the sum of two
secondnesses (CP 1.526, 5.83, 5.89, 1.343345). From the temporal viewpoint, firstness is present; secondness is past; and thirdness is future.
Firstness is originality; secondness is experience, or brute force; thirdness is
mediation, or meaning. Firstness refers to what is possible; secondness refers to what is fact; thirdness refers to the general rules governing future
events.
According to Potter, thirdness has three features.5 First, it is mediation: it
is a medium between firstness and secondness; that is, it mediates between
pure possibility and actual fact. However, in order to be able to act as a medium, it must be general, that is, it cannot be either of the two extremes but,
at the same time, it must have features of both. Finally, due to its general
character, it must refer to the future.
To analyze these three features, Potter mentions an example given by
Peircethe case of the cook who wants to make an apple pie for her master
(CP 1.341342). The apple pie she wants to make is not any particular apple
pie but simply one that matches a general description: it is neither raw nor
45
burned; it is neither too sweet nor too sour. The cook has an idea of the kind
of pie she wants to make, which in itself is a pure possibility. For this idea to
become a reality, she must follow a series of steps, such as selecting certain
apples or preparing the pastry. Between the idea she has and the baked pie
is the desire to bake a pie for her master, which will act as a mediation.
The same thing happens when she selects the apples to make the pie. The
cook does not want any particular apples but rather apples that are good
for making pie. However, in fact, she does select particular apples. Between
the apples she wants and the apples she selects is, again, the desire to take
good apples so that the pie will be tasty. This is the way in which thirdness
mediates between firstness and secondness; the law mediates between
pure possibility and actual fact.
Thirdness also implies a generalization. The cook wants to make a pie
and, in all her actions, she follows certain general rules of conduct, which
do not determine which specific apples she must choose nor how many
minutes the pie should be in the oven, except in general terms. Thirdness, in
its character of mediation, is essentially indeterminate. Peirce describes
two classes of indetermination: vagueness and generality (CP 5.447449,
5.505506).6 A concept is general if the subject is given the capability of
completing its definition; it is vague if its determination is completed by another concept. In the statement, Humanity is mortal, the term humanity is general because the subject can replace it with any specific individual
and the sentence will continue to be correct. However, in the sentence This
month, a great event will take place, the event that will take place does
not depend on the subject. When a concept is predicated of a particular subject, even if the relation between that subject and that concept is determinate, two modes of indetermination are maintained as possible, namely, an
indetermination due to the subjects vagueness; and an indetermination
caused by the concepts general character with respect to being predicated
of other subjects. In the example of the apple pie, the indetermination is
given by the general character of the rules followed by the cook with respect to the pie she wants to make and the specific actions she must perform
to make it.
Generality is an indispensable element of reality because mere individual existencethe individual actually existing, without any regularity in
itselfis a pure nullity (CP 5.431, 8.331). The third category makes the phenomenon intelligible, that is, subject to a law, capable of being represented
by a general sign. However, the idea of representation implies the idea of
infinity, because a representation, by its very nature, can always be interpreted by another representation, so that a process is begun that can go on
infinitely. From the ontological viewpoint, this process ad infinitum points
to a certain continuity between all things (CP 8.268). Now, given that the
concept of continuity implies an absence of discretionalitysuch as the
points forming a lineone could be led to think that there is only one
46
phaneron.7 This statement is not so wild if one considers that Peirce himself
referred to the phaneron as the sum total of appearances, the collection of
all the things that appear together before our consciousness, or the totality
of what the subject has in mind (MS 908, 4). For the purposes of intelligibility, the phaneron is one (MS 338, 2; CP 8.301). It is a means for arriving at a
certain harmony of the universe, a cosmic order through which the universe takes on meaning. Viewed from this light, the phenomenon appears
as something open and nondefinable, which never quite takes on its full
form.
Finally, thirdness refers to the future. Indeed, Peirce defines thirdness as
the mode of being which consists in the fact that future facts of secondness
will take on a determinate general character (CP 1.26). Thirdness presents
the phaneron with respect to what it is with regard to future reactions. People have an ability to predict what will happen. People are open to the future but the future is not encompassable by people, it always remains out of
their reach. Peirce formulates this ontological consideration in
gnoseological terms: the meaning of thingswhich includes in a general
formulation what these things may be in the futureis inexhaustible.
The categories are never experienced in their pure state. All three are always present in the experience. If we distinguish them, it is only by a process of abstraction, which Peirce calls prescission (CP 1.353). They are
irreducible elements, from which it is possible to analyze experience, but
they are inseparable. Thus, no term that describes our experience can capture only one of the categories, as our experience always carries with it the
presence of all three. This will at least be true of any experience that we examine consciously. When we examine it, we know it; and when we know it,
we judge it and interpret it. Thus, we only experience qualities
firstnessas they exist in an objectsecondnessand we can determine
qualities that are common to certain objects because we experience them as
inseparably bound to such qualities thanks to the generalizing capability of
thirdness. Everything that we know, insofar as we know it, has an element
of thirdness, even though thirdness is logically dependent on firstness and
secondness.
Peirce ascribes the generality of thirdness to its connection with the potential world. Things have, in reality, paths of conduct, that is, real potentialities, real capabilities, that are not real only when they are actualized.
Peirce criticizes those who say that a red object does not have the quality of
red in the dark or that a piece of iron is not hard unless it withstands an external force. These qualities are actualized when there is an interactionsecondnessbut before that interaction, the thing has that quality as
a real power. One must not make the mistake of confusing what is real with
what is existing or actual: all that is actual is real, but what is real is not limited to what is actual. Peirce insists that whereas the past is the sum of realizedfully particularizedevents, the future can only be conceived in
47
more or less general terms (CP 2.86, 5.458461). The past is what happened;
the future is what may happen within certain limits of probability. Therefore, there is a third relation between events, in addition to simple independence and simple dependence, and this third relation is the real
possibility, probability, or law.
Thirdness is the category of law, which makes us capable of predicting
things and events from the trends observed in phenomena. Future events,
in their full particularity, are truly unpredictable and subject to chance, but
the approximate types or classes of such events are predictable and determinate.8 The repeatable aspects are those that make it possible to characterize things.9 The future is indeterminate, whereas the past is irrevocable.
Although the past is determinate and it is the origin of experiences and
stimuli, the future is not determined by the past, as future events are always
open to the novelty of presentness, the indetermination of the real potentialities or capabilities assumed by firstnessprescinded from secondness
and favored by the capability for generalization of thirdness. In order to understand things, one must grasp the possibilities that these things contain
within them. The thirdness of phenomena invites prediction, even though
the prediction may not be attained completely in the present situation.
Thirdness is the phenomenons hypotheticalalbeit repeatableaspect.
Because it is hypothetical, it is open to determinations other than those that
have happened in the past; because it is repeatable, in its generality, it
makes the world intelligible.10
To summarize, we have tried to explain the main characteristics of the
three categories comprising reality. Firstness is the category of monadic relations. It is the category of qualitative, independent presenceof possibility. Because it is a condition of what may be, it is the category of freedom
and spontaneity. Secondness is the category of dyadic, dynamic relationsof causal connections between two termswhether these be two
objects in the outside world or an object versus the individual. It is the category of otherness, of struggle. It is present where there is factuality and existencewhere there is pure actionwhether this be in the world or in the
consciousness. It is the category of actuality. Finally, thirdness is the category of intelligible meaning. It is present in all phenomena insofar as all
phenomena, being intelligible, imply mediation. Thirdness is the manifestation of continuity, of anticipation of future consequences and, therefore,
of our sense of prediction. It is the category of law; it does not refer to a finite
collection of events but rather to the rule that allows the possibility of future
events having a particular character.
SECONDNESS AND THIRDNESS IN HUMAN ACTION
Our intent is now to try to define human action using the three categories. Whenever Peirce refers to action, he presents it as an element of
secondness (CP 1.337). However, we would be misunderstanding Peircean
48
thought if we were to think that human action is second. All three categories are present in each aspect of reality. It cannot be truthfully said that
there are secondnesses or thirdnesses in a pure state in reality. What can be
said is that there are aspects of reality that carry out the function of
secondness or thirdness in relation to a broader reality. Therefore, rather
than treat action as a secondness, we should ask how the three categories
manifest themselves in human action. The categories of secondness and
thirdness deserve particular attention because the distinction between
these two categories is an important aspect for understanding human action from a Peircean viewpoint.
Because of the circumstances of lifein which we are continually struggling and striving to do things, achieve goals, perform projectsthe category of secondness is the most familiar of the three to us (CP 1.325, 8.266).
We struggle continually; we expect one thing and something else happens.
Our effort is opposed by a resistance from outside, as when we try to open a
door by pushing on it with our shoulder. We are aware of these two realities: the action produced by our effort and the perception of the others resistance. By our own action, we are aware of the changes we bring about on
other things; by perception, on the other hand, we are aware of the effect
that things outside us have on us. In action, we perform the role of agents; in
perception, on the other hand, we act as patients (CP 1.321325).
When viewed from secondness, human action can be defined as a process of interaction between the individual and the environment. The individual performs an action on the environment, which reacts with another
action on the individual. This environment may be a physical or material
environment, or it may be another person. In this case, the two subjects taking part in the action will be calledto use a particular nomenclaturethe
active agent and reactive agent.11 From the point of view of the active agent,
the interaction consists of the action on the reactive agent, on the one hand,
and the perception of the reactive agents action as a reaction to ones own
action, on the other hand.
Peirce distinguishes between an external world of fact and an internal
world of fancy, of which the individual believes he or she is the absolute
master, when in fact this is not so, since the external world can influence the
internal world, the world of personal ideas and rules of action. Life is a continual succession of experiences, of actions and reactions, of efforts and
resistances, of action plans executed and of changes made to the rules of action because things usually do not turn out as expected. Experience has an
impact on the subject, even though he or she has ways of protecting him- or
herself from the influence of the external world; if the individual could not
control this influence by developing certain reaction habits, his or her internal world would be continually disturbed by the impact of ideas from without (CP 1.321). To talk of experience is precisely to be aware of the changes to
ones way of thinking brought about by influences from the external world.
49
However, although secondness may be predominant in action, it is not

sufficient to account for action in terms of secondness, because then action
would appear as the experience of an effort, but without the category of
thirdness, which gives action its meaningful and rational character. In 1908,
Peirce started to publish in The Monist a series of articles whose generic title
can be taken from that of the first article, Some Amazing Mazes. The
manuscript of the last article in the series refers to the distinction between
dyadic action and triadic action, stating that the nineteenth century had
discredited any type of action that is not caused by mechanical force, that is,
pure force without any element of rationality. In his opinion, a logical analysis of action leads to the affirmation that such a stance is a superficial view
of action, a materialistic view that is not tenable because action is always
governed by law. The dyadic character of action is the instantaneous impulse that occurs, but this dyadic view is not sufficient to fully account for
action because it is triadic (CP 6.329332).
Peirce gives the following example. A man throws a stone into the air,
and when it falls back to the ground, it strikes a child and kills her. It cannot
be said that there is thirdness in this action because there is no relation between the person throwing the stone, the stone thrown, and the child hit by
the stone. They are two secondnesses, that is, two isolated events (CP
1.366). The example shows that it cannot be said that the man throwing the
stone sought with his action to kill the child. Consequently, the event that
has happened, even though it can be said from a factual viewpointthat is,
from the viewpoint of secondnessthat it is the death of a child, it cannot
be meant as a murder but rather is an accident. Basically, what is being
talked about here is the distinction between physical events and their moral
qualification. The definition of the moral object includes physical events
but is not limited to them alone. When viewed from the Peircean categories,
the ethical systems that seek to reduce the moral object to physical facts and
then establish a moral analysis based solely on the actions consequences
are meaningless. This would mean remaining on the plane of secondness
and, on this plane, it is not possible to give any moral judgment.
Let us consider another event that may help us understand the meaning
of thirdness when it refers to human action. Take the case of two people
traveling on a bus.12 Each one is traveling for a specific reason but, as a result of a series of circumstances, it turns out that they are traveling together.
The action can be analyzed from two distinct viewpoints: one, from the interaction generated by the fact that both people are traveling on the same
route; and two, focusing on each individuals action, in the context of his or
her personal history. In the first case, we would be viewing action from organization theory. It cannot be said that the relationship between these two
people is equivalent to an organization. However, one could start talking
about organizations if both people had left the bus and decided to share a
taxi to make the trip. They would have to organize the trip: agree on a
50
minimum number of necessary aspects and perform a series of actions

aimed at achieving their goal. Even in the case of such an ephemeral organization as the one we have just described, the essential components required
of an organization are already present: a group of people, certain actions
that these people perform, a way of coordinating them, a common purpose,
and certain motiveswhich may be very different for each participantthat lead them to cooperate in achieving this purpose. From the organizational viewpoint, thirdness, that which gives meaning to the body of
actions performed, is the common purpose sought. In the example given, it
is to reach the destination. From the viewpoint of the individuals forming
part of the organization, thirdness is apparent in the reason that has given
rise to the necessity to make the trip.
However, it must not be forgotten that thirdness is characterized by continuity and, in the case of human action, by continuity in actions. Although
this is clear when viewed from an organizational viewpoint (as there is no
organization if there is not a means of coordinating a series of actions toward a purpose), this could be forgotten when viewed from an individual
viewpoint. To insist on continuity as a characteristic of thirdness implies
that human actions have no meaning when examined in isolation from
each other. To become meaningful, they must be taken in the context of a
personal history of the individual performing them. That is why Peirce distinguished between action and conduct. Conduct is a succession of actions.
Action is performed for motives; conduct is performed for ideals (CP
1.574). Action is secondness; conduct is thirdness (CP 1.337). To say that actions are secondnesses with respect to a conduct, which is thirdness, is a
way of saying that in the individuals different actions there is an element
that may be generalized, which is the ideal of conduct, and which enables
us to foreseebecause of thirdnesss condition of futuritywhat that persons future actions may be.
The description of human action given so far highlights a series of concepts that share a certain degree of similarity: the intent in action, the ideal
in conduct, and the purpose in organization all refer to a teleological character of human action. Thus, the reference to categories leads, with respect to
human action, to a discussion on the relationship between efficiency and finality.
EFFICIENCY AND FINALITY IN HUMAN ACTION

Peirce takes from Aristotle the distinction between final cause and efficient cause (CP 1.211, 6.66). By final cause, he means a general description
of events that does not specify the exact way in which they take place. Final
cause does not determine specifically how an event happens, but only that
it will correspond to a certain general character. Efficient cause, on the other
hand, is a certain compulsion determined by a particular condition of
51
things (CP 1.211212). Finality possesses the typical characteristics of

thirdness, whereas efficiency is within the order of secondness. The former
corresponds to the concept of law; the latter, to that of force. The former is
subject to a generalizing process that is independent from the here and
now; the latter corresponds to the hereness and nowness of events.
According to the processes of prescission, which establish the relationships between categories, the thirdness of action cannot be prescinded
from secondness because the purpose can only be achieved by means of an
effort, and the reference to an intentional action always implies an idea of
secondness that is manifested in the effort-resistance relationship.
Secondness can be prescinded from thirdness but, in so doing, it loses the
rational, meaningful character of reality. It can therefore be said that dyadic
action does not account for the totality of human action because human action is not exhausted in the interaction, in the same way that efficiency does
not account for the totality of causality. The efficient cause separated from
the final cause has no efficiency. It can explain the post hoc, but it cannot account for the propter hoc because that implies a potential regularity and
there is no regularity without law nor potentiality without ideas (CP 1.213).
A broad, comprehensive study of nature requires consideration of the final
cause, but that cannot be treated as a force in a material sense. When Peirce
says that thirdness cannot be prescinded from secondness, he is sayingwith respect to human actionthat finality cannot be achieved without efficiency; in other words, the purpose or goal pursued is achieved by
means of the operation of efficiency. The essence of rationality lies in the
fact that the rational being acts in order to attain certain ends. He or she can
attain them in different waysgiven the general character of
thirdnessbut his or her action is always directed toward the ends. Rationality is governed by the final cause (CP 2.66, 7.366).
Peirce refers to efficiency and finality in terms of physical causes and
psychical causes. All events have a physicalefficientaspect and a psychicteleologicalaspect. Its physical aspect, as a mere motion, is due
solely to physical causes (CP 1.265). Although physical causesphysical
motionscan be detected by perception, the same is not true of the psychic
or finalistic aspects: the intention cannot be perceived (CP 1.253). This point
is particularly important when analyzing a human action in which the reactive agent is another human being. This means that we cannot perceive that
agents intention, but only his or her reaction. Therefore, understanding the
meaning of the others actionwhich implies knowing his or her intentionwill require a cognitive process of greater complexity than mere perception. Although we know the intention with which we perform our
actions, it is not so easy to know the intention of the reactive agent because
it is always hidden behind the actions actuality. And yet, it will be necessary to know the intention if we are to know the meaning that that action
had for the person performing it.
52
The teleological character of human action is a point of the theory that

Peirce had difficulties in determining. Thus, for example, in 1893 he wrote
that science should confine itself to the study of efficient causes (CP 6.434).
And one year before, in The Law of the Mind, he had said that if a persons
ends are already explicit prior to the action, there is no place for development and, therefore, the action becomes a mechanical action (CP 6.160).
However, some years later, the teleological character of human action was
to take on a new meaning for Peirce, because human purposes act as final
causes, through efficiency, but without determining the specific manner in
which human action takes place. Thus, he was able to write in 1901 that, in
order to determine the individuals logic, it is first necessary to consider his
or her purpose (CP 7.185186); and, a few years later, he would say that intention affects the physical motions of actions (CP 1.213, 2.149). What is the
reason for this change? Peirce had attained a complete vision of the classification of scienceswhich he had been working on for yearsand, in particular, he had seen the role played by the normative sciences in the whole
scientific architectonic. This enabled him to consider the role of ethicsas a
science concerned with controlled conduct in order to make it conform to
an idealand estheticsas a science that studies the ideals of conductwith respect to logic, as a science of deliberate thought. Logic does
not need to take into account the actions ends or purposes, but any good
logical deliberation requires a prior consideration of these ideals.
Finalityas an expression of thirdnessis to be found in all orders of reality. Thus, finality is not identified solely with the purpose, because there is
also a finality in the natural order that acts without it being the purpose of
any mind. However, the fact is that the actions purpose is the most familiar
way in which finality becomes apparent to our experience (CP 1.204216).
The mind has its universal mode of action in final causation, that is, in purpose (CP 1.269), so that there is an idea of thirdness in any action governed
by reason, whereas purely mechanical actions are lacking this idea; there is
no final causality in them (CP 6.80, 2.86). It is precisely action according to
final causes that distinguishes a mental action from a mechanical action.
And, Peirce continued, the general formula adopted by such action is to remove a stimulus. That is, the most general way of expressing final causality
in human action is the subjects intent to ease a state of things that keeps
him or her uneasy (CP 1.392), for example, the desire to make an apple
pie. Although action and reactioneffort and resistancecan be considered the chief parts of action, it is the purpose that gives unity to the action
(CP 5.424).
Finality affects action from the future due to the intentional character of
human action, which makes the first in intention the last in execution. The
future is the temporal correlate of finality, whereas the past is the temporal
correlate of efficiency. Thus, the future affects the present, although in a different way from the way in which the past affects the present (CP 2.86,
53
7.369). The past influences the present in a dualistic, direct way. However,
the future influences the present through purposes, in a way that is not deterministic and mechanical, like the past, but in an open way, which allows
the mind the ability to be creative. A human action that only looks to the
past is constrained by what has already happened; it loses the capability for
innovation and the creativity that enables it to skip what has happened until now and innovate. Experience is important in human action. It is necessary to take into account what has happened, but it cannot be determinant;
if it were, it would mean reducing rationality to a mechanical rationality,
which would only be moved by a continuation from what has happened so
far. It would mean reducing human action to what Polo has called
ceremonialisms, that is, addressing new problems using old procedures
of proven success, which cannot help us in addressing novelty.13
Having reached this point, two inseparable aspects have been considered in human action. On the one hand, human action is defined as a process of interaction between the subject and an environment, a process by
which the subject acts on that environment and the environment reacts, in
turn, with an action on the subject, which that subject perceives. It is assumed that this process can continue indefinitely so that human life would
beviewed from this outlooka continual succession of actions and reactions with the environment. However, at the same time, the other aspect
that must be considered is the intention, or purpose, with which people perform a certain action. It is that intention that gives human action its rational,
deliberate character. In very general terms, this purpose can be defined as
the desire to calm a restlessness or satisfy a need.
After this, two questions remain to be answered. On the one hand, we
have just explained that mechanical rationality is not appropriate for a teleological conception of human action that allows for the appearance of novelty in action. This means that the world must be configured in such a
manner that it allows the appearance of such novelties. On the other hand,
this environment reacts and the active agent perceives this reaction and is
affected by it, which raises the question of how the subject perceives the environment. In the next chapter, using Peirces cosmological ideas, we will
discuss the nature of that world on which people act, and in the following
chapter, we will use the study of his epistemological and semiotic ideas to
analyze how the subject knows that world.
NOTES
1. In formulating his theory of categories, Peirce acknowledges the influence
of Aristotle (CP 2.384, 2.445 n. 1, 5.43), Kant (CP 1.300), and Hegel (CP 1.368, 5.43,
5.436).
2. There are at least two versions of this lecture: version a, The Categories
Continued (CP 5.71 n. 1, CP 5.8287); version b, The Categories Defended
(CP 5.6681, CP 5.8892).
54
3. A. De Tienne, Peirces Definitions of the Phaneron, in Charles S. Peirce and

the Philosophy of Science, ed. E.C. Moore (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
1993), 282.
4. Hausman points out that these general guidelines form part of Peirces realism and that, in this sense, thirdness is a foundational category because it is the
category that provides the essential constituents of his realism. See C.R. Hausman,
Charles S. Peirces Evolutionary Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993), 10, 133.
5. V.G. Potter, Charles S. Peirce on Norms and Ideals (Worcester: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1967), 87.
6. For a discussion of the analysis of vagueness, see the articles by C.
Engel-Tiercelin, C.S. Peirce et le projet dune logique du vague, Archives de
Philosophie 52 (1989): 553579, and Le vague est-il rel? Sur le ralisme de Peirce,
Philosophie 10 (1986): 6996; see also the article by M. Nadin, Peirces Logic of
Vagueness and the Category of Synechism, The Monist 63 (1980): 351363.
7. A. De Tienne, Peirces Definitions of the Phaneron, 285.
8. C. Hartshorne, La creatividad en la filosofa estadounidense (Mexico City:
Edamex, 1987), 108109.
9. Hausman, Charles Peirces Evolutionary Philosophy, 1011.
10. Hausman, Charles Peirces Evolutionary Philosophy, 1112.
11. Here we are following the terms used by J.A. Prez Lpez in the formulation of his theory of human action and the application of this theory to organizations.
12. This example was taken from J.A. Prez Lpez, Fundamentos de la direccin
de empresas (Madrid: Rialp, 1995), 1415.
13. L. Polo, Quin es el hombre? Un espritu en el mundo (Madrid: Rialp, 1991),
2425.
CHAPTER 3
The World in Which

Humans Act
Human action contains within itself the germ of novelty. The past offers
clues for venturing ideas about what the future actions may be, but in no
case does it determine the actions concrete specificity. When the interaction takes place with another human being, the character of novelty is not
only in the active agent performing the action but also in the reactive agent
receiving the actions effect and reacting to it. So our question now is, what
characteristics do these agents possess so that their actions can always have
this character of novelty?
Our reference point for exploring this question is the series of articles
published by Peirce in The Monist between 1891 and 1893 in which he set
out his metaphysical theory and his cosmological vision. We will analyze
successively his criticism of necessitarianism and determinism, his theory
of evolution, and the principle of continuity or synechism. Using Peirces
ideas, we will present a summary of organization theories and conclude
with a critical analysis that will enable us to apply what has been said to the
case of human action.
THEORIES THAT EXPLAIN THE LAWS OF NATURE
Peirce maintains that the regularities observed in the universe must be
explained. He does not accept the position of those who take such uniformities for granted and only stop to take notice of the exceptions. According
to Peirce, what should really surprise us, and what we should seek to explain, is the fact that there exist in the universe events and objects that fol-
56
low certain regular norms. It should not surprise us that trees grow without
any order in a forest. However, if we see that the trees in a forest follow a
particular alignment, we should ask the reason why such regularity exists.
If we pitch a coin and it turns up sometimes heads and sometimes tails, it
should not seem anything out of the ordinary to us. However, we should
find it strange if it shows heads every time (CP 6.12).
When explaining the regularity observed in the universe, Peirce rejects
mechanistic explanations, which were very popular in his time. The arguments against mechanism are to be found, particularly, in the second of the
series of articles published in The Monist, The Doctrine of Necessity Examined (CP 6.3565). As described by Peirce, the mechanistic view is based
on the assumption that the state of affairs prevailing at a certain time, together with certain immutable laws, fully determines the state of affairs at
another, later time. In other words, starting with the state of the universe at
its origin, the laws of mechanics allow one to deduce any subsequent state
of the universe.
In Peirces opinion, the principle of mechanism cannot be sustained either as a postulate of scientific inquiry or from the observation of Nature; it
is an a priori. It is difficult to maintain it as a postulate when the very conclusions of science seek no more than to be probable and under no circumstances is it argued that the conclusions reached are true without exception
(CP 6.3942). The observation of nature does not support the validity of the
mechanistic principle either, as, although we observe elements of regularity in it, it does not follow from our observations that this regularity is exact
or universal. In fact, it usually happens that the more precise our observations are, the more certain we are of the irregularities that exist (CP 6.4346,
1.407). Therefore, for Peirce, the principle of mechanism is nothing more
than an a priori that its proponents seek to justify using certain empirical arguments lacking any solid basis. Against them, Peirce brings to bear his
own arguments (CP 6.5765). He points out that there is an observable increase in complexity in all fields of science and that this complexity cannot
be explained by mechanism; that a theory that takes into account this element of spontaneity is logically superior to mechanistic explanations; and
that mechanism is at a loss when it must account both for the irregularities
of the universe and certain realities that are outside the material scope of reality, such as consciousness.
Peirce does not deny the existence of regularities in the universe. What
he does see is that the regularity is not sufficient in itself to account for other
observed phenomena that have to do with spontaneity, irregularity or novelty (CP 6.30). The difference is that for mechanism, the arbitrary specifications of the universe were established once and for all at the beginning,
whereas for Peirce there is a continual process of diversification and specification. For mechanism, the laws remain unchangeable and it is the circumstances that bring about variety in the form of concrete events. For Peirce,
57
the lawssomehow or otherchange or, at least, they must contain within

themselves the reason for the appearance of novelties and exceptions. Having refuted mechanism, Peirce argues that the only way to account for the
laws of nature is to assume that they are the product of evolution, so that,
having understood this to be so, it is not necessary to consider them absolute or obey them exactly. By appealing to evolution, he allows for the presence of an element of indeterminacy or spontaneity that is explained not by
errors of observation but by the imperfect character of the law (CP 6.13).
Peirce distinguishes several modes of evolution, which he terms tychasm
(evolution by fortuitous variation), anancasm (evolution by mechanical necessity), and agapasm (evolution by creative love) (CP 6.302).1 The first type
of evolutiontychasmis understood by Peirce as being an occurrence of
mutations or variations by chance, without any reason: chance or the fortuitous events beget order (CP 6.297). Chance is not linked to any direction
or end. The principle that best illustrates this type of evolutionism is the
Darwinian principle of the struggle for existence, which explains why
some organisms survive while others become extinct. This principle also
has its applications in the social order, where the affirmation that action is
moved by self-interest and selfishness has been espoused by many. The second type of evolutionanancasmis deterministic (CP 6.298). The authors
classed in this second type explain evolution in terms of mechanistic principles, without leaving any room for chance. The law of energy conservation,
which is tantamount to saying that the operations governed by mechanical
laws are reversible, would come under this interpretation. We have already
seen Peirces criticism of this stance: that it cannot account for the growth
processes observed in the universe. The third type of evolution
agapasmaffirms the presence of a form of love in the evolutionary process.
This third typefor which Peirce cites Jean Baptiste Lamarck as one of its
best proponentsmaintains that evolution takes place in small changes
brought about by efforts toward an end and assumes that the development
of the species has taken place in the course of a series of imperceptible
changes that have occurred during the individuals lives, as a consequence
of endeavor and exercise. Whereas Darwin explains evolution in terms of
chance, Lamarck explains it as an effect of habit and endeavor. Growth
takes place during exercise and implies an acquisition of habits (CP
6.299300). Growth due to exercise follows a very different law than that
followed by the mechanical law of the deterministic theories. This view is
closer to Peirce who, although he wishes to preserve a space for spontaneity
and chance, does not seek to reduce the entire explanation of the universe to
chance. Therefore, Peirces cosmological explanation aligns itself with an
evolution that conceives the world as subject to a growth process brought
about by small, continually occurring changes, which are generated as a
consequence of the endeavor and exercise carried out by agents pursuing
an end.
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Anancasm and tychasm are two degenerated versions of agapasm.

Tychasm is missing an element of order; anancasm is missing an element of
chance. In agapasm, these two elements appear together, so that the element of spontaneity brought by tychasm prevents agapasm from degenerating into a kind of necessitarianism. Agapasm, as a third theory proposed
by Peirce, somehow includes in it the other two. Evolutionas in
anancasmtakes place in stages and with a tendency toward perfection,
although its changesas in tychasmoriginate from variations that have
no precedent or are not necessary. Agapasm is an evolution that includes
chance and necessity, although it cannot be reduced to any one of them individually nor to the sum of both, because it adds a new elementwhich
acts in the order of thirdnessand which can be explained as an increase in
sympathy between the elements of the universe or a tendency toward an expanding continuity (CP 6.305).
Reality is characterized by a harmonious disorder or disordered harmonydepending on how you look it atwhose unity is given by the
evolutionary love of agapasm. Love is the great evolutionary agency
of the universe (CP 6.287), Peirce writes at the beginning of the last article of
the series we have been discussing, which he entitles Evolutionary Love.
The movement of love is circular: with the same impulse, it projects objects
toward independency and draws them into harmony (CP 6.288). Evolutionary love does not startle with sudden changes; it does not progress by
revolutions but by small, imperceptible changesand in this it resembles
tychasmalthough these changes do not happen by chance but for a reason that explains themand in this it resembles anancasmalthough this
reason is not a mechanical reason but answers to a purpose, which distinguishes it from anancasm (CP 6.312). The concept of agap offers a means of
controlling action that allows space for spontaneity and, at the same time,
provides the continuity of the mind when faced with the appearance of
new ideas.2 Thus, evolutionary love leads to continuous, unstrident
changes moved by a purpose.
Peirce observes the presence in reality of certain processes that tend toward an end, even though it is not an intentional end; they are due to external causes, and it can be said that they follow a necessary development,
even though these processes are not aimed toward an end. This type of process comes under anancasm, which is necessary, but purposeless, development. We can say in such cases that action has a conclusion but not an end.
On the other hand, there are processes that have an intentional character,
depend on internal conditions, and are directed toward a purpose. These
are the processes corresponding to agapasm. Only these allow for a certain
spontaneity, which is because the finalitys order does not determine the
way in which it happens. Human action is to be included in this second
type of process.
59
OBJECTIVE IDEALISM AND SYNECHISM

It may be difficult to conceive how this type of action refers to the material world. One possible explanation of why Peirce takes this stance could
be his desire to move away from Cartesian dualism. In his arguments
against this dualism, Peirce asks what class of monism can give a unitary
explanation of the universe. Peirce lists three views that explain the relation
between the laws of res cogitans and res extensa, of mind and matter. These
views are neutralism, which considers laws to be independent; materialism,
which gives primacy to the physical laws and views the psychic world as
derived from the former; and, finally, idealism, which gives primacy to the
laws of the psychic world and takes the physical laws as derived from the
former. Having rejected materialism, Peirce also rejects neutralism by appealing to Ockhams principle of not multiplying entities without reason.
Consequently, for Peirce, the only intelligible theory of the universe is that
of objective idealism (CP 6.24, 6.264ff., 4.551). In his attempt to give a unitary
explanation of the universe, Peirce gives priority to the mental,
cognoscitive plane over the physical or material aspect, to the point that for
Peirce, matter is effete mind; that is, the physical laws are inveterate mental habits (CP 6.25). Thus, the laws that explain the universe must be explained in the manner of human cognoscitive laws or processes.
For Peirce, the primary and fundamental law of mental action consists of
a tendency toward generalization. This tendency is the law of the growth of
the mind. How does he define this law of the mind? The mind grows by
means of a process of progressive generalization of ideas. Each new idea
appears in the consciousness as a modification of a more or less general
idea that is already present in the mind. The bond between the idea that has
yet to be formed and the idea that has already been, which allows the former to become present in the consciousness, is what he calls habit (CP
6.141142). Therefore, the general law of the mind, which is the law of habit,
views the progress of knowledge as a process by which the ideas that appear are added to the ideas that already exist so that they become increasingly extensive; that is, although their power to affect other ideas is
reduced, their power to bring other ideas with them increases (CP
6.135136, 6.145, 6.268). They lose in intensity but gain in generality.
Applying the objective idealism proposed by Peirce as an alternative to
Cartesian dualism, just as in the internal world ideas affect each other by
means of a continual connection between them, so also in the external
worldthe material universeobjects are related with each other in a harmonious unity. Matter is not completely inanimate but, like the mind, is
sustained by habits, so that what we call matter is not completely dead,
but is merely mind hidebound with habits. It still retains the element of diversification; and in that diversification there is life (CP 6.158). This gives
rise to another of the key concepts of Peircean thought: the principle of continuity or synechism (CP 6.202, 6.103).
60
The principle of continuity enables a law to be formulated that is not necessary or invariable in its character. General ideas have a certain character
of regularity, because when faced with a certain sensation, it is foreseeable
that the mind will act in the future in the same way as it has acted until now.
However, this is not necessarily absolute, as there is always an element of
uncertainty, which does not imply a defect for the habit but, on the contrary,
its essence. In spite of their similarities, the laws of mind are not so subject
to law as are the laws of matter. The laws of matter learn from the laws of
mind that the forces that are experienced are only indications that it is more
likely that things will happen as they have happened until now than that
they will happen in a different way, although there is always room for spontaneity and for changing the direction of action. If this were not so, life
would become stratified and lose all its richness (CP 6.148, 6.23).
With the principle of continuity, Peirce manages to find a middle path
between absolute chance and complete determinism. He questions the expression chance begets order, which he says is one of the cornerstones of
modern physics and which has become fashionable with the growing popularity of Darwins writings (CP 6.297). Peirce does conceive this expression in a Darwinian sense, as a chaotic happening of events, but in the
context of a theory of probability that accounts for the regularity permeating the essence of events (CP 6.113, 6.125). Chance is an essential element of
the universe inasmuch as it manifests the diversity and variety of things
and events which law does not prevent (CP 6.612). The hypothesis of
chance thus becomes a specific instance of the hypothesis that everything
in the universe is explainable, although not in an absolute, rigid way, without even the smallest chink for exception, but in a general way (W 4:549).
This chance must be absolute, that is, not derivable from lawas if a deterministic law could account for the phenomena of chancebut, at the same
time, it is not completely lacking in law but at least shows the regularity of
the absence of a deterministic law. This is the only regularity it can show,
thanks to which it can be studied statistically and can allow the development of certain laws by means of the law of habits (CP 6.606).
Peirce would not accept a theory of probability that assigns an initial
probability to the experiment, irrespective of the specific events of that experiment, because that would be tantamount to saying that past experience
does not count and that, therefore, all events are independent and, by the
same argument, completely fortuitous. For Peirce, the past does influence
the present. There is a law behind the action of throwing dice, but that law
does not tell us what will happen in each throw. Also, the probability that a
six will be thrown changes with each throw. In the long run, if the die is not
fixed, it will be one-sixth, but this is not so from the start of the experiment:
the law changes. It is in this sense that Peirce is against mechanism. For
mechanism, chance is only a way of giving a name to a cause that is unknown to us. However, for Peirce, chance is not merely a manifestation of
61
our ignorance but a real element of the universe (CP 6.54, 6.612) which
gives meaning to the irregularities observed in it. As Potter points out, it
can be objected that Peirce is not able to escape from giving an absolute
character to law, as the tendency to acquire habits itself appears as a law.
However, although this tendency may have the character of law, it does not
appear as a law in the mechanistic sense of an inviolable, deterministic law
but in the sense of a mental law, which includes in its own essence the fact
of being changed such that, if this were not so, it would cease to exist.3
Due to the reality of chance and the partial openness of the future, no
event necessarily follows from its predecessors, which are first in respect
to all future events. However, there exists a positive relationship of an event
with the most intensive class of its possible successors. Although an event
does not necessarily have specific successors, it does have to have successors, and some of these successors general features are established beforehand. The independence of events with respect to their successors does not
mean that any type of event can follow a certain event. A first does not have
a defined future second, but it is bound to be seconded. There are not
future seconds that will definitely be; what will be is that the indeterminate future will be progressively replaced by additional constituents of a
partially renewed past, which, being a past, will be determinate and irrevocable.4 The future, therefore, is neither pure dependence nor pure independence; it is a nondependence with respect to definite details and a
dependence with respect to more or less general lines. Futurity, or real possibility, contrasts equally with necessity and pure possibility. Events are not
required, but rather implied, by their predecessors, because events require
their prior conditions. The past is the sum of realized events; the future is
the body of real or limited possibilities that may be realized in the future, a
search that is subject to further determination. Peirce would have considered inconceivable a world in which the future was completely unpredictable and bereft of approximate, or even probabilistic, laws.
Although chance plays an important role in Peircean thought, its role is
subsidiary to that of the law of continuity, which is the law that acts as
thirdness (CP 6.202). Chance is a necessary condition for the creative evolution that Peirce perceives in the universe, but it is continuity that acts as the
law of that evolution and maintains it. Chance finds its place within the
principle of continuity or synechism. As spontaneity is a real ingredient of
the universeand not just the absence of necessity, regularity or order, or a
simple condition of arbitrarinessit is inseparable from the growth of law,
as explained by the law of habits (CP 6.5860).5 Wherever diversity increases, chance starts to operate; wherever uniformity increases, habit
starts to operate.
The criticism of mechanism and the principle of synechism can serve as
two reference points for analyzing the development of organizational theories from their early formulations to the present day. Although it will not be
62
possible to enter into a detailed discussion of the main theories that have
been proposed, a brief sketch of the principle features will be sufficient to illustrate the points at which Peirces ideas may provide an interpretational
basis for assessing these theories.
ORGANIZATIONAL THEORIES
Human action takes its meaningfulness from the indeterminate character of the universe, which is open to an indefinite number of alternatives. If
this were not so, in other words, if the explanatory model was a mechanistic, deterministic modelhuman action would have no further meaning
than that of being one more element of the system.
This is the model on which the first contemporary formulations of organizational theory were based in the early twentieth century.6 In 1911, Taylor
published The Principles of Scientific Management,7 which is considered to be
the first contemporary study of organizations. Taylor defended the application of scientific method to job design, separating the design task from
the implementation and execution task. Thus, management is responsible
for designing the job and the methods for performing the task, whereas the
workers confine themselves to carrying out the task as instructed. The influence of the Taylorian scheme is still felt today in what has come to be
called the classic theory of management. One example of this theory is the bureaucratic model identified by Max Weber in The Theory of Social and Economic Organization.8 In this work, Weber describes an ideal organization
based on the following features: a well-defined hierarchy, division of labor
by functional specialties; a system of rules that defines the rights and duties
of managers and subordinates; a system of procedures and methods for
carrying out the tasks; impersonal relations that clearly separate the individuals private life from his or her work in the organization; and recruitment and promotion mechanisms based on merit and skill. In short,
bureaucracy is depicted as the organizational form par excellence for obtaining efficient results: it is a highly developed, well-oiled machinery that
advances tirelessly toward the achievement of the collective well-being.
One should not deny the significant contribution made by these early formulations on the nature of organizations and labor in introducing an element of rationality in production work, in an environment in which work
conditions can often be subhuman. However, in spite of this positive assessment, it is also true that these different formulations described a limited
model of humanity, which did not take into account the individuals creativity and capacity for initiative.
The successive organizational theories that have been formulated have
been attempts to enrich and go beyond the mechanistic model, complementing the variables it has introduced with others that help give a more
complete idea of the individual and human action. As a result of Elton
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Mayos experiments in Hawthorne, a significant proportion of the principles defined by the classic theory began to be questioned. Reacting to the
principles of the classic school, the human relations school,9 which was
formed as a result of these experiments, stressed the importance of individual needs, individual motivation, attitudes and values, and informal
groups. Theory Y, proposed by McGregor,10 in contraposition to what he
called Theory Xand which embraces the principles of the classic
schoolis typical of this current. Another line that seeks to go beyond the
classic theory is the institutional school, whose most emblematic exponent is
P. Selznick,11 who centered his objections on bureaucracy. According to
Selznick, bureaucracy tends to generate its own goals, which do not always
match those of its members, and to pursue achievement of the former to the
detriment of the latter.
One of the most influential criticisms of the bureaucratic model has
come from decision theory. Herbert Simon highlighted the limited rationality of the individuals who make decisions in organizations and the need to
define the premises in which decision making takes place.12 The concept of
limited rationality introduced by Simon is one of the most significant criticisms that have been put forward of the mechanistic model, as it shows the
imperfect character of the information available for making decisions and,
consequently, the limitations of the scientific model when applied in the
context of human action. Although Simon is a step forward from the classic
theory, the model on which he based his arguments is still basically the
same: the idea of limited rationality does not imply any qualitative change
in the conception of the individual, but rather confines itself to showing the
restrictions imposed by the environment on rational economic calculation,
on which both the classic model and Simon based their decisions.13
Since the 1960s, organizational theories have tended toward viewpoints
that emphasize, above all, the contingent, singular aspects of management
action. Instead of trying to find a model that accounts for the general aspects of the organizationadopting an outlook similar to the ideals of
modern scientific methodorganizational theorists have placed more emphasis on the differences than on the identities, to the point of insisting, not
so much on each situations common characteristics, as on its peculiarities.
One of the major contributing factors to this state of affairs has been a
change in the basic sciences underlying organizational theories. While the
studies carried out at the turn of the century seemed to give more weight to
engineering and the hard sciences, in recent decades the social sciences
have become increasingly important in research. One example of these new
tendencies is to be found in the contingency theories. These theories ground
their conceptual developments on the need to adapt the organization to
each context, defined as the organizations environment, strategy, and history, such that there is no single organization form that is superior to the
others, but rather the organization form must be contingent. Consequently,
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in order to assess or design an organization, we first need to understand its

context, which is basically summarized in its strategy, and then organize its
activities, determining those units to be differentiated or segmented and
establishing the necessary integration mechanisms to ensure the attainment of the organizations goals.14 Through the ordered application of
these principles, it is possible to define a harmonious structural framework
for implementation of the strategy. On the contrary, a mismatch between
structure and strategy will lead to financial underperformance by the organization. Other studies published during the 1980s developed different aspects of this basic conceptual framework: for example, R. Nelson and S.
Winters studies, based on the evolutionary theory,15 the organizational ecology represented by M.T. Hannan and J.H. Freeman,16 and H. Mintzbergs
organizational configurations,17 among others, enrich the basic model by
highlighting different aspects such as evolution, structural inertia, internal
consistency of configurations, or the economic relationships between component parts.
There have also been several attempts made from the field of economics
to account for the nature and functioning of organizations, following a historical and conceptual path similar to what I have just described. The early
studies, based on the neoclassical school, defined the firm as a black box
characterized by a series of technological opportunities and a rational behavior of maximizing financial profit, without exploring the internal processes that give rise to these behaviors. With the passage of time, various
formulations have contributed significantly to our understanding of the
economic relationships that take place within organizations. R.H. Coases
The Nature of the Firm was perhaps the trigger that brought to light the differences in the functioning of the markets and the nature of the firm.18 Since
then, two schools of thought have had a more significant impact: the agency
theory19 and the transaction costs theory.20
To summarize, the various approaches have been moving progressively
away from the person-machine concept of classic Taylorian theory, tending
to paint a more human picture of work in organizations. The theories that
have sought to go beyond the classical model have all moved within an
organistic conception of the individual and organizations. However, the
psycho-sociological paradigm21 in which all these currents have developed
is unable to give a complete configuration of the individual. The theoretical
developments currently in progress are using ethics and information theory as their underlying sciences. The insufficiency of the models proposed
to date has been one of the determining factorstogether with other, more
circumstantial factorsin the growing popularity of business ethics both
in management teaching and in management practice itself. By focusing on
knowledge and the development of organizational values and personal
virtues, the new approaches seem to be laying the foundations for an an-
65
thropological model capable of giving a complete answer to who we are

and how we act.
A highly valid alternative to the mechanistic and organistic models is
also to be found in the ideas of Peirce. His rejection of mechanism did not
lead him to seek refuge in a psychological vision of human action. On the
contrary, he was equally critical of those models that sought to reduce human action to the influence of psychical laws (CP 5.85, 5.157). John Stuart
Mill was criticized just as much by Peirce as Descartes was, and, if Descartes forms the core of the mechanistic model, Mill forms the core of the
various psychosociological conceptions. Peirces view of the mechanistic
model has been fully discussed at the beginning of this chapter. In regard to
the psychosociological conceptions, Peirces ideas on the acquisition of
habits, the reference to purposes and ideals of conduct, and his interest in
separating logic from psychology point to a more complete image of humanity than that sketched by these models.
Although it is obviousand importantthat the historical development of organizational theory shows a continual endeavor to advance toward a more complete image of people and organizations, there is also a
latent danger that must not be overlooked. In the current tendency to stress
the differences and the complexity in the functioning of organizations, we
may lose sight of the common characteristics and the ability to draw general conclusions. Some of the approaches reflect this tendency to desist in
the attempt to give a rational, scientific explanation of human action in organizations.22 Peirce also warns against this danger. Just as chance is explained within synechism, the element of novelty contained in any action
finds its meaning within the context of an explanation of action whose key
element is the law of continuity. Being aware of novelty does not mean having to waive any explanation of regularity in the universe.
Thus, Peirces ideas help guide the analysis of certain models of organization theory, enabling us to affirm the insufficiency of certain approaches,
while at the same time calling attention to the need for an explanatory
model that goes beyond the limitations of these other models. Faced with
the complexity of the problem, it would not be a satisfactory solution to
give up in the attempt to find a suitable paradigm to account for human action in organizations. Although some of the current approaches would
seem to indicate this, other proposals currently being formulated seem to
be pointing in the right direction. In the closing chapters of this book, I propose a few principles that may help to define this new paradigm. But before
that, and to conclude this chapter, I must return to the ideas of Peirce and
make a few comments about what has been said so far.
THE THEORY OF HABITS AND HUMAN ACTION
Peirce finds he must deal with the experience of a world that is not homogenous and unchanging, but plural and differentiated, open to further
66
modifications and never fully determined, where order never fully eradicates disorder. To account for the novelties appearing in the universe,
Peirce postulates that the physical laws are not determinate but rather
evolve in accordance with the law of habits. This postulates rationale is to
be found in the monism proposed by Peirce, in contraposition to Cartesian
dualism. In essence, Peirce adopts the principlethe hypothesisthat
the only way to go beyond Cartesian dualism is through monism.
Although the statement that the physical laws change may explain why
the world is not determinate, we can find other affirmations that answer the
same question. Although the debate between determinism and
indeterminism is typically modern, determination and indetermination
are also to be found in Aristotelian thought, thus providing an answer different from that proposed by Peirce.
The Aristotelian distinction between being per se and coincidental being
allows us to infer that, in the world of experiencein the body of finite
thingsnot everything is necessary or contingent. Strictly speaking,
warned Alejandro Llano, in this world of ours, nothing is so necessary that
it does not have some trace of accidentality, nor so contingent that it does
not carry with it some degree of necessity.23 There are truly ens per accidens.
If this were not so, everything would be by necessity, and the truth is that
not everything happens necessarily. If everything were necessary, there
would be no contingent futures, as each event would be determined
univocally by another one, and so on. In such a context, the present moment
would contain all the elements that would determine the future, and, in
turn, the explanation of what is happening now could be referred retroactively to the course of the past. For Aristotle, matter is the cause of the existence of accidents. However, to say that matter is the cause of the accident is
the same as saying that there is no determinate cause of the accident, as
matter is a principle of indetermination. Its cause will therefore be chance,
and chance is indeterminate. So for Aristotle, too, chance must exist as the
cause of that which, strictly speaking, has no cause.
At this point, there arises a difference between Aristotle and Peirce that
should be pointed out. For Aristotle, the ens per accidens does not take part
in teleological processes, it is outside the final causality established for each
being by its own nature and for each free action by the purpose guiding it.
Indetermination takes place due to a coincidence that is not related to the
actions end or with the present state of affairs, but physical laws do not
change. On the other hand, for Peirce, physical laws do change as a result of
the occurrence of phenomena that bypass these laws. Aristotle resolves the
dilemma of determination and indetermination by appealing to different
orders of necessity: necessity de facto and necessity de dicto. It is necessary
that the ens per accidens exists. In other words, it is necessarywith a necessity de dictoto say that there are things that in reality are not necessary. It is
in the corresponding judicative synthesisexpressed in a proposi-
67
tionwhere what is per accidens, which in reality is only a coincidence, becomes an entity.24 Here, we are moving on a logical-semantic level. On the
other hand, in Peirce, the logical-semantic and ontological levels seem to
merge.
It is difficult to see the sense of Peirces position with respect to the theory of habits applied to the physical world,25 except as a consequence of
monism versus Cartesian dualism. However, it is easier to understand it in
human action, in which a certain physical indeterminism is also required as
a necessary condition of human freedom. Again, the comparison with Aristotelian philosophy may be helpful.
Human affairsargues Aristotleoriginate in deliberation and action.
However, if everything happened by necessity, it would not be necessary to
deliberate but only to execute. In discussing these ideas, Llano concludes
that human affairs are not lacking a cause, but that such cause lies precisely
in our free action, such that free will introduces in nature a causal series
whose connection with the preceding situations and with the material or
social context is not per se but per accidens, that is, indeterminate. Human action in the material world is a source of accidentalities.26 As Geach pointed
out, the presence of contingency in the physical world is a necessary condition for the existence of human freedom. 27 A person is not free unless certain observable movements of his or her body are decidable by him or her; a
person would not be free, therefore, if his or her movements could be predicted from a series of simple factors, without any need to take into account
his or her decisions. However, freedom is not a cause of the ens per accidens
in the same sense as matter. Matter contributes a factor of indetermination,
whereas freedom or, more precisely, free deliberation contributes an intelligible and voluntary determination that is irreducible to any physical determination.28 In this sense, Peircean agapasm would be closer to the
intelligible determination originated in human freedom than to the
indetermination of matter.
Therefore, one might disagree with Peirce on the opportuneness of arguing that physical laws change with the occurrence of events and attribute
his stanceto use the same arguments that he himself usesto the a priori of wishing to distance himself from Cartesian assumptions rather than
to an observation of natural phenomena, for which there would be other,
equally valid explanations. However, when analyzing human action,
agapasm and the theory of habits provide a reasonable explanation of what
is shown by experience itself. This is because, in effect, human beings seem
to follow in their action a series of laws and norms of conduct that are not
fixed or determinate, which guide them in this limitedly indeterminate
world in which they act and which, in turn, change themselves with human
action. Human habit and, in particular, virtues seem to fit in those characteristics that Peirce indicates as defining agapasm.
68
Consequently, the conclusion that can be drawn is the following: the law
of habits has its natural place in human action. For Peirce, habits are laws of
action (CP 2.148) and, as such, distinguish a deliberate conduct from a mere
spontaneous force. Habits are in the category of thirdness and have the
characteristics of that category: mediation, generality, orientation toward
the future. Habit, as it is understood by Peirce, plays a double part; it
serves to establish the new features, and also to bring them into harmony
with the general morphology (CP 6.300) that already exists. Thus, it is defined with the same characteristics that had been previously attributed to
the concept of agap. On the one hand, they are dispositions to act. It can be
stated that a person who has a certain habit will act in a certain way in the
presence of certain circumstances (CP 2.148), without forgetting that the element of novelty introduced by the actions singularity or the subjects control over the habits themselves may induce a change in conduct in a certain
situation. As Apel remarked, habit should not be conceived in a consequent
sense, from the practical consequences following from the action, but in an
antecedent sense, from the logical consequences of the rule in question, acting as a normative guide for the action and already anticipated by the subject, who will act in accordance with it.29
On the other hand, because of their dispositional character, habits shape
the individuals character,30 even though human nature is more complicated and, therefore, it may be more difficult to define a persons character
than to define certain laws of nature, such as, for example, the law that determines the probability of a six coming up when a die is thrown (CP 2.664).
Peoples deliberate actions take place in accordance with a certain regularity. In human consciousness, this regularity is present as a general idea that
is continued, with the appropriate modifications, in the actions that successively take place. Human action is an infinitesimal moment within the continuum of human life, but a moment of which the subject is aware and
which is colored by the subjects personality and character. Personality exerts a causality on human action. My personality is the cause of my own actions, but my actions also influence my personality, just as each new idea is
assimilated in the general idea and changes it. After each action, even
though I continue to be the samebecause the personalitys continuity
persists throughout the infinitesimal moments in which it manifests itselfI am also slightly different (CP 6.155157). Obviously, there will be actions that change a person more and others that change a person less; there
will be actions that introduce more elements of novelty than others.
In attempting to describe how Peirces cosmological conception has an
unquestioned reference point in human action, in addition to considering
the presence of the theory of habits in people, we should also consider another aspect of agapasm: evolutionary love, whose most common formulation is the so-called Golden Rule, which Pierce enunciates as follows:
Sacrifice your own perfection to the perfectionment of your neighbor (CP
69
6.288). People are not aloof from that universal harmony that unfolds under the guidance of evolutionary love, and we find our realization in our relation with others. Love is not directed to abstractions, but to people; and
not to unknown people or depersonalized masses, but to the people who
are closest to usour family or our neighbors. Thus, the formula of
evolutionism, as understood by Peirce, teaches us that growth only comes
from love and that love is not merely self-sacrifice, but, above all, an ardent
impulse to fulfill anothers highest aspirations (CP 6.288289). The individual cannot be understood in isolation: the isolated individual is not anything at all. The principle of continuity means that a person is open to
others. To a certain extent, he or she is the other, because there is a continuity with them. Even people who have a special affinity for general ideas
may work together better (CP 6.271). In the world of the organization, this
has an influence on the pursuit of the common purpose (which is one of the
elements defining the organization), even though each person may have
different motives for working toward the attainment of this purpose.
The thread running through this chapter has been the question of how to
understand the world from the Peircean perspective. We have analyzed
Peirces rejection of the forms of necessitarianism and his stance in favor of
a form of evolutionism based on the exercise and acquisition of habits, the
law of continuity, the tendency toward the acquisition of habits, and evolutionary love. This has enabled us to make a number of remarks about organization theory. The vision offered by Peirce is that of an open,
continuously evolving, endless universe, in which irreducible contingency,
chance, and novelty exist. In such a universe, there is no place for the doctrines of mechanical determinism. The individual is not at the mercy of necessary, deterministic laws, and neither is he or she a passive toy, determined
by forces outside his or her control. Quite the contrary, with the adequate
cultivation of habits, acquired and developed by endeavor and experience,
people can influence their own destiny. The law by which they must act is
the law of love, which moves them to include their fellow man in their decisions, as the law of love moves them to seek that which may improve their
fellow man and make whatever sacrifices may be necessary to attain it.
At the end of the previous chapter, two questions were raised: one on the
nature of the environment on which we act, which was discussed in this
chapter, and another on our perception of that environment, which will be
the subject of the next chapter. Following the conclusions reached in this
chapter, the question about the perception of the environment becomes
even more pressing. The law of evolutionary love moves people to consider
other peoples needs in their own actions. However, a necessary prerequisite for this is the possession of knowledge about others; inasmuch as it is
possible to foresee their reactions, it will be possible to determine ones own
actions better, even though, as pointed out in the previous chapter, the ac-
70
tive agent can only know the reactive agents intention through the perception of the latters reaction.
NOTES
1. C.R. Hausman, Charles S. Peirces Evolutionary Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 173.
2. D.R. Anderson, Creativity and the Philosophy of C.S. Peirce (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 134.
4. C. Hartshorne, La creatividad en la filosofa estadounidense (Mexico City:
Edamex, 1987), 109114.
5. Hausman, Charles S. Peirces Evolutionary Philosophy, 176177.
6. The reference point for the following pages is taken from J.E. Ricart, El
desarrollo personal en las nuevas formas organizativas, in Etica en el gobierno de la
empresa, ed. D. Mel (Pamplona: Eunsa, 1996), 158164. J.A. Prez Lpez also summarizes the main theories, grouping them under three conceptual models, which
are the same as those that will be followed in this discussion. See J.A. Prez Lpez,
Fundamentos de la direccin de empresas (Madrid: Rialp, 1995), chaps. 2 and 3. For a
more detailed discussion, see, for example, W.R. Scott, Organizations: Rational,
Natural and Open Systems (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1981).
7. F.W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper,
1911).
8. M. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (Glencoe, Ill.: Free
Press, 1947).
9. E. Mayo, The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization (New York:
Macmillan, 1933), and E. Mayo, The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization
(Boston: Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration, 1945);
F.J. Roethlisberger and W.J. Dickson, Management and the Worker (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939).
10. D. McGregor, The Human Side of the Enterprise (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1960). See also R. Likert, New Patterns of Management (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1961), and R. Likert, The Human Organization (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967),
which were adapted more recently by A.C. Hax and N.S. Majluf, Strategic Management: An Integrative Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984).
11. P. Selznick, TVA and the Grass Roots (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1949). Other critics of the bureaucratic model were R.K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1957), and A.W. Gouldner, Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1954).
12. J.G. March and H.A. Simon, Organizations (New York: John Willey, 1958),
and H.A. Simon, Rational Decision Making in Business Organizations, American
Economic Review 69 (1979): 493513.
13. Prez Lpez, Fundamentos de la direccin de empresas, 24.
14. P.R. Lawrence and J.W. Lorsch, Organization and Environment (Homewood,
Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1967); J.W. Lorsch and S. Allen, Managing Diversity and Interdependence (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973); J. Galbraith, Designing
Complex Organizations (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1973); and A.D. Chan-
71
dler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1962).
15. R. Nelson and S. Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982).
16. M.T. Hannan and J.H. Freeman, Organizational Ecology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989).
17. H. Mintzberg, The Structure of Organizations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1979); D. Miller and P.H. Friesen, Organizations: A Quantum Approach (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984); and D. Miller, The Icarus Paradox (New York: HarperBusiness, 1990).
18. R.H. Coase, The Nature of the Firm, Economica 4 (1937): 386405. Ouchi
proposed an organizational model halfway between the market and the hierarchy,
which he calls Clan or Type Z, in reference to McGregors Theory Y. See W.G.
Ouchi, Theory Z (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1981).
19. B. Holmstrom, Moral Hazard and Observability, Bell Journal of Economics
10 (1979): 7491. For a study of this theory, see J.E. Ricart, Una Introduccin a los
Modelos de Agencia, Revista Espaola de Economa 4 (1987): 4361.
20. O. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies (New York: Free Press, 1975), and O.
Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism (New York: Free Press, 1985).
21. I am using here Juan Antonio Prez Lpezs terminology, which distinguishes among three organizational models: mechanistic, psychosociological, and
anthropological. For an explanation of these models, see Prez Lpez,
Fundamentos de la direccin de empresas. P. Koslowski, Mechanistiche und
organistiche Analogien in der Wirtschaftswissenschafteine verfehlte Alternative, Kiklos 36 (1983): 308312, has effectively shown the inadequacy of these two
analogies, the mechanistic and the organistic, for understanding human activity
in the firm.
22. Some are content with presenting images of organizations, such as G. Morgan, Images of Organizations (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1986); others
confine themselves to listing the variables involved in action, but without explaining the dynamic relationships between them, such as M.D. Cohen, J.G. March and
J. Olsen, A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice, Administrative Science
Quarterly 17 (1972): 125. N. Brunsson, The Irrational Organization (Chichester,
U.K.: John Wiley and Sons, 1985), and N. Brunsson, The Organization of Hypocrisy
(Chichester, U.K.: John Wiley and Sons, 1989) are also illustrative and focus particularly on the irrational aspects of decisions. For a serious study of methodological
foundations in management, see E.M. Hartman, Conceptual Foundations of Organization Theory (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1988).
23. A. Llano, Metafsica y Lenguaje (Pamplona, Spain: Eunsa, 1984), 168. The
reasoning presented in the following pages is drawn to a considerable extent from
Llanos discussion in this work.
24. Llano, Metafsica y Lenguaje, 157159.
25. J.W. Garrison, The Logic, Ethics and Aesthetics of Geometrical Construction, in Peirce and Value Theory: On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret
(Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994), 239.
26. Llano, Metafsica y Lenguaje, 171. Leonardo Polo has pointed it out very
graphically by showing that human nature does not tell us how or what to eat,
rather this is something we must invent for ourselves. Freedom lies in the very act
72
of satisfying needs. See L. Polo, Introduccin a la Filosofa (Pamplona: Eunsa, 1995),

223.
27. P. Geach, Providence and Evil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1977), 119.
28. Llano, Metafsica y Lenguaje, 171.
30. J.A.K. Kegley, Peirce and Royce on PersonNew Directions for Ethical
Theory, in Peirce and Value Theory: On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret
CHAPTER 4
The Task of Knowing and

Interpreting the World
In the previous chapter, our discussion centered on Peirces conception

of the universe. On the one hand, this has enabled us to become acquainted with his metaphysical thought: the criticism of determinism,
the principle of continuity and synechism, evolutionary love and the acquisition of habits are all necessary concepts for anyone wishing to explore thesometimes disorderedPeircean world. On the other hand,
these ideas have provided a basis for describing the environment in
which we act and for performing a critical appraisal of organizational
theories.
It is now time to take another step forward toward our goal of defining
human action and asking how we know the world in which we find ourselves and in which we carry out our action, as before action there must be
knowledge, at least when we are talking about human action. To find the
answer to this question, we must look at Peirces semiotic theory. Again,
Peirce stands out here for his originality and the significance of his contribution. Although Peirce was a pioneer in many fields of knowledge, no
doubt he was particularly a pioneer in the field of semiotics. Peirce is considered to be the originator of semiotics, and his contributions are highly
valued by the most renowned contemporary semioticians.1
In the first part of this chapter, we will present the main features of
Peircean semiotics, followed by an analysis of the implications that the formulated notions hold for defining human action.
74
THE MAIN FEATURES OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTICS

From a strictly empiricist viewpoint, reality cannot be conceived by
Peirce as something separate from its representationsfrom the mental
phenomenaso that any analysis must, necesssarily, start with them.
However, although reality cannot be conceived separately from the mental
representations, this cannot be used as an excuse for making a mentalist
interpretation of reality, following the example of other empiricists, such as
John Locke. The solution for avoiding mentalism lay in logic. It was this
logical interpretation of pragmatism that freed him from the nominalism
and psychologism espoused by other pragmatic thinkers, such as William
James.2 For Peirce, logic has a semiotic side to it, and, when viewed from
this side, the phenomenological problem can be defined in the following
terms: all our mental contents are signs because, without the medium of
signs, we would be unable to think; therefore, mental processes are processes of semiosis.
Although Peirces interest in signs was already apparent in his writings
from the late 1870s, it would not be until a paper dated 1907, which the authors of the Collected Papers published under the title A Survey of
Pragmaticism (CP 5.464496), that Peirce established the significance of
semiotics for pragmaticism. In this paper, he presents as one of the keys of
pragmaticism the affirmation that all thoughts are signs and that thisfar
from being a nominalist stanceis a realist stance.
Peirce was interested in a certain type of objectsignswhose identifying feature was their ability to go beyond themselves, provided that they
were interpreted by a mind. Peirce does not say that all signs are thoughts
because there are signs in nature, too: for example, when the bullet acts
against the wall, it creates a hole, which is the sign of the bullet. However, it
is not until a third element is introduced in the relationshipsomething
that performs the function of mediating between sign and objectthat it
can be said that a sign functions. Pierce does not accept a dyadic relationship between sign and object, as if the former were in place of the latter, but
rather believes that the sign and the object are mediated by a third element,
which Peirce calls the interpretant (CP 8.177). An experience or an object in
nature that only exists in a dyadic relationship does not operate as a true
sign. If an object or experience is to be intelligible, it must be interpreted or
interpretable, and, hence, it must be triadic.
It should be pointed out at this point that when Peirce refers to interpretation, he is doing so in a very different way than how we are used to using
the term interpretation in colloquial language. Normally, interpretation is
opposed to the description of the facts. To describe a fact is to describe what
is perceived, as it is perceived. However, interpreting facts implies adding a
personal appraisal to the description of physical, perceptible phenomena,
taking them as signs of something that is not seen. Not infrequently, the interpretation of the facts, if understood in this sense, tells us more about the
75
person making the interpretation than about the facts actually being interpreted. If interpretation is understood to have this meaning, it is being considered as an opinion or conjecture about events. However, this is not the
meaning that Peirce gives to the word.
Sign theory, therefore, always implies a triadic relation, with three terms
related in a specific manner. These three elements are the sign, the object,
and the signs interpretant (CP 5.484). Furthermore, the relations established between them cannot be reduced to dyadic relations, in the same
way that the category of thirdness does not imply a group of dyadic relations. The sign is firstness; the object is secondness, insofar as it is related
with the sign representing it; the interpretant is thirdness, mediating between the sign and the object. The signs relation with the object is not direct
but mediated by the interpretant, which is the effect produced by the sign in
the mind (CP 2.228). A sign is always representative, because it refers to an
object that is different from itself. It is not necessary that the sign be similar
to, or connected with, the object that it is a sign of, as it is assumed that the
interpreter is familiar with the object or class of objects that the sign refers
to. The significant factors in the interpretation process are past experience
and the interpreters knowledge (CP 8.181), such that the interpretantas
an effect produced in the mind by the signis formed, not only from the
data perceived by the subject, but also from other contents that are equally
real for him or her, such as past experience and the learning obtained from
that experience, personal preferences, or convictions.
For Peirce, the sign is something perceptible or imaginable (CP 2.230,
2.232) which becomes a sign precisely because it represents something else,
which is its object. The sign is said to represent its object in the sense that it is
in place of that object or in such a relation with it that, for certain purposes,
it is treated by certain minds as if it were the object itself. However, an object
that becomes a sign for another object may have numerous characteristics
or properties, but it only becomes a sign by virtue of one of them. This aspect or property by which something becomes a sign is the ground. For example, if someone wants to buy paint having a certain color, he can show a
sample of the color to the sales attendant at the store. This sample is a sign of
the paint he wishes to buy. This sample may have very varied shapes or be
made of different materials, but none of these properties is relevant to the
present situation: the only thing that serves to make the sample a sign of the
paint is its color. In the case, the color is the signs ground.3
Peirce distinguishes between immediate object and dynamical object.
The former is the object as it is represented by the sign, such that, in part, it is
dependent on this representation. The dynamical, or mediate, object is
the object outside of the sign, the reality that goes beyond a concrete
semiotic relation and, in some way, determines the sign (CP 8.343). The objectin this second acceptanceimposes a resistance, a dynamical condition, in our interpretations. In the actual interpretation process, the mind is
76
determined by the sign, insofar as it is the sign that produces the effect in
the mind. However, in turn, the sign is determined by its object, which, as a
secondness, determines the sign in a reference to the here and now.
Therefore, the object determines the interpreters thought mediatelyas
the sign does immediatelyand has a certain degree of influence on the interpretation process. This point is particularly important for interpretation
theory, because it helps us avoid the mistaken notion that an interpretation
is the mere superposition of a subjective appraisal from outside on a series
of data. Although interpretation is not a mere copying of data, it does not
follow that the data should play no part in determining their correct interpretation. In contraposition to a subjectivistic view, in which the restrictions are imposed solely from the individual, Peirce says that the object too
imposes conditions on the cognoscitive process (CP 5.534).4
The dynamical object is excluded from a specific act of semiosis, but not
from the general semiosis, that is, from all the possible acts of semiosis
taken together. The specific semiotic act is a product of previous semiotic
eventsas occurs in any act of knowledgein which a series of aspectsimmediate objectshas been obtained from a single real or dynamical object. The constitution of an object is not a closed event but an open
process, in which new aspects can be acquired in successive semiotic
events. In other words, in the final analysis, there is no objectand, therefore, no realitywithout semiosis. For Peirce, we can only think through
the medium of signs, so that any consideration of reality is already a representation in itself. Perceptive experience consists precisely of integrating
empirical knowledge in the semiotic network comprising the structure of
thought. However, reality lies above what is arbitrary and accidental in
each subjects individual thinking, as thought is determined by reality. The
fact that thought is determined by reality is what enables reality to be distinguished from fiction and allows us to come to agreements on what we
perceive as real.5
The definitory character par excellence of any semiotic action is the fact
that it is a triadic relation and, therefore, irreducible to a relation between
pairs of relates. The third element involved in this relation is the
interpretant. The fact that it forms part of a triadic relation makes it a mediating representation between the sign and its object (CP 1.553), and, as
such, the category corresponding to the interpretant is that of thirdness, in
which it may have the nature of a law or rule of interpretation. It is correct to
view the interpretant as a mental effect, but its nature is broader than that,
as it is not necessary that it have a mental nature. The soldiers execution of
an order given by an officer or the performance of a piece of music may be
considered interpretants (CP 5.473). Thus, as Castaares has very rightly
pointed out, Peirces interpretant creates the basis for formulating a
semiotics of passions, applicable, not only to works of art, but also to daily
77
life, or a semiotics of action, in which what is said is just as important as what

is done.6
Just as Peirce distinguishes between various types of object, so also does
he distinguish between various types of interpretant. Thus, he distinguishes among immediate, dynamical and final interpretants (CP 4.536).
The immediate interpretant is the total effect, unanalyzed, which it is calculated that the sign must produce or is expected to produce. In actual fact, it
cannot go beyond mere possibility, as it corresponds to the first
phaneroscopic category: it is the quality of being interpretable before an interpreter assigns it a particular interpretant; as yet, it is nothing more than
an impression or something sensed, produced in a first moment,
which has not yet reached the category of being meditated or volitional.
The dynamical interpretant isfrom the receivers viewpointthe effect
actually produced; if it is considered from the issuers viewpoint, it is the effect that it is intended to produce through the medium of the sign. As it is
something real and unique in each case, it can be distinguished in each individual, so that a given effect expected by the issuer may give rise to highly
different interpretants in the different receivers. Finally, the final
interpretant is defined as the effect that the sign would have on any mind in
which the circumstances allow the sign to exert its full effect.
From another viewpoint, the interpretant can be classed as emotional,
energetic, or logical (CP 5.475 ff.). The emotional interpretant is a signs first
effect, that is, a feeling or an emotion. This feeling is the proof that the
signs intrinsic effect is understood. Sometimes, it is the only effect produced by a sign, such as when a piece of music is played that does not communicate any idea that the composer has not wished to communicate
intentionally; on other occasions, it will be followed by another
interpretant. For its part, the energetic interpretant implies a certain effort,
whether physical or mental. Thus, for example, when soldiers obey the order shouted by an officer to Ground arms! they perform a muscular effort
that is an energetic interpretant, as is also the mental effort we have to make
to understand or imagine something. Hence, the character of this
interpretant is real, concrete, and different in each individual and each case.
Peirce asks himself about the nature corresponding to the logical
interpretant and concludes that it can only be understood as a habit (CP
5.486). Thus, if the interpretant is the effect produced by the sign in the
mind, it is now concluded that this effect has the characteristic of a habit,
and that the effect produced can be understood as the change of a habit, that
is, the modification of a persons tendency toward action (CP 5.476, 8.315).
As Umberto Eco has pointed out,7 the process of interpretation extends
to infinity because reality appears before us as a continuum where there are
no absolute individual beings, as the principle of synechism indicates.
Thus, the interpretant always has the possibility of referring to another subsequent interpretant, thereby becoming a sign for the latter. However, this
78
gives rise to a succession of infinite possibilities which converts the

semiotic process into a process ad infinitum. Obviously, it is always possible to terminate an interpretation process, for example, when, in the course
of a deliberation, a decision is made or when it is decided that, for certain
specific purposes, the degree of clarity attained in an analysis of a certain issue is sufficient. However, terminating an interpretation process is not the
same as considering that the process is complete. Quite the contrary; given
the nature of the sign and the interpretant, this process is open, by its very
nature, to an indefinite process (CP 2.303).
This indefinite character of the interpretation process gives rise to a
number of consequences. On the one hand, reality is a continuum that
swims in indeterminacy and, as such, the possibility of error is ever-present
(CP 1.171). On the other hand, whatever is stated of a subject does not exhaust all the possible determinations of that subject, and there is always
room for future determinations. Finally, the succession of interpretant signs
may give rise to highly different interpretations from a single object. As a
result, the specific interpretant chosen becomes extremely significant because it will give rise to other interpretants. Thus, for example, an
interpretant for the sign Granada could be capital of Andalusia, city
of Lorca, or city of the Alhambra. If the interpretant chosen is city of the
Alhambra, it may give rise to new interpretants such as the last Moslem
kingdom in Spain or city of Boabdil.8
In addition to the agents decision, which could be understood as an element that interrupts the interpretation process from without, there are
other elements existing within the process itself that help put a limit on this
unlimited character, preventing it from adopting positions such as Jacques
Derridas deconstructionism, which only considers valid the textual interpretation, or Richard Rortys pragmatism, which appeals to the interpreters free will.9 First of all, we have the object. Semiosis is a necessarily triadic
relation and if, at any time, the object were to be missing from the sign, this
condition would not be met. The fact that semiosis is a triadic reality prevents any consideration of a vicious circle in the interpretation process. If
semiosis were to be a relation composed of two elements considered identical, one could talk of a vicious circleness. However, this is not the case when
three elements that are different functions are involved and when the third
element is precisely that which establishes the criterion from which it is
possible to judge the existence of any similarity.10
The reference to objects solves, at least in part, the objection that has been
made to Peircean theory about the unlimitedness of semiosis: if semiosis is
truly unlimited, communication is not possible because it is diluted in that
infinite process. Although semiosis is unlimited from the point of view of
its possibilities, it is limited in regard to specific, real acts. This limitation of
semiotic processes can be explained from the limitation of each individuals world. Our worldwhich consists of the real objects, their represen-
79
tations, and the representations of nonreal objectsis limited, and the fact
that the sign must necessarily refer to it prevents real semiosis from being
unlimited, while at the same time enabling communication. To summarize,
given that both our knowledge of the world and the semiotic systems that
enable a sign to be translated into an interpretant are limited, semiosis itself is limited. However, when viewed from the stance that a community of
subjects in which such processes may be prolonged indefinitely is conceivable, then semiosis can be understood as a process ad infinitum.11
Any reference by a sign to an object is mediated by the interpretant produced by that sign. For a sign to be interpreted, first the object must be
known. From both the epistemological and semiotic viewpoints, first there
is an object and then the sign that represents it. This is why Peirce can say
that it is the object that determines the sign and not the other way round (CP
5.473). When this principle is applied to a communication processas a
special type of interactiona possible objection appears. It seems clear that
the issuer must know the object first: only if this is so will he or she be able to
communicate something about the object through the sign. However what
is perhaps not so clear is that this principle is also applicable to the receiver.
But Peirce insists that any sign presupposes knowledge of the object, as
only if this is so will it be possible to convey that additional information
about it that constitutes any interpretant (CP 2.231). If the interpreter has no
prior knowledge of the objectno matter how vague this may bethe sign
will not be able to give rise to an interpretant. At the heart of this issue is an
epistemological assumption that is extremely important for Peirce: all our
knowledge is derived from previous knowledge. When viewed in this
light, our knowledge is always inferential: an absolutely original actin
the sense that it is possible to form a piece of knowledge that is completely
unrelated to something known previouslyis not possible. All knowledge
is derived from the transformation or refinement of previous knowledge.12
This is also relevant for human action, as it brings to light a condition
that is necessary for the interactions rationality but that may sometimes be
overlooked. The agent must not only have an idea of the action which he or
she is presently performing or is going to performwhich nobody would
question as a necessary conditionbut must also have an idea of what will
be the other agents reaction. This means that the deliberation of the action
must also include an a priori appraisal of the reactive agents action. Obviously, as we are talking about future eventsand, therefore, about
thirdnessthe a priori evaluation, both of the action and of the reaction,
will have a generic, indeterminate character, and the appraisal will have to
be carried out on the basis of the possible consequences and circumstances.
Between 1867 and 1868, Peirce published in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy a series of articles known as the anti-Cartesian essays or
anti-intuitionist essays, in which he refutes the intuitive knowledge proposed by Cartesian rationalism (CP 5.213357).13 In place of intuitionun-
80
derstood as a direct and immediate knowledge of the objectPeirce

proposes a knowledge inferred from prior knowledge (CP 5.213). Inferential knowledge, that is, knowledge from signs, is the alternative to intuitive
knowledge. Peirce views intuitionism, understood as immediate, infallible
knowledge of reality, as an obstacle to a scientific philosophy, in which the
only criterion for determining the validity of an item of knowledge is experimental verification. According to Peirce, intuitionism leads to the characteristic nominalism of the empiricist tradition, on the one hand, and the
unattainable, noumenal world of the Kantian tradition, on the other hand.
However, in Peircean realism, even though it is external and more or less
opaque, reality is always graspable: there is nothing that is completely
incognizable.
Although Peirce states that it is the object that determines the sign and
not the other way round, this does not mean that the representation is invariably determined by something real. Asign may be produced either by a
real object or by a fictitious object. Thus, signs can be used both to tell the
truth and to lie. The question is, therefore, what we do or are prepared to do
with the representations.14 We can infer three limiting elements from this.
The first is habit, which, as a disposition to act (CP 2.170) stopseven if it be
momentarilythe unlimited interpretation process. The ultimate logical
interpretant is habit. As it is not a sign, it does not require any further determination. Habit is an interpretant that, even if it changes, contains the
changes within itself, without any need to refer to an external referent (CP
5.476). This leads us to a conception of habit that shares much in commonfrom a semiotic viewpointwith the Aristotelian notion of habit.
The second limiting element is purpose (CP 5.166).15 Peirce says that the way
in which the interpreter focuses the inquiry will depend to a great extent on
his or her interests, and, consequently, until these are clear, it will not be
possible to define what may be the actions logical consequences (CP 5.489).
At this point, Peirce accepts the ideas of Ferdinand C.S. Schiller, from whom
he will differ, however, in his definition of pragmatism. Peirce agrees with
Schillers definition that all meaning depends on the purpose (CP 5.494).
As the general character of the interpretation is not lost, it can be said that,
rather than direct the interpretation toward a certain aspect, the purpose
delimits those possible interpretations that are outside of the interpreters
relevant criteria, acting as a negative norm with respect to the logical interpretation. In this context, one can understand Peirces statement that,
rather than solve real problems, pragmaticism shows that certain supposed
problems are not real problems (CP 8.259). Finally, another limiting factor is
the scientific community, which ensures that, above and beyond any individual intention on the part of the interpreter, the process of interpretation follows the norms of a scientific inquiry, avoiding both a nave realism and a
sterile intuitionism.
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On a plane above these factors is the principle of fallibilism, which permeates all Peircean epistemological conception. Under this principlewhich states that our knowledge is never absolute, but rather that it is
always floating on a continuum of uncertainty and indeterminacyany
solution to the problem of knowing reality becomes purely tentative, and
the final solution is deferred to some time in the future. However, agreement is inevitable because, sooner or later, the reality that is independent of
thought will finally prevail. The community of scientists may erreven for
prolonged periodsbut their error will finally disappear if the inquiry is
continued for long enough. This is why Peirce thinks that the truth has already been attained in many questions (CP 8.43). Peirce is fully aware of the
fallibility of human knowledge, but, at the same time, he is sure that, finally,
all that which is investigatable will be known if the necessary time and effort is devoted to it.16
In short, Peirces unlimited semiosis does not entail an unlimited freedom for the interpreter, who will find him- or herself constrained, either by
the social group or by reality itself, to certain limits and the need to come to
agreement on the content of the representations being interpreted. Peirces
pragmatistic realism is based on two basic assumptions of his philosophy:
the existence of a reality that determines thoughtwhich leads to a rejection of the Kantian noumenonand the social principle of the final agreement of the community of scientists as a criterion for the truth of individual
representations. These two references place bounds on individuals interpretative activities, as they may find them disqualified, by either the tentative agreement of the experts or the stubborn persistence of a reality that
must finally prevail.17
THE SEMIOTICS OF HUMAN ACTION

Having analyzed semiotic theory and its chief components, we will now
consider how this theory can help us in our comprehension of human action. We will look at two issues. From the viewpoint of the agent who acts,
we will analyze the concept of center of intention, proposed by Smith, an
author who moves within the pragmatic tradition. From the viewpoint of
the interaction, we will refer to the definition of action problems and the
classification of the types of systems, as presented by Prez Lpez in his organizational theory.
Each individual understands those with whom he or she relates, primarily in terms of his or her own experience. By means of the process of interpretation, we come to know, gradually and with effort, what the other
person means in our own terms and, as a result, to what extent his own experience is valid in terms of the others experience. Ultimately, the goal is
not only to discover how each person experiences the others, but how the
others experience themselves, even though this is achieved in terms of our
82
own experience.18 This task is, without doubt, fraught with difficulties and,
as Peirce points out, requires the highest power of reasoning (CP 8.181).
When two people relate in an interaction, neither of them is for the other
a simple perception of a quality or an object that is apprehensible by means
of a conceptual knowledge. In any perception, there is always an interpretation present (CP 5.183). Each person constitutes a unity that goes beyond
what is perceived or conceived by the other, even though he or she manifests him- or herself in that which is perceived, insofar as action is the energetic interpretant of the subjects habit and purpose (CP 5.491).
Consequently, the individual may be subject to an interpretation that is not
identified with what is perceived or conceived of that personeven
though it is dependent on thisbut instead reaches to the deepest core of
personal reality. The person is understood as a dynamic, organic system of
habits, feelings, desires, tendencies, and thoughts, unified through plans
and purposes, which are modeled and projected by what can be called the
center of intention.19
When two people meet, their primary encounter is as living bodies,
through which they express meanings, purposes, and intentions. Each one
is, for the other, a series of signs, words or gestures, actions or omissions,
that must be interpreted. However, these signs do not appear as isolated
phenomena that are capable of being understood by themselves. When the
other asks me a question, I ask myself to identify the deepest and most complex intention to have given rise to the question. In other words, I assume
that this question is a sign of an objective that has not been fully expressed
in the question that has been asked; I assume that the subject has a purpose
that is not exhausted in the question. It is on the basis of the supposition of
this objective that I interpret the question. Thus, a question about what the
weather will be like today may be interpretedand answeredin very different ways depending on who is asking the question (a tourist, a farmer) or
who is answering it (a hotel receptionist, a meteorologist). However, it will
not always be necessary to trace the intention back to the ultimate purpose
that gives meaning to all life. There will be actions in which such a question
will not be relevant: it is a supposition that implies a great deal of effort, and
therefore, there may be situations in which the expected result does not
compensate the effort required.
The process described here does not start from specific events, assuming
that they are evidence of the existence of the individual and of the center of
intention, but rather works the other way round: unless the unity of objectives in the other persons actions is assumed, it will never be possible to
take such actions as signs to be interpreted. To interpret the other is to take
his or her actions as signs of a deeper reality: to view him or her as a person
whom we are attempting to know and penetrate his or her center of intention. The interpretation process implied in any interaction process carries
with it the opportunity of forming a community of knowledge between the
83
individuals involved. This community is not understood in the sense of the

participants agreeing on all the points with respect to their opinions or appraisals, but rather in the sense of coming to know what each participant is
doing or saying and, in short, what is the objective that gives unity to each
individuals life.
Each action is viewed in an interpretative context that also includes a series of past events, experiences, and actions, within which the action finds
its meaning. Both past and present events are understood in the context of
an intentionality that, from the future, gives meaning to specific ideas.
When viewed from actualitysecondnessthe events that punctuate our
lives have structures that can be repeated and described in generic, objective terms. The specific actions performed by the person, inasmuch as they
are performed by a specific individual, acquire a condition of individuality
and uniqueness in history. To take the example used by Peirce, the actions
performed by Napoleon, in their actuality, could be performed by anyone,
but they are combined in Napoleon in such a manner that makes them
unique (CP 4.611). And what can be said about Napoleon can be said about
any other people. Consequently, people are not interchangeable, because
each person has his or her own uniqueness. Using the category of
secondness, one understands that they are that persons actions; using the
category of thirdness, these actions have a meaning for the particular that is
different from the meaning that they would have if performed by someone
else. What makes us one in the course of the history of our lives is the purpose through which we organize and harmonize the other, lower desires.
We can view a persons life as a hierarchization of means and ends, until an
ultimate end is attained which gives meaning and unity to life, and in relation to which we can interpret all the persons expressive signs.
Given the difficulty implied in the process of knowing the reactive agent
that takes part in the subjects interaction, it may be useful to attempt to
classify the types of agents with which the individual may interact. We can
use as a reference for our classification the types of agent proposed by Juan
Antonio Prez Lpez, because it is based on a concept that also appears in
Peircean thought, although not always explicitly.
For Peirce, the agents habits undergo changes as a result of the interaction processes. Habits act as rules of action which, on the one hand, specify
the action to be performed by the active agentand, at the same time, perform an a priori appraisal of the reactive agents reactionand, on the
other hand, undergo changes when they experience the interaction. These
changes that take place in habits are what Prez Lpez calls learning, and
they may occur in both agents involved in the action. Thus, Prez Lpez defines a structured action problem as that in which there are an active agent
and a reactive agent, who may interact an indefinite number of times; an interaction that is instrumental for solving the problem; and a learning
brought about by the experiences derived from the interaction.20 On the ba-
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sis of the learning brought about in the subjects by the experience of the interaction, Prez Lpez distinguishes three types of agent: stable systems,
which are those agents that cannot learn from experience; ultrastable systems, which are those agents that always learn positively; and free systems,
which are those agents which have the possibility of learning negatively.
To help understand this classification, one can think of a machine as an example of a stable system; an animal would be an example of an ultrastable
system; and a human being would be an example of a free system.
There are two aspects of this classification that deserve particular attention. The first is the reference to negative learning by free systems, which is
probably Prez Lpezs most significant contribution to the theory of human action in organizations.21 Negative learning is defined as that situation
in which, even though the pursued results are achieved, the conditions necessary to continue achieving them are destroyed. The clearest situation is
that in which the objectives result is achieved by decreasing the reactive
agents availability to continue in the interaction, such that, as the reactive
agents reaction is a necessary condition for the interaction to take place
and, therefore, obtaining the desired result, the results are achieved but the
conditions for continuing to obtain them are destroyed. This is the case of
the manager who meets the companys goals at the cost of increasing production standards and causing worker discontent. In the extreme case, we
would have an agent for whom any action plan capable of motivating him
or her is no longer viable because either there is no environment to interact
with or, should the environment exist, the agent has become incapable of
perceiving it as such.22
The second point worth remarking on is the choice of the underlying
systems for devising theories. Prez Lpez warns that any theory devised
on the assumption of a system that is simpler than the reality to which that
system refers is an incomplete abstraction, which renders it impossible to
observe those variables whose state is precisely that which most determines the behavior it is wished to observe.23 To some extent, this was already shown in the analysis of organizational theories in the previous
chapter. The danger of viewing human action in organizations using stable
or ultrastable systems is that one may lose sight of elements that are essential for correctly interpreting human action. An organizational model able
to account for all the variables required to understand interaction processes
must start from the consideration that the systems involved in these processes are free and that any other paradigmmechanistic or organistic
modelsmay give suboptimal solutions by leaving outside the scope of
their analysis elements that are important for the decision.
If one had to comment on Peirces stance with respect to the systems he
takes as his basis for interpreting action, one would have to say that it is not
a question, in his case, of taking into consideration models that are more
limited than those required by the reality being interpreted, quite the con-
85
trary. As was observed when describing the theory of habits, it may be difficult to conceive that theory in the order of physical nature, but it is
appropriate in the order of human reality. Therefore, the comment one
could make about Peirce is that he uses models that are too complex for the
reality he wants to explain. In any case, this drawback is less serious than if
the opposite were to be the case. When more complex models are used,
they may require an effort that would not be necessary if more appropriate
models were used, but at least one is sure that no aspects of reality will be
left out of the analysis. As Prez Lpez pointedly remarks, using complex
models to explain simpler realities may seem comical (applying the model
of a free system to explain the behavior of an animal or a machine), but the
consequences of the opposite situationexplaining human action using
stable or ultrastable systemsmay be tragic.24
So far, it has been seen that human action, in addition to being defined by
the interaction between a subject and an environment, must include an element of intentionality in the action that gives unity and meaning to the action and, also, to the succession of actions performed by the individual, so
that one can, in fact, talk of a human conduct. It has also been seen that in
the relationship with that environment, there is always room for spontaneity; the action is not predetermined but, rather, the intentional element influences the action, from the future, leaving us free to determine the way in
which the action is performed. Thus, due to the existence of human freedom, in each situation an element of novelty is added with respect to the
previous situation.
Each action takes us either outward, to know the other person, or inward
to know our own selves. The difficulty in knowing the other person lies in
the fact that this knowledge will always be obtained through our interpretation of his or her actions, which will be a sign of his or her intentions. This
difficulty does not exist in the case of our own actions. However, both when
interpreting the actions of the environmentparticularly if that environment is another human beingand in explaining ones own actions, there
are different interests and motives as a result of which actions that, from the
point of view of their actualitysecondnessappear to be equal, look very
different from the point of view of their meaningthirdness. This explains
the importance of adequately focusing the interpretation of human actionboth in the a priori appraisal and in the perception of the action and
reactionusing decision criteria that help obtain a complete meaning of reality. In the same way as, when formulating judgments on reality, we need
leading principlesas Peirce would saythat ensure the correct formulation of the judgment, so also, when interpreting human action, we require
certain criteria that facilitate this task of appraisal.
The determination of these criteria will be the subject of the second part
of this book. Instead of considering the action, our discussion will now focus on analyzing the decision, centering on the agent who assesses the real-
86
ity and perceives the results of the interaction, to try and see in what
manner he or she decides, in what circumstances, and with what criteria.
This question will lead us to consider Peircean thought from a different
perspective than that used in the first part. The thread running through the
second part will be Peirces concept of science and the relationship between
science and practice, as viewed from different viewpoints. The question
that will guide the discussion in the second part is whether management
action can be governed by a scientific attitude or whether, as a practical activity, it must be separate from any relationship with science.
NOTES
1. U. Eco, Introduction, in C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards, The Meaning of
Meaning, 4th ed. (San Diego: Harcourt, 1989). See also M.H. Fisch, The Range of
Peirces Relevance, in M.H. Fisch, Peirce, Semeiotic and Pragmatism, ed. K.L.
Kettner and C.J.W. Kloesel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986).
2. W. Castaares, De la interpretacin a la lectura (Madrid: Iberediciones, 1994),
124. This work will be a point of obligatory reference throughout this chapter.
3. The example is taken from Castaares, De la interpretacin a la lectura,
131132.
5. Castaares, De la interpretacin a la lectura, 133.
7. U. Eco, Unlimited Semeiosis and Drift: Pragmaticism vs. Pragmatism, in
Peirce and Contemporary Thought, ed. K.L. Ketner (New York: Fordham University
Press, 1995), 216.
8. The example is taken from Castaares, De la interpretacin a la lectura, 136.
9. Eco, Unlimited Semeiosis and Drift: Pragmaticism vs. Pragmatism,
212213.
11. Castaares, De la interpretacin a la lectura, 160161. For the relationship between semiotics and communication theory, see G. Debrock, La informacin y el
estatuto metafsico de los signos, Comunicacin y sociedad 4 (1991): 5364.
13. M.G. Murphey, The Development of Peirces Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1961), 108109, points out that Peirces criticism of intuitionism
targets both Descartes and English empiricism.
15. This idea of purpose is natural to pragmaticism, although it may upset
other pragmatic authors such as Rorty. See Eco, Unlimited Semeiosis and Drift:
Pragmaticism vs. Pragmatism, 212.
18. J.E. Smith, Americas Philosophical Vision (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1992), 181182.
19. Smith, Americas Philosophical Vision, 183.
87
20. J.A. Prez Lpez, Teora de la accin humana en las organizaciones. La accin
personal (Madrid: Rialp, 1991), 40.
21. Prez Lpez, Teora de la accin humana en las organizaciones, 5073.
22. Prez Lpez, Teora de la accin humana en las organizaciones, 56. N. Chinchilla, Rotacin de directivos (Barcelona: Eada Gestin, 1996), investigated the
causes of management turnover as a practical application of Prez Lpezs theory.
PART II
The Scientific Character of

Management
The analysis of human action, which has taken up the first part of this book,
has led to the question of how we make decisions. This should not come as
any surprise. If human action is to be distinguished by its intentional and
deliberate character, it must be preceded by a deliberation on the possible
actions and the choice of an action plan. Juan Antonio Prez Lpez, in the
opening pages of his book on organizational theory, says that the starting
point for developing an organizational theory must be a decision theory, which he justifies by arguing that the functioning of human organizations can only be analyzed scientifically through the explanation of the
specific actions performed by the people who make up these organizations
and that these actions must be explained with respect to the decision made
by that person.1
Human action is not a synonym of decision, because if we were to accept
this equivalence, we would be disregarding that part of human action that
corresponds to execution. However, without reducing action to decision, it
is true that decision plays a significant role in action. To paraphrase Leonardo Polo, we could say that we distinguish ourselves from the animals by
our ability to stop our action to think and that, as a result of this ability to
think, we can act later with greater force and judgment, while in animals,
the cognitive processes are simply moments during the action.2 To act, it is
necessary to stop and think. This need to stop and think is a particularly appropriate consideration for the business manager, imbued as he or she is
with action and the urgency to achieve results.
90
Therefore, the discussion in this second part will focus on decision. First,
the decision-making process will be analyzed to ascertain the role played
by scientific knowledge in the practical character of human action. The following chapter will be concerned specifically with the notion of pragmatic
maxim and, in it, we will consider how its application in human action enables maxims of conduct to be established. The next chapter will address
the classification of sciences, highlighting the synthetic character of management action. In the last chapter, I will discuss some of the characteristics
of scientific activity and how these characteristics can become present in
human action.
NOTES
1. J.A. Prez Lpez, Teora de la accin humana en las organizaciones: La accin personal (Madrid: Rialp, 1991), 19.
2. L. Polo and C. Llano, Antropologa de la accin directiva (Madrid: Unin Editorial, 1997).
CHAPTER 5
INSTINCT AND REASON IN HUMAN ACTION

In 1898, Peirce gave a series of lectures known as the Cambridge Lectures.
The text of these lectures suggests a certain irony regarding human ability to
cope with daily problems from a scientific mentality. Peirces answerat
least, at first sightcould not be more negative: Two masters, theory and
practice, you cannot serve (CP 1.642), he was to say, to indicate that we act
differently depending on whether we are dealing with vital topics or science.
The first of these lectures will seek to establish a clear separation between
these two aspects of human action. On the one hand, Peirce sets out to show
that instinct and customs are more important than reason in the practical
matters of moral conduct while, on the other hand, he argues that in order to
ensure the successful progress of philosophy and science, the practical aspects must remain out of the investigators interests (CP 1.640).
The term vitally important topics refers to the decisions that we take in our
daily actions. Peirce argues that in these actions, it is better to forget about
logic and philosophy and follow the dictates of common sense and the wisdom accumulated over the centuries: theoretical reason is very unreliable,
whereas instinct is infallible in practical terms (CP 1.661).1 However, a person who is immersed in the search for truth is not in a hurry to find it,
whereas the decisions that we must make in our daily life require prompt, sure
answers. Theoretical matters are important; practical matters are urgent.
In the practical conduct of life, Peirce distinguishes between two situations: great decisions, or great crises, and everyday decisions (CP 1.623).
92
Both belong to the sphere of action and, as such, differ from scientific inquiry, which moves on the plane of thought. Therefore, it is possible to classify the actions that we perform in order of greater to lesser practical
importance, as follows: critical decisions, which are those that refer to events
that will have a great influence on our future and, for the same reason, must
be few; everyday decisions, which are those that we make constantly on a
routine basis and that must have little impact on our future; and nonvital or
theoretical matters, which are those that do not have a direct influence on human action and refer to our ability to search for the truth.
In an analogous manner to the difference established by Peirce, Carlos
Llano distinguished between managerial work and operational work in a
firm. In managerial work, action follows no fixed rules and its outcome is
uncertain. In operational work, known rules are followed and the outcome, if the rules are followed, isat least statisticallycertain. The rules
of managerial action have not been fixed; however, the rules of operational
action are clearly determined.2 Operational work can be likened to everyday decisions, whereas managerial work would correspond to critical decisions.
Science cannot be a guide for conduct because it is concerned with what
is probable or tentative, whereas human conduct desires the security provided by certainty and regularity. When people act, they assume a certain
degree of stability in reality; however, scientific knowledge reacts to what is
unusual and new. There are difficulties, therefore, in reconciling the vital
world and the scientific world. The former is unable to offer a rational comprehension of reality, whereas the latter is unable to formulate a body of
opinions stable enough to support practical action. Diggins has shown
how, at this point, Peirce found himself immersed in a characteristic dilemma of modern thought: the difficulty of reconciling the scientific reality
to which the modern ideal leads with a reality that often, and in aspects that
are important for its intelligibility, eludes our grasp.3 At first sight, it could
seem that Peirce was unable to overcome this dilemma and, in this sense, he
could be classed as a thinker who has the characteristics typical of modern
thought. However, the radicalness with which Peirce usually makes his
statements should warn us not to take his words at their face value but to go
on to the ideas behind them. We will then see that Peirce tried to overcome
this dilemma, thus perhaps becoming the first postmodern thinker.
Peirce confines scientific inquiry to matters of a theoretical nature; science has nothing to say concerning practical matters (CP 1.637). A scientific
inquiry is, in itself, a useless inquiry, that is, it has no immediate effects on
daily life; and if anything useful should be discovered in it, it should be ignored while the inquiry is in progress (CP 1.668) because scientific inquiry
requires a perfect attention, which may be lost if human desires interfere,
no matter how worthy they may be (CP 1.619620). Genuine scientific curiosity must be devoid of any other interest that may barricade the road of
93
science (CP 1.642, 1.645). Therefore, rather than focusing on the distinction
with respect to the object of the action, Peirce emphasizes the distinction
with respect to the intention with which the subject acts.
The true sphere of reasoning is science, because there are no vital urgencies that require a quick, sure decision. However, reason is, by its very nature, egotistical (CP 1.631). This means that in the sphere of scientific
inquiry, the individual does not need any relationship with anything outside the inquiry. Through his or her work, the scientist comes into contact
with the other discoveries made by the scientific community, from which
emerges the final opinion that expresses the truth. However, working with
the scientific community is on no account a necessary condition. The grand
ideals of science make up, by themselves, for the shortsightedness of egotistical reason.
To a certain extent, everyday decisions are equivalent to the sphere of
science and reason may obtain good results in such decisions (CP 1.652), relying on rules of action generated by the action itself. However, when faced
with crucial problems or critical decisions, reason does not provide a solid
foundation (CP 1.623). The ideals of science may make vitally important issues appear as having little value. From the viewpoint of reason, when a
proposition becomes vitally important, it is sunk to the condition of a mere
utensil at the same time as it ceases to be scientific, because reasoning is not
relevant to vitally important topics (CP 1.671, 1.56). For reason, the vitally
important facts are the most insignificant truths, because reason only
knows how to conjugate the first person, whereupon its sole concern is my
interest, my occupation, my duty. If vitally important topics are examined
under the light of reason, Peirce says, there are only two possible outcomes:
Americanism and monasticism. The former is typical of the business world,
where reason predominates and takes charge of these matters; in monasticism, reason scorns them and turns in upon itself, looking only to the eternal truths (CP 1.673). However, if we look at ourselves as we are, we will
discover that even in the little tasks that we must perform, we must give
them all our powers, meaning not only our reason but also those others that
make up the true substance of the human soul: instinct, our sentiment (CP
1.628, 1.646647, 1.655).
For Peirce, philosophical rationalism is a farce. Rather than rationalism,
Peirce prefers philosophical sentimentalism. It is true that there may be a
sentimentalism that is egotistical, such as that which prevailed in the
French Revolution. However, true sentimentalism is not egotistical but
rather is open to all humanity. Instinctas opposed to reasonis more
concerned with the species than with the individuals own benefit and
makes the individual consider his or her life as a matter of trifling importance. If one takes a conservative sentimentalism and places reason in a mediocre second place, which is the place that fits it best, one sees that there is a
higher occupation and a higher responsibility than mine: a generalized con-
94
ception of duty that, by virtue of the continuity principle, encompasses

more than self-interest (CP 1.673). We are not talking of acts of extraordinary virtuosity but rather something that is characteristic of each individual man or woman (CP 1.639).
Humanity often deceives itself with respect to the power of reason. In its
vanity, it prides itself on its ability to reason (CP 1.658), when it is very
clearPeirce would saythat the lower animals do not reason, but neither do they make mistakes, whereas people, often because they reason too
much, do make mistakes: they squander enormous amounts of energy on
deliberating and making a decision that, in the final analysis, they would
also have reached by simply throwing a die (CP 1.626, 1.649). In addition,
when people start to rationalize their own conduct, they end up giving full
freedom to their passions and justifying immoral acts with false reasoning
(CP 1.57). The power of reason is a gift that, like the talent for music, is not
received by everyone, and even those who do receive it only do so in small
quantities. It is true that certain individuals who triumph reason deeply
about things, but most people who can be considered to have achieved success in their professions have some deficiency in their reasoning power (CP
1.657).
One could wonder whether reason still has some role to play in practical
activity, since, so far, it seems that the process has only led us to increasingly
separate the two spheres until they have become irreconcilable. Maryann
Ayim has studied the role played by reason and instinct in scientific inquiry
and practical decisions and has concludedunlike the interpretation
given by most scholars of Peircethat science is not totally separated from
practical matters. She argues that theory is not related to practice only if
practice is viewed in the strict sense of technical action, in which case action
would be better governed by the rules generated unconsciously by the action itself (logica utens). However, when practice, viewed in a broad sense,
requires new discoveries to be made, the close bond between theory and
practice is fruitful. In this case, the value of scientific knowledge lies in its
ability to provide rules which give satisfactory results when deliberate actions are performed using them (logica docens).4
The principle of conservatism, which Pierce enounces as refusing to
push any practical principle to its extreme limits (CP 1.633), must also be
applied to sentimentalism itself. Thus, it cannot be accepted that only sentiments play a role in human action, without a place for reason, if one wishes
to avoid any deterioration in the ability to think; something which, incidentally, is perceived from one generation to the next (CP 1.58). Peirce admits to
a certain relationship between practical matters and theoretical reason, but
with caution. Above all, one must avoid the precipitate abandonment of
those practical maxims and rules of conduct that have been formed over
years of experience simply because a theoretical speculation has cast a
shadow of doubt on them, precisely because reason is notoriously fallible.
95
Patience and prudence are required when one is considering converting

theoretical opinions into practical rules of action. Our search for truthfollowing the canons of honest reason and with a spirit of humilitycan be,
and in fact is, one of natures most powerful means for bringing truth to the
fore. However, experience and nature are the masters and ultimate
correctors of theory: honest reason requires respect for the facts of experience while, at the same time, reason itself is a fact of experience that must be
taken into account. If the practical principles of action are true, no theoretical explanation can change them; however, if they are false, experience,
sooner or later, will destroy them.5
In most situations, we adapt to our inclinations in the same way that a
bee or an ant does, as our rationality is little different from theirs. We do
things without much reflection and with no necessity to go back to the first
principles: this is only done by the odd exceptional being or when we find
ourselves in some exceptional situation (CP 2.176). Our instinctive ways of
thinking have adapted to practical ordinary life, in the same way that our
physiology adapts to the environment. Thus, reason itself gives us this advice: Invariably follow the dictates of Instinct in preference to those of Reason when such conduct will answer your purpose. And it continues: Do
not harbor any expectation that the study of logic can improve your judgment in matters of business, family, or other departments of ordinary life
(CP 2.177). However, at the same time, Peirce acknowledges that human
nature is not as simple as that of a bee or an ant. They are content to follow
their instincts, but this is not the case with human beings. We do not have a
sufficient stock of instincts to survive; we cannot settle for following instincts but rather must venture to reason. Therefore, the best action plan is
the following: to base our conduct as much as possible on instinct, but
when we do reason, to reason with severely scientific logic (CP 2.178). Wisdom consists of discriminating the occasions for reasoning and the occasions for going by instinct, while remembering that it is more important to
feel right than to reason deeply (CP 7.606).
Even though by reason we may verify whether instincts align with experience and be prepared to repudiate them if they do not work, the principle
of conservatism states that one should not rush to change something that
works simply because reason tells us that it must be changed. The supreme
commandment of reason proclaims the subordination of reason to sentiment (CP 1.634) but, at the same time, the supreme commandment of sentiment drives us to join the universal continuumwhich is the matter of
true reasonwhere the discontinuities of will disappear, thus avoiding
falling prey to a blind will in the hands of an egotistical reason (CP 1.673).
To correctly understand the relation between reason and instinct in human action, we might do well to distinguish, as does Ayim, between naturalinheritedinstinct, which would be instinct in its pure sense, and
socialnon-inheritedinstinct, which is the sentiment.6 Thus, sentiments,
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like instincts, have a character of habit or disposition but their origin and
evolution are different. Consequently, when Peirce says that we are less
well equipped than animals to act instinctively, he is referring to the order
of natural instinct. It is at this point that reason must intervene. However, in
the order of reason, sentiments have a role to play. When we find ourselves
faced with a new situation, we can act from natural instinctwith the limitations this has in the case of human beingsor we can act with reason. In
this case, the decision process formulates a rule of action that, when it is executed and receives the reaction from the environment, may undergo modifications in successive iterations. With the repetition of actions, we
internalize this rule of action to the point that it becomes integrated in the
individuals instinctive part; in other words, it no longer needs the intervention of reason. However, in this case, we are talking of social instinct or
sentiments. Let us take the example of someone who learns to drive a car.
The first few times he changes the cars gears, he will need to devote all his
attention to following the necessary steps. However, with time, the process
becomesto use the customary expressioninstinctive: the decision
rule has been integrated in the instinctive part of our nature and has become a habit. As opposed to the greater rigidity of natural instinct, the instinct that has been mediated by reasonsentimentcan become
infinitely plastic.
Therefore, there are two alternatives for solving vitally important problems: one, allow the individual to solve the problem by him- or herself, using natural instinct, with the limitation that the individual is less well
equipped than animals to act when guided solely by instinct; two, transfer
the problem to the domain of reason, while ensuring that the individuals
natural egotistical tendency is kept under control (CP 1.638).7 If the decision requires a logical analysis, because instinct is not sufficient to guide
our action, then sentiments must be kept out of the way and we must proceed in accordance with the appropriate scientific method. However, sentiments always have the last word in the decision because the conclusions of
theory are always tentative and are not a guarantee of having proceeded
correctly. Thus, a space is kept for the individuals free decision (CP 1.644).
The results of theory do not determine our action. Any norms that may be
established always have a generic character, which imposes no positive
form of conduct. The positive orientation of conduct therefore has a managerial character.8
Technical action seeks homogenous procedures and rules that can be reiterated; to a certain extent, it can be said that it is practical. However, even
though managerial action is practical, it does not move on the plane of technical action because it goes beyond the reiteration of predetermined rules.
It can be said that the technician solves operational problemseveryday
decisionsin which the sequence of operations to be performed to solve
the problem is known. On the other hand, when faced with nonoperational
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problems, technical action is inadequate. Prudential knowledge is that

which addresses nonoperational problems to make them operational. In
technical problems, the chief concern is to apply the rules of action; in management problems, the key point is to define the problem. Peirce says the
same thing when he points out that in those observations where precision
is paramount, it is the experiment that is important. However, in those observations where precision is not essential, it is the observation that is important (CP 7.256). The former are technical observations; the latter are
management observations. However, any human action is initially a
non-operational problem; because the agent performing it is a person, his
or her action always contains a degree of novelty with respect to past actions. We must always first answer the question as to whether we are facing
a new, non-operational problem or the repetition of an operational problem. Once we have answered that question, the deliberation can continue.
By their very nature, human problems are management problems; hence,
to a certain extent, it is a redundancy to talk of human management in organizations as management can only occur where there are humans.
Therefore, even though a preliminary analysis may give the impression
of a clear separation between science and practice, a more detailed study of
the types of action and the role played by reason and instinct in each type
has led us to conclude that, in the case of the type of action in which there is
an element of novelty that prevents us from following predetermined rules
of conduct, reason must be present in the deliberation process. This is the
case of human action, in which there is always a factor of novelty.
THE ARTIST, THE PRACTICAL MAN AND THE SCIENTIST
In 1883, Peirce commenced a study on the great men of the history of humanity (W 5:26106; CP 7.256266). His interest in this study was methodological: his purpose was to teach his students at Johns Hopkins University
how to carry out an inductive investigation, and he thought that if he took
as his basis for study a subject that was not susceptible to exact observation,
it would enable him to show more clearly the importance of a mathematical
treatment of this type of investigation (CP 7.256). However, even though
the study of great men was not the direct interest of the investigation and
the study was never even completed, Peirce established a kind of classification. When, in about 1896, he started writing a book entitled Lessons of the
History of Science, he took up that classification again and identified three
classes of people: the artist, the practical man, and the scientist. This is how
he describes each one:
The first consists of those for whom the chief thing is the qualities of feelings. These
men create art. The second consists of the practical men, who carry on the business
of the world. They respect nothing but power, and respect power only so far as it is
exercised. The third class consists of men to whom nothing seems great but reason.
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If force interests them, it is not in its exertion, but in that it has a reason and a law. For
men of the first class, nature is a picture; for men of the second class, it is an opportunity; for men of the third class, it is a cosmos, so admirable, that to penetrate to its
ways seems to them the only thing that makes life worth living. These are the men
whom we see possessed by a passion to learn, just as other men have a passion to
teach and to disseminate their influence. If they do not give themselves over completely to their passion to learn, it is because they exercise self-control. Those are the
natural scientific men; and they are the only men that have any real success in scientific research. (CP 1.43)
In a manuscript corresponding to some lectures given at the Adirondack

Summer School in 1905, he refers again to these three types of people (MS
1334).9 Human beingshe said on that occasioncan be divided into three
grand groups, whose members understand each other in general terms,
even though they cannot understand, viewed from their way of life, the
others objectives and purposes. The first group corresponds to those who
devote themselves to amusement, seeking the best way for themselves and
their companions to have a good time; this is the most numerous and most
necessary class. The second class scorns such a way of life: for them, their
notion of life is to achieve results. They set grand goals, they devote themselves to politics to wield the forces of the state, and put into motion all
manner of reforms. This group is that which builds civilizations. The people comprising the third group, who are comparatively few, cannot conceive of either a life of amusement or a life of action. Their purpose is to
worship God in the development of ideas and the pursuit of truth. These
are the scientists (MS 1334).
One could ask whether Peirce intended to classify all people into these
three types. Having reached this point in our dialog with Peirce, it becomes
difficult to accept an interpretation of the three types of people in the sense
of a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive classification. However, it would be more reasonable to view it as a categorical structure of the
type that characterizes all Peircean thought. Thus, rather than talk of types
of people, one should talk of different attitudes held by people. All three attitudesfollowing the characteristics of the categorieswould be present in
each person, although each ones relative weight would vary, not only in
each person, but also in each specific interaction and decision.
The question that Peirce customarily asks is whether the scientific person can be moved by other interests that would be more typical of the person of action. However, it is not this question that is the center of interest in
this discussion. The crucial question here concerns the opposite situation:
whether the person of action can have a scientific attitude in his or her action. Applying the conceptual framework provided by a categorical interpretation of the three types of people, one could answer this question in the
affirmative. Although the category of secondness and the practical type of
person will have particular importance in the person of action, this does not
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mean that the other two types are excluded and that management action,
apart from a fundamentally practical dimension, has no place for a scientific attitude or an artistic attitude. Management is eminently practical, inasmuch as it requires a clearly defined purpose and the adoption of a
consistent plan for achieving that purpose. However, at the same time, being a practice that is not limited to the merely technical, it requires the presence of the scientific attitude, which is necessary in those actions in which
the novelty factor is relevant, as is the caseto a greater or less extentwith human actions. Finally, the observation power required by the a
priori appraisal of the possible action problems indicates an artistic attitude becauseas Peirce statesthe artist is a much finer and more accurate observer than the scientist (CP 1.315).
The conceptual framework contributed by Peirce is clearer and more explanatory than some of the classifications that have been suggested to conceptualize managerial action. One of the most widely accepted
classifications distinguishes between leaders and managers: the former are
the people who set the companys strategy, who innovate, who always
keep ahead, who have a vision of the company and its goals, whereas the
managers are those who specialize in administrative tasks, performing the
detailed analytic work that enables the organizational framework to function properly. According to the wordplay used by Bennis and Nanus,
managers are those who do things right and leaders are those who do the
right things.10 In Peircean terms, the leader would be an artist whereas the
manager would be halfway between the practical person and the scientist.
However, business reality shows the unsatisfactoriness of this division,
which is not matched to the nature of true management work. Others have
distinguished between task-oriented managers and people-oriented
managers.11 However, we are faced once again with a dualism that does not
match reality, as not only is it inappropriate to distinguish between the
management of things and the management of people, but also a correct interpretation of management leads to the conclusion that these aspects are
inseparable.12
A more all-embracing approach was proposed by Prez Lpez, who distinguished three dimensions of management: the strategic dimension,
which seeks to discover opportunities; the executive dimension, which is
concerned with aspects of the organizations structure; and the leadership
dimension, which is concerned with the development of the people who
make up the organization and, therefore, with satisfying their real needs.13
This distinction by Prez Lpez, which is more complete than those mentioned previously, can be considered complementary to Peirces, as it centers on tasks, whereas Peirces distinction is concerned with the attitudes
the manager must have in each of these dimensions. In other words, one
could analyze the artistic, practical, and scientific aspects in each of the dimensions proposed by Prez Lpez. Carlos Llano, in his distinction be-
100
tween operational work and managerial work, warns that, even though
these two actions have different characters and signs, this does not mean
that it is considered desirable that they be carried out by different people.
To separate these two essential aspects of action, which is like splitting a
person, entails not only what one could call utilitarian costs for the company, but, above all, an anthropological cost. Consequently, it is desirable to
foster a tendency, which already exists, in which the inevitable separation
between management and operation does not necessarily imply a separation between people, but merely a distinction of domains or spheres in each
type of activity.14
Just as viewing the three types of people from the perspective of the categories theory helps us understand that these two dimensions of action cannot be taken separately, it also makes clear that, even if they are present in
the same person, they should not be fused in a disorganized fashion. Managerial work seeks to determine the rule; operational work is bound to be
subject to the rule. At the levels of greater responsibility in the company,
managerial work will prevail over operational work. However, even at
these levels there must be operational work, as there are actions at these levels that cannot be exempt from rules. At the levels of lesser responsibility,
on the other hand, operational work will prevail over managerial work,
but, no matter how many rules it must follow, there will always be a space
for managing ones work.
The division of jobs, which is necessary for the effective functioning of
society, should not be taken as sanctioning the division of labor. The management of work is an expression of personal autonomy in ones work, a reflection of the rationality that, under no circumstances, should be taken
away from people. According to Carlos Llano, our work becomes managerial in three ways: by setting the rules ourselves, by deciding them jointly
with others, or by accepting as our own the rules set by others. The managerial dimension of work does not require that it be entirely ones own. Indeed, it does not matter whether the instructions that the individual must
follow have been devised by him- or herself alone, together with others, or
only by others. The important point about these instructions, rules, or action criteria is not who gives them or the result they imply, but the fact that
we accept the rules under which we work. There are many intelligent people who do not accept their own ideas because they realize that the mere
fact that they are their ideas is not sufficient; and there are many prudentor, at least, cautiouspeople who doubt their own ideas and place
them before other people for rectification or ratification. An intelligent,
prudent person will accept the rules given by another person if their rationality or technical goodness is sufficient. However, the acceptance of rules
is also dependent on a certain personal accord with the rules that are to be
applied, and, in such cases, the applicable principles are anthropological
rather than technological. Organizations do not focus only on the search
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for, and implementation of, adequate operating systems for their growth,
but also on developing peoples intelligence and prudence so that they are
capable of taking full ownership of these systems.15
To summarize, both regarding action and the individual who acts, the
opposition between theory and practice is more apparent than real. By its
very nature, human action requires the mediation of reason and, therefore,
a certain degree of scientific method. However, people cannot ignore the artistic, practical, and scientific dimensions of their actions: if reasoning is required, it must be done with a rigorous scientific logic. Therefore, the study
of the scientific process of inquiry may help explain the scientific aspects of
decision making in practical action.
THE DECISION PROCESS: FROM DOUBT TO BELIEF

The manager is basically interested in action. His or her relation with the
environment is not only, or primarily, a contemplative relation, but rather a
transformative relation. Using production and distribution processes, the
manager seeks to produce and offer goods and services that satisfy the
needs of the society that he or she wishes to serve. Thus, the threshold of
management decision always has these two extremes: at the beginning, a
series of needs; at the end, a series of goods and services that satisfy those
needs. Covering the distance between one extreme and the other is the decision-making process: the manager defines what those needs are, generates
the alternatives by which the needs can be satisfied, chooses one of them
through the application of certain criteria, and establishes an action plan.
Peirce, too, places the process of scientific inquiry between two thresholds. If, instead of talking of need, one talks of doubt, and if satisfaction
of needs is replaced by belief, the managerial decision process will then
correspond to the process of inquiry as characterized by Peirce. The action
of thinking always starts with a doubt and ends when one attains a belief,
so that one could say that the sole function of thought is to produce a belief
(CP 5.394, 5.371). Peirce uses the concepts of doubt and belief to express, respectively, the starting and ending point of any question, regardless of its
transcendence or lack thereof. Doubt stimulates the mind to an activity that
may be slight or energetic, calm or turbulent, but that, in any case, causes a
struggle to attain a state of belief; the term Peirce gives to this struggle is inquiry (CP 5.374375). Images pass rapidly through the consciousness, one
incessantly melting into another, until at last, when all is overit may be in
a fraction of a second, in an hour, or after many yearswe find ourselves
decided as to how we should act under such circumstances (CP 5.394). With
doubt, therefore, the strugglethe inquirybegins, and with the cessation
of doubt, it ends, by means of the statement of the belief (CP 5.375).
Doubt and belief are two states of mind that are distinguished by the following characteristics. First, they produce different sensations; this is clear
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when one compares asking a question with pronouncing a judgment. Second, the belief indicates the existence of a habit that will determine our actions. Finally, doubt is associated with an unsatisfactory state, which does
not provide any guideline for action, so that our struggle is to free ourselves
of this state and acquire habits of action (CP 5.370373, 7.313).16 In spite of
their differences, doubt and belief have positive effects on us. Although belief does not make us act, it puts us in a condition that enables us to act in a
certain way when the occasion arises; doubt, for its part, stimulates us to inquiry (CP 5.373).
Although Peirce uses the term doubt to refer to that situation that starts
inquiry, on other occasions he talks of curiosity as the motive of all inquiry
(CP 7.58) or of a state of hesitancy prior to a certain action (CP 5.394). The
state of doubt has the following characteristics: first, it is a sensation of not
knowing something; second, it is a desire to know it; and, third, it is an effort to calm that sensation (CP 5.584). The first condition for learning is to
know that we are ignorant; only after having acknowledged thiswhich
brings to mind Socratic reminiscencescan inquiry start (CP 7.322). The
desire to know is also important. Peirce establishes as the first rule of reason
that, in order to learn, one must desire to learn, and that this desire must
lead to a feeling of dissatisfaction with what one already knows. This rule of
reason has a methodological corollary thatPeirce saysdeserves to be
inscribed on every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of
inquiry (CP 1.135). The process of inquiry should be open to new, future
inquiries and cannot be barricaded with statements or assumptions that
impede its advance (CP 1.136140).
The two extremes between which inquiry movesand into which it
must avoid fallingare that which doubts everything and that which bases
everything on certain first principles or ultimate facts that are beyond
doubt. Peirce does not deny the existence of necessary reasoningwhich
forms part of mathematicsbut, whereas mathematical reasoning is based
on certain hypothetical conditions that support the conclusions without
there being any need to look for a reference in the existential order, the
chemists experiments, to give another example, even though they, too, are
based on hypothetical conditions, are always open to doubt as to whether
there may exist unknown conditions that affect the experiment (CP 5.8).
Thus, Peirce is not so much against the presence of certain first principles
on which reasoning is based as the fact that these first principles are maintained even when experience shows them to be untrue. Thus, those who
adopt a skeptical positionand who find in Peirce a well-founded criticism, in spite of his apparent simplicitywill find it difficult to agree with
Peirces stance. On the other hand, it may be acceptable for those who argue
in favor of the existence of certain first principles, inasmuch as they may be
understood as beliefs that are sufficiently confirmed by experience as to not
doubt them without sufficient motive.17
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The doubt causing the inquiry must be real and living, that is, the problems raised must be real and not pseudoproblems. Thus, it is not the task of
inquiry to discuss what is already clear; if the doubt is settled, the mental
process is complete, and trying to prolong it without any purpose would
not bring any further progress (CP 5.376). Neither is it acceptable to doubt
something that is known by daily experience or those beliefs in which we
have always held: we cannot doubt in our conscience what we do not doubt
in our heart (CP 5.265, 2.75, 7.322). The doubt must be spontaneous and not
forced,18 which requires an external origin that causes in the individual the
surprise that puts into motion the inquiry process. It is impossible for us to
create in ourselves a genuine doubt simply by an act of will if there is no
outside reference on which it is founded (CP 5.443), and neither is it possible to consider any question as a subject of inquiry if it lacks sufficient interest and is incapable of giving rise to a genuine process of inquiry.19
Adoubt that is real and living will normally be related to a decision problem and will come about as a consequence of an indecision in our action.
This indecision may sometimes be due to a real need, and, on other occasions, it may be forced by us, by an intellectual curiosity or because we have
nothing better to do (CP 5.394). Whatever the case, it causes a stimulus to
the mind which drives us to decide how we would act in a situation such as
that which has given rise to the doubt. Thus, any hesitancy can be approached as a process of inquiry, and all inquiries end in a belief, which can
be interpreted as a rule of action and a decision on how to act. A decisionafter allis distinguished from a random process because it follows
a process of deliberation, which is a kind of inquiry.20
Belief has a character of habit and, as such, rather than leading us to act, it
disposes us to act. It is a habit of intelligence by which the subject will act in
a certain way when the occasion arises. This definition of belief is meant for
those situations in whichas is the case with scientific inquirythe problems are not raised with the urgency of the here and now. But this does not
mean that it is not useful for those other circumstances in which decisions
are made in a very specific hereness and nowness, although such circumstances would require certain qualifications to be made to Peirces ideas.
A belief is characterized primarily by being deliberately prepared to
adopt the formula believed in as a guide to action, so that the belief can be
described as a habit of conduct and the proposition by which it is expressed, as a maxim of conduct (CP 5.27, 5.539). In previous pages I presented the characteristics of doubt, and I will now list the following
characteristics of belief. First, it is the result of deliberate thinking and,
therefore, the subject is aware of it; second, it appeases the situation of
doubt that has given rise to the inquiry; finally, it has the nature of a habit
and implies the establishment of a rule of action (CP 5.397).
Habits corresponding to beliefs are intellectual habits formed in the
imagination. It is not necessary to act to form such habits; the individual
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has simply to imagine the situation to determine how he or she would

actdecision ruleif such a situation were to actually occur (CP 5.440,
5.394, 5.538). This is the process that takes place in the a priori appraisal
performed by the active agent with respect to the possible interactions. This
explains the importance of imagination for management action and, in particular, of that function of imaginationthe cogitative function, in classic
termsthat is concerned with planning and appraising future action.
However, just as the habit corresponding to a belief has a deliberate characterthat is, it is mediated by reasonso, too, must imagination be governed by the intelligence of the ends (CP 5.538) and avoid the two extremes
of either being left to the mercy of emotional impulses or submitted to technical reason. As Alejandro Llano pointed out, imagination, when given this
meaning, is closer to thought than sensitivity: it is the ability to see a new
opportunity for action where previously there only seemed to be a problem.21
Even though beliefs may be formed in the imagination, it still remains
true that experience plays a role in their formation and development, becausein accord with the principle of continuity and the law of habit formationthey should not be understood as something that is obtained at
once and for ever, but rather as something that evolves and develops over
time. When habit is put into practice and verified in action, it is easier to exercise it the next time (CP 5.538) because the abstract knowledge obtained
from a rule of action that is assumed to work on a given occasion is different
from the knowledge that has been found by experience to work. Furthermore, the practical application of the rule of action will bring to light differences between the expected effects determined by the a priori appraisal of
the rule of action and the effects actually caused during its application (CP
7.87; MS 329, 3),22 which, in turn, will cause new doubts to appear and a
new process of inquiry to begin.23 Thus, two processes take place simultaneously in the development of the belief-defining habit: on the one hand,
the creation of new habits originated by new experiences, which, in the
course of a generalization process, are added harmoniously to the body of
rules of action that the subject has defined to date; and, on the other hand,
the modification of old beliefs when they are confronted with experience
(CP 3.161, 7.346) by means of a controlled process, which is that given by the
character of reasoning (CP 1.606, 5.130, 5.533534).
All our beliefs are fallible; our processes of inquiry are built on foundations that are not firm, and the best way to stay standing is to keep on walking because as soon as we stop, we fall. When a belief is accepted, it is
accepted with the conviction that surprise will readily reappear in the next
experience and a new inquiry will begin. In this process, we may think that
we are drawing ever closer to truth. There is a faith that lies at the origin of
all logical arguments that induces one to think that if the process of inquiry
is continued, one will reach a series of conclusions that will be the same for
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all people. It is this faith that supports the progress and advancement of scientific knowledge, and the acceptance of beliefs, as the historical development of science itself has shown (CP 3.161). However, we cannot be sure
that the community will attain a stable opinion or that any question can be
solved by inquiry. We can only harbor a sort of hope that the conclusion
will be attained (CP 6.610; W 3:44). There is no guarantee, but there is at
least hope. When truth will be attained is something that is totally uncertain. The only thing we can say is that sooner or later it will be attained, provided favorable conditions exist for inquiry (CP 5.407).24 Guided by the
natural logic of the human mind (logica utens) and corrected with experience, inquiry will reach the same result for everyone, albeit requiring a
great expenditure of resources (CP 2.162). This will render necessary an adequate logical theory capable of shortening the time that must elapse until
the predestined result is obtained (CP 7.78).25
The image that one should have of this process is not that of certain propositions that, as they are confirmed, are placed one on top of another, as if
they were bricks forming the building of scientific truth. Rather, it should
be understood as a succession of doubts that force us to continue investigating until we reach another state of belief that temporarily proves to be resistant to doubt, until the next experience renders it necessary to reformulate
the belief. Peirce compares the process of inquiry with a musical composition. The score is divided into cadences. Each of these cadences is a belief,
which brings a moment of rest in the playing of the melody (CP 5.397).
However, each cadence implies the beginning of a new series of notes and
sounds, which is the process of inquiry. It is this succession of notes and silences that constitutes music, just as the succession of doubts, beliefs, and
processes of inquiry shapes intellectual life and the succession of problems,
deliberations, and actions configures our practical life. Doubt initiates a
process of thought, which terminates with a belief, which in turn implies a
rule of action. Thought is calmed and action begins; a new state of doubt is
generated, which puts thought into motion again to attain a new belief and
a new rule of action. The belief or disposition to act remains temporaryand, therefore, mixed with doubtby the very nature of the experience from which doubt, belief and knowledge flow.26
For Peirce, the idea generation process implied by the process of inquiry
is an art not yet reduced to rules (CP 5.410). On asking himself whether one
can talk of a method in Peircean thought, Putnam says that the process of
inquiry cannot be reduced to an algorithmic process but that this does not
mean that we cannot know how to conduct our inquiries;27 it means that,
for Peirce, human reasoning is not a Cartesian search for fundamentals, but
an activity of cooperative, fallible investigation, which does not need such
fundamentals.28 Kevelson also pointed out the similarity of the process of
inquiry to art, in that the former does not rest on observed facts but rather
on value judgments that are interpretants of shared beliefs that the mem-
106
bers of a community have reached freely, openly, and in a manner agreeable to reason.29
METHODS FOR FIXING BELIEFS: THE SCIENTIFIC

METHOD
Given that the purpose of the inquiry is to settle a belief, one must ask
what resources are available to reach that stable belief on which action is
founded. For Peirce, it does not make much sense to talk of true beliefs,
as, in his opinion, as soon as a belief is reached, we are satisfied with it (W
3:248; CP 6.498), and that, by itself, is sufficient. Peirce does not mean that
that which is not doubted is truth by itself, but he does say that that which is
not doubted must be held to be true (CP 4.416; W 2:471). At the same time,
he saysand this is an important qualificationthat the attitude to change
the belief must always be present, as the process of inquiryand, therefore,
the possibility of changing beliefsis a lifelong matter.
Peirce considers four possible methods for establishing a belief (CP
5.377387). The criterion for assessing each of these methodstenacity, authority, a priori, and scientificis fundamentally methodological (CP
7.49),30 that is, he asks how they respond to the characteristics defining the
process of inquiry. What leads him to prefer one method over another is not
so much the body of affirmations reached as the procedure used, or, to put it
another way, its affirmations are accepted through the mediation of the process used. Peirce concluded that the scientific method is the only one that
meets the requirements for acceptance as a method of inquiry. Peirce then
analyzed the different methods in a logical sequence that also enables the
characteristics that should characterize the scientific method to be defined
by default.
The first method considered by Peirce is the method of tenacity. As the
object of inquiry is a stable belief and not necessarily a true belief, it may
seem more simple and economic to decide to believe in something that is already believed in and reiterate that belief constantly to oneself, rejecting
any thought that might threaten the security of the position that has been
taken. It is a simple and direct method, which is chosen by many people.
The method may seem irrational, but this is not a sufficient criterion for rejecting it because if the aim is to achieve stable beliefs, nothing assures us a
priori that a rational method will be more effective than an irrational one.
However, this method can only be held if we live in isolation from other
people. Consequently, taking into account our social condition, the method
becomes practically untenable: we will always be encountering other people who hold opinions that are different from ours, which will lead us to
question our own beliefs, as the process of fixing beliefs takes place, not
only in the individual, but also in the community. This method is also challenged by the force of ones individual experience. Peirce graphically
107
points out the disadvantages that may be encountered by a person who insists on thinking that fire does not burn while holding his or her hand in the
flames (CP 5.377, 7.325).
The second method, that of authority, takes into consideration the social
character of the process of inquiry. This method consists of allowing authority to legislate all beliefs, carry out a process of indoctrination, keep the
population in a state of ignorance with respect to the possible consequences
of a doubt, and punish all those who profess another belief (CP 5.379). Such
a method may be more effective than tenacity and, in factPeirce saysit
has been maintained throughout the course of history, with evident success. Suffice to think of Ancient Egypt or the societies of medieval Europe to
be able to say that this methodwhich appears whenever there is an aristocracy or guild that imposes its opinion on othershas given civilizations most majestic results and is the most appropriate for governing the
large mass of humanity that is content with being the intellectual slaves of a
ruling minority (CP 5.380).
Peirce does not repudiate the method of authority as completely ineffective. He gives the example of medieval thought, in which reason and authority seemed to be two coordinate methods for attaining truth, even
though priority was given to authority (CP 1.30). At another time, he says
that a minimum of social recognition is also good for the scientist and
quotes the example of Aristotle, who was able to reconcile social recognition with scientific inquiry (CP 4.46). He does not repudiate authority so
much as a certain mode of exercising it that can lead to vanity and a lack of
critical sense (CP 2.168), the inability to recognize the divergence of opinions and insistence in affirming ones own opinion (CP 1.3032), or the attempt to enclose knowledge in lists of unchangeable codes or norms (CP
3.404). As Misak pointed out, in this case, too, the establishment of the belief is founded on an evidence, only it is not that of reality, but of the authority of the person from whom the affirmation about the belief originates.31
This authority is based, not on the capability of the person making the affirmation, but on the trust placed in that person as a result of his or her personal actions.
This second method helps us qualify the social dimension of the establishment of beliefs; thus, the fact that the belief must be fixed in the context
of the community does not mean that it must be fixed by imposition by a
higher entity which completely annuls the individuals ability to think (CP
5.379), as that person then finds him- or herself under the rule of an increasingly powerful organization. However, the method of authority is acceptable when it implies the recognition by a decision maker of the fact that
another decision maker already knows something that the former has yet
to learn and that this other decision maker is willing to use this greater
knowledge to help him or her.
108
The third method, called a priori, consists of believing in that which is

agreeable to reason. Those who follow this method believe in that which is
plausible and reasonable but do not verify it against experience to ascertain
whether their beliefs are in line with the facts. This is the method, says
Peirce, that has been followed by most philosophers and has brought about
the human minds most important creations. However, in regard to establishing beliefs, this method only allows beliefs to follow one after the other,
like fashions, but does not pursue the ultimate agreement that characterizes the process of inquiry (CP 5.383).32 Without doubt, it is the most intellectual and respectable of the three methods analyzed so far, inasmuch as it
is the expression of instinct. However, by making belief dependent on individuals opinion, it makes inquiry something akin to a question of taste and
fashion.
The third method, when viewed in this light, has similarities with the
method of authority, only instead of assigning to authority the task of fixing
the principles governing social life, it is left to the opinion of the majority or
the consensus of the parties concerned. Thus, just as there may have been
specific ways of exercising authority that could be called into question, so,
too, it can be said with respect to the a priori method that dialog by itself offers no guarantee regarding the conclusions that may be reached: a belief
cannot be established only from the consensus of the individuals taking
part in the discussion. On the contrary, our beliefs must be fixed by reference to something external, something on which our thought has no effect
but that our thought affects and that, in addition, will affect any person.
Thus, the consideration of the a priori method highlights the need for the
method of inquiry to be referenced, not to a simple spontaneous impulse by
the individual in a particular situation but rather to something that is real
(CP 5.384).
We have thus come to the scientific method, whose essential hypothesis
can be stated as follows:
There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions
about them; those Reals affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our
sensations are as different as are our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really and
truly are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and he reason enough about
it, will be led to the one True conclusion. (CP 5.384)
The characteristic distinguishing the scientific method from the other

three methods is the reference to reality (CP 5.384, 5.351, 5.405). Changes of
opinion are possible and necessary, but the scientific method recommends,
above all, listening attentively to nature and adapting ones personal opinion to the position that it indicates (CP 5.384 n. 1). In this, the scientific
method differs from the tenacity and a priori methods, although without
neglecting the community character of knowledge, as truth must be some-
109
thing that all people can reach, provided they devote sufficient time and effort. These characteristics are those that Misak highlights when he says that
the scientific method is that which best protects against doubt and leads to
agreement: first, because the observations made by it are such that investigators tend to agree on its results; and, second, because by testing the consistency of our beliefs against experience, we arrive at beliefs that are
resistant to doubt.33
Rescher, for his part, pointed out two characteristics that make the scientific method superior to the other three methods: its iterative character and,
as a result, its capacity for self-correction.34 The scientific method guarantees that, if it can be reiterated, it will lead to a result that can be approximated to the truth (CP 2.781). If the true belief is that which will be reached
by the scientific community after a process of inquiry not subject to limitations of time or endeavor, the scientific method, by its constant reference to
experience in the search for verification, is the most adequate for freeing
oneself of error and approaching the boundary of reality. Thanks to this capacity for reiteration, the scientific method is self-correcting, as the processes followed to reach the beliefs can be revised on the basis of their
performance. These characteristics can be confirmed by reference to history, in which it can be verified how different procedures have been used
when they have become more suitable for explaining reality, but above all,
by logical arguments or arguments arising from the very nature of the scientific method: the self-correction is a consequence of the desire to learn
that characterizes the first rule of reason, which induces the individualno
matter how mistaken he or she may beto correct his or her method or
findings so as not to lose direction in the search for truth (CP 5.582).
It is true that the other methods have certain advantages over the scientific method. Thus, the a priori method stands out for the ease with which
conclusions are reached from spontaneous inclinations, at least until reality
awakens us from our dreams. The method of authority stands out for the
peace it achieves, at least among the mass of humanity that wishes to be led.
The method of tenacity is characterized, above all, by its simplicity, directness, and forcefulness. The people who follow this method stand out for
their decisive character: they do not waste time trying to put their mind in
order with respect to what they want but rather, throwing themselves upon
the first alternative they find, they start out from it toward their
goalwhatever that may bewithout a moments uncertainty.
The three methods also make some positive contribution to management action. The manager may often feel tempted to let him- or herself be
carried along by spontaneous impulsesas in the a priori methodbut we
have already seen why it is desirable that vitally important decisions be
guided by reason and not by instinct. For its part, the method of authority
highlights the characteristics that must be taken into account in the exercise
of command in the organization, at the same time as it points to the argu-
110
ments that provide the rationale for the companys delegation and participation processes. Finally, the method of tenacity warns that, in certain
circumstances, the person with management responsibilities may have to
make a quick decision, as the ineffectiveness caused by doubt may be just
as harmful as irresponsible and disproportionate activism.35
However, all these advantages should not make us lose sight of the fact
that what characterizes the scientific method and makes it superior to all
the others is its capacity for matching reality, which is something that none
of the other three methods can guarantee. This is a prerogative of the scientific method. Of course, choosing the scientific method may come with a
price and it may cause an encounter with a reluctance to change old beliefs
that have ceased to be valid; that is the effort that is asked from someone
who wishes to manage from a scientific mentality. The advantage of the scientific method over the others is that it enables what is correct to be distinguished from what is erroneous, which is something that is not possible
with the other methods. In the method of tenacity, nothing is allowed that
goes against the assumptions; in the method of authority, one is bound by
whatever may be established by authority; finally, in the a priori method, it
is ones natural inclination that leads the way. However, with the scientific
method, it is the application of the method itself, and not an immediate reference to my feelings or purposes, that confirms to me that I am proceeding
in accordance with an adequate process of inquiry (CP 5.385). Logical
goodness demands actions that are different and sometimes contrary to the
natural desires of the acting agent. Only the affectio iustitithe desire for
what is correctas opposed to the affectio commodithe natural tendency toward happinesscan serve as a basis for a free, rational, or
self-controlled choice.36
To summarize, we believe what science tells us, first because science is
the best means we have for fixing beliefs, inasmuch as it puts these beliefs
into relation with experience and this ensures a good result; and second, because by following this process, we will reach the truth, whereas the error
that we may encounter for the moment is the price we have to pay to gain
access to the truth in the future.
In closing this chapter, it is perhaps a good idea to recapitulate what has
been said so far and briefly introduce the contents of the next chapters. The
process of scientific inquiry may help define the characteristics required by
the decision-making process in management. In spite of the separation
made by Peirce between theory and practice, vitally important actionsand managerial actions, insofar as they have same features as the
formerrequire the presence of reason. Thus, in human action, in addition
to a practical attitude that is necessary for executing action plans, we also
need a scientific attitude to help us analyze reality and an artistic attitude to
facilitate the power of observation. These three attitudes must always be
present. The person of action needs firm beliefs on which to act, and these
111
beliefs are attained through a deliberation process that is similar to the process of scientific inquiry described by Peirce. Just as the appropriate
method for the process of inquiry is the scientific methodeven though the
other methods may also have their advantagesso, too, can decision making in human action be governed by the scientific method. Thus, throughout this chapter, we have seen how the practical character of management
action is not incompatible with a scientific dimension of the decision but
rather, quite the contrary, demands it.
For Peirce, the concept of science is a very broad one, which can be approached from different perspectives. It can be conceived as a reference to
the reasoning processes that take place in the inquiry; it can also refer to a
classification of the different fields of knowledge; and, finally and most important, it can refer to a way of life. Taking each of these three considerations of science in turn as their starting point, the next three chapters will
explore different aspects of practical action.
NOTES
Massachusetts Press, 1967), 124 n. 10. These vitally important topics are, in actual fact, not so important or, to put it another way, they may be important for
daily life but that is not the culmination of human life. The most important topic
for us, because it is what is most human, is the search for truth, which is only attained through reason and theoretical inquiry.
2. C. Llano, El trabajo directivo y el trabajo operativo en la empresa, in C.
Llano et al., La vertiente humana del trabajo en la empresa (Madrid: Rialp, 1990),
1920.
3. J.P. Diggins, The Promise of Pragmatism (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1994), 203204.
4. M. Ayim, Peirces View of the Roles of Reason and Instinct in Scientific Inquiry
(Meerut, India: Anu Prakashan, 1982), 4144.
5. Potter, Charles S. Peirce on Norms and Ideals, 124125.
6. Ayim, Peirces View of the Roles of Reason and Instinct in Scientific Inquiry, 19.
7. Ayim, Peirces View of the Roles of Reason and Instinct in Scientific Inquiry, 23.
8. Llano, El trabajo directivo y el trabajo operativo en la empresa, 2122.
9. The text of the manuscript is published in J. Stuhr, Classical American Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 4648.
10. W.G. Bennis and B. Nanus, Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge (New
York: Harper & Row, 1985), 21. Another author who has proposed the division between leaders and managers is Zaleznik, for whom managers are concerned with
getting things done whereas leaders are concerned with the meaning that things
have for people. See A. Zaleznik, Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?
Harvard Business Review 55 (1977): 6779. For a study of leadership, see the book by
G.A. Yukl, Leadership Organizations, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall,
1994).
11. J.S. Mouton and R.R. Blake, The Managerial Grid (Houston, Tex.: Gulf, 1964);
P. Hersey and K.H. Blanchard, Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing
112
Human Resources (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1977), Rodrguez Porras
has pointed out that although both distinguish between task-driven styles and relationship-driven styles, they differ in that while Mouton and Blake maintain that
there exists an optimal style of command, Hersey and Blanchard think that the
style of command depends on the situation in which it is being exercised. See J.M.
Rodrguez Porras, El factor humano en la empresa (Bilbao, Spain: Deusto, 1988), 123.
12. L. Polo and C. Llano, Antropologa de la accin directiva (Madrid: Union Editorial, 1997), 116120.
13. J.A. Prez Lpez, Fundamentos de la direccin de empresas (Madrid: Rialp,
1995), 129141.
14. Llano, El trabajo directivo y el trabajo operativo en la empresa. Other authors who prefer to distinguish between processes rather than types of people include C.F. Hickman, Mind of a Manager, Soul of a Leader (New York: John Wiley,
1990), and J.P. Kotter, The Leadership Factor (New York: Free Press, 1988).
15. Llano, El trabajo directivo y el trabajo operativo en la empresa, 2830.
16. J.P. Murphy, Pragmatism: From Peirce to Davidson (Boulder, Colo.: Westview
Press, 1990), 22.
17. C.F. Delaney, Peirce on the Reliability of Science: A Response to Rescher,
in Peirce and Contemporary Thought, ed. K. Ketner (New York: Fordham University
Press, 1995), 118.
18. E. Saporiti, Peircean Triads in the Work of J. Lacan: Desire and the Ethics
of the Sign, in Peirce and Value Theory. On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H.
Parret (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994), 8081.
19. C.J. Misak, Truth and the End of Inquiry: A Peircean Account of Truth (Oxford,
U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1991), 148149.
20. M.C. Miller, The Principle of Continuity in C.S. Peirce and Contemporary
Decision Support Technology, in Frontiers in American Philosophy, ed. R.W. Burch,
vol. 1 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992), 138139.
21. A. Llano, La nueva sensibilidad (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1988), 129. For such
subjects, the book by J.A. Marina, Teora de la inteligencia creadora, 7th ed. (Barcelona: Anagrama, 1995) is also interesting.
22. Misak shows that experience acts negatively on belief: the universe affects our
beliefs not so much to confirm them as to provide surprising experiences that alter
the expectations produced by the belief. See Misak, Truth and the End of Inquiry, 83.
23. Murphy, Pragmatism: From Peirce to Davidson, 25; M.B. Mahowald, Collaboration and Casuistry: A Peircean Pragmatic for the Clinical Setting, in Peirce and
Value Theory. On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret (Philadelphia: John
Benjamins, 1994), 67.
24. W. Gavin, Peirce and The Will to Believe, The Monist 63 (1980): 344345.
25. W.C. Stewart, Social and Economic Aspects of Peirces Conception of Science, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 27 (1991): 501526.
26. Mahowald, Collaboration and Casuistry: A Peircean Pragmatic for the
Clinical Setting, 66.
27. H. Putnam, Pragmatism: An Open Question (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995),
6871.
28. J. Nubiola, C.S. Peirce: Pragmatismo y logicismo, Philosophica 17 (1994):
215; N. Rescher, Peirces Philosophy of Science (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1978), 8.
113
29. R. Kevelson, The Mediating Role of Esthetics in Charles S. Peirces

Semiotics: Configurations and Space Relations, in Peirce and Value Theory: On
Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994),
216.
30. N. Rescher, Peirce on the Validation of Science, in Peirce and Contemporary Thought, ed. K.L. Ketner (New York: Fordham University Press, 1995), 104; P.
Skagestad, Road of Inquiry: Charles S. Peirces Pragmatic Realism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 3235.
31. Misak, Truth and the End of Inquiry, 60.
32. Skagestad, Road of Inquiry: Charles S. Peirces Pragmatic Realism, 35.
33. C.J. Misak, A Peircean Account of Moral Judgments, in Peirce and Value
Theory. On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret (Philadelphia: John
34. Rescher, Peirce on the Validation of Science, 108; Delaney, Peirce on the
Reliability of Science: A Response to Rescher, 115.
35. A. Langley, Between Paralysis by Analysis and Extinction by Instinct,
Sloan Management Review, Spring 1995, 6376.
36. R. Smyth, What Logic Can Learn from Ethics, in Peirce and Value Theory:
On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret (Philadelphia: John Benjamins,
1994), 5051.
CHAPTER 6
Decision Criteria in
Management
In this chapter, we will study a first meaning of science as a methodological

procedure for determining the characteristics of a correct line of rational argument. Our attention will be focused on the formulation of the pragmatic
maxim. First, we will study the meaning of the pragmatic maxim in
Peircean thought. On looking at how the pragmatic maxim helps define
maxims of conduct for human action, we will see that it is necessary to formulate certain decision criteria that help define the maxim.
THE PRAGMATIC MAXIM
Peirce believed that the way to put an end to the philosophers lengthy
disputes was to provide philosophy with a method of observation that was
similar to that of the empirical sciences (CP 5.6, 5.423). This meant establishing a grade of clarity that would be superior to the concepts of clear and distinct ideas that had provided the framework for philosophical discussion
since Descartes and that would enable a more perfect clarity of thought to
be attained than that which had been used until then by the logicians (CP
5.390, 5.394). He found this third grade of clarity in the definition of the
pragmatic maxim. Thus, pragmatism originally appeared as a method for
verifying the meaning of intellectual conceptions which related the concepts meaning with their practical consequences.
Peirce devised a number of formulations for the pragmatic maxim. It appeared for the first time in January 1878 in How to Make Our Ideas Clear,
the second of a series of articles published by Peirce in Popular Science
116
Monthly, with the following statement: Consider what effects, that might
conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object (CP 5.402, 5.2).
Opinions differ among scholars of Peirce as to whether the meaning of
the pragmatic maxim underwent changes in its different formulations.
Beverly Kent argued that, from its first formulation in 1878, the pragmatic
maxim has related meaning with concepts, and not with action.1 On the
other hand, Potter argued that in his 1878 definition, Peirce seemed to identify meaning with the action-reaction dyad, and that it was not until the
1905 formulation, in Issues of Pragmaticism, that his conception of the
pragmatic maxim changed, with the introduction of the rational character
of action (CP 5.438).2 Peirce himself said on the matter, in the manuscript of
a draft for a book on logic dated about 1902, that his opinion remained substantially the same but, with the passing of the years, he was now able to
give a more accurate definition of the pragmatic maxim so as to close the
door against those who would push it open further than he had ever intended (CP 2.99).
In a footnote added to the formulation of the pragmatic maxim published in How to Make Our Ideas Clear, Peirce gave a few clues to help interpret it correctly. First, he says that it is not a skeptical, materialistic
principle, but the application of the gospel principle, Ye may know them
by their fruits; he then says that it must not be understood in individualistic terms but rather in the context of the interaction and cooperation of the
community of investigators who, even though they initially use different
methods or obtain different results, gradually converge until they arrive at
the same opinion; third, he relates it with the principle of continuity; and, finally, he warns that saying that thought is applied to action is not the same
as saying that action is the ultimate purpose of thinking (CP 5.402 nn. 13).
Olshewsky pointed out three characteristics of the pragmatic maxim: (a)
it is a maxim, (b) on concepts, (c) that is enounced in subjunctive terms.3
The first point to make is that the pragmatic maxim forms part of a broader
theory of knowledge,4 which encompasses the process of inquiry in logic
and, ultimately, is to be integrated in a systematic, comprehensive system
of philosophy.5 The function of thought is to produce habits of action, and,
in this sense, the pragmatic maxim is the means available to thought for settling doubts.6 It is not, therefore, an ontological principleas interpreted
by William James or Ferdinand Schillerbut only a methodological principle that can be used to gain access to reality and a decision algorithm that
helps to determine the action plan.
Thus characterized, the pragmatic maxim may act as a test to determine
whether our concepts have a reference in experience or are part of a mere
play of language; whether they are related to intellectual discussions with
no bearing on action or have a clear effect on reality.7 Without forgetting
117
that we are always in a scientific attitude whose center of interest is the

search for truth, it is important to stress that Peirce invokes a philosophy
that is active, and not purely contemplative.8 The meaning of each concept
or proposition is the expression of a belief, which can only exist by virtue of
its reference to a possible context of action. Guy Debrock points out that, by
means of this singular reconciliation between thought and action, Peirce
sought to break free from the dichotomy between theory and practice that
has dominated Western thinking since ancient Greece.9
As the process of inquiry is situated between two thresholds referenced
to experiencethe exercise of a deliberate action and the perception of the
reactionit can be said that the pragmatic maxim is empirical from start to
finish (CP 5.412). However, it is not empirical in the sense of British empiricism or logical positivism, which limit knowledge to that which is perceived by the senses.10 For Peirce, experience is not composed solely of
factual elements but also of subjective appreciations, appraisals, and inclinations that give meaning to reality. Thus, it differs from logical positivism,
for whom the propositions pragmatic character only has a situational relevance.11 In organizational theory, it was Herbert Simon who applied the
principles of logical positivism to management.12 Simon took the distinction between value judgments and fact judgments and stated that only the
latter are relevant in decision making, whereas the former belong to the private sphere of the values in which each individual believes. The reconciliation between thought and action suggested by Peirces proposal indicates
that one possible way for overcoming this dualism is through action. Only
the dynamism introduced by human action can bridge the gap between
facts and values.
For Peirce, there is no distinction of meaning so fine as that which consists of a possible difference of practice. He therefore proposes focusing on
the practical consequences as a method for determining the real meaning of
any sign, whether this be a concept, a word, a proposition, or a doctrine (CP
5.400).13 For Peirce, it is indisputable that certain actions cause express results, and this observationthat certain lines of conduct entail certain
classes of experienceis what he calls practical consequences (CP 5.9,
8.191). In each case, there are certain perceptible effects that act as a criterion
for determining whether something can be defined in the way it had been
defined until then. Thus, effects act as prescriptions for an experiment and
predictions of what will happen if a certain action is performed.14
One point that should be made about the pragmatic maxims predictive
character is that the effects are predicted before the action is performed.
That is, we do not define an action a posteriori, by the effects that have already happened, but a priori, by the effects that we think may happen. For
Peirce, what has already happened holds no interest, except for confirming
what percentage of a hypothesis was correct and what percentage was not
and then modifying it for future action. Therefore, the definition is not
118
made after, based on past effects, but before, based on possible future effects.
Insofar as this is so, any definition always contains certain expectations.
With respect to the pragmatic maxims predictive character and its reference to possible future effects, a few remarks are called for. First is the need
to establish some kind of delimiting criterion to avoid the analysis of the
possible effects from being prolonged indefinitely, as these are innumerable. Second, being possible effects, the formulation of the propositions defining the concept will have a conditional form. Third, the possible effects
must be considered by the individual within his or her intelligence, using
imagination to predict how the action may be in its concrete actuality, and
concluding in the formation of a habit, which is expressed in a subjunctive
statement (CP 5.491) indicating that, in certain conditions, the individual
will act in a certain way to obtain a desired result.
This links up with the prescriptive character of the pragmatic maxim.
Applying the maxim enables us to describe those alternatives that may obtain the desired results and those rules of action that, once executed, would
satisfy the needs that originated the inquiry. The prescriptive character is
given by the fact that, in the context of action to which the pragmatic maxim
belongs, an experiment is being defined based on the supposition that if the
experiment is performed, an experience will take place such as the one that
has been described. However, a possible conflict may arise when reconciling the prescriptive and predictive aspects of the pragmatic maxim. On the
one hand, it is said that the experiment is not necessary for it to be valid in
practice. However, on the other hand, the rule of action must be tested. Willard Quine points to a certain lack of definition of the pragmatic maxim in
this aspect, which, on occasion, leads it to be interpreted in terms of descriptions for action and, on other occasions, in terms of confirmatory experiences.15 We are not dealing here with a formulation of the verificationist
criterion but rather with a conception of the scientific method that is opposed to verificationism.16 Peirce characterizes the pragmatic maxim as the
attempt to produce a disposition in the interpreter so that the practical consequences, rather than direct or indirect effects on our senses, are consequences for action or thought (CP 5.13, 8.191). We are not interested in
verifying past events but rather in obtaining information on what may happen in a possible future, provided a series of conditions is met (CP 5.427).
Thus, once again, Peirce differs from verificationism by his reference to the
future and the subjunctive character of the maxims formulation, which is
the third aspect identified by Olshewsky and to which we would like to
turn our attention now.
Peirce remarks on the number of times he uses words having the root
concipere in the definition of the pragmatic maxim. His intention in this is to
make it clear that the meanings given by the application of the pragmatic
maxim translate into dispositions to acthabitsand not into effective behaviors (CP 5.402 n. 3), and that anything that has no practical repercussion
119
is irrelevant for meaning. However, this does not imply that we live purely
for action or that action is the ultimate goal of life.17 If the goal of thought
were to establish a belief, a habit, but heeding only that which happens, potentiality would be reduced to actuality; we would only take into account
individual events, from which, by themselves, it would not be possible to
draw any idea. However, the appropriate question for the pragmatic
maxim is not what happened but what action would be appropriate if the
inquiry were carried far enough. Consequently, action must be understood
in terms of purpose and, in the acknowldgement of this purpose, of the role
of the end in action, the pragmatic maxim becomes a logical maxim of action in the context of a normative character expressed in carrying the inquiry far enough.
When Peirce chose the term pragmaticism in 1905, the main point of disagreement with the other pragmatic thinkers lay in the difference between
conceivable action and effective action.18 That same year, he reformulated the
pragmatic maxim and insisted on the rational character of action, stating
that identifying the meaning with the action would be tantamount to contradicting his categorical vision of the world and knowledge. Action is
secondnessand therefore individualwhereas meaning is thirdness,
law. If pragmaticism proclaimed whole action to be the essence and aim of
life, it would cause its own death (CP 5.429). When Peirce uses the expression might conceivably in his formulation of the pragmatic maxim, he is
suggesting a criterion that does not require the concept to have an actual or
practical relevance. Meaning is not concerned with what is happening but
with what would happen in the inquiry (CP 5.453). Meaning moves in the
sphere of the would be, which establishes models that are followed by the actions results and the relevant consequences of the idea in question. Meaning appears in conditions of disposition, in habits, by which the concept
articulating the meaning would be exemplified if it were tested.19 It is not a
question of determining the meaning of reality by reducing facts to future
facts but, on the contrary, of determining and specifying the correct understanding of the meaning of reality as it exists here and now.20 Neither is it a
question of reducing a concepts meaning to its present verification but,
rather, of confronting actual effects with the would-be conditionals established before performing the experiment (CP 5.403, 5.408, 5.438). Here
again we see the open character of reality and that vital symphony to which
we are taken by the process of inquiry. We define a concept by the conceivable practical consequences, which, when they are confronted with the actual consequences, give rise to a new process leading to a new definition.
THE CONCEPT AS A MAXIM OF ACTION
According to the definition proposed by Peirce, belief consists primarily
of being deliberatelythat is, rationallyprepared to adopt the formula
believed in as a guide to action. If this is so, the concept can be considered as
120
a maxim of action and the proposition in which that concept is expressed,

as a rule of action. Thus, Peirce argues that a theoretical proposition that is
relevant for pragmatism can be converted from its formulation in the indicative mood to a practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis in the imperative mood (CP 5.18). Given this capability on
the part of the concept to become a practical maxim, Peirce states that pragmatism offers a palpable advantage in practical matters and that in its practice, the genus of efficient people is distinguished from that of those who
are not (CP 5.2526).
Depending on the sphere of experience in which the inquiry takes place,
the contents of the hypotheses and of the practical consequences will differ.
Thus, mathematical hypotheses do not need to be tested in a scientific experiment. However, if they are hypotheses that belong to the physical
world, they must have an empirical content and the practical consequences
must also be empirical (CP 3.516).21 If the hypotheses refer to human action,
they also have certain special characteristics with respect to the hypotheses
of the empirical sciences. They will share with them the experimentable
character of the consequences but will differ from them in that there can be
no laboratory experiments in human action, that is, each human action is an
assertion, negation, or modification of the original hypothesis. Two consequences follow from this singularity of human action. The first is that in human action, it is not possible to repeat the same experiment several times to
draw conclusions nor is it possible to isolate variables or classes of effects
on which to perform experiments. Consequently, it is very important to
make sure that all the relevant aspects of the action have been taken into account in order to prevent incomplete appraisals. It is not possible to perform trial runs in human action. The second consequence following from
the special character of human action is that, although the experiments do
not necessarily have to affect the subject performing them in the experimental sciences, in human action, both the active agent and the reactive
agent are modified in each action. In one of the last formulations of the
pragmatic maxim, written in about 1907, Peirce indicates the modification
of the subjects habits and capabilities as one of the practical effects of action
(MS 322, 1112).
When the process of inquiry refers to an action problem, the pragmatic
maxim can help us determine what alternatives may satisfy the needs that
have given rise to the decision process. Peirce proposes a clear criterion for
distinguishing between alternatives: two alternatives will be the same if
they have the same possible effects. Just as Peirce states that a concept is defined by the sum of all the possible effects, in an action problem, each alternative is defined by all the possible effects. And just as two apparently
different concepts are in reality the same if both have the same possible effects, so also will two apparently different alternatives in reality be the
same alternative if their effects are the same.
121
However, if the criterion for discerning between alternatives is written

by switching terms, a very important aspect for the proper functioning of
the decision making process is revealed. If two apparently different alternatives are in reality the same, it is also true that two alternatives that are apparently the same can in reality be very different. To begin with, they can be
perceived and interpreted differently by two different individuals, but,
above all, they may have very different effects. Let us take the example of a
chief executive of a company who thinks that the manager of one of his
plants is not able to effectively perform her work and therefore decides that
the best thing to do is to transfer her to a smaller plant. Although the decision may be fully warranted, depending on how the transfer is presented to
the plant manager, very different things can happen: the plant manager
may interpret the transfer as a lack of trust, the workers committee may
protest at the change of manager, and the new manager may find a hostile
atmosphere among the plants workforce; or, on the contrary, the plant
manager may accept the reasons, the change may seem fair to her and she
will cooperate in facilitating the entry of the new manager.
As the possible effects that may follow from an action are innumerable,
when analyzing the possible alternatives, it is more important to avoid
leaving out any effect that may be important for the decision than to draw
up an exhaustive list of all the possible effects, which, in any case, will never
be fully exhaustive. Consequently, it is important to establish criteria that
will help the decision maker be sure that the alternatives will be analyzed
by taking into account the necessary aspects and it will not happen that two
alternatives may look the same because aspects of the action that were relevant for distinguishing between them were not taken into account. In the
previous example, if the chief executive thinks that it is not relevant for the
decision to explain the reasons to the plant manager and that it would be
just as effective to tell her a white lie, the unforeseen secondary effects
may cause him serious headaches. In addition to the definition of the criteria, there is also the individuals responsibility in the decision that was
made and in the effects following the action. A third aspect to considertogether with the definition of the criteria and the responsibility in the decisionwill be the need to decide and act in spite of the uncertainty that is
always associated with a decision. These three points will be discussed in
the following pages in reverse order.
Human action always takes place in an environment of uncertainty,
which is caused by the nature itself of the environment in which the individual acts. However, the uncertainty is caused not only because the interaction is always open to elements of novelty, but also because of the
impossibility of taking into consideration all the possible effects that may
follow from the action. In any decision problem, in addition to the actions
that depend on the agent, one must also consider the events whose occurrence does not depend on the agent and the consequences that may follow
122
from these events.22 Especially when one is dealing with vital matters or
unstructured problems, there is always an element of uncertainty and risk
in the decision. However, this cannot lead to not deciding: uncertainty cannot lead to indecision because it is an essential element of human decision.
Therefore, the manager finds himself between two extremes, both of
which he must try to avoid: on the one hand, resorting to arbitrary decisions that are not the result of any systematic or thoughtful study; on the
other hand, taking to an extreme the obsession for numbers, analyses and
observations, which may also end up paralyzing the decision.23 On this
point, Peirce is optimistic, because he assumes that, above and beyond individual opinionswhich may sometimes have an arbitrary characterthe universal opinion tends in the long term toward a definite form, so
that scientific progress is understood as an approximation to an image of
the universe that, ultimately, will match what the universe really is.24 However, the question that one could raise is what should we do in the meantime, until this truth is attained. On the one hand, one could think that it is
not possible to act with a truth that is not shared by the scientific community; from another viewpoint, it could be understood that all the present
opinions are equally valid and that each individual should act in accordance with what he or she thinks; others, finally, may advocate following
the opinion of the majority, as an imperfect form of the ultimate opinion. We
have already seen that Peirces stance does not correspond to an approach
based solely on consensus, as truth does not depend on the opinion of one
or many and because the concept of scientific community should not be understood within a space-time continuum.25 We have also mentioned the
criticism that can be made of relativism using Peirces arguments. As
Putnam pointed out when referring to pragmatism in generalalthough it
can also be applied validly to Peircean thoughthis most important finding was to realize that it is possible to be fallibilist and anti-skeptic at the same
time: it is not a question of doubting everything, but of being prepared to
doubt anything.26
In a letter to William James written in 1897, Peirce says that faith is useful
in practical matters but that useful faith is that which, at the same time that
it allows us to act from a certain hypothesis, also allows us to be open to any
possible evidence that might make us change the belief (CP 8.251). This
leads to the conclusion that each person must act in accordance with his or
her present belief. However, as we have seen when distinguishing between
the a priori method and the scientific method, the present belief must be the
result of a deliberate process, that is, mediated by reason, and not through
considering solely whatever is most agreeable to the decision maker. The
mediation of reason and the ideal of the scientific community introduce a
normative character in the decision. In short, Peirce is appealing to conscience as a close norm of morality. However, not any conscience will do,
but only that which is well formed.
123
The need to act from ones own belief creates the relation between the decision and the decision makers responsibility. The individual is responsible for the consequences of his or her action, and, therefore is responsible
for foreseeing them adequately. Here, too, two extreme positions must be
avoided: the minimalist position, which reduces responsibility to the direct, intentional consequences of ones acts, and the maximalist position,
which burdens the individuals shoulders with the succession of all the effects that may follow from a specific action. Between the two extremes,
there is the attitude of the individual who does not arbitrarily and subjectively circumscribe the space corresponding to his or her social responsibility and who accepts liability for the unintended and, perhaps, not
immediate secondary effects of his or her action (CP 5.543, 5.29, 5.546547).
The attitude taken toward the secondary effects (which are secondary in order of intention, causation, or attainment, but not necessarily in order of importance) provides a good indication for determining the individuals
degree of responsibility toward the consequences of his action. Carlos
Llano judiciously pointed out that, just as we in our limited intelligence
cannot reach the ultimate rationale of moral law, that same limitation also
prevents us from elucidating the ultimate consequences of our acts. The
consequences never correspond entirely to the subject, as they are also influenced by the acts of other, unrelated beings and derive from other factors
that do not originate from oneself.27 Faced with a consequential responsibilitywhich would only take into account the consequencesand an antecedent responsibilitywhich would focus on the observance of certain
preestablished principles or dutiesCarlos Llano talks of a transcendent responsibility, which takes what is good from each of these positions: accept
responsibility for the actions consequences from the first; have
well-founded, consistent reasons for acting from the second. Transcendent
responsibility makes each individual aware of the need to do his or her
dutythe personal path to which each is calledso that each individuals
circumstances will determine the consequences that are relevant for each
decision, in concentric rings that begin with the consequences that the action has in oneself and gradually expand outward according to a proximity
criterion that, in Peircean terms, can be considered a corollary of the continuity principle.
We have now reached a point at which it is necessary to supplement the
pragmatic maxim, on the one hand, with a deeper examination of the decision criteria that help distinguish which practical effects must be taken into
account to discern the third grade of clarity pursued by the pragmatic
maxim; and, on the other hand, with a referent that is external to the pragmatic maxim and relates rational action with our ideal of conduct, which
was discussed in the first part of the book and which transcendent responsibility has once again brought to the fore.
124
Although Peirce never specified the possible decision criteria that

would help determine the choice of alternatives, we can obtain these principles from the definition of human action. The decision criteria proposed
by Prez Lpez in his theory of human action match the elements of the
Peircean definition of action. Remember that human action was defined as
a process of interaction between two subjects, by which, in addition to satisfying a need that was the cause of the interaction, certain learning processes
take place in the two agents as a consequence of the performance of the action and the reaction. It follows from this description that, in order to include all the consequences generated by the performance of an action by
the active agent, we must consider at least three types of consequences or
results of that action: the extrinsic results, which are the results produced by
the interaction in the agent, and aimed at satisfying the need originating the
action; the internal results, or the learningchange in the decision
rulethat takes place in the active agent as a consequence of performing
the interaction; and the external results, which is the learning that takes
place in the reactive agent as a consequence of the interaction.28 Three criteria can be formulated to analyze these three types of results. Following the
terminology used by Prez Lpez, these criteria will be called effectiveness,
efficiency and consistency. The effectiveness criterion is a value that expresses the satisfaction achieved by the active agent when the action plan is
implemented. It is a static appraisal of the action that does not take into account the learning. The dynamic appraisal is brought in with the other two
criteria: the efficiency criterion, which refers to the changes brought about
by the action in the active agent and will determine the agents satisfaction
in the next application of the decision rule on the same reactive agent; and
consistency, which refers to the changes brought about by the action in the
reactive agent, which will determine his or her future reaction.29 The determination of these three criteria may help decide whether the alternatives
being considered are different from each other. It may happen, for example,
that it is concluded that two alternatives have the same grade of effectiveness with respect to the satisfaction of the need. If the decision maker stops
the analysis at that point, he or she may consider two alternatives to be
equal when, in actual fact, it will be found that they are not equal when the
other two criteria are included in the analysis. The importance of including
these criteria becomes clear when one realizes that, in reality, all three types
of result will be obtained in each action, whether or not they have been
taken into account in the actions a priori appraisal. By proposing these
three criteria for analyzing action alternatives, the decision maker is being
offered a surer way of performing a rational analysis than that which relies
on considering all the possible effects and an alternative form to the
consequentialist calculation, which, in spite of its apparent simplicity, contains, not only serious conceptual incoherences, but also insoluble operational difficulties.30
125
Although a detailed discussion of a theory of human action based on

these three criteria would be beyond the scope of this book, some of the considerations that have been made so far may give an idea of the path that this
theory would have to follow and that, to a great extent, has already been
traveled by Prez Lpez. On the one hand, given the singularity of human
action, which does not allow laboratory experimentation, rather than seek
maximums, the goal is to assure minimums, that is, to avoid the occurrence
of negative learning, or the satisfaction of immediate needs at the cost of
reducing the number of possible future actions. On the other hand, as the
agents learning is the actions primary consequence, the consistency and
efficiency criteria will have preference over the effectiveness criterion, assuming that the alternatives cannot be appraised by a commensurability of
criteriawhich belong to different ordersbut by a hierarchization of criteria; finally, the normative character of the pragmatic maxim, which is expressed in its subjunctive formulation, will lead to a distinction between a
spontaneous appraisal of the action, based on memories of perceptions and
perceptional satisfactions of past actions, and a rational appraisal, derived
from the actions deliberate, a priori assessment to determine, from a rational viewpoint, a purpose for the action and the ideals of conduct that have
been established.
The final point that remains to be defined is the need for a referent that is
external to the pragmatic maxim and that accounts for the relation between
the formulation of the maxim of action and the ideal of conduct. Apel
pointed out that, in the closing years of his life, Peirce considered the need
for a fourth grade of clarity, which would be beyond the third grade, which
establishes the pragmatic maxim. In Apels opinion, when Peirce translated the affirmations into conditional propositions to clarify the concepts
meaning, he became aware of the existence of certain objectives of action
that are always assumed and which are based on the general way in which
these actions contribute to the development of reasonability, which is the
highest objective of all actions. This relationship between the objectives of
action and the development of reasonability was the fourth grade of clarity
for which he was looking.
Apel maintains that Peirce was not fully aware of the difference created
by this fourth grade between the rules of behavior that transform the
knowledge of a law into technical skills and those dispositions to act that
shape our choice of morally and politically relevant objectives. Without this
second order of principles, there exists a risk of falling into what Apel called
the ideology of the social engineer, who thinks that technical solutions
are sufficient in themselves to attain the concrete reasonability that seems
to be the ultimate ideal of action.31 If one remains on the plan of instrumental pragmatismwhich moves in the order of technical rulesthe process
of going from doubt to belief could only be interpreted as the attempt to restore the habits of belief that have been disrupted by the interaction. Using
126
this interpretation, Apel concluded, it would be impossible to argue for human responsibility in the objective of developing our nature. However, we
differ from animals in our work and in technology, which leads us to be less
concerned with adapting ourselves to naturewhich would be the case of
the adaptive systemsthan with adapting nature to our needs. This
means that we are concerned with completing the laws of nature with habits that are not merely instrumental but also teleologically relevant. In
short, we are talking about the difference between instrumental habits and
moral habits. Moral habits not only relate means with ends, in the manner
of technical instructions, but also implicitly relate the ultimate moral objective of all actions to the particular conditions of their execution in a given
situation, in the manner of the habits that make up a social lifestyle.
Beverly Kent pointed out that the references to a fourth grade of clarity
are found in texts written between 1901 and 1903. After that, Peirce seemed
to be content with an appropriate definition of the third grade. It is during
the same years that Peirce stated that the only moral evil is not to have an
ultimate aim (CP 5.133), and also that he started to think about the role
played by the normative sciences in his scientific architectonic. The concern
about a fourth grade of clarity voiced by Peirce and discussed by Apel
points to the possibility of an ethics behind the logic of inquiry and shows
the need to take a step beyond the pragmatic maxim, which, after all, had
been perfectly delimited in its methodological role since its first formulations. However, the fact that Peirce should steer his intellectual endeavors
toward the normative sciences instead of continuing on the line of a fourth
degree of clarity leads one to think that the classification of sciences may
give the answer to the concern that he expressed. In the next chapter, we
will study the classification of sciences and the synthetic character that this
classification confers upon human action.
NOTES
1. B.E. Kent, Charles S. Peirce: Logic and the Classification of the Sciences (Montreal: McGillQueens University Press, 1987).
3. T.M. Olshewsky, Peirces Pragmatic Maxim, Transactions of the Charles S.
Peirce Society 19 (1983): 200.
4. A. Fumagalli, Il reale nel linguaggio (Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1995), 121.
6. Olshewsky, Peirces Pragmatic Maxim, 199; M.B. Mahowald Collaboration and Casuistry: A Peircean Pragmatic for the Clinical Setting, in Peirce and
Value Theory: On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret (Philadelphia: John
127
7. N. Houser, C.S. Peirce, American Backwoodsman, in Frontiers in American Philosophy, ed. R. W. Burch, vol. 1 (College Station: Texas A&M University
Press, 1992), 292.
8. Apel has highlighted the relationship among pragmatism, Marxism, and
existentialism as three conceptions that invoke a primacy of action over contemplation, although the concept of action is different in each one. See Apel, Charles S.
Peirce: From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism, 1.
9. G. Debrock, Peirce, a Philosopher for the 21st Century, Transactions of the
Charles S. Peirce Society 28 (1992): 1112.
10. Fumagalli has pointed out that although Peirces attitude cannot be called
empiricist, it is decidedly phenomenologistic. See Fumagalli, Il reale nel
linguaggio, 123.
11. D. Gruender, Pragmatism, Science and Metaphysics, The Monist 65
(1982): 200201.
12. H.A. Simon, Administrative Behavior, 3rd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1975).
See, particularly, Chapter 3, Fact and Value in Decision Making, 4560.
13. Potter argues that the pragmatic maxim is similar to the scholastic maxim
of agere sequitur esse. See Potter, Charles S. Peirce on Norms and Ideals, 117.
14. J.P. Murphy, Pragmatism: From Peirce to Davidson (Boulder, Colo.: Westview
Press, 1990), 2829.
15. W. Quine, The Pragmatists Place in Empiricism, in Pragmatism: Its
Sources and Prospects, ed. R. Mulvaney and P. Zeltner (Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press, 1981), 32.
16. Gruender, Pragmatism, Science and Metaphysics, 193.
18. Olshewsky, Peirces Pragmatic Maxim, 203204.
20. Apel, Charles S. Peirce: From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism, 141.
21. C.J. Misak, Truth and the End of Inquiry: A Peircean Account of Truth (Oxford,
U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1991), 2628.
22. M. Bastons, Los elementos de las decisiones directivas, Harvard-Deusto
Business Review 67 (1995): 2633; Gruender, Pragmatism, Science and
Metaphysics, 207.
23. A. Langley, Between Paralysis by Analysis and Extinction by Instinct,
Sloan Management Review, Spring 1995, 6376.
24. W.C. Stewart, Social and Economic Aspects of Peirces Conception of Science, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 27 (1991): 501526. See also N.
Rescher, Peirces Philosophy of Science (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1978), 22.
25. Haskell mistakenly understands the scientific community in a physical
sense and this leads him to decide in favor of accepting the opinion of the majority. See T.L. Haskell, Professionalism versus Capitalism; R.M. Tawney, Emile
Durkheim, and C.S. Peirce on the Disinterestedness of Professional Communities, in The Authority of Experts. Studies in History and Theory, ed. T.L. Haskell
26. H. Putnam, Pragmatism: An Open Question (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995), 21.
128
27. C. Llano, Implicaciones actuales de la responsabilidad, in C. Llano, El

empresario ante la motivacin y la responsabilidad (Mexico: McGraw-Hill, 1991), 116.
28. J.A. Prez Lpez, Teora de la accin humana en las organizaciones. La accin
personal (Madrid: Rialp, 1991), 28.
Gruender, too, has seen the need to identify certain criteria, which, in his opinion,
will be determined by our needs and inclinations, which, ultimately, are what induces us to classify, categorize and interpret our experiences. See Gruender,
Pragmatism, Science and Metaphysics, 204205.
30. J. Fontrodona, El utilitarismo en la empresa, Cuadernos de Empresa y
Humanismo, no. 12 (Pamplona, Spain: Cuadernos de Empresay Humanismo,
1989).
31. Apel, Charles S. Peirce: From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism, 90.
CHAPTER 7
The Synthetical Character of

Management
THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

One of Peirces main interests was to draw up a classification of the sciences
that would help him integrate the different fields of knowledge in a single
conceptual framework. He thought that focusing on the architectonic character of knowledge could assist the progress of science. The image of architecture was extensively used by Peirce to refer to the work of the person of
science. In the image of the cathedral builders, Peirce saw a similarity, both
with respect to the cooperative character of scientific inquiry and with the
need for an ordering and classification of the fields of knowledge that
would facilitate the organized and systematic knowledge of reality (CP 5.5,
1.294, 5.27, 5.469).
Peirce had taken the idea of the scientific architectonic from his readings
of the works of Kant. In fact, in Chapter 3 of the Transcendental Doctrine of
the Methodwhich forms the second part of the Critique of Pure ReasonKant refers to the Architectonic of Pure Reason. By an architectonic,
Kant says at the beginning of the chapter, I understand the art of constructing systems. And he continues, As systematic unity is what first raises ordinary knowledge to the rank of science, that is, makes a system out of a
mere aggregate of knowledge, architectonic is the doctrine of the scientific
in our knowledge, and therefore necessarily forms part of the doctrine of
the method.1 These ideas of Kantswhich for Peirce were no more than a
modification of the ancient definition of science as the knowledge of things
by their causeswould be taken up years later by Samuel Coleridge to for-
130
mulate his definition of science, which would have a considerable influence in scientific circles in the nineteenth century (CP 7.54).2
The scientific character of our knowledge is not only reflected in the inferential reasoning processes with which we construct our judgments using the pragmatic maxim, it is also expressed in the need to establish an
ordered relationship between our areas of knowledge, in a similar way to
that in which new beliefs are harmoniously integrated in the body of established beliefs. Kant, too, refers to this point when he says, following the previously quoted text, In accordance with reasons legislative prescriptions,
our diverse modes of knowledge must not be permitted to be a mere rhapsody, but must form a system. Only so can they further the essential ends of
reason.3 Kant refers to the architectonic unity of the sciences, as opposed to
the technical unity. This unity originates by virtue of the similarity of the diverse or accidental use of concrete knowledge for a certain external end, but
it cannot be called science as such. Architectonic unity, on the other hand,
has its origin by virtue of the relationship between the different areas of
knowledge and as a result of a single, supreme, internal end. Thus, the classification of science must consist of the representation and division of the
whole into its members, which in turn are articulated internally between
each other, in accordance with an idea that confers unity on the parts, and
not as a mere external, accidental addition.4
The lectures given by Peirce in 1903 in Cambridge and at the Lowell Institute gave him the opportunity to complete the classification of the sciences, for which he had offered different formulations until then. In the
Lowell Institute lectures, he proposed a system of classification that he
would use from then on in all his logical writings (CP 1.180202). Years
later, he would refer to this system, calling it sufficiently satisfactory (MS
675, 912). Peirce proposed a classification of the sciences based on a succession of triadic divisions akin to the three categories. At each level, the division is established in the light of a differential idea. Thus, the first division
that creates the three great groups of sciences is established from the motives
for which the individuals included in each of the groups act. Thus, there appear three great groups of sciences. First are the heuretic sciences (1)5or sciences of discoverywhich only seek to learn new truths and whose sole
preoccupation is the discovery of truth for its own sake. Second are the sciences of review (2), which seek to render comprehensible the findings of the
sciences of discovery: they order the results of the heuretic sciences, subject
the results to a critical examination from a broader viewpoint than that
which is possible for the specialists in the heuretic sciences, and complete
those results when necessary. Their results are usually compiled in textbooks or manuals, such as Comtes Philosophie positive or Herbert Spencers
Synthetic Philosophy. Third are the practical sciences (3), which seek to satisfy
human desires: their starting point is the result of the heuretic sciences;
they complement them if necessary and make them usable for application
131
to areas where they may have some utility. Peirce devoted the major part of
his investigations to the first group of sciences, which is, in fact, the group
to which the character of science truly corresponds if we consider it as that
mode of life that seeks truth for its own sake. The other two groupsas
Peirce himself admitsreceived little attention from him (CP 1.202), which
makes it difficult to give a full interpretation of the nature of the various sciences.
In the case of the heuretic sciences (1), observation is the common character that confers on them the status of firsts with respect to the other two sciences. Each discovery has its origin in observation (CP 1.239242).
However, within the heuretic sciences, it is possible to perform a further division among three sciences, which will be distinguished by the relation
each one has with observed phenomena, or with the affirmations made as a result of reasoning on these observations. The three heuretic sciences are
mathematics, philosophy, and the special sciences. The observations of
mathematics (1.1) are creations of the imagination. Mathematics does not depend on any other science, and, as such, it has a character of firstness within
the heuretic sciences. It studies what may be true or not in the hypotheses,
without asking whether what these hypotheses describe actually happens
in reality. For its part, philosophy (1.2), or coenoscopia, seeks universal truths
from common experience, using the principles of mathematics. Its observations correspond to phenomena that are common to everyone. Finally, the
observations of the special sciences (1.3), or idioscopia, correspond to phenomena that were previously unknown. By means of a special training,
special instruments, or special circumstances, these sciences investigate the
occurrences of experience and infer truths that are held to be plausible but
are verifiable. They are grounded on the propositions of mathematics and
philosophy. They are classed in the physical and psychic sciences, depending on whether the phenomena observed originate from the physical world
or the mind.
If we turn our attention now to philosophy (1.2), we can make a further
triadic distinction. Each of the resulting sciences will study the phenomena
of ordinary experience, each one differing from the other by the mode of being of the phenomena they study. The three sciences into which philosophy
is divided are phenomenology, the normative sciences, and metaphysics
(CP 1.273282, 5.120128). Phenomenology (1.2.1) studies the phenomenonphaneronas it appears immediately, without considering in any
way whether it actually matches reality. It provides the base on which the
rest of philosophy will be built by determining the universal elements of
which reality is composed: the categories. The normative sciences (1.2.2)
study the phenomenon insofar as we can act on it and it on us. They study
the general way in which the mindif it must act deliberately and under
self-controlcan respond to experience. They move on the plane of the
must be, determining the conditions by which it can be said that a phenom-
132
enon is adequate in relation to an end, irrespective of whether a given object has these qualities. For its part, metaphysics (1.2.3) investigates what is
real, starting from what we can affirm from ordinary experience.
If, in previous chapters, the emphasis was on the deliberate character of
human action, now we examine Peirces view of the normative sciences as
those whose purpose is the study of the conditions in which such deliberation takes place. Therefore, the study of the normative sciences seems to be
relevant for determining the rational character of action. However, at the
same time, because they form part of the heuretic sciences, the normative
sciences also seek to learn truths, and their purpose is not action. Consequently, we will have to see how the connection is made between truths
about action and action itself.
THE NORMATIVE SCIENCES

The normative sciences (1.2.2) are divided in turn into three sciences,
whose relationship to each other is one of firstness, secondness, and
thirdness. To differentiate among the three sciences, we look at the object of
inquiry of each one. These three sciences are ethics, esthetics and logic (CP
1.573574). Esthetics (1.2.2.1) investigates the deliberate formation of habits
of feeling, which are consistent with the esthetic ideal. Ethics (1.2.2.2) investigates the formation of habits of action, which are consistent with the deliberately chosen objective. Logic (1.2.2.3) studies the deliberate formation of
habits of thought, which are consistent with the logical end. The normative
sciences are also defined as the sciences of the laws of conformity of things
to ends (CP 5.129), and in this conformity lies the secondness that distinguishes them from the other two sciences of philosophy. The normative sciences do not try to distinguish between what is good and bad, what is true
and false, what we like and what we do not like, but rather between the conditions of truth or falseness of judgments, the conditions of goodness or
badness of conducts, and the conditions of attractiveness of ideas (CP 5.551,
1.575).
However, the determination of the conditions necessarily points toward
the end with respect to which these conditions are determined. Therefore,
the normative sciences address not only the conditions of conformity, but
also the determination of the ideal with respect to which these conditions
are established (CP 2.46, 1.281; W 4:152). And what is this ideal? Peirce
points out three types of goodness, one for each normative science: esthetic
goodness, or expressiveness; moral goodness, or veracity; logical goodness, or truth (CP 5.129150). Although they are not concerned with the is
but rather with the must be, the normative sciences are positive sciences,
that is, they start from an inquiry of reality and therefore show that what
they call good comes from experience and is expressed in positive, categorical propositions (CP 4.4041, 2.328, 2.710): right reason, right effort, and
133
right being derive their character from positive, categorical facts (CP 5.39).
It can be said that the normative sciences are the sciences of excellence. They
determine what is excellenton the plane of must bein each of the three
orders of the normative sciences.
Together with the consideration of the ideal and the conditions of conformity with it, another function of these sciences is to investigate the principles that govern the production of ideals. Thus, a further division could
be made in each normative science, distinguishing three sciences that address the different aspects of the inquiry: a physiology, which would investigate the ideal; a classification, which would investigate the conditions of
conformity with the ideal; and a methodology, which would investigate the
principles that govern the production of ideals.
Kent makes an interesting remark about the relation between the normative sciences and the categories. Although Peirce analyzes the normative
sciences in terms of categories, it would be wrong to consider esthetics as
firstness, ethics as secondness and logic as thirdness per se, simply because
esthetics is concerned with feelings, ethics studies actions, and logic deals
with thoughts. On the contrary, each one has aspects of all three categories,
depending on which point of view they are considered from: all three are
sciencesand, therefore, in the sphere of thirdness, of rationalitywhich
seek truth for its own sakebecause they form part of the heuretic sciences
(1)from experiences that can be attained by anyonebecause they form
part of philosophy (1.2)insofar as we can act on that experience and it on
usas normative sciences (1.2.2).6 The normative sciences are not only
concerned with the arts (of reasoning, the conduct of life, or the production
of objects), nor is their purpose the production of certain skills. If this were
so, they would be practical sciences. However, the normative sciences are
heuretic sciences, which seek knowledge for its own sake: their value is theoretical (CP 5.125).7 Thus, the normative sciences are not interested in action as it occurs but, more exactly, in action as it should occur. By virtue of
their very normative character, the normative sciences contain a conditional character, which leads actions to be considered invariably in relation
to a conditional purpose, namely, in relation to their ends, to ideals.
To understand the meaning of the normative sciences, we must first consider their relationship with each other and with the practical sciences. In
Peirces opinion, two sciences are related with each other in three different
ways. The first is by the material content of the sciences; the second is by the
dynamic action of certain sciences on others, for example, when one science
turns to another to solve a problem; the third is by rational government,
when one science gives principles to another (CP 7.52). With all the necessary precautionsbecause if science is understood, above all, as a way of
lifeas a specific activity of a social groupit is difficult to classify it in one
of these three relations. Peirce prefers the relation of dependence by principles, which allows a clearer and easier hierarchical classification of the sci-
134
ences, something that the first type cannot provide and the second can only
do so in a confused, changing way. On the other hand, if the classification is
performed using a hierarchical principle of dependence between the different sciences, it is given an internal unity, which gives cohesion to the entire
inquiry, as, in this case, it is an intrinsic relation of dependence that is being
applied and not a mere additive relation, as if one were to mix in a
glassthis is the example given by Peircemilk, water, and sugar (CP
8.255).
Peirce did not think it possible that two sciences could have a mutual dependence with respect to principles. In specific cases, members of one science may consult about their problems with members of another and vice
versa, but these consultations will never affect the order of principles.
Peirce argues that each science uses, without questioning them, principles
discovered by another science, while the latter may turn to the former in
search of data, problems, or fields of application. Thus, in the relation of dependence, it is found that the lower sciences turn to the higher sciences in
search of principles while the higher sciences find data and fields of application for their principles in the lower sciences: the higher science provides
the principles with which the facts observed by the lower science can be interpreted. Scientific progress consists of the gradual solution of increasingly complex and interrelated problems. The interrelation is now no
longer just between beliefs but alsoby virtue of the continuity principleof the different sciences with each other.
In the classification of the sciences, each finds regulatory principles in
other sciences that are superior to it in abstraction, while it finds data for its
inductions in those sciences that are inferior to it (CP 3.247), so that there is a
direct relation of dependence of each science with respect to those that are
closest to it. Thus, a clear explanation is provided for the relation of the normative sciences with each other. It would not be an exaggeration to say that,
for Peirce, the realization of this principle was one of the most significant
events in the development of his thought, in that it helped him order the
conceptual framework and see, in its full integrity, the value of the pragmatic ideal. In a letter he wrote to William James in November 1902, Peirce
recognized that, until then, he had not realized the relation existing between the normative sciences and that even when he gave a series of lectures in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he had still not discovered the unity of
the whole picture. Around the turn of the century, he obtained the proof
that logic must be founded on ethics, and even then he was unable to see
that ethics rested in the same manner on esthetics (CP 8.255).
Being the science of how one should think, logic is an application of the
science concerned with what we should choose to do (CP 5.130, 5.35). For
Peirce, thinking is a concrete action which, as such, has the characteristics of
human action in general, so that the science concerned with correct reasoninglogicreceives the general principles from the science concerned
135
with correct actingethics. Thus, logic is understood as a special case of

ethics and reasoning, as a special case of controlled action: it is not possible
to be rationally logical except upon an ethical basis (CP 2.198).8 For many
years, Peirce had thought that ethics was a practical science, without appreciating its role as a theory and its connection with logic (CP 2.198). On reconsidering the place of ethics in the architectonic of the sciences, Peirce
understood that the role of ethics is not to pronounce judgment on the
goodness or badness of a certain action but rather to evaluate the conditions that determine whether something is good or bad. In this process, its
points of reference are norms and ideals. Ethics is the science of the ends toward which the action is directed and, as such, it is the normative science
par excellence. In turn, ethics must address that ideal that presents itself as
good, which takes us to esthetics (CP 5.35, 5.111, 5.130). The role of esthetics
is to ask about what is beautiful, about the ideal state of things and that
which must be admired per se. Therefore, the normative sciences have a relationship of dependence between each other, by which esthetics is the
foundation of ethics and ethics is the foundation of logic. Esthetics studies
the ideal in itself; ethics studies the relation of conduct with the ideal; and
logic studies the relation of thought with the approved conduct.9
Thus, the three questions on which the normative sciences are founded
are the questions about what is beautiful, what is good, and what is true.
These are the three types of goods, the three ideals. In the articulation of
knowledge, it is no longer sufficient to only say that each science must take
into account its own ideal, the conditions of conformity with respect to that
idea, and the principles guiding its achievement. The sciences, too, are articulated, so that in order to ask about what is true, one must have defined
beforehand what is good, and for that, one must have clarified at the beginning what is beautiful. This takes us to the heart of the pragmatic ideal: the
pragmatic maxim, which tries to define what is logically good and, in the
process, through the articulation of knowledge, addresses what is morally
and esthetically good (CP 5.130). Thus, when it seeks to regulate conduct,
pragmatism refers to an ethical ideal and an esthetic ideal (CP 5.535), in
which the latter is also the ultimate ideal that governs and guides human
action (CP 5.113).
Oakes has pointed out the similarity between Peirces ideas and the
thinking of John Henry Newman and Hans Urs Von Balthasar.10 Peirce, like
Newman, believed in the intrinsic relation between good moral conduct
and correct reasoning and, like Von Balthasar, placed beauty above goodness and truth. Thus, Newman, in the first of his Sermons before the University of Oxford, referred to the scientific disposition instilled first by the
Gospels and argued that some of the habits of the soul which we are told
in the Bible are the only ones that are pleasing to God are precisely the habits that are necessary for success in scientific research.11 For his part, in the
Introduction of Glory: A Theological Esthetics, Von Balthasar wrote that in a
136
world without beauty, goodness has lost in itself its attractive force, the
evidence of its realized must-be; man is perplexed in its presence and asks
why he must do good and not bad. . . . in a world that no longer believes itself able to affirm beauty, the demonstrative arguments of truth too have
lost their weight and their force of logical conclusion.12
Just as the normative sciences are related to each other through a relation
of dependence based on principles, the normative sciences and the practical sciences, in turn, are related by a dynamic action, in which the practical
sciences present problems to the theoretical sciences so that the latter may
contribute solutions (CP 7.52, 5.125). This relation is necessary and desirable, and its absence may have negative consequences for day-to-day affairs, for the action of the practical person. This is what Peirce says when
referring to the role of ethics which, as a normative science par excellence, is
the science most directly concerned with the practical sciences. Peirce analyzes the presence of ethics in some of them and points out that, just as it has
been useful in some, such as jurisprudence or sociology, so its absence has
been harmful in others, such as economics and diplomacy. Last, Peirce
states his hope that ethics be present in the decisions of daily life, because
then it will be possible to discern peoples true desires from those that, in
their spontaneity, may only be apparent (CP 1.251).
The task of the practical sciences is to discover the truth for certain defined human needs. This is the group of sciences that attracts most scholars.
Although they may make their own observations and compile their own
dataand accumulate a large number of facts that have not been observed
previouslythe practical sciences are quite dependent on the heuretic sciences.13 Peirce did not perform a detailed description of the practical sciences (in spite of having devoted considerable effort to classifying the
practical sciences, he considered the results he obtained to be a failure), but
a list of some of them is to be found in the manuscript of Minute Logic. The
list includes a broad spectrum of sciences, in which Peirce includes
pedagogics, horology, telegraphy, papermaking, and librarianship, among
others (CP 1.243). Although Peirce does not include business management
in this list, from the examples he gives, it can be safely assumed that he
would include it here. For instance, just as Peirce defined the practical sciences as those sciences that seek useful activities for life and seek to satisfy
human desires, business activity has been definedin general termsas
the production and distribution of goods and services that satisfy peoples
needs.
The practical sciences are therefore necessary in ordinary life to give a
scientific approach to day-to-day problems and decisions. Obviously, we
can be moved by other, nonscientific criteria, and even common sense can
often be sufficient, although it is, without doubt, too generic and can often
be incorrect. Even if we must always momentarily stop the decision process
in order to try one of the alternativesalways leaving a space for indeter-
137
minacythe analysis must be performed with the impartiality, objectiveness, and independence of the person of science. The practical sciences are
sciences for action. And the point of reference for the scientific development of these practical sciences is the normative sciences. If it is to be correctly formulated, practical thought, albeit centered on the hereness and
nowness of the specific situation, must have a solid foundation in the must
bein certain principles and certain clearly set goals. These principles are
provided by the normative sciences. The study of esthetics, ethics, and
logic should provide us with the action guidelines for our daily decisions.
MANAGEMENT: A FUNCTION OF SYNTHESIS

The fact that the science that studies human action in the management of
organizations is considered a practical science is an indication of the political character that has been conferred on the practical sciences in Western
tradition since the times of Ancient Greece. The managerial character of political knowledge, as understood by Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics, is
made apparent to highlight the synthetical, interdisciplinary character corresponding to management.14 Management harmoniously and synthetically brings together knowledge from a very varied range of scientific
fields. To facilitate our discussion, we can group them in economic, sociological, and ethical aspects. These three areas of knowledge must be present
in management. However, the way in which these three types of knowledge interrelate is not readily elucidated. In recent years, this problem has
become even more acute due to the growing popularity of business ethics
and the need to integrate ethical criteria in management. At the very best,
these three types of knowledge have been combined in decision making,
with an attempt to reconcile their respective goals and nature. Thus, ethics
has entered the field of management with a certain minimalistic, action-limiting connotation, finding itself reduced to a utilitarian calculation
of the consequences, the formulation of certain norms that limit the scope
of action, or a strange symbiosis of both ideas, which is usually the course
taken by theories on business ethics in North American academic circles.15
In his study of the classification of the sciences, Peirce says that the true
relation between the sciences is that which arises, not from a mere juxtaposition, but from the internal relation that demands the dependence of certain sciences principles on others. The synthesis that is necessary to
integrate the different sciences must arise from the establishment of a hierarchical relation of dependence, in which the relation of subordination of
certain sciences to others is clearly defined. The fact that a science is subordinated to another does not detract from its importance but rather it gives
greater emphasis to its position and, by clarifying its place in the body of
sciences, highlights the role it must play in action in general.
138
When management is required to reconcile the technical and humanistic

aspects of its action, it is being asked not to choose some over others, nor to
confine itself to placing them side by side, but to reach a synthesis between
the two, which requires seeing the relation of subordination between certain aspects and others. The idea is not to think that business management
is achieved solely through improved effectiveness in the use of technical
means, as if an effective technical management could take the place of an
adequate ethical conception of the company, nor that corporate management is a purely humanistic task. As Carlos Llano said, to succeed in having the person treated as a person, but within an established rational
system, or to establish a rational system without displacing or devaluing
peoples unique character is precisely the synthetical function that corresponds to business management today.16 However, it is not possible to
perform this task of synthesis from a technical viewpoint but rather it requires a human orientation.
To give an example of how this synthetical attitude should be oriented,
Carlos Llano referred to the university world. The example is very apt because the university was also a frequent subject of reflection for Peirce. According to Carlos Llano, university studies may be oriented toward four
different aspects. On the one hand, they may take a subjective, personal orientation, in which human beings are the subject of attention, or an objective, external orientation, which focuses on the world. On the other hand,
they can be studies with a practical or theoretical dimension. Thus, we see
studies that are oriented toward what we make of ourselves (personal-practical dimension); others consider what we make of our world
(objective-practical); and a third group is concerned with what we think
and say about ourselves (theoretical-personal); last, there are those who reflect on what we think and say about our world (theoretical-objective).
These four spheres of knowledge correspond, in the same order, to ethics,
technology, the humanities, and science.
In his reflections, Carlos Llano argued that the contemporary university is more inclined toward the objective dimension than the personal dimension and pays greater attention to technology and science. Faced with
such a hierarchy, which would place technology as the first interest
among university activities, it is necessary to retrieve the personal dimension so that we can know ourselves and the demands of our naturewhich would correspond to anthropology, as a personal-theoretical
dimensionand know what we must do with ourselveswhich is the
personal-practical dimension of ethics. Thus, by affirming the primacy of
people over things and theoretical knowledge over practical knowledge,
the four groups of studies should observe the following sequence: first,
anthropology, which studies what people think and say about themselves;
second, ethics, which studies what people do with themselves; third, the
positive sciences, which study what people think and say about their world;
139
and, finally, technology, which studies what people do with their world.17
One can readily see the similarity between this hierarchical order and the
classification established by Peirce: esthetics, ethics, logic, and practical
sciences.
Thus, we find ourselves before a broad field for reflection and action, requiring the involvement, not only of corporate executives, but also of those
who are responsible for their academic training. A good starting point
would be the shared conviction by both parties that the managers first ethical responsibility is to be effective and that ethical problems are not solved
with technical answers, because behind a good technical solution, there is
always an anthropological and ethical philosophy that guides and directs it.
In the first part of this book, human action was defined as a deliberate action that cannot be reduced to a mere succession of physical reactions but
rather is imprinted by an intentional purpose that guides the action toward
its end, without determining the specific way in which this action actually
occurs. In this second part, we have discussed how one can talk of a scientific character of action and have seen that the scientific character can manifest in practical action through the decision process, which is the process of
inquiry by which the subject establishes the belief that will be his or her
maxim of conduct. Thus, management can also lend itself to scientific inquiry and be studied by a science, in this case, by a practical science, which,
as such, should be oriented by the three normative sciences. Esthetics, ethics, and logic are the three sciences that help specify the scientific character
of human action in organizations. These three sciences are governed by a
relation of dependence. Logic depends on ethics, and ethics depends on esthetics. This grade of dependence is also found in human action. The economic, sociological, and ethical aspects are not related as equals in human
action but rather are bound by a relation of subordination. Through the
study of the three sciences, it will be possible to define three principles that
will help us in our understanding of human action. However, before starting that study, which will form the last part of this book, we must look at the
third and last meaning that Peirce gives to science, that of a mode of life, to
enable us to draw some conclusions regarding the type of scientific attitude
that should be developed by the practical person.
NOTES
1. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N.K. Smith (London: Macmillan,
1963), A 832, B 860.
2. S.T. Coleridge, The Science and System of Logic, in The Collected Works of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. H.J. Jackson and J.R. de J. Jackson, Vol. 11: Shorter
Works and Fragments, II (Princeton: Routledge & Princeton University Press,
1985), 1009.
3. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A 832, B 860.
4. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A 833, B 861.
140
5. Each science is marked with a numeric series in brackets to make it easier to

see the path it follows within the classification. This numbering system is used by
Kent in her book on the classification of the sciences. See B.E. Kent, Charles S.
Peirce: Logic and the Classification of the Sciences (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1987), 148.
6. Kent, Charles S. Peirce: Logic and the Classification of the Sciences, 148.
10. E.T. Oakes, Discovering the American Aristotle, First Things 38 (December 1993): 27.
11. J.H. Newman, Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford between
A.D. 1826 and 1843 (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997).
12. H.U. Von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics. Vol I:
Seeing the Form (San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius Press and Crossroad Publications,
19831991).
14. A. Valero and J.L. Lucas, Poltica de empresa. El gobierno de la empresa de
negocios (Pamplona, Spain: Eunsa, 1991).
15. For an attempt to justify this symbiosis, see A. Etzioni, The Moral Dimension:
Towards a New Economics (New York: Free Press, 1988). These ideas are to be found
in any manual on business ethics. See, for example, R.T. de George, Business Ethics,
3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1990); and M. Velasquez, Business Ethics: Concepts
and Cases, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1992). For an attempt to
go beyond these approaches, see J.M. Elegido, Fundamentals of Business Ethics
(Ibadan, Nigeria: Spectrum Books, 1996).
16. C. Llano, El postmodernismo en la empresa (Mexico: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 107.
The discussion contained in the following pages is based on the ideas expressed
by Llano in Chapter 5, Universidad adversus postmodernismo. The same author, in chapter 2 of Anlisis de la accin directiva (Mexico: Limusa, 1979), specifies
the different functional and structural aspects of the company in which the manager performs this synthetical function.
17. Llano, El postmodernismo en la empresa, 9396.
CHAPTER 8
The Scientific Attitude in

Management
The two meanings of science that have provided the starting points for the
two previous chapters give a static view of science. Therefore, Peirce proposes a third meaning, by which science is understood as a mode of life, following the ideal of science that he finds in the writings of Francis Bacon (CP
7.54; MS 1269). According to this third meaning, science is the occupation of
a group of people who have been moved by an impulse to penetrate into
the reason of things (CP 1.44).
In the introduction to the History of Sciencewhich in the end was never
publishedPeirce says that lexicographers and non-scientists may view
science as an organized body of knowledge, but the true scientist sees it
as a mode of life (MS 1269; CP 7.5455). Science is the goal of the person
who is motivated by the pure love of knowledge. In his opinion, the scientist is inspired by the search for truth alone. In this, Peirce disagrees with
others, such as Karl Pearson, who propose a utilitarian vision of science and
state that science is for action (CP 8.136). Science is not determined by the
results obtained, but by the search for an aspect of truth, using for the task
the best means available (MS 1334).
Science is a mode of life, it is a mode of inquiry; above all, it is a vital attitudethe scientific attitudewhich, together with other attitudes, must
be present in all people. It is not something associated with a certain point
in time, a moment of inspiration in which one begins to conceive new ideas,
but a struggle that lasts all ones life, and even longer, as inquiry continues
beyond the scientists lifetime. Just as the discoveries made centuries ago
were a step from which to continue advancingand which, although they
142
were valid in their time, have since been supersededso may also the discoveries made by present scientists prove to be false in the future because
scientific certainties are fallible (CP 7.108, 2.142), but they will have contributed to the progress of science, and that, in the final analysis, is what matters.
When Peirce talks about science in general or about a science in particular, he is talking about a community of investigators that works together for
some time with a unity of purpose and method enabling a result to be obtained that is greater than the sum of the individual contributions.1 Science
is not the investigation of a single person but rather of the community of investigators; it is the collective effort of a group of people who, being more or
less interconnected, help and encourage each other to understand a particular group of studies that cannot be understood by others outside the
group (MS 1334). However, it is not a necessary condition that people who
form a group of scientists be working on the same problem, nor that they be
fully up-to-date on what the others are doing or need. However, it is a necessary condition that their studies be so closely related that any one of
them, after a period of months of preparation, could take over the work on
anothers problem and all of them can understand what the problem that
the other one is working on consists of. In particular, one thing they share is
the same skill in the use of tools and working methods, which those who do
not belong to that science do not have (MS 1334). On the basis of this definition, Delaney says that science means for Peirce the life of a social group
of investigators, who are united by a particular research strategy and
moved by the desire to learn the truth.2
In an analogous manner to what happens with the classification of the
sciences, the individuals working in a particular science turn to the individuals working in a more abstract science, seeking information on principles
with which the latter are more knowledgeable and that the individuals in
the more concrete science need to apply. At the same time, the individuals
in the first group are more skilled than the individuals in the second group
in the concrete application of these principles. The experts in the abstract
science have greater knowledge about the principles; the experts in the concrete science apply them better. Thus, one groupthe concrete science
groupis in a relationship of dependence with the other groupthe abstract science groupalthough the latter is not operational by itself, but
through the practical application given to its principles by the concrete science (MS 1334). When this relationship between sciences is applied to ethics, it can be concluded that ethical problems cannot be reduced to technical
problems, even if they need technical applications for their solution.
Upon studying the conditions of the possibility of science, Delaney remarks that the continuity of the scientific method and the validity of its results depend, not only on the characteristics of the universe that guarantee
its objective validity, but also on the qualities that investigators and institu-
143
tions must possess in order to sustain the process.3 The continuity of the scientific method depends on the continued existence of certain interrelated
social practicesreplicability of the experiment, intersubjectivity, and discussion between the members of the scientific communitywhich, in turn,
depend on certain virtues held by the individuals forming the community.
These moral aspectswhich Delaney lists as the sense of trust, the sense of
community, and the love of truthare the most important for the functioning of the scientific method (CP 7.87).
Peirce refers directly to the qualities that must be held by the scientific
person: the search for truth, a natural gift for critical reasoning, and a specific training for that branch of science to which he or she is devoted (CP
7.605607). The last two qualities have already been considered in previous
chapterswhen discussing the role of reason in human action and the synthetical character of managementso this chapter will specifically address
the search for truth as a unique characteristic of the scientific attitude, as
well as certain corollaries that follow from this.
Drawing from texts written by Peirce, Susan Haack has rightly pointed
out that the desire to learn, even though it be the first rule of reason (CP
1.135), is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for attaining truth.4 It
is not a sufficient condition because truth may not be attained, either because the scientist encounters various difficulties that hamper the inquiry
or because other conditions are required, such as a natural gift for critical
thinking or a more adequate method. On the other hand, it is not a necessary condition either, because truth may be attained by other methods, as
we have seen when discussing the four methods for fixing beliefs.
However, centering on this first rule of reasonin order to learn, there
must first be the desire to learnHaack points out that this rule requires on
the part of the investigator a certain disposition, which Peirce returns to
time and again in his writings and which can be characterized as the attitude of the pure search for truth. This disposition sets the scientist apart
from other individuals who normally do not have this attitude. Peirce usually refers to teachers, theologians, and, to a lesser extent, businesspeople.
According to Haack, Peirce holds that these individuals differ from the scientist in two characteristics. On the one hand, businesspeople are always
looking for opportunities, for usefulness, whereas science is the study of
useless things (CP 1.76). In other words, the practical application of scientific findings is irrelevant for science (CP 1.45). Furthermore, the practical
person needs firm beliefs for action, whereas the scientist works with conjectures and propositions (CP 1.635). Teachers are different from scientists
in this second aspect, as the task of teaching requires them to be thoroughly
convinced of the truth of what they are teaching. For their part, the theologians have already decided beforehand on the truths they want to reach, so
that their entire discourse is concerned with defending the propositions to
which they have committed themselves from the outset; this attitude is
144
contrary to the scientific attitude, which does not know how the inquiry
will conclude (CP 6.3). In addition, the theologians seek in their inquiry to
achieve ends other than the search for truth, even if they are such commendable ends as saving souls. Peirce is not trying to say that science must
mark our entire life; he only wants to make clear the role corresponding in
that life to the scientist or, rather, to the scientific attitude. In this sense, it
cannot be said that Peirce is an advocate of scientism, because he is able to
recognize the limits of science in human life.5
By comparing the scientist with those engaged in other activities, it is
possible to identify a number of characteristics of the scientific attitude: (1)
it is moved by the search for truth, without taking into account the practical
applications; (2) it does not require firm beliefs, only conjectures, with the
disposition to change them whenever necessary; (3) it does not start from
preconceived ideas; and (4) it has no other interest outside of truth. The scientific person is not characterized by what he or she knows but by the desire to learn.
In the interest of penetrating into the reason of things, the scientist is
moved by a diligent inquiry. It is an active stanceand closer, therefore, to
that of practical person rather than the artistwhich is not content with
contemplating things but rather seeks to penetrate into their reason (CP
1.44, 5.589). The scientist does not claim to have an all-embracing explanatory theoryas is the case with the philosopherbut rather he is always
ready to learn from the reality with which he or she relates, comparing his
or her ideas with experimental results in order to modify the ideas if necessary (CP 1.44). It is this open attitude to reality that, in Peirces opinion, accounts for the success of modern science. Peirce points out three conditions
that this attitude imposes on the scientific method. First, scientists have
been successful in their investigations because, far from shutting themselves in museums and libraries, they have spent their time in laboratories
and in the experimental field, verifying their ideas. Second, they have not
adopted an attitude of passive perception of reality but have observedthat is, perceived, but with the help of analysisreality and tested
their theories. Last, the reason why they have carried out their inquiries has
been a craving to know how things really were; a craving that acts as a
counterweight to all the individuals prejudices, vanities, and passions,
over which prevails the interest in verifying whether general propositions
continue to be valid (CP 1.34).
These three characteristics are important for management. They indicate
that we must maintain an active position with respect to reality. This active
position does not imply manipulating the environment, because the ultimate attitude is to know things as they really are and let them be as they really are. Management cannot be confused with technology, because
management is concerned with modifying people and not inert objects, but
145
neither can it be confused with dialog, because what is really sought is a

modification in the people being managed.6
When people have a burning desire to know the truth, their first effort
must be to imagine what that truth can be (CP 1.4748). Although the scientific attitude is related to the practical attitude in that it is not content with
contemplating things, it also has a similarity with the artistic attitude,
which demands from the scientist a certain creativity. Just as the artist creates a fiction that is not arbitrary, so does the geometer draw a diagram by
which to show a series of relations between elements that before seemed to
have no necessary connection. The genius of the mind takes an active position, collects the data, makes them precise, adds what he or she believes to
be necessary, and shows them in an intelligible form in space and time (CP
1.383). We may stand before phenomena, but in the absence of imagination,
we cannot connect them in any rational way (CP 1.46). Peirce says that the
true form of synthetical consciousness consists of introducing an idea that
is not contained in the data and that creates connections that would otherwise not have existed (CP 1.383). Thus, the originality brought by imagination does not lie in the subject being studied but in how that subject is given
shape and how the various parts are joined together (CP 4.611). Arguing
against nominalism, Peirce points out with respect to the scientific character that it is not a question of abstaining from hypostatization, but of doing
it intelligently; arguing against Hegel, he points out that when something
becomes present to the mind, its presentness, or immediacy, appears.
This is not something abstractas Hegel saidbut rather, what is present,
is positively as it is. Intuition is the regarding of the abstract in a concrete
form, by the realistic hypostatization of relations. This is the sole method of
valuable thought (CP 1.383).
Prior to desire to learn, we must be aware of our limitations, in particular, of the possibility of error and of ignorance.7 Because we are aware of the
possibility of error, we will never be satisfied with what we already think
(CP 1.135) and, while avoiding a sterile relativism, we will reject dogmatic
positions that block the progress of inquiry. And because we are aware of
our ignorance, we will trust in the communicative character of inquiry and
view the attainment of truth, not as the work of a humans lifetime, but as
the work of generations.
By discerning between these different attitudes, it is possible to identify
three qualities of the scientific attitudepersistence, breadth, and honestywhich, following Haack, I define as follows. With persistence, the investigator does not stop until the inquiry achieves those results that can be
taken as relevant; it implies taking into account all of the actions results
and not merely the immediate, extrinsic results. With breadth, the investigator does not ignore issues that may be important for the inquiry, even at first
sight they may have no practical relevance. It implies considering all the
decision criteria, particularly those that may be least obvious but that, if
146
they are not taken into account, may cause dramatic results for the action,
as is the case of the consistency criterion.8 Finally, with honesty, the investigator prefers truth to his or her own satisfaction, which translates into a
commitment to truth above personal interests, favors the attitude of cooperation that facilitates the progress of knowledge, and warns of the necessity to go beyond perceptible satisfaction when analyzing the different
hypotheses. When these three qualities are related with practical action, the
scientific attitude manifests at three decisive moments: the perception of
the results, the assessment of the criteria, and the deliberation of the motives.
If people act with this attitude, it does not particularly matter whether
the inquiry obtains results or even if it leads to an error. It is not the results
obtained that bring people together around the same science, but the desire
to know. The intentions or the attitudes are more important than the results.
After all, the latter refer to operational problems, in the order of efficient
causality. Once all the conditions have been met and the experiment has begun, certain results are obtained that, normally, will not be those expected.
However, what really matters are the intentions and attitudes with which
the subject begins the inquiry, as these determine whether it will be a scientific inquiry (a necessary but insufficient condition for reaching the truth)
or a pseudoinquiry, which appears to obtain results but blocks the further
progress of science. It is more important to apply the correct method even if,
in the end, the truth is not reached than to try to reach the truth by any other
method. If the correct method is applied, even the errors that may ensue
will be highly useful for scientific progress (CP 1.644) because the scientist
will not ignore them, but, on the contrary, will apply the lessons learned
from these weaknesses to continue the inquiry.
As a mode of life, science is the desire to learn. However, it may happen
that this desire to learn does not exist in a pure state but is mixed with other
desires. This will normally be the case of the person of action who wishes to
have a scientific attitude in his or her actions, something that is also necessary in management. In this case, strictly speaking, it cannot be said that the
person who acts in this manner is scientific, but neither can we completely
deny him or her a scientific attitude (CP 1.235). Susan Haack analyzed three
states in which inquiry is guided by interests other than the sole search for
truth: the person who seeks truth in good faith but a faith which is useful to
him or her, that is, that has practical applications; the person who investigates in bad faith, trying to find reasons that confirm his or her preconceived ideas; and, lastly, the person who investigates with the desire to earn
worldly fame (CP 1.5859).9 With respect to the first state, she admits that
an inquiry driven by practical results may be considered short-sighted because it may leave to one side lines of research that would be useful for
reaching the truth but are not relevant for the practical utility sought; even
so, if the inquiry is guided by good faith, the inquiry should not be censured, particularly consideringas Peirce himself acknowledgedthat it
147
is difficult to say when the results reached by science will or will not have
practical results and that scientific breakthroughs have also been shown to
have major practical applications without this detracting from their importance from the scientific viewpoint. It does not seem, therefore, that practical utility should be, in principle, an insurmountable obstacle for scientific
advancement, provided that the shortcomings, from the scientific viewpoint arise from closing paths and not placing from obstacles, to take the
image used by Peirce. Thus, if the investigation confines itself to closing
paths, it may not choose the straightest path for reaching the truth but, in
spite of this, the scientific community will eventually reach the truth.
A different state of affairs is that of the person who uses the inquiry to
justify pre-established beliefs. In this case, the inquiry is blocked by deceit.
However, even here a distinction must be made: if such a method is used
knowingly and without trying to find a better one, it cannot be said of that
person that he or she is a scientist; if the person using it does not have a
better alternative and it is the best available at that time, although he or she
cannot be considered a scientist, he or she at least has a place in the vestibule of science (CP 1.642).
Finally, Haack considers the case of the person who is driven by vanity to
seek in the inquiry a means of self-promotion and enhancing his or her own
reputation (CP 1.34). This, too, is a pseudoinquiry because the person performing it is more concerned with him- or herself than with the search for
truth. If one is full of oneself, one is unlikely to be able to direct ones soul toward the desire to reach the truth.10 This search for truth may also be adversely affected by a markedly hostile environment (CP 1.645): on the one
hand, scientific work may become very expensive and, consequently, a
business factor may enter into it, thus forcing scientists to become
businesspeople and, sometimes, compromise the honesty required by scientific activity to exaggerate the results and obtain funds to continue their
research; on the other hand, scientific work may take on an air of professionalism (CP 1.51) and the scientist may become an individual preoccupied with reputation, prestige, and income (CP 8.142). There is only one
thing worse than a rich scientist, and that is a bureaucratic scientist. All of
these circumstances may lead to a deterioration in the intellectual vigor of
the scientific person.
Therefore, the practical application of scientific results or the interest in
the usefulness they may have does not have a directly detrimental effect on
scientific inquiry. The people of action pursue truth, albeit useful truth. If it
is done in good faith, it need not necessarily be bad. Obviously, there is a
practical motive, which means that one cannot talk of a pure scientific attitude, but this does not strip the person of action of the right to be called a
scientist. The person of action must be aware of the limited character of that
action (CP 1.642, 1.7576) as compared to scientific inquiry. However, at the
same time, he or she must acknowledge that it is highly desirable that his or
148
her action be mediated by a scientific attitude that enables his or her reasoning to avoid being preoccupied with selfish interests and opens it, the universality of a world that, with his or her action, he or she models, interprets,
and gives meaning to.
With the conclusion of this chapter, and of this second part, I have outlined the relation between science and practice in management. The person
of action must possess a scientific attitude, which is required by the very nature of his or her actions which, given their continual novelty, cannot be left
to the mercy of instinct but rather must be constantly mediated by reason.
Therefore, the decision process can draw from the process of scientific inquiry; the scientific method and the pragmatic maxim may facilitate decision making and the defining of action plans; the classification of the
sciences indicates the synthetical and unitary character of the different
fields of knowledge; and, last, the scientific attitude, whose purpose is the
search for truth, illuminates the attitude with which the manager must focus his or her action.
The normative sciences were mentioned at the end of the previous chapter as the points of reference for articulating managerial action. In the third
and last part of this book, we will take these sciences as a starting point for
an attempt to define three principles of action, which, taken from Peircean
thought, may provide a reference framework for management.
NOTES
1. C.F. Delaney, Science, Knowledge and Mind: A Study in the Philosophy of
Charles S. Peirce (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), 77.
2. C.F. Delaney, Peirce on the Conditions of the Possibility of Science, in
Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science, ed. E.C. Moore (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993), 18.
3. Delaney, Peirce on the Conditions of the Possibility of Science, 2023.
4. S. Haack, The First Rule of Reason, in The Rule of Reason, ed. J. Brunning
and P. Forster (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), 241261.
5. N. Rescher, Peirce on the Validation of Science, in Peirce and Contemporary Thought, ed. K. Ketner (New York: Fordham University Press, 1995), 109112.
6. C. Llano, Anlisis de la accin directiva (Mexico: Limusa, 1979), 14.
7. Haack, The First Rule of Reason, 241261.
8. The consequences of ignoring this criterion in management decisions was
discussed by J.A. Prez Lpez, El sentido de los conflictos ticos originados por el
entorno en el que opera la empresa (Cuadernos de Empresa y Humanismo, no. 4).
(Pamplona, Spain: Cuadernos de Empresa y Humanismo, 1987).
9. S. Haack, Preposterism and its consequences, in Manifesto of a Passionate
Moderate (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 188208.
10. The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce, ed. C. Eisele, vol. 4 (The
Hague: Mouton, 1976), 977.
PART III
Three Principles for

Management
The last part of this book takes the three normative sciences as its reference.
In the first part, I defined human action in terms of the most important
Peircean concepts, stressing actions intentional character. This teleological
reference has led us to analyze, in the second part, the decision-making process because the rational character of human action appears very clearly in
the decision. In our study of this process, our reference to the Peircean scientific method proved a very useful way to highlight the desirability of applying a scientific attitude in human action. Within the classification of the
sciences, the normative sciences were defined as those sciences that guide
human activity. Therefore, the reference to the normative sciences is presented as the last step in this inquiry.
Human action is reasoned action, that is, it is founded on a deliberate,
controlled process; this implies an intentional character of action, which is
governed by ends. However, these ends, in turn, are also the consequence
of a deliberate, rational choice, which requires a reference to an ultimate
end having the consideration of admirable in itself, as the ultimate end cannot be chosen. Consequently, logic is concerned with right reasoning, that
is, the correct use of the means; ethics analyzes the ends toward which these
means should be directed, such that its interest is directed toward the conditions in which the action can be considered correct; finally, esthetics defines the end in itselfthat which deserves to be considered admirable and
desirable, irrespective of the circumstances that may arise or the other considerations that may apply.
150
It would be beyond the scope of this book to perform a detailed study of

each of the normative sciences. As in previous chapters, we will consider
only those aspects that refer most directly to the definition of human action.
Through the consideration of the three normative sciences, we will be able
to draw a principle from each one which will be useful for orienting human
action. The three principles for actionwhich will be called creativity, community, and characterwill be the theme of discussion in each of the next
three chapters. These three principles have been considered in one way or
another in the literature on business management, but the synthetical character provided by the classification of the sciences may help us understand
their nature and interrelation.
CHAPTER 9
Creativity: The Logical

Principle of Action
ABDUCTION, DEDUCTION AND INDUCTION

The question of the forms of inference and their validity was a recurrent
theme in Peirces writings, although a change in the way these subjects is
approached is observed in the course of the historic evolution of his
thinking. In his early writings, Peirce refers to three types of arguments
or inferencesdeduction, induction and abduction1as three separate
ways of reasoning. However, in his later writings, the three types of argument are conceived as three steps in a single process of scientific inquiry.
In his paper written in 1878, Deduction, Induction and Hypothesis
(CP 2.619644), he studies the three types of argument. Using the system of
the syllogism, he states that there are three classes of inference by which it is
possible to draw a conclusion from certain given premises (CP 2.620623).
The first inference is deduction, which consists of applying a rule to a case, as
corresponds to the syllogism of the first figure. Deduction will be formulated as follows:
Rule:
All the beans from this bag are white.
Case:
These beans are from this bag.
Result: These beans are white.
In the second, induction, the starting point is the case, and from there it is
inferred that what is true for one or several cases is also true for the whole to
which these cases belong. It is formulated as follows:
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Case:


Rule:
Last, abduction assumes that it is possible to infer the case from the rule
and the result. Its formulation is as follows:
Rule:

Case:
Deductive reasoning is analytic or explicative, it enables our knowledge

to be explained, but the conclusion does not add anything that is not already contained in the premises. On the other hand, induction and abduction are ampliative or synthetic inferences because in this case, the
conclusion adds a novelty with respect to the content of the premises (CP
2.623). Deductive inferences are logically necessary, whereas induction and
abduction move within what is plausible or likely.2 In induction, there is a
resemblance among individuals, and the conclusion generalizes the common aspect to all the members of the class. For its part, in abduction, there is
a resemblance among characteristics; the conclusion surmises that this resemblance goes beyond the characteristic observed and gives a possible explanation for itself. In abduction, the consideration of the facts suggests an
explicative hypothesis. In induction, one looks for the facts that confirm the
hypothesis that is suggested (CP 7.218). Induction is based on a comparative process: it is a comparison between homogenous facts, from which
their general properties can be enounced. On the contrary, abduction is
based on a singular fact, which sometimes appears as an enigma, something inexplicable, for which the observer postulates a hypothesis.3 Abductions, like inductions, do not contain in themselves their own logical
validity and must be confirmed in the outside world: they are conjectures
about reality that must be confirmed by means of an experimental test.4
Admittedly, the conclusive jump of the hypothesis is less sure than that
of induction, but it is also more fertile. These two characteristics are inversely related to the three types of inference. Deduction leads to surer conclusions because it is a necessary inference, but it is also the least fertile
because it simply makes explicit something that was already said. Abduction, for its part, is the least sure but, on the other hand, its fertility is high, as
it proposes an explanation for the observed facts. Finally, induction occupies a position in between; the novelty it contributes is that of classifying
nonobserved facts under a general law on the basis of their resemblance to
observed facts (CP 2.640).
In 1901, in Peirces The Logic of Drawing History from Ancient Documents, all three types of argument are integrated as successive steps in the
153
process of inquiry of the scientific method (CP 7.161255) and reappear in

the same form in the Lectures on Pragmatism given at Harvard in 1903
(CP 5.171). With abduction, an explanatory hypothesis is formulated of the
observed facts; with deduction, the experimentable consequences that
should be observed if the hypotheses are fulfilled are stated; finally, with
induction, the hypothesis is verified experimentally through the occurrence of the effects determined a priori. By observing the function that each
of these steps performs in the process of inquiry as a whole, it is possible to
establish a relationship among the three categories: Deduction proves that
something must be; Induction shows that something actually is operative;
Abduction merely suggests that something may be (CP 5.171). Thus, deduction refers to thirdness and moves on the plane of necessity; induction is
related with secondness and has the characteristic of actuality; and abduction, as firstness, refers to the possibility.
Delaney distinguishes between two moments in the process of scientific
inquiry: the discovery phase, which corresponds to abduction, and the confirmation phase, which corresponds to induction. In turn, in abduction he
distinguishes between the discovery as such, which corresponds to the
generation of explicative hypotheses for the phenomenon under consideration, and the selection of those hypotheses that are worth verifying in induction.5 The moment of hypothesis generation is dependent on the
natural instinct to choose correctly; the moment of selection is dependent
on methodological criteria, which may be grouped in the economy of research; finally, the inductive confirmation is dependent on the iterative,
self-correcting character of the scientific method.
With Peirces proposal, the hypothesis generation process is given a scientific character that other authors have denied it. In his study on abduction, Brown pointed out that renowned authors such as John Stuart Mill,
Whewell, and Popper have considered the moment of discovery to be outside of the boundaries of science. Peirce, on the contrary, argues that it is
possible to give a scientific treatment to the logic of discovery. Thus, the significance of his contribution lies in showing the importance of the initial
moment and giving it a scientific treatment that it has not received from
other authors.6
The first moment of abduction, according to Delaneys division, consists
of the generation of hypotheses.7 Peirce believes that this phase rests on a
particular faculty or instinct that we possess and that gives us a certain insight into the internal structure of nature. By means of the continuity principle, there exists a certain fit between the subject who knows and the known
phenomenon, which science is continually unraveling. Consequently,
there must exist a faculty that accounts for this correlation. This faculty,
which Peirce likens to Galileos lume naturale, is what allows us to choose
right on the laws of nature.
154
In ANeglected Argument for the Reality of God, published in September 1908 in the Hibbert Journal, Peirce referred to this faculty for hypothesis
formulation, which he calls musement. Musement is pure play of the
scientific spirit preoccupied solely with the search for truth. Thus, any scientific progresswhich may only be provided by abductionis suggested
first by the spontaneous conjectures of instinctive reason (CP 6.475). It is a
game, but one that does not have rules; even so, it is controlled, but by a
control that always leaves room for the spontaneous growth of ideas, according to the order of evolutionary love, where spontaneity evolves in a
framework of rationality. It is a free exercise of reason, but not an exercise free
of reason. In this respect, Nubiola pointed out that human creations have
their origin in spontaneity, in the free action of human beings who, on the
basis of experience, introduce into the world a significance that is irreducible to physical determinations. For Peirce, spontaneity is the essence of intellectual activity; it provides the discontinuity between past and future in
which something new can arise.8
In his study of the theory of abduction, Fann argued that the fundamental problem of abduction is to find the criteria for choosing the best hypothesis.9 Peirce identified three criteria: the hypothesis that is selected must be
capable of being subjected to experimental testing, must explain the facts,
and it must take into account the economy of research (CP 7.220). First, a hypothesis must be capable of being subjected to experimental testing. In this
respect, abduction has a close relationship with pragmatism because, if abduction is the hypothesis formulation process, the pragmatic maxim establishes that the only acceptable hypothesis is that which can be verified
experimentally, because the various hypotheses are distinguished by the
practical consequences. Thus, the pragmatic maxim is the logic of abduction (CP 5.196). Second, it must explain the facts of experience that have
caused the surprise and motivated the inquiry. This is the reason causing
the scientific inquiry. Thus, abduction lies at the very heart of the scientific
inquiry, as it seeks to give an explanation for the event that has motivated
the inquiry. It requires an optimistic attitude, which leads us, first, to assume that there are no absolutely inexplicable facts and, second, to trust in
mans ability to find correct hypotheses. Peirce disagrees with the
positivistic positions with respect to the nature of hypotheses. For Peirce,
sciences function is explicative, that is, it seeks to formulate laws that explain observed events, whereas positivism is descriptive and only accepts
those laws that can be observed directly.10 Peirce was familiar with the
thinking of Ernst Mach, to whom he dedicated words of praise for his philosophy of science (MS 332).11 However, for Peirce, Machs error was to exclude from scientific explanations all that which was beyond the level of
perceptible experience, whereas for Peirce, the interest of science was not
confined to capturing the regularities of nature, but, above all, sought to
find an explanation for why those regularities exist (CP 6.12).
155
There may be many hypotheses that are able to meet the first two conditionsexperimental control and ability to explain realityand verifying
them all may be very expensive. Consequently, it is necessary to decide
which of them must be verified first. This is the purpose of the third principle, which Peirce calls economy of research (CP 5.600). By defining this principle, Peirce takes into account the relation between a particular line of
inquirys usefulness or value and its cost. Usefulness is considered on the
basis of the hypothesiss intrinsic valuethe expectations that it may be
trueand its effect on other processes of inquiry.
The hypothesiss intrinsic value addresses, first of all, its simplicity or
naturalness. As a suitable maxim for science, Peirce refers to Ockhams
principle of not multiplying entities unnecessarily, which leads him to define the following guideline: Before you try a complicated hypothesis, you
should make quite sure that no simplification of it will explain the facts
equally well (CP 5.60, 4.35, 6.535). Fann points to an evolution in the concept of simplicity used by Peirce. If, in his first writings, he understood by
simplest hypothesis that which added least to what was observed, in his reflections near the end of his life he referred to that hypothesis that is easiest
and most natural, that which the instinct suggests should be preferred.12
Among the reasons given to support the simplicity hypothesis are the fact
that, if the hypothesis were to be proved false, it can be eliminated with
greater speed and less expense (CP 1.120, 6.532) and that a simple hypothesis is closer to the natural affinity that, in Peirces opinion, should exist between the mind and nature (CP 6.476).
In addition to simplicity, it is also necessary to consider the hypothesiss
rational character, that is, the different subjective and objective signals
that indicate its truth. Especial attention must be given to the weighting of
the supreme commandments of reason and instinct, by which we endeavor
to fit the hypothesis harmoniously in the body of previously established
ideas, but without forgetting that it is experience that must guide the inquiry. If there are positive facts that make a certain hypothesis likely, that
hypothesis must be tested first (CP 7.220). However, if there are not, the
economy of research advises testing first the hypothesis that concurs with
the rules of action that have already been tested and internalized by the
subject. The plausibility principle of a hypothesis is related with the principle of conservatism that characterizes the scientific method and, as such,
shows his reluctance to accept any hypothesis that requires an expansion of
the conceptual framework used by the individual until now.13 However, in
contrast, on another occasion, he suggested that the hypotheses that vary
significantly from preconceived ideas deserve to be considered first,
provided that they can be tested efficiently and without too much expense
(CP 7.83).
The second criterion of the hypothesiss usefulness analyzes its effect on
other inquiries. The importance of this factor lies in the fact that a hypothe-
156
sis will rarely be totally satisfactory. Consequently, one can consider which
aspects of the hypothesis may be used to explain other problems when it is
refuted. Peirce refers to three considerations: caution, breadth, and
incomplexity (CP 7.220221). Under the consideration of caution, the hypothesis is analyzed in its most elementary logical components, with the
purpose of experimenting with those that enable the greatest possible
number of hypotheses to be eliminated at once. Under the consideration of
breadth, all other things being equal, the hypotheses chosen are those that
are as broad as possible, because the more general they are, the more they
will be able to illuminate other fields of experience, thereby avoiding unnecessary repetition. Finally, the preference for incomplexity is to be explained by the fact that simpler hypotheses are more suggestive for the
hypotheses that follow than more complex hypotheses.
In addition to the hypothesiss usefulness, its cost must also be studied.
If a hypothesis can be tested with little expensein terms of money, time,
energy, or effortor if the means are available for testing it, this hypothesis
should be examined first, even if apparently it has less possibilities of being
verified (CP 6.533, 7.220, 5.598). By combining the estimated usefulness of a
line of inquiry with its total cost, a simple strategy is obtained for directing
the application of resources. The economic urgency of a certain project is
represented by the ratio between usefulness and cost.
Using this indicator, Peirce lists a number of decision criteria, which always have a generic character and which it is sometimes difficult to reconcile. For example, he says that one must begin with that line of inquiry
whose urgency is greatest and, at the same time, one must seek to equalize
the ratios of all the inquiries in progress. He indicates his preference for
those inquiries that pursue a profound knowledge of a very specific field of
science, although, at the same time, he points out the importance of
interdisciplinarity and the application of principles from one science to another, and he investigates hypotheses that are similar to established ideas.
However, he says that a piece of research work that is sufficiently divergent
from established opinions should, as a general rule, be observed with attention (CP 1.32). He affirms that inquiries in which resources have already
been invested should be continued as long as the conditions that rendered
the investment advisable prevail but adds that new resources should be allocated to new fields of inquiry because they will probably make the inquiry more fruitful.14 In general terms, resources should be allocated to
those areas in which researchers are in a position to achieve greater advances.15 Faced with this diversity of criteria for choosing hypotheses, it is
clear that the scientific attitude and, by extension, human action are not
subject to fixed, automatic procedures and, no matter how many variables
can be enumerated, they can never take the place of the individuals prudential deliberation.
157
Although, in principle, the economy of research refers to abduction, economic considerations are no less important in induction (CP 7.90). When
discussing the hypothesis verification process, a major issue of practical
relevance is raised: the cost of information. As knowledge increases, the
marginal growth of usefulness decreases while the cost required to obtain
an incremental gain in this knowledge increases considerably. Therefore,
there may come a time when it no longer pays to take the inquiry further
(CP 1.122). For each line of inquiry, there is an optimal point of certainty and
exactitude that it is pointless to try to exceed but unsatisfactory to not attain
(CP 1.85).
The inability to obtain all the accessible information for a given decision
led, in organizational theory, to the formulation of the principle of limited
rationality, which challenges maximization strategies on the grounds that
they require information that the decision maker often does not have.16 Depending on whether the decision is founded on an optimization criterion,
that is, on choosing the alternative that is valued better than the others, or
on a satisfaction criterion, that is, one settles for any alternative that is considered satisfactory, the rules for stopping the inquiry will be very different.17 On the one hand, it does not seem to be a rational position to choose
an alternative that is satisfactory and, at the same time, acknowledge that
there is another, better alternative. However, on the other hand, given that
human action takes place in a dynamic context, it seems to be preferable to
establish a time limit for making a decision with the information available
at that time rather than prolong indefinitely the evaluation of the alternatives. The clearer the knowledge held of the alternatives, the easier it is to
identify that which appears as optimal. However, the clearer the goals, the
more reason there is to settle for an alternative that is satisfactory. Just as, on
a global levelthat is, from the perspective of the ultimate end toward
which all people aspireone seeks an optimum that can be called happiness but is defined in a series of values that sometimes may come into conflict, the decision in favor of satisfaction is not taken as an alternative to
optimization as a model of rationality but as an alternative to the decisions
that the subject makes continually as a strategy to achieve happiness. Thus,
the decision rule leads us to conclude that, if the goals are clear, it is sufficient to choose that alternative that appears as satisfactory and, in the event
that there are several alternatives that are satisfactory, to choose the best of
them. If this reflection is applied to the moments of abduction, it is understood that such moments need not occur in a linear succession, so that first
all the alternatives are formulated and then the best of them is chosen. To
view Peircean thought in this light is to overformalize it and lose the spontaneity that characterizes it. Generation and selection are fused in a decision strategy that is better matched to the criterion of satisfaction than to
that of optimization.
158
It is not necessary either that the hypothesis be defined in all its details
before it is verified. It is sufficient that it have a certain generic character,
centered on those aspects that are important for the inquiry to continue.
The principle of total evidenceformulated, among others, by Rudolph
Carnapmay be valid for applications on a very small scale. However, in
practice it is usually impossible to consider or record all the information
that is potentially relevant. At times, there have been attempts to liken this
stance to the Bayesian probability theories. However, this implies a very
rigid interpretation of the Bayesian theorems. When one says, as Thomas
Bayes does, that when the probability of a certain event is formulated, there
exists a prior distribution of probability determined by the information
held by the subject, this does not necessarily imply that all the information
must be effectively held. It would be just as senseless to want to have all the
information for making a decision as to reject any previous information
that one may have. In this, Peirce would be closer to Bayesian theory than
most authors have thought. After all, both would agree that all our knowledge is based on observed facts, but that the observation of the facts is also
influenced by the subjects prior experience and personal situation.18 Both
Peirce and Bayes would accept a reformulation of the principle of total evidence that says that we must take into account all the knowledge we have,
whether it be much or little, and, in each case, when new evidence appears
it may refute conclusions that until then were accepted.
Although Peirce states clearly that the economy of research rests on the
assumption that the purpose of the research is the search for truth and that
it is not real research when the investigator has other interests (CP 7.157),
insofar as a scientific attitude may exist in human action, so the principles
of the economy of research can also be applied in human action. However,
insofar as human action may be affected by other criteria limiting the research, these principles should be applied with certain qualifications. In
any case, in his formulation of the economy of research, Peirce laid the
foundations of a first formulation of cost-benefit analysis, which is now
universally applied in the formalization of the business decision making
process.19 The lesson to be drawn from Peirces discussion is the insufficiency of instrumental-technical rationality for directing the decision making process. No matter how exactly it is possible to define quantifiable,
economic criteria, in the end, the final decision will depend on the criteria
held by the subject at any given time and how he weighs the importance of
the decision criteria. Even if this process has a rational character, this rationality has a nature that is different from the rationality moved by quantitative criteria.
Abduction offers criteria for pointing to a good hypothesis but not for assuring its truthfulness. It grants the subject a maximum of freedom to give a
plausible explanation for what is inexplicable but does not commit to anything (CP 5.602).20 Therefore, abduction is an inference that needs verifica-
159
tion and, hence, deduction and induction. Just as abduction is the first step
of scientific reasoning, so induction is the last step; if abduction looks for a
theory, induction looks for facts that confirm that theory (CP 7.217218).
The essential characteristic of induction is its capacity for self-correction,
that is, it allows new experiments to be performed to improve the hypotheses that have been formulated. Thus, the justification of induction lies in its
ultimately infallible methodology. The various moments of verification
cannot be understood as routines or automated procedures, as the individuals prior experience is also an important factor.21
This aspect was highlighted by Popper in his critique of the Vienna Circles neopositivism. In Poppers interpretation of scientific work, the accent
is a parte subiecti. The hypothesis comes before the observation; even
though they comprise centers of resistance able to reject an arbitrary formulation of a hypothesis, facts are not those univocal, atomic entities on which
the positivistic tradition relied. In Objective Knowledge, Popper makes the
comparison between the bucket and the searchlight.22 The positivistic tradition views the human mind as a receptacle in which the data of experience are collected. However, for Popper, the human mind would act as a
searchlight that selects and illuminates the data of experience, in other
words, any observation is always preceded by a hypothesis. As Jaaka and
Merrill Hintikka pointed out, an observation is always an answer to a question.23
Although Peirce and Popper agree in conferring on knowledge a sign of
temporality, there are certain differences between the two. First, if the scientist were to be guided only by the criterion of falsibilitylike Popperhe
or she would have to examine an infinite number of hypotheses, no matter
how wild they might seem. However, if other criteria are considered in addition to falsibility, such as the simplicity or plausibility of hypotheseslike Peirceit is not necessary to examine all the alternatives. Second,
for Popper, the scientific method concludes in conjectures, while for Peirce,
conjecturehypothesisis not the end but the beginning of the scientific
method, which, through deduction and induction, can reach firmly established opinions.
CREATIVITY IN HUMAN ACTION

Abductive processes are very useful for facilitating comprehension of
the procedures of the scientific methodand, by analogy, of human actionthat require a large dose of creativity. Hypothesis generation is not
just a question of wishful thinking. It is, above all, reasoning, and as such, it
has all the characteristics of any rational process: it is deliberate, voluntary,
critical, and controlled (CP 2.182). However, abduction generates a
recomposition of the premises semantic content and, therefore, without
losing its character of inference, it is synthetical and innovative, and as such,
160
contains an element of risk, as the conclusions value of truth is not determined by the validity of the premises. Abductive reasonings potential for
invention or discovery, or creativity, does not lie in inference, but in the interpretation of the data or result, which is conceived as a particular occurrence of a general law or principle.24
Abduction is a creative argument that does not confine itself to giving an
explanation of the premises contents but also interprets the data or result
as a case of a general law that is proposed hypothetically. Abductions creative character arises from the middle term chosen to relate the antecedent
with the consequent. This novelty introduced by the explicative hypothesis
leads Peirce to consider abduction as the only argument that gives rise to
the effective progress of knowledge.25 If the hypotheses are not accepted
and the knowledge is confined to stating what has already been verified,
eventually everything becomes reduced to the fact, whereupon the
lawsthe generalization, the possibility of predicting, the meaning as a
predictably conceivable effect of a conceptare lost, and the entire logical
and cosmological building is reduced to the actuality of secondness.26 The
importance of abduction led him to say in the Lectures on Pragmatism
that the question of pragmatism is the question of abduction.
The middle term is what activates the entire process. The definition of
abduction as the inference of the case from a rule and a result can be formulated more expressively because the real problem is not in first finding the
case or the rule, but in how to obtain the rule and the case at the same time.
When viewed in this light, the process of abduction takes place between the
result and the rule and concludes with the postulation of a hypothesis,
which, it is hoped, will be satisfactory.27 The brilliant idea consists, therefore, of inventing a good middle term.28 Creativity consists of introducing
the right supplementary premise by formulating the right question.29 In the
example of the beans, Peirce could have decided that the crucial element
was not where those beans came from, but, for example, who had brought
them. Therefore, the hypothesis determines the semiotic status of the observed fact.30 In the logic of abduction, the right question performs the
same role as that performed by the ground in semiotic theory.
The subject thus finds him- or herself in the presence of a surprising fact
or an anomaly that requires a rule that enables its explanation as a result of
the application of a rule to a case that would otherwise be inexplicable. The
innovation brought by abduction will depend, in each case, on two factors:
the subjects creativity and the degree of necessity between premise and
conclusion. With regard to the subjects creativity, the processes by which
we make suppositions about the world depend, in Peirces opinion, on perceptive judgments that contain general elements that enable universal
propositions to be deduced from them (MS 692).31 The different elements of
a hypothesis are in our mind before we are aware of them, but it is the idea
of putting together what we had never before dreamed of putting together
161
which flashes the new suggestion before our contemplation (CP 5.181,
4.611). In essence, creativity arises from the way in which the subject relates
the elements that are available. Two subjects may use the same elements to
form different hypotheses. Thus, as Polo pointed out, what distinguishes
the business manager is the ability to turn problems into opportunities:32
faced with the same reality, where others see problems, the manager sees
opportunities.
In his commentary of the encyclical Centesimus Annus, Michael Novak
proposed two moral ideals for business activity: creativity and community.
The creative characterdiscovery, invention, surpriselies at the heart of
business activity. Entrepreneurial activity is the inclination to realize, the
habit of discerning, the tendency to discover what others have not yet seen,
and the resulting ability to act from this to give concrete form to things that
have not yet been seen.33 Novak quotes John Paul IIs text: The role of disciplined, creative human work and that of the abilities of initiative and entrepreneurship is becoming increasingly clear as an essential part of work
itself.34 Robert Reich, in The Work of Nations, pointed out three forms of
work in contemporary society: production, services, and symbolic-analytic. In his opinion, this third group will become increasingly important in forthcoming years. In the future, Reich says, what will matter is
not possessing a certain body of knowledge, but having the ability to use
this knowledge effectively and creatively. Specialized, technical skills will
give way to a practical, multifaceted intelligence that is trained to be skeptical, curious and creative.35
The second factor that accounts for the innovation introduced by abduction indicates that the creativity required by an induction is inversely proportional to the degree of necessity between the premises and the
conclusion. In other words, the more remote and unusual the relation between the rule and the observed fact, the greater will be the creativity required, and also, the more original will be the explanation.36 There may be
situations in which the rule is so obvious that the middle term suggests itself immediately. In the case of the bags of beans, if there are white beans on
a table and a bag beside it, the identification of from that bag is quite easy.
However, even in those cases where the rule is obvious, it is still only a hypothesis.37
Umberto Eco distinguished three types of abduction, with three grades
of originality and creativity: hypercoded hypothesis or abduction, in which
the law that mediates between the case and result is given automatically or
semiautomatically; hypocoded abduction, in which the rule is chosen from
an encyclopedia of equally provable rules that are available to the subject;
and creative abduction, which is the law that must be invented ex novo. It is
in this third type that true guessing takes place.38 In his comments on the articles published in The Sign of Three, Robinson suggests that if abduction is
understood in the context of a problem-solving process, it is possible to
162
clarify its meaning, as then the attention is not centered so much on the
structure of the syllogism contained in the abduction as on the origin of the
hypothesis. It then becomes apparent that there are two modes of choosing.
In one case, the rule already exists; in the other, it is chosen from among an
indefinite number of possibilities that appear simultaneously. The latter
case occurs when the law is created ex novo. Between one case and the
other, there is a gradual continuum. If the rule is clear or obvious, the abduction is almost automatic; if there are many rules, it will resemble more
the choice of a law ex novo.39 When viewed from the process of inquiry, beliefs, like rules of action, can be generated ex novo or they may be modifications of previous rules, due to the learning process that occurs when they
are put into practice in the interaction; when viewed from human action,
there is always an element of novelty, and, as such, abduction is present.
However, this novelty may vary depending on whether they are vital actions or ordinary actions, which have a more pronounced repetitive element. In the case of routine actions, we are closer to the first mode; in the
case of vital actions, we are closer to the second mode.
The certainty offered by abduction does not preclude the fallibilism that
dominates any scientific inquiry, for fallibilism is the doctrine that our
knowledge is never absolute but always swims, as it were, in a continuum
of uncertainty and of indeterminacy (CP 1.171). As the hypothesis is not
sure, it must be verified by examining the hypotheses and revising all the
types of conditional experimental consequences that would follow from its
truth. However, in daily life, we are forced to make abductions at every moment and we often do not have time to wait for subsequent proof or verification. Indeed, in human action, there is no room for experimental
verification, because the experiment is the action itself and the application
of the rule of action. Aware of this difficulty, Eco proposes a fourth type of
abduction, which he calls meta-abduction, and which consists of deciding
whether the possible universe delineated by our first-level abductions is
the same as the universe of our experience.40 In human action, each decision would be a certain meta-abduction because it implies choosing a hypothesis without having experimented with it. On the basis of Ecos
analysis, it can be said that the true difference between abductions from
facts to lawswhich are characteristic of scientific inquiryand the abductions from facts to factswhich are characteristic of human actionslies in meta-abductive flexibility, that is, in the audacity of
challenging without subsequent verification the fundamental fallibilism
governing humans.41 It can therefore be said that human decisions are the
riskiest abductions that exist.
For Peirce, conjectures are valid forms of inference, insofar as they are
grounded on prior observations. The subject is required to have a specific
scientific knowledge, acquired through prior observations and an acute observational power, together with broad knowledge. On occasions, the
163
abductive process has been comparedincluding by Peircewith the procedure followed by the characters of detective novels.42 To resolve an
enigma, the detective requires acute observational powers and an encyclopedic knowledge. After that, he will also need training in logical calculus,
impartiality and patience to compare and select hypotheses until the interpretation is found that offers the only solution that fits all the clues.43 The
reasoning process must avoid that knowledge that is not functional for the
purposes of the inquiry; it must also stay away from passions as, although
they may be acceptable for observation, they have pernicious effects on reasoning. Feelings and passions are only objects of knowledge; they can
never be its subject. The logical purity of reasoning, the logos, cannot be disturbed by the pathos of feelings.
The basis for the logic of abduction is to found in the natural,
deep-rooted inclination that has accumulated biologically in man in the
course of evolution, the lume naturale, remodeled continuouslyand to an
increasing degreeby the influence of the laws of nature and by the acquisition of habits, and, therefore, increasingly able to spontaneously reflectby a secret affinitythe systems of reality. When people have to try
to guess, they are guided by systematic, complex visions of realityphilosophical conceptionsof which they are aware to a more or less clear degree but which, in any case, shape their deepest habits and determine the
path of judgments.
In his book Teora de la inteligencia creadora, Marina questioned the commonplace that a creator is a person able to solve problems correctly with
less information than the others. Marina says that the creator is the one who
is able to see many more possibilities in a given reality than another person.
To have many possibilities, says Marinausing terms that could be used
by Peircemeans being very rich in operations.44 Glossing Marinas ideas,
Alejandro Llano said that the basis of creativity is the mastery of a trade
and, particularly, the possession of a genuine practical wisdom. The difference between a creative person and a dreamer, Llano added,
is that the former is able to materialize his ideas, to make his projects operational.
And this is achieved by a kind of inherent knowledge. The beating of his own
knowledge vibrates with the same rhythm as the beating of reality. Whoever masters a trade has a kind of empathy with the reality on which he works. This enables
him to distinguish immediately what is essential from what is accidental and
quickly ascertain the quid of the question.45
As Peirce would say, the creative person knows how to ask the right questions so that the data of experience are correctly ordered. Nowadays, people talk a lot about the concept of vision in the company. However, even if
creativity and imagination are encouraged, any vision that does not rest on
a firm foundation will end up becoming a mere fantasy that is unlikely to
actively promote an organizations unity.46
164
To make good hypotheses, it is important to have good observational powers. In this respect, Peirce said that when it is necessary to make observations that are extremely precise, little training is required in observation.
Little observational learning is required, as the conditions themselves of
the experiment facilitate the reliable obtainment of results; all the effort
goes into designing and controlling the experiment. However, in those observations where precision is never attained, the experimental conditions
become less important and the priorities are now the learning factors and
the level of training held; more training in observation and more logical
caution are required. Thus, for example, the ability to distinguish between
various musical notes is facilitated by musical training. In other words, the
more practical the object of inquiry, the more necessary observational
power becomes. For this reason, observational power is of great value in
life (CP 7.256), and it is here where the audacious hypotheses are formulated. On the other hand, Peirce did not mention observational power as
one of the general characteristics of the person of science. The deeper one
goes below the surface of nature toward its deepest reason, the less instinct
provides sure answers. Likewise, when general explanations are continued
in increasingly concrete and quantifiable inquiries, instinct, too, progressively gives way to a more analytic reasoning. This instinctive power, intrinsic with reality, is related with the category of firstness, and thus, is
more characteristic of the artist than the scientific person. The artist is a
much finer and more accurate observer than the scientific person (CP
1.315), who is far below the artist in the faculty of being aware of his or her
own sensations (CP 5.42).
In his way, Peirce points at the distinction between the conditions of a
technical knowledge and those of an artistic knowledge. In the former, it is
the conditions of the experiment that are important. In technical knowledge, what matters is the object, and the more homogenous it is, the better.
However, in art, the subjects faculties are more important, as the conditions of the environment are always subject to a high proportion of variability. Management is more artistic than technical. The nature of the problems
it addresses, singular problems of vital importance, requires a greater emphasis on the subjects faculties for facing these problems than on a methodology that limits itself to formalizing the conditions. The emphasis on
the individuals observational power and on the faculties that give him or
her this ability is of great value for life, for vital matters. However, it should
not be understood in a simple spontaneity, but rather it must include an aspect of rationality, and, with it, a scientific vision of practical action. The capacity for observation has a characteristic of spontaneity that belongs to the
category of firstness, but this does not mean that human deliberation,
which moves in the order of rationality, which corresponds to thirdness,
should be left to the mercy of artistic spontaneity. If this were to happen, human action would become limited by two extremes that are foreign to it: it
165
neither lends itself to the formality of rational analysis, which corresponds

to those sciences where there is no place for observation but only for experimentation, nor to the spontaneity free of any type of rationality. Rather, it
lends itself to a practical rationality, which is the rationality of that which
can exist in other forms.
Just as Peirce says that there are degenerated forms of the categories of
secondness and thirdness, so it could be said that a degenerated form of the society of knowledge that is being designed in recent years would be the
reduction of knowledge to technology. The society of knowledge is not the
society of technology. It would be pointless for the company to move from
the area of technology to the area of cultureAlejandro Llano warnedif
knowledge ends up being reduced to information. The new computer-based technologies allow people to select the relevant aspects of the
complicated horizon on which they move to enable them to make correct
decisions; however, facilitating is not the same as replacing.47 As Nubiola
pointed out, quoting a paper by Boden, the most recent developments in artificial intelligence also reveal the insufficiency of the explanations that use
as their main source of analogy the functioning of computers to account for
the actions we consider to be most typically human, that is, the creative actions.48
Solomon showed that the innovative character of management cannot
be adequately supported on intellectual faculties that are reduced to a
plane of analytical calculation and which, on the contrary, appeal to the
sense of Aristotelian phronesis. Solomon rejected a mechanical decision
procedure for solving the problems that arise in business activity. These
problems require a special skill that takes into account the relevant aspects
for the decision in each situation. Although it is possible to design different
models that help formalize this process, such models are never sufficient by
themselves, nor can they replace the individuals rational deliberation.49
Solomon pointed out that this process is not the result of an innate skill but,
rather, requires a certain amount of learning.
Prez Lpez, too, has dwelled at length on the concept of learning in
management. In what may perhaps be his last written text, he pointed out
that skill in solving nonoperational problems is something that a good professional acquires through practice; it is a skill that includes addressing
each particular case by taking into account the situations particular circumstances, without incurring in undue generalizations; it requires a certain sensitivity for appreciating fine differences in symptoms that may be
signs of major differences in the problems causes; it is also a skill that we
could call mental openness, to appreciate new symptoms or facts that are
not normally included among those that are considered symptoms of the
problem. If one had to synthesize the essential difference between the abilities required to solve operational and nonoperational problems, one would
have to say that, whereas the professional who solves operational problems
166
needs a technical skill, the professional who solves nonoperational problems also needs wisdom.50
For his part, Robert Bellah indicated the need for practical rationality to
be given again a prominent role in education in order to prevent the eventual impoverishment of science when it is separated from the moral dimension:
We must recover an enlarged paradigm of knowledge, which recognizes the value
of science but acknowledges that other ways of knowing have equal dignity. Practical reason, in its classical sense of moral reason, must regain its importance in our
educational life. We must give more than a token bow to art and literature as mere
vessels of expressive values, for they can often give us deep moral insight. Ethos is
the very subject matter of the humanities and social sciences; ethics cannot possibly
be merely one more speciality or a set of procedures that can simply be sprinkled on
wherever needed. We must critically recover the project of the classic American philosophers, following them in their willingness to see science as a social process that
cannot be divorced from moral learning and imagination without the impoverishment of every field.51
In conclusion, the normative science of logic highlights creativity as a

differential characteristic of human reasoning. Any study of the conditions
that favor creativity points to the importance of the subjects ethicality.
Thus, as I said in the discussion of the classification of sciences, logic depends on the other two sciences, ethics and esthetics.
NOTES
1. He will also give other names to abduction: retroduction, hypothesis, presumption.
2. W. Castaares, De la interpretacin a la lectura (Madrid: Iberediciones, 1994),
146147.
3. G.P. Carettini, Peirce, Holmes, Popper, in El signo de los tres, ed. U. Eco
and T.A. Sebeok (Barcelona: Lumen, 1989; original edition: The Sign of Three,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983). The contributions in this book will
be quoted from the Spanish translation.
4. M. Truzzi, Sherlock Holmes: Experto en psicologa social aplicada, in El
signo de los tres, ed. U. Eco and T.A. Sebeok (Barcelona: Lumen, 1989), 101.
5. C.F. Delaney, Peirce on the Conditions of the Possibility of Science, in
Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science, ed. E.C. Moore (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993), 2425; W.C. Stewart, Social and Economic Aspects
of Peirces Conception of Science, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 27
(1991): 514.
6. W.M. Brown, The Economy of Peirces Abduction, Transactions of the
Charles S. Peirce Society 19 (1983): 397398. See also K. Popper, The Logic of Scientific
Discovery (New York: Basic Books, 1959), 31, and J.S. Mill, A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive, ed. J.M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973),
285.
167
7. T. Shanahan, The First Moment of Scientific Inquiry: C.S. Peirce on the

Logic of Abduction, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 22 (1986): 449466.
8. J. Nubiola, Realidad, ficcin y creatividad en Peirce, in Mundos de ficcin:
Actas del VI Congreso Internacional de la Asociacin Espaola de Semitica, ed. J.M.
Pozuelo and F. Vicente, vol. 2 (Murcia, Spain: University of Murcia, Publications
Service, 1996), 1142.
9. K.T. Fann, Peirces Theory of Abduction (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), 43.
10. Fann, Peirces Theory of Abduction, 45; Brown, The Economy of Peirces Abduction, 400.
11. Stewart, Social and Economic Aspects of Peirces Conception of Science,
505508.
12. Fann, Peirces Theory of Abduction, 49.
13. Brown, The Economy of Peirces Abduction, 407409.
14. The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce, ed. C. Eisele, vol. 4 (The
Hague: Mouton, 1976), 29.
15. The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce, 1: 242, 4: 26.
16. H.A. Simon, A Behavioral Theory of Rational Choice, Quarterly Journal of
Economics 69 (1954): 99118.
17. D. Schmidtz, Rationality within Reason, Journal of Philosophy 89 (1992):
445466. This authors ideas will provide the basis for the discussion that follows.
18. H.J. Kyburg, Jr., Peirce and Statistics, in Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy
of Science, ed. E.C. Moore (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993),
130138.
19. W.E. Cushen, C.S. Peirce on Benefit-Cost Analysis of Scientific Activity,
Operations Research 14 (1967): 641. See also J.R. Wible, Charles Sanders Peirces
Economy of Research, Journal of Economic Methodology 1 (1994): 135160.
21. D.G. Mayo, The Test of Experiment: C.S. Peirce and E.S. Pearson, in
Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science, ed. E.C. Moore (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993), 161174.
22. K. Popper, The Bucket and the Search Light, in Objective Knowledge: An
Evolutionary Approach (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1972), 341361.
23. J. Hintikka and M.B. Hintikka, Sherlock Holmes y la lgica moderna:
Hacia una teora de la bsqueda de informacin a travs de la formulacin de
preguntas, in El signo de los tres, ed. U. Eco and T.A. Sebeok (Barcelona, Spain: Lumen, 1989), 221.
24. M.A. Bonfantini and G. Proni, To Guess or Not to Guess? in El signo de los
tres, ed. U. Eco and T.A. Sebeok (Barcelona, Spain: Lumen, 1989), 181183.
25. Bonfantini and Proni, To Guess or Not to Guess? 171.
26. A. Fumagalli, Il reale nel linguaggio (Milan, Italy: Vita e Pensiero, 1995), 274.
27. N. Harrowitz, El modelo policaco: Charles S. Peirce y Edgar Allan Poe,
in El signo de los tres, ed. U. Eco and T.A. Sebeok (Barcelona, Spain: Lumen, 1989),
246. He proposes the following diagram, which is more precise than Peirces:
These beans are white.
______________________
Result (observed fact)

(The abductive process starts here.)
Rule
Case (result of the abduction)
168
28. U. Eco, Cuernos, cascos, zapatos: Algunas hiptesis sobre tres tipos de
abduccin, in El signo de los tres, ed. U. Eco and T.A. Sebeok (Barcelona, Spain: Lumen, 1989), 272.
29. J. Hintikka, Sherlock Holmes formalizado, in El signo de los tres, ed. U.
Eco and T.A. Sebeok (Barcelona, Spain: Lumen, 1989), 237.
30. Carettini, Peirce, Holmes, Popper, 188.
55. Keeney has proposed focusing decision-making problems on values instead of
on problems. This means that situations should not be taken as problems to be
solved but rather as opportunities to be turned to advantage. See R.L. Keeney,
Creativity in Decision Making with Value-Focused Thinking, Sloan Management
Review, Summer 1994, 3341.
33. M. Novak, Two Moral Ideals for Business, Economic Affairs 13, no. 5
(1993): 614. See also M. Novak, The Creative Person, Journal of Business Ethics
12 (1993): 975979.
34. John Paul II, Centesimus Annus (Madrid: Palabra, 1991), n. 32.
35. R.B. Reich, The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st-Century Capitalism (New York: Knopf, 1991).
37. Eco, Cuernos, cascos, zapatos, 272273.
38. Eco, Cuernos, cascos, zapatos, 275; Bonfantini and Proni, To Guess or
Not to Guess? 183.
39. P. Robinson, Peirce on Problem Solving, in Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science, ed. E.C. Moore (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993),
209210.
42. The book by U. Eco and T. Sebeok, The Sign of Three, to which extensive reference has been made in this chapter (in the Spanish translation, El signo de los
tres), is a compilation of the main articles that have addressed this relationship.
43. Bonfantini and Proni, To Guess or Not to Guess? 175.
44. J.A. Marina, Teora de la inteligencia creadora, 7th ed. (Barcelona, Spain:
Anagrama, 1995), 52.
45. A. Llano, Organizaciones inteligentes en la sociedad del conocimiento,
Cuadernos de Empresa y Humanismo, no. 61 (Pamplona, Spain: Cuadernos de
Empresa y Humanismo, 1996), 20.
46. G. Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, Competing for the Future, Harvard Business
Review 4 (1994): 122128; and H. Marlow, Intuition and ForecastingA Holistic
Approach, Long Range Planning 27 (1994): 5868, in which the author argues in favor of the concept of anticipation as a combination of induction and abduction.
47. A. Llano, La nueva sensibilidad (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1988), 132135.
48. M.A. Boden, What Is Creativity? in Dimensions of Creativity, ed. M.A.
Boden (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), 75117, quoted in Nubiola, Realidad,
ficcin y creatividad en Peirce, 1143.
49. R.C. Solomon, Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 174177.
169
50. J.A. Prez Lpez, Mtodos pedaggicos en la formacin para la direccin

(unpublished manuscript, 1996).
51. R.N. Bellah et al., The Good Society, 3rd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1992), 177.
CHAPTER 10
Community: The Ethical

Principle of Action
The scientific attitude in human action calls for the presence of reason in the
deliberation process. Without reason, human conduct would be confined
to instinctive conduct, which has a purely adaptive relation with the environment. However, human action is not adaptive, because we have the
ability to take the initiative in the interaction, modifying our habits of conduct with respect to a future action. Therefore, our conduct is deliberate action. The science that studies deliberate action is ethics, which therefore
deserves to be considered the normative science par excellence, because,
for pragmatism, deliberateness is essential for action and reason, which is a
special type of action (CP 5.442).
The deliberate character of action is analyzed by Peirce under the concept of self-control. Self-control enables the presence of a space for the
ought-to-be of conduct and thought (CP 4.540), without which action
would always be regulated by existing habits. Thus, through self-control, it
is possible to embark on a course of action other than that which would normally happen; in other words, it is possible to change the rules of action to
adapt them to the novelty of human action.
DELIBERATE ACTION
Ed Petry published a study of the evolution of the concept of self-control
throughout Peirces life.1 In an early stage, the concept of self-control was
influenced by Friedrich Schillers thinking. For Schiller, people had to have
the ability to conceive a subjective unity throughout all the temporary
172
changes in their lives. Peirce took two ideas from Schiller that were important in his conception of self-control. The first is the role played by the idea
of beauty in the unity of human nature and the influence it will have on the
system of the normative sciences and the role of esthetics. The second is
that the concept of self-control can be likened to the attitude of the man who
thinks about something other than himself and his immediate occupations,
and sees things beyond their temporary urgency. Thus, from the outset,
two important points appear for understanding Peirces thought, agap,
which will be the subject of study of esthetics, and community, which will be
addressed by ethics.
In a second phasecorresponding to the last two decades of the nineteenth centurythe concept of self-control is related with the question of
the nature of ethics. Although he did not yet have a clear idea of the place of
ethics in the body of the sciences, Peirce understood it to be that science
that asks what is good or bad, and he identified self-control with morality
and a dualistic character of ethics. At that time, he associated self-control
with the category of secondness and conceived it as a type of volition,
which implies an internal struggle. Although Peirce modified his vision of
ethics over time, these years influenced the character of secondness that
characterized ethics and self-control. The character of secondness of
self-control is always present, Petry said, because we are temporary. Insofar
as we are destined to model our futuresometimes breaking with our
pastand look toward the future to determine the meaning of our concepts, self-control always implies a character of secondness. In routine matters, self-control may perhaps not be necessary, but in those actions that
carry out grand purposes, a critical reflection is essential (CP 7.448449).
Furthermore, the surprises and mismatches that characterize the fallibilism
of scientific inquiry are also associated with secondness.2 In the early years
of the twentieth century, Peirce rejected the dualistic interpretation of ethics
and, consequently, the vision of self-control as an internal conflict within
the individual over moral dualisms. Peirce reaffirmed his opinion that no
mental process can be given the category of reasoning unless it is amenable
to self-control and, consequently, as logical reasoning is subject to control as
with any other activity, he confirmed his view that logic rests on ethics (CP
8.158).3
With self-control, there is continuity between the present and the future,
and, therefore, it is not necessary to wait for the future to gain a reasonable
conception of it. It is here that Peirce differed from other pragmatist authors, for whom truth seems to depend on action. However, if we can control ourselves, we will be able to foresee the conduct that will follow from
our present thoughts. Therefore, self-control enables us to consider and
foresee the possible effects that will follow from our action, which is what is
expressed by the pragmatic maxim (CP 5.442). Through self-control, our actions can follow a course that is outside what would be the normal course,
173
because through its operations, self-control is able to modify habits and the
rules of action (CP 1.348, 5.418). However, at the same time, it assures the
existence of a continuity between our different actions, inasmuch as we
make them conform to such ends as we are deliberately prepared to adopt
as ultimate (CP 5.130).
It might appear that pragmaticism does not provide any way for distinguishing between one ideal of conduct and another, except in terms of continuity. However, if this were so, nothing would prevent a person from
being a thief, liar, or murderer provided he or she maintained a persistent
and consistent attitude in his or her actions. Continuity, by itself, only assures that our conduct is authentic, but it does not seem to contribute any
assessment of that conducts quality. Charles Taylor pointed out the value
of authenticity in modern society and also showed how this concept can deteriorate when it is interpreted as a synonym for a neutral liberalism, a
moral subjectivism, or mere sociological judgment.4 Taylor sought to oppose a notion of self-realization that slips toward a bland relativism that
states that things are not meaningful in their own right but only because
people believe they are. He sought to show that the forms that opt for
self-realization, without considering the demands of our bonds with others
or any other type of demand that emanates from something that is beyond
or outside of human desires or aspirations, are self-defeating and destroy
the conditions for realizing authenticity itself.5 Following lines that are
very similar to the center of intention proposed by Smith, he argued that
things become important if they refer to a background of intelligibility that
is given, and, therefore, if the existence of something is accepted that, independently of ones own will, is noble, valorous, and, consequently, meaningful in the configuration of ones own life.6 Thus, Taylor concluded,
I can define my identity only against the background of things that matter. But to
bracket out history, nature, society, the demands of solidarity, everything but what I
find in myself, would be to eliminate all candidates for what matters. Only if I exist
in a world in which history, or the demands of nature, or the needs of my fellow human beings, or the duties of citizenship, or the call of God, or something else of this
order matters crucially can I define an identity for myself that is not trivial. Authenticity is not the enemy of demands that emanate from beyond the self; it supposes
such demands.7
In his book Peirces Approach to the Self, Colapietro studied the concepts of
self-control and self-awareness and remarked on how the idea of
self-control became increasingly important in the closing years of Peirces
life.8 Colapietro explained how Peirce resolves the apparent opposition between the subjects personal, inner world and his relations with others.
Peirce did not deny that each individual has certain characteristic feelings,
thoughts and actions and that these are founded on habits that define his or
her personality. However, given the semiotic character of all reality, includ-
174
ing human reality, it is observed that the process by which the individual
takes on, changes and redirects these habits implies a relationship with others, and, therefore, that our life is essentially public or, to put it another
way, social. It is not possible to separate what is public and what is private;
we cannot have a double language to be used separately in our public and
private lives because our inner world is completely impregnated with the
social character of our nature.
THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY

The concept of community appears in relation to the process of scientific
inquiry. The scientific community plays a key role in Peircean thought in
truth theory. Although reality is not a matter that is decided arbitrarily by
the scientific community, the agreement reached by the scientific community is a clear sign that that belief matches reality. Smith defined the community of investigators as the willingness of each individual member to
sacrifice what is personal and private to him alone to follow the dictates of
an interpersonal method that involves free exchange of views and results.9
Although the scientific community has a clear influence on the inquiry
process, it cannot be said that the scientific communitys sole relevance is
methodological. Rolando Panesa has reflected on the discussion between
Peircean scholars on the nature and scope of the scientific community.10 For
most scholars, the importance of the scientific community is purely
epistemological. Without questioning the role played by the scientific community in truth theory, other authors have pointed out that its importance
cannot be reduced to a question of epistemology. Thus, Joseph De Marco
says that, although in his early writings Peirce referred to the scientific community as an epistemological ideal, as he advances in the formulation of his
thought, Peirce attributed to the community a role that is more in tune with
the nature of the normative sciences, relating it with ethics and esthetics.11
In short, if the community is the referent for the definition of truth, this is
because it possesses suitable features that correspond to the nature of ethics
and esthetics. Logic, Peirce said, is rooted in the social principle (CP 2.654,
5.354).
The pragmatic-communicative dimension begun with the notion of scientific community has been widely accepted in contemporary philosophy.
Apel has taken Peirces ideas, together with Wittgensteins concept of linguistic game, to propose an unlimited community of communication, in an
attempt to bridge the gap between analytic and hermeneutic philosophy.12
Apel asks whether the parallelism with scientific intersubjectivity is sufficient to resolve ethical intersubjectivity and concludes that, while scientific
hypotheses may be governed by the law of survival, ethical theories do not
depend on success or their fruitfulness, but rather that the good life has a
175
value for and in itself, such that intersubjectivity is not sufficient to account
for ethical values.13
In relation with the same ideas, Jrgen Habermas referred to a free community of knowledge, which is achieved through the participants consensus to reach an agreement. The pragmatic dimension of language and the
question of consensus are associated with the attempt to return to a practical rationality which opposes communicative action with strategic action.14
In communicative interactions, the participants coordinate their action
plans by common agreement, and the consensus attained in each case is
measured by the intersubjective acknowledgement of the discourses
claims to validity. In strategic action, on the other hand, one actor influences the other by various empirical means (for example, by threats or
promises) in order to obtain the desired interaction; in such types of action,
therefore, there is no necessity to justify universal claims to validity.15 By establishing a parallelism with the methods for fixing beliefs formulated by
Peirce, it can be said that only the scientific method corresponds to a communicative action, while the other three would be forms of a strategic action.
For Habermas, the notion of communicative action has its conceptual
correlate in that of Lebenswelt or vital world, just as the notion of strategic
action has its conceptual correlate in that of systemic integration.16 For
Habermas, a general theory of society must integrate both aspects, although the notion of the vital world will always have preference. Having
determined a basic ethical standardnamely, that reason is practical, that
is, responsible for human actionthe specific norms will require justification by means of the dialogic attainment of consensus, as corresponds to
the rationality of communicative action.17
Without detracting from the value of the concept of consensus as a basis
for social coexistence, its limitations as a normative principle for an ethical
rationale must be pointed out. In response to all these attempts, Peirce
clearly said that although truth and community may be understood as the
two sides of the same coin, and although the best opinion held by the scientific community at any given moment may be the best approximation to
what can be understood as the ultimate opinion, truth takes precedence
over community, which means that one cannot seek to maintain social order at all costs, or found social order on consensus. For Peirce, agreement is
a consequence of reaching the truth, it is a sign that we are on the right track.
On the other hand, in the ethics of consensus or dialog, which stem from
Habermass thought, agreement is a foundational cause of truth. This is a
very significant difference and delimits unequivocally the limits and insufficiencies of dialogic ethics.
Alejandro Llano has rightly pointed out that if one loses sight of the signified reality, the persuasive discourse becomes empty and banal, and rhetoricwhich is the art of making what is true plausiblebecomes
176
sophistrywhich is the art of making what is false plausible. The rehabilitation of rhetoric or pragmaticsin which these considerations have
played a major rolecannot be carried out at the cost of losing the semantic
dimension. When the syntactic and pragmatic dimensions of communication are divorced from their semantic foundations, reason loses its roots
and becomes self-referential.18
Kenneth Stikkers has studied the relation between community and
knowledge in Peirce. This author asserts that if the search for truth is a collective effort, the rupture or fragmentation of society is the external manifestation of the loss of the sight of or desire for truth among that societys
members. Truth is lost when society lacks unity and stability, and, reciprocally, harmony disappears when no one seeks the truth: truth is correlative
with social stability and unity (CP 1.59).19 Social stability is essential for scientific investigation and progress. And as communication is fundamental
for community, it is also an essential requirement for reaching the truth. It is
for this reason that logic is essentially social; it is founded on the social principle. Stikkers points out, however, that it must not be forgotten that reality
is more fundamental than society, and that science must not be subjugated
to the interests of society. Likewise, Peirce would not accept that loyalty to
the community must be above truth. Although they are interdependent
concepts, they are not equally important nor do they have the same foundational value for scientific inquiry (CP 5.406).
The social principle is not that of individualism. To be logical, Peirce
says, people cannot be selfish (CP 2.654). On the contrary, they must identify with the interests of the community (CP 5.356).20 Logic and love for the
community are interdependent. Peirce says that the nineteenth century
was marked by the domination of political economy. Although he recognized this sciences value in having used principles originating in other sciences, showing an interdisciplinary attitude that Peirce appreciated and
encouraged, he criticizes the fact that it has been dissociated from ethics.
And while the social dimension is present in scientific research, its absence
in the principles that have governed the organization of the means of production have led economic activity to a situation that is totally opposed to
that which could be called scientific. In Evolutionary Love, the last of the
series of articles in which he discussed his metaphysical and cosmological
ideas, he referred extensively to this situation. In this article, he said that political economy has its own formula of redemption, namely, intelligence in
the service of greed. This ensures the justest prices, the fairest contracts, and
the most enlightened conduct and leads to the ultimate ideal to which we
aspire (CP 6.290).
Peirce gave free rein to his criticisms of the principle of individual egotism that governs societys economic activity, and which uses hypocrisy
and fraudand the odd concession to virtueas its means of action. The
only activity that this principle favors, he said, is that which provides an
177
immediate reward and which must be kept in secret. As examplestaken

from among the activities of his timehe mentioned the fabric-dyeing and
perfume industries (CP 1.75).21 Peirces criticism is still just as valid today
for those activities whose principle of action is based on speculation and
that give rise to attitudes such as those described by Peirce with respect to
the use of insider information, the safekeeping of confidential information,
or the maintenance of professional secrecy.
For Peirce, neither the community nor science can flourish under selfish
individualism. To say that economic activity is separate from science is like
saying that it lacks the rationality that characterizes human action. Consequently, Peirce predicts the disappearance of this way of conceiving economic activity. With a flash and quick peal, said Peirce, the economists will
be shaken out of their complacency, and the twentieth century, in its latter
half, shall surely see the deluge-tempest burst upon the social orderto
clear upon a world as deep in ruin as that greed-philosophy has long
plunged it into guilt (CP 6.292). To a great extent, Peirces predictions have
already come true. It would be debatable to affirm that, today, the principle
of greed, as it is described by Peirce, has been totally banished from economic activity. The struggle between the Gospel of Christ, to use Peirces
words, which measures progress in the attitude of the individual who
merges his or her individuality in sympathy with his or her neighbors, and
the Gospel of Greed, in which each one is concerned solely with his or her
own interests (CP 6.294), continues today. And although it cannot be said
that we have reached the situation described by Peircethe Gospel of
Christ is still absent in many attitudes and in many spheres of social and
economic lifeit is also true that the Gospel of Greed has lost the standing it had in Peirces lifetime. Perhaps there has been no tempest, as Peirce
hoped, but at least there has been a good cloudburst that has left the sky a
little clearer than the one he saw.
Thomas Haskell has studied Peirces thought and has related it with that
of another two authors, Richard Tawneyeconomic historian and member
of the Fabian Society between 1906 and 1933and the French sociologist
Emile Durkheim.22 All three authors expressed their repudiation of certain
libertarian excesses that they believed to be inherent to the culture of capitalism, although, in Haskells opinion, while the latter two would see a corrective element of capitalisms excesses in the growth of professionalism,
Peirce never conceived it as a remedy for greed. Thus, for Tawney, the vision of professionalism would share with socialism an interest in containing economic individualism and preventing industrial society from
collapsing into a state of moral bankruptcy. In Tawneys opinion, capitalism would create a divorce between rights and functions, considering the
latter to be the ultimate reality from which any other aspect of society is derived. This division would lead to an affluent society in which individuals
would be driven solely by material happiness.23 Likewise, Durkheim ob-
178
served that moral rules can only emerge as a natural expression of the
groups integration, and, in the absence of such a social environment, there
only remains the individuals self-interest.24
Although he says that Peirce was the author who positioned himself
most clearly in favor of the communitarian character of scientific progress,
in his discussion of Peircean thought, Haskell reduces the role of the scientific community to a purely epistemological character. For Peirce, the individual person, in his or her individual existence, is only a negation and is
manifested only by ignorance and error (CP 5.317), whereas the community of investigators provides a fertile soil for trust. However, according to
Haskell, this communitys function is epistemological and not moral. The
investigators egotism is incompatible with the possibility of making logical inferences, whose only true place is in the scientific method, which is essentially communitarian.25 Haskells criticism of Peirce is focused on the
fact that, in his opinion, the concept of community implies a reference to
communication between individuals, in terms similar to those used by
Apel, in which, although there may be an attitude of attention between the
communitys members, there is never an attitude of appreciation. Haskell
goes on to point out that whereas no one in the Peircean scientific community needs to be benevolent, on the other hand, a critical, belligerent attitude is very necessary, to the point of causing the communitys division.
Thus, although there is no place for a money-centered selfish attitude, there
is room for other types of selfish interests, such as the pursuit of fame or
prestige.26
Although Haskells criticism seems out of proportion to the nature and
function of the scientific community, it does bring to light a true aspect that
should be underscored: the scientific community or the inclusion within a
professional environment does not necessarily guarantee the moral conduct of specific individuals. This consideration raises the need to go one
step further in the argument and look for a justification in the order of ends,
and not just in the order of means, which is the level on which the discussion on the scientific community moves. A professional community can
end up becoming a miniature market, depending on the interests that motivate its members. Replacing a monetary interest by other interests, such as
fame or prestige, does not imply any change in the underlying motivational
model, which continues to consider as its end the acquisition of purely external results. If individuals are to open themselves to other interests that
go beyond their own self-interest, a social or community environment is required. However, there may exist a community environment, at least in appearance, in which its members continue to be guided by their selfish
interests. Thus, the community is a necessary but insufficient condition for
adequate moral behavior on the part of the individual, and, consequently,
for correct logical reasoning.
179
William Sullivan, in Work and Integrity, has performed a very searching

analysis of the role of professionalism in the shaping of society.27 According
to this author, the scholars of professionalism are divided between those
who have adopted a utilitarian tendency and those who conceive society as
composed of certain ethical ends. Sullivan proposes a revision of the concept of profession that would enable it to be understood as a civic artas
a social value and not as an ideology. From the nature of his discussion,
Sullivan is to be included among those who conceive the community from a
moral dimension, and not just from an epistemological dimension.
Sullivan proposes going back to the idea of a practical rationality. For him,
technical rationalitywhich is characteristic of positivismis insufficient
and, instead, he proposesfrom pragmatisma model of practical reflection that shows that intellectual reflection should take place within a framework of action, thereby overcoming the dualism between theory and
practice. In this process, Sullivan says, particular attention should be paid
to the moral dimension of action and the social and humanistic disciplines,
which are the disciplines that provide the integrative character required by
the new rationality.28 Thus, genuine professionalism requires a commitment to moral and social purposes, as well as to technical means. The union
of the moral and technical aspects requires skills that are different from
those characterizing technical-analytic thinking. The holistic vision characterizing this way of thinking requires a reference to the character of the human agents, whose motivational framework is not merely confined to
satisfying individual preferences but also integrates a social commitment
to the development of the capabilities of the other members of society.29
Mediating between the tendency toward differentiation of the individual and the tendency toward integration in the society of which the individual is a member, there must exist a third characteristic, which Sullivan calls
the civic dimension of professional life, namely, the need for contexts of
trust that enable individuals to understand each other better by being able
to view their own actions from the perspective of others. Thus, the existence of an environment of trust is a necessary requirement for the proper
functioning of the social order. When the level of trust and cooperation is
high, professional organizations can play a leadership role in society; however, when the level of trust is weak or sporadic, it becomes difficult to mediate between individual goals and social needs and easy for conducts to
appear that denote a lack of integrity in professional life.30
The same point was made by Francis Fukuyama in his book Trust, whose
subtitle, The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, highlights the fact
that a societys well-being depends on the level of trust existing in that society.31 For Fukuyama, trust is not a consequence of a rational calculation but,
rather, the opposite process is the case, as any rational calculation must take
into account the externalities, that is, those elements that, like trust, loyalty, or veracity, are goods that contribute to the systems efficiency but that
180
are not subject to any commercial transaction.32 All communities require a

cultural environment that contains not so much explicit rules or regulations as a series of reciprocal habits and moral obligations that have been
internalized by the communitys members, so that decisions are not based
solely on individual interest.33 A society possessing these habits will be
better prepared, according to Fukuyama, to adapt to the structural and organizational changes that may be required at any given time by economic
activity, as these habits give a greater flexibility that is lacking in other communities that, given the lack of social cohesion, must be much more regularized to be able to exist. Thus, with the latest organizational trends that
are tending to configure corporate structures in networks, Fukuyama does
not hesitate to say that the societies with a high level of trust are better positioned to adapt to these organizational forms.34 In any case, with these new
forms of organization, it is wise to start the reflection from the other end
and say that these organizational forms require societies in which social cohesion is given by a high degree of trust. Otherwise, the decentralization
processes associated with these organizational forms may lead to the entry
in organizations of operational modes that are more characteristic of the
laws of the market and that do not correspond to the nature of organizations, with the inevitable appearance of perverse effects in their functioning.
To conclude, the concept of self-control has led us to reflect on the limits
of the continuity principle in accounting for human action, and this has
been illustrated with the possibility of misunderstanding the concept of authenticity. The ideal of authenticity refers to certain values outside the individual, which delimit the horizon of intelligibility in his or her life.
Likewise, the notion of community has enabled two aspects to be clarified.
On the one hand, the concept of community does not reduce to an ethics of
dialog or consensus, because, in Peirce, the agreement of the scientific community is not foundational of truth butin the intrepretative context of the
pragmatic maxima practical effect that shows the truth of the definition
expressed in this agreement. On the other hand, it is not a purely
epistemological concept, as some authors have argued, but, on the contrary, it has a significant moral content. Thus, Peirce appears as a precursor
of various lines of thought which, in modern times, have insisted on the
need for a moral basis for society. Consequently, both the concept of
self-control and that of community refer to an external referent that does
not merely account for the realization of the conduct ideal by the individual
but also for the very nature of that ideal. Ethics must be founded on esthetics.
NOTES
1. E.S. Petry, The Origin and Development of Peirces Concept of
Self-Control, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 28 (1992): 667690.
181
2. Petry, Peirces Concept of Self-Control, 679680.

3. B. Kent, Charles S. Peirce, Logic and the Classification of the Sciences (Montreal:
McGillQueens University Press, 1987), 111.
4. C. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1991).
5. Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 35.
8. V. Colapietro, Peirces Approach to the Self (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1989).
9. J.E. Smith, Community and Reality, in Perspectives on Peirce, ed. R.
Bernstein (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1965), 110.
10. R. Panesa, Science and Religion in C.S. Peirce (Ph.D. diss., University of
Navarra, 1996), 315317.
11. J. De Marco, Peirces Concept of Community: Its Development and
Change, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 7 (1971): 2436. For the view
that interprets the community as exclusively methodological, see M. Mahowald,
Peirces Concept of Community: Another Interpretation, Transactions of the
12. K.O. Apel, Transformation der Philosophie (Frankfurt, Germany: Suhrkamp,
1973; Spanish version, La transformacin de la filosofa, Madrid: Taurus, 1985). See,
by the same author, Transcendental Semiotics and Truth: the Relevance of a
Peircean Consensus-Theory of Truth in the Present Debate about Truth-Theories,
in Peirce in Italia, ed. M.A. Bonfantini and A. Martone (Naples, Italy: Liguori, 1993),
191208.
13. K.O. Apel, Estudios estticos (Barcelona, Spain: Alfa, 1986), 130. See J. Rubio
Carracedo, La razn tica: Insuficiencia del enfoque emprico-logicista y los
presupuestos de la pragmtica universal, Themata 6 (1989): 164.
14. J. Habermas, Erkenntnis und Interese (Frankfurt, Germany: Suhrkamp
Verlag, 1973). See also the study of Habermass thought by D. Innerarity, Praxis e
intersubjetividad (Pamplona, Spain: Eunsa, 1985).
15. Rubio Carracedo, La razn tica, 162163. See also J.P. Diggins, The Promise of Pragmatism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 420.
16. J. Habermas, Theorie des kommunicativen Handelns, vol. 2 (Frankfurt, Germany: Suhrkamp, 1981), chap. 6.
17. Rubio Carracedo, La razn tica, 166.
19. K.W. Stikkers, Peirces Sociology of Knowledge, in Frontiers in American
Philosophy, ed. R.W. Burch, vol. 1 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press,
1992), 184.
20. N. Houser, Charles S. Peirce: American Backwoodsman, in Frontiers in
American Philosophy, ed. R.W. Burch, vol. 1 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992), 290.
21. Adam Smith, too, alludes to the dyeing industry as an industry that is
driven by trade secrets and generates extraordinary profits for the producer. See
A. Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. E.
Cannan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), book 1, 6869.
182
22. T.L. Haskell, Professionalism versus Capitalism: R.M. Tawney, Emile

Durkheim, and C.S. Peirce on the Disinterestedness of Professional Communities, in The Authority of Experts: Studies in History and Theory, ed. T.L. Haskell
23. Haskell, Professionalism versus Capitalism, 186189.
24. Haskell, Professionalism versus Capitalism, 197.
25. Haskell, Professionalism versus Capitalism, 204205. For a position similar to Haskells, see W.E. Schlaretzki, Scientific Reasoning and the Summum
Bonum, Philosophy of Science 27 (1960): 4857.
26. Haskell, Professionalism versus Capitalism, 211212. See also A.O.
Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its
Triumph (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981), where he describes
how the passion for glory that characterized aristocratic societies was replaced by
a desire for material benefits that accompanied industrial society.
27. W.M. Sullivan, Work and Integrity: The Crisis and Promise of Professionalism in
America (New York: HarperBusiness, 1995).
28. Sullivan, Work and Integrity, 171175.
29. Sullivan, Work and Integrity, 185. Sandre Rosenthal and Rogene Buchholz
expressed the same arguments in an interesting article that seeks to found the concept of business leadership on pragmatic philosophy. See S.B. Rosenthal and R.A.
Buchholz, Leadership: Toward New Philosophical Foundations, Business and
Professional Ethics Journal 14, no. 3 (1996): 2541.
30. Sullivan, Work and Integrity, 221222. Taylor, too, referred to the danger of
fragmentation in those societies that are unable to set common goals for themselves. See Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 138.
31. F.Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (London:
Hamish Hamilton, 1995).
32. Fukuyama, Trust, 151152.
CHAPTER 11
Character: The Esthetic

Principle of Action
THE ESTHETIC IDEAL

The question to be answered by esthetics is what humanity can deliberately
accept as its ultimate end (CP 7.185). If the three normative sciences are understood as seconds of philosophy, it can be assumed, Kent said, that logic,
as a science of deliberate thought, is a special case of ethics, as a science of
deliberate action, is a special case of esthetics, and the science which investigates the summum bonum, or ultimate end.1 From the practical viewpoint, as each of the normative sciences corresponds to a particular aspect
of the general idea, each one will continually rectify and add content to the
others and, by this means, will increase our understanding of the general
idea. This suggests that the normative sciences will continually evolve, due
to the relationship among them in terms of principles and data, such that
the meaning of the ideal of conduct may be subject to continual reappraisal
by the relationship among the three sciences.2
In his Lectures on Pragmatism, Peirce said that the only moral evil is
not to have an ultimate aim and that the problem of ethics is to ascertain
what end is possible. In other words, it is a question of asking what ultimate
aim is capable of being pursued in an indefinitely prolonged course of action (CP 5.133136). Thus, esthetics determines the ultimate end in general
terms, whereas ethics is concerned with determining whether the ultimate
end that was defined can be obtained by the subject in his or her specific circumstances. It is assumed that there is an ideal state of things and that esthetics rests on a doctrine that ideally divides possible states of things into
184
two classes: that which is admirable and that which is not. The task is to determine by analysis what one must deliberately admire per se, irrespective
of where it takes one or its relationship with human conduct. Until esthetics
has determined what is excellent and what are the conditions that something must fulfill to be classed as excellent, ethics will not be able to approve a certain action, nor will logic be able to approve a certain reasoning.
Apel says that Peirce understands the esthetic ideal as the firstness of
thirdness, and this enables him to accept it as summum bonum while at the
same time keeping it separate from hedonism. That is, he conceives it as the
qualitatively unified and intuitively perceptible expression of universality,
continuity and order, or, in other words, of the concrete reasonableness of
the future universe.3 Kent, too, understood the esthetic ideal as that which
is admirable in itself (CP 1.191, 1.611, 5.130). In its character of firstness, of
what is admirable without any other reason, it has to do with possibility.4 In
its character of thirdness, it is understood as a principle regulating human
action in order to guarantee that the laws shaping the universe take on their
completed definition.5 As a consequence of the intentionality that characterizes human action, the esthetic ideal acts as the principle of action and is
the end toward which action is directed; ethics, for its part, is the ordering
of the sequence of medial ends with respect to the ultimate end.
When he asked which conceptions can account for the esthetic ideal,
Peirce stated that neither selfishness nor hedonism can provide any answers (CP 5.382). To be moved by pleasure or selfish interests is incompatible with the possibility of making logical inferences. The criticism of selfish
individualism was discussed in the previous chapter; with respect to hedonism, Peirce is reluctant to think that we act solely in response to pleasure.
Conduct is determined by what comes before it in time, whereas pleasure
always comes after action. Thus, the feeling of pleasure cannot determine
conduct, nor does it have any real power in itself to produce any effect
whatsoever (CP 1.601605). The error of the hedonists is to confuse what is
admirable in itself with what is perfectly self-satisfied.
Peirce proposes that the esthetic ideal consists of the growth of reasonableness (CP 1.612615).6 The generation of this ideal requires the involvement of action, as it is through action and the replication of self-control that
the ideal grows. Although action is not the ultimate end, the growth of concrete reasonableness in the world of existents takes place through action.7
Peirce points out certain characteristics that the esthetic ideal must have.
First, it should accord with the free development of the agents own esthetic
quality. Second, it should not be disturbed by the outside worlds reactions
on the agent; it should have a certain degree of independence with respect
to the environments reaction (CP 5.136),8 and should not be affected by our
continual deliberation.9
In the final years of his life, Peirce became interested in theological issues
and this led him to relate the esthetic ideal with God. The true ideal, he says,
185
is a living power, it has a mode of being which must be called living (CP
8.262). Thus, the rationality development process is the process by which
we, with all our miserable littlenesses, becomes gradually more and more
imbued with the spirit of God (CP 5.402, n. 2). With the succession of deliberate actions, God allows the individual to take part in the work of creation.
In some way, the ability of self-control makes us able to take part in Gods
creative work, seeing things as God sees them (CP 5.402, 6.479). However,
we cannot see that everything is good because we do not possess Gods vision. The problem is that we in our finiteness cannot sustain an exclusively
agapastic viewpoint, but rather our creativity is always infected by the
eros, such that sometimes we allow ourselves to be influenced more by
our immediate, spontaneous preferences than by the very purpose of our
action. Thus, we may attain a satisfactory situation, but it will not match the
needs of our action that would have been established in a rational deliberation characteristic of the scientific attitude. Therefore, in our action, we seek
to free ourselves of these immediate tendencies so that our motivation is
guided solely by evolutionary love, that is, to be like God.10 The end for human beings would, ultimately, coincide with the end for the divine being
(CP 5.119, 8.211212); and the rational deliberation of the people who think
as the scientific community would think will lead them to seek to identify
their actions and their life with God.
In the lectures he gave during the academic year 18921893 in the Lowell
Institute on the history of science, Peirce asked what could be the question
that most interested the scientific world and his answer was the question of
how things grow (CP 7.267, n. 8). Peirce rejected an esthetic ideal that has a
static character. The esthetic ideal must evolve, and, what is more, it cannot
be something simple. Peirce insisted that the growth of reason takes place
through moments of spontaneity, which introduce elements of novelty in
evolution. This is so because of agap, evolutionary love, which is the
power that allows creatures to be free under a loving direction. This direction requires a vision of harmony, which is more than regularity and order.11
The movement of love is circular, Peirce said. It simultaneously projects creations into independence and draws them into harmony. Peirce found the
formulation of this love in the Golden Rule, which leads one to sacrifice
ones own perfection for the perfection of ones neighbor. Peirce said that
this rule is not to be confounded with the utilitarian principle of seeking the
greatest good of the greatest number, as love cannot be directed to abstractions but only to concrete persons (CP 6.288289, 5.158). The criterion of
generality, which would be characteristic of a utilitarian conception, gives
way to a criterion of proximity, or influence, not only of physical proximityalthough this, too, must be taken into accountbut of influence on the
person, so that goodness is better if it influences the person more deeply.12
Growth, Peirce will say, comes from love, which is not self-sacrifice but an
ardent impulse to fulfill anothers highest aspirations (CP 6.289).13
186
The ideal of conduct thus appears to be making the world more reasonable (CP 1.615) and also making ones own life more reasonable (CP 1.602).
As reasonwhich consists of the government of individual eventsis
such that it can never be considered completed but is in a state of continual
growth, the ideal of conduct will be to perform our little function in the operation of creation, giving a helping hand, to the extent permitted by our capabilities, in the task of making the world more reasonable. Each of us finds
a task that is ready for us to perform. That we perform it and feel that we are
doing what God had planned for us to do is the way in which we develop
our esthetic ideal. Only when we acknowledge or accept the ultimate end
do we act reasonably and freely. For Peirce, freedom is the possibility of
making ones life more reasonable.14 If there is no reasonableness, there is
no freedom. That is why the only moral evil is not to have an ultimate end.
THE CHARACTER OF MAN, THE ULTIMATE END

OF ACTION
As evolution progresses, human intelligence plays a greater role in this
development through the power of self-control. There is an interaction between human rationality and the evolutionary process.15 But, for Peirce,
this becomes saturated; there comes a time when reasonableness is so great
that self-control disappears, because, Peirce thinks, all possible effects are
now encompassed by law, there is no longer anything that can surprise it,
and, therefore, self-control ceases to have any purpose. This line of argumentwhich is understood in the case of theory of truth, where
self-controlled thinking tends to attain a stable belief which stops reasoningleads to a paradoxical situation in the case of human action, as it is difficult to conceive that the iterative process of self-control can ultimately
make self-control itself unnecessary and that we, as we approach our perfection, end in a state of immobility.
This paradox can be overcome if one turns to the classic interpretation of
virtue as a habit that has an unlimited capacity for perfecting itself.
Growing in virtue is endless and, therefore, far from being limited by
growth in habit, self-control is actually enhanced by it. The greater the
growth of habit, the greater the growth of control of conduct. Polo said that
we are beings capable of unlimited growth, beings that never stop growing.
There are certain types of growthsuch as that associated with physiological processesthat stop upon reaching a certain point, but human beings
as such are capable of growing without limit. That is why for humanity, life
is radically and fundamentally a process of growth, and it is a sign of the extent to which we are ethical.16 We are intrinsically perfectible, and the equilibrium that is best for us is dynamic, tendentious, not static. As we realize
our ethicalness, our tendencies become increasingly stronger and, in their
growing strength, they become increasingly harmonized.17 We improve in-
187
sofar as our acts are good, which depends on the growth of the dispositions
for such acts, that is, of moral virtues. Virtue is, then, the guarantee of the
unlimited character of human improvement.18 Therefore, if we abandon
morality, we cease to grow. Growing is much more than self-realization,
because self-realization is to put the absolute in the end but growing is to go
beyond the end. To think of the absolute as something separate from
growth is to understand it as a result, but growth is to be more able. To
think in terms of growth is to clear the hurdle of the result, of the end:19 we
do not end because virtue is growth in the order of ability and, even though
Peirce thought otherwise, the more virtue grows, far from becoming saturated, the more able it becomes to keep on growing.
Polo pointed out that we improve in several directions. Human growth
is not univocal, and it can be fruitfully studied from more than one viewpoint. Peirce, too, said that there are innumerable varieties of esthetic qualities but no purely esthetic grade of excellence (CP 5.132). Anderson asked
whether this is an inconsistency in Peirce or whether this statement leads to
a type of relativism.20 Relativism is excluded from Peircean thought
through the reference to reality and the scientific community. However, it is
true that, in each individual, the habits of sentiment may be many and
varying. Virtues do not have a definite form. It can be said that there are as
many modes of esthetic quality as there are individuals. This means that
good can manifest in many ways, or that there are many ways of doing
good. Virtue can be lived in many ways. There is no one way of being virtuous. There is a plurality of styles and choosing one or another is, to a great
extent, an esthetic criterion. This style imparts a personal stamp on actions
without becoming subjectivism.21
On the other hand, insofar as virtue consists of strengthening human
tendencies, it would be a mistake to consider each virtue separately from
the rest. The moral virtues must form, in turn, a system. We use the term virtues in the plural because we would do well to take into account the plurality of tendencies, but the analytic consideration of virtue is insufficient. The
virtues are interconnected. If this were not so, the intensification of human
tendentiousness would be lacking in consistency, one group of inclinations
would be clashing with others, and true growth would be impossible. By
virtue of the unlimitedness of our perfectibility, we are not a closed system
that ends in a state of equilibrium or that aspires to that state and, once
there, only reacts when the situation is changed. This, apart from settling
for very little, is a mistake. Human development is harmonic and systemic
and, consequently, the notion of equilibrium is excessively static.22 Peirce
said that, to be esthetically good, an object must have a multitude of parts
so related to one another as to impart a positive, simple, immediate quality
to their totality (CP 5.132, 1.613). This explains the fact that esthetic judgment inquires rather about the form that is the relation between the parts.23
A quantitative treatment of the esthetic ideal would mean that it could be
188
studied in discrete parts. However, the esthetic ideal is closer to the principle of continuity; that is why it does not accept grades. Although within itself, it encloses a complex relation, as an ideal, it is an undifferentiated
quality.24
In thinking of a name to refer to the esthetic ideal, Peirce finally chose the
Greek term kalos, because it expresses generality and includes within it the
nonbeautiful (CP 2.199), and also because it avoids the impression of a subjective reaction.25 When discussing beauty, Llano distinguished between
glow and gleam. Glow is something that wells from within and depends on the person, whereas gleam originates from circumstances that are
external to the individual.26 Polo, for his part, said that beauty is not ornamental but central, and added that beauty is nothing less than this: the
ability to bring together.27 Pearces esthetic ideal would no doubt concur
with this definition of glow.
When discussing the systemic character of ethics, Polo said that three interrelated dimensions are involved in ethics: the improvement of the human being, the virtues; its normative value, which cannot be confounded
with any other type of norm; and, third, its relation with the end, with
goods. An ethic is not complete if it only addresses one of these three dimensions; all three must be present and all three must interact with each
other. Without virtues, goods become too immediate and another type of
normativeness (whether legal or of another type) appears that is not ethics;
without goods, a virtue is useless; and, without norms, it has no practical
application. Ethics is a problem of integrity, that is, of norms in relation to
goods and virtues.28 Potter, for his part, saw the systemic character of ethics
in the relation between the various elements involved in action (ends,
means, intentions, circumstances), likening it to the scholastic maxim:
bonum ex integra causa; malum ex quodcumque defectu.29
We must see beyond the prejudice that believes that leading a moral life
consists of mechanically and impersonally observing an enormous multitude of moral norms, laws and rules, and understand that, quite the contrary, a moral life is life in its fullness, and, therefore, the highest expression
of individual personality.30 If this is so, the creative component of practical
reasonwhich could also be called the artistic component of the logic of actionand the role corresponding in moral life to concepts such as creativity, originality, expression of subjectivity, and style are now clearly seen.31
As the esthetic ideal is the growth in reasonableness, and this, in turn, is
the development of habits, it follows that the perception of the world will depend on the habits held by the individual,32 such that, to a great extent, it is
our own degree of growth that identifies the goodness we perceive. Thus, the
conclusion is reached that good is what appears as attractive to the sufficiently matured agent (CP 5.552). In this, Peirces thought is closely related
with Thomas Aquinass thought on moral knowledge. For Thomas Aquinas,
the affinity between known good and will is a certain harmony or propor-
189
tionality between the two. The establishment of the affinity depends on the
nature of the two extremes of the relation, so that what specifies will is, not so
much good simpliciter, as what appears as good to each one, precisely by virtue of that proportionality between the faculty and the good. Thus, this harmony depends on the habits that have already been acquired, on the
dispositions of will. The affinity between will and good is the reason why
those who do not live by reason are incapable of knowing true good and experiencing true pleasure. The virtuous person determines correctly the
things that belong to virtue; and, as good is the end and the end is the principle of action, virtue preserves the principle of action. In turn, this affinity is
what enables the virtuous person to find pleasure in the exercise of the virtuous act.33 If knowledge of good depends on the habits that have already been
acquiredalthough not absolutely sothe virtuous people immediately
become a criterion for goodness, in the same manner as the community of
scientists is a normative criterion for human action. He who behaves as the
good person is, him- or herself, good; what pleases the good person is good.
Good moral action is not just a replica of an external measure; it is fundamentally an expression of ones own subjectivity. Inasmuch as decisions
shape a character, deciding is not so much deciding on something as deciding on oneself.34 By taking a vital decision, Llano said, I am not deciding
on something, on an object, but I decide myself. And that decision on me
leaves a mark in me which is not a mechanical mark but a vital increment, a
steady progress towards myself.35
Seen in this light, the esthetic ideal does not appear as something that is
obtained at the end of a process, but rather it becomes present during the
entire action and during the entire human life, thereby giving continuity to
the individuals conduct and personal history. The good that ethics talks
about, says Illanes,
is not a good that is beyond actions and to which actions are subordinated, such that
our actions would be valuable solely by relation to that subsequent end, but rather it
talks of a good which forms part of action and, consequently, manifests in acting itself. There is no conflict here between means and ends, as the end is present in the
action; whoever performs ethical good enters into communion with it in the very instant he performs it, identifies with it, grows with it; whoever lives generosity, justice, industriousness or any other virtue, edifies himself, he becomes better as a
person, by virtue of that very experience. True enough, the friendship offered may
not be returned, the justice sought may be thwarted by the contrary action of another person or by the confluence of adverse circumstances, but whoever has truly
and sincerely sought and lived it has grown with it, has become more human and
more righteous, and consequently, more able to effectively do good.36
In The New Sensibility, Alejandro Llano put forward his ideas about a
classical theory of action that is very much in line with Peirces ideas.37 Unlike production, moral actionthat is, strictly human actionis not valued
190
for the immediate perfection of the work performed. Virtue cannot be

taken as a typified, materially identifiable work. For example, the valiant
person is not characterized by the fact that he or she never retreats or always attacks. Aristotle describes valor in such a manner that he does not ascribe to it any specific goal. The end of each action, Aristotle says, is what it
is by reference to the habit. This is like saying that an actions moral goodness is not dependent only on good intention or on the circumstances that
make it opportune or congruent. It has to do with our practical being, with
something we could call temper. Valiant is the action performed by the valiant man and what makes the man valiant. Praxishuman actionis not
related with the perfection of an external work, but with the plenitude of
the agents life.
Viewed in isolation, each of the valiant persons acts could be taken as realizations of other habits: pride, rashness, even cowardice. Therefore, the
actions that deserve to be called valiant are part of a virtuous lifestyle, an
ethos that is a certain totality of meaning, a structure of the vital world. This
totality cannot be characterized solely by the acts encompassed by a certain
virtue, as a given virtue is only a virtue when connected to all the other virtues: only the person who is good performs good actions. And the good
person is the person who acts in accordance with the human end.
The conclusion to be drawn from all that has been said is that human action can only be fully understood when viewed from a humans ultimate
end. The very concept of human action refers us to the end of a human being as such. Obviously, this does not take us to a simplistic, automatic separation of people into good and bad, precisely because this human end is
not something that some people have and others do not. This is because the
correct perception of what is good, in each specific circumstance, depends
on the individuals ethical temper. However, this capacity never becomes
complete or exclusive in anyone. The various capacities of moral perception complement each other and converge through coexistence and dialog.
Thus, a moral conception that, instead of being factualist or emotivist, were
to be teleological could give rise to more open and tolerant social frameworks, in which political pluralism is not confounded with the moral relativism which, in the short term, constitutes a breeding ground for
intolerance and violence. The rational consensus is more demanding and
creates more space for freedom than effective consensus, which is based on
the equilibrium of forces.
The general theory of action, Llano concludes, cannot be deployed on a
pre-evaluative level, prior to ethics, but must be radically ethical. This is because, starting from its conceptual beginnings, it must address an end that
encompasses all human actions. The unquestionable sociological fact that,
today, we do not all agree on what that human end is should not lead us to
found the criteria for coexistence on a presumed pre-ethical, communitarian level. On the contrary, it renders even more urgent the task of culti-
191
vating a knowledge that contributes to resolving social conflicts from an

ethical viewpoint. The ability to perceive moral goodethical sensitivitycan be increased through the cultivation of practical knowledge.
NOTES
1. B.E. Kent, Peirces Esthetics: A New Look, Transactions of the Charles S.
Peirce Society 12 (1976): 267. Before viewing esthetics as a scientific discipline, his
repudiation of the hedonist argumentwhich assumes that what is morally considered good or bad is a question of pleasureprevented Peirce from accepting
any dependence of the logic on ethics. With time, as he came to understand the importance of ethics over logic, he thought that it was sufficient to disregard esthetics, as ethics could not be viewed as a special determination thereof (because that
meant making it dependent on an esthetic sentiment). In 1901, he referred to esthetics as pure ethics, viewing it sometimes as a part of ethics and sometimes as
a prenormative science (CP 7.201, 1.575). In 1903, he concluded that arguing that
ethics is based on esthetics does not support hedonism (CP 5.111). However, his
ideas on the role of esthetics within the classification of the sciences did not take
their final form until at least 1910.
2. Kent, Peirces Esthetics: A New Look, 280.
3. According to Apel, a change is to be observed in Peirce. Initially, the esthetic ideal is thirdness of firstness, that is, it corresponds to an unconscious rationality
(CP 5.219223, 5.291292). However, later on, he conceived it as firstness of
thirdness, that is, it is understood that any reasoning turns upon the perception of
generality and continuity (CP 5.150).
4. P. Salabert, Aesthetic Experience in Charles S. Peirce: The Threshold, in
Peirce and Value Theory: On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994), 196.
7. H. Parret, Peircean Fragments on the Aesthetic Experience, in Peirce and
Value Theory: On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret (Philadelphia: John
8. Krois adds that it has an absolute character, which it should be possible to
pursue under any circumstance and cannot be questioned by future experiences.
See J.M. Krois, C.S. Peirce and Philosophical Ethics, in Peirce and Value Theory:
1994), 30.
9. Kent, Peirces Esthetics: A New Look, 273274.
10. D.R. Anderson, Creativity and the Philosophy of C.S. Peirce (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 135.
11. C.R. Hausman, Value and the Peircean Categories, Transactions of the
12. C. Llano, El postmodernismo en la empresa (Mexico: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 7778.
13. S.B. Rosenthal and R.A. Buchholz, Leadership: Toward New Philosophical Foundations, Business and Professional Ethics Journal 14 (1996): 37.
14. Potter, Charles S. Peirce on Norms and Ideals, 49 n. 15.
192

110111. Kotter has also pointed out that one of the new rules of management is
the determination to never stop growing. See J.P. Kotter, The New Rules: How to
Succeed in Todays Post-corporate World (New York: Free Press, 1995).
17. Polo, Quin es el hombre? 116117.
18. Polo, Quin es el hombre? 125.
19. L. Polo, Presente y futuro del hombre (Madrid: Rialp, 1993), 200.
20. Anderson, Creativity and the Philosophy of C.S. Peirce, 82. Misak argues that
Peirce defined the summum bonum as a way of limiting a possible relativism. See
C.J. Misak, A Peircean Account of Moral Judgments, in Peirce and Value Theory:
1994), 47. Rosenthal, on the other hand, favors an interpretation of Peirce that allows for a certain degree of plurality in defining the esthetic ideal, without going
to the extent of relativism. See S.B. Rosenthal, Charles Peirces Pragmatic Pluralism
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994).
21. J. Vicente Arregui, El papel de la esttica en la tica, Pensamiento 176
(1988): 439453. In this article, the term esthetics has a different meaning from esthetics as a normative science.
22. Polo, Quin es el hombre?, 125.
23. J.W. Garrison, The Logic, Ethics and Aesthetics of Geometrical Construction, in Peirce and Value Theory: On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed. H. Parret
25. J. Barnouw, The Place of Peirces Esthetic in His Thought and in the Tradition of Aesthetics, in Peirce and Value Theory: On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics,
ed. H. Parret (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994), 169170.
27. L. Polo, La persona humana y su crecimiento (Pamplona, Spain: Eunsa, 1996).
28. L. Polo, tica: Hacia una visin moderna de los temas clsicos (Madrid: Unin
Editorial, 1996), 112127.
30. Nowadays, ethics is seen as an issue of positive norms and people lose
sight of the inner improvement. There is a connection between hedonism and ethical normativism: the function performed by positive norms is to enable the individual to be successful in life, and the purpose of the norm is, therefore, to make
human life pleasant. See Polo, tica, 123.
31. Vicente Arregui, El papel de la esttica en la tica, 440.
32. I. Portis-Winner, Peirce, Saussure and Jakobsons Aesthetic Function. Towards a Synthetic, in Peirce and Value Theory: On Peircean Ethics and Aesthetics, ed.
H. Parret (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1994), 140.
33. J. Vicente Arregui, El carcter prctico del conocimiento moral segn
Santo Toms, Anuario Filosfico 13 (1980): 120.
34. Vicente Arregui, El papel de la esttica en la tica, 449.
35. Llano, La nueva sensibilidad, 210.
36. J.L. Illanes, El mercado: tica y eficiencia, in tica, mercado y negocios, ed.
D. Mel (Pamplona, Spain: Eunsa, 1992), 32.
37. Llano, La nueva sensibilidad, 209211.
CHAPTER 12
Epilog for Entrepreneurs: A

Challenge for the Twenty-first
Century
At the beginning of this book, we formulated the hypothesis that Peirces

thought could provide a starting point for devising a new paradigm to account for human action in organizations. Up to this pointfollowing the
line of logical argument proposed by Peircewe have formulated the hypothesis: we have observed the reality of human action, we have analyzed
various aspects of Peirces thought, and related the different elements in a
new form that has enabled the working hypothesis to be accepted as plausible. It could even be said that we have entered the deduction stage: as a result of our analysis of human action, three principles have been formulated
that may help us verify the hypothesis in reality. However, there still remains the third part of the inquiry process: the verification of the hypothesis. This is not something that can be done on a theoretical level, as in this
book, but must be carried out in reality, in day-to-day managerial work,
seeing how these three principles are met in specific action and how they
influence human and organizational activity.
However, there are a number of indications that enable us to perform a
preliminary evaluation of the possible verification of the hypothesis. A
quick glance at the current literature on business management shows that
the principles of creativity and community appear frequently. However,
this is not the case with the principle of character, whose appearanceexcept for rare exceptions which have been quoted in the different chapters of
this bookis fairly sporadic and, often, with a merely decorative function.
This initial impression should be qualified, in any case, upon studying each
of these principles in a little more detail, as we would then see that creativ-
194
ity and community are usually defined in quite different terms than those
used by Peirce. Without the principle of character as the ultimate referent of
action, the other two principles may adopt pseudoformulations that do not
match the true reality that they signify.
For Peirce, the principle of creativity implies a change in the manner in
which human rationality is conceived. The logic of abduction is logical, it is
an inferential process that shows the limitations of analytic rationality
while increasing the possibilities of synthetic thinking, the ability to relate,
and initiative supported on observational power.1 The logicalnonlogical dualism cannot account for creative human thought. However, many
of the references to creativity continue to assume that it belongs to a
nonrational sphere. Creativity thus movesoutside human rationalitybetween emotivity and the use of technological tools that assist innovation. However, within this framework, it continues to be assumed that
human rationality is analytic rationality.
For its part, the concept of community, for Peirce, is the act of going beyond individualism. Pragmaticism opposes the atomistic view of the individual and seeks a new understanding of the relationship between the
individual and society. In this relationship, the individual, without losing
his or her own reference, seeks to incorporate other peoples perspectives in
his or her own perspectives, in a dynamic interaction between his or her
creativity and the observance of the norms and standards of the social
group with which he or she relates. The individual is neither an isolated element nor a part of the machinery: he or she is a person, the creative pole
within the community.2 Again, when people talk about empowerment,
teamwork, or strategic alliancesto quote a few concrete forms that this
principle takes in business activitythis significance of the individual, in
which others are included in the subjects assessments and decision criteria, is not always clear, rather, the relationship continues to be an extrinsic
one, guided by social agreements or rules of good conduct. Here, too, there
is a high potential for moving between emotivity and pure normative coordination, and it is a sign that the principle of individualism continues to
predominate in social relations.
Basically, ever since Herbert Simon chose logical positivism as the model
of thought on which to found his organizational theory,3 we have borne on
our shoulders the heavy burden of the facts-values dualism proposed by
this current of thought. This dualism appears, explicitly or implicitly, not
only in management literature; it has taken such deep root in society that it
is at the base of the arguments customarily used in corporate decision making. When, in the course of discussing a specific problem, one reaches the
level of the ethical appraisal of a particular alternative, it is common to hear
arguments such as It seems to me like this, Thats what I think, or
Thats what people usually do. Peirce would say that these arguments
may enable ideas to be fixedas the methods of tenacity, a priori, or au-
Epilog for Entrepreneurs
195
thority dobut cannot be considered as part of the scientific method. It is

like holding ones hand in a flame and saying, in spite of the evidence to the
contrary, that flames do not burn. Having enclosed values on a subjective,
prerational level, it is assumed that the scientific content of management
problemsand the content that can be discussedconsists of the correctness of the means used to achieve the end that is pursued. The subject of the
inquiry is not the actual decision to take certain measures to achieve a goal,
but only the fact that if these measures are taken, then the expected effect
will occur. Peirce made it very clear that the pragmatic maxim was only
part of the scientific method and that the scientific method was to be understood within the context of a broader philosophical conception. By insisting on reducing the discussion to the level of the means, preference is
eventually given to what is effective over what is true and to a utilitarian interpretation of pragmatic thought.
The myth of the amorality of business is unlikely to find much public
support todayat least in academic circlesalthough it continues to be
present in the actions of many managers. However, it can easily appear disguised in more subtle formulations. Thus, for example, when the need is
raised to evaluate management problems from ethical criteria, it is not uncommon to hear the argument that ethical problems do not exist because,
in the final analysis, it all boils down to using good techniques. Behind this
argument there is a great truth and also a great lie. It is true that ethics cannot be operative by itself and that it needs the mediation of techniques and
human activity to materialize itself in human reality, in a similar manner to
the way in which thirdness cannot do without secondness. But the lie that
must also be pointed out is that technique by itself cannot solve technical
problems because it cannot confer upon itself the character of goodness or
badness. Just as it is possible to ignore thirdness when studying
secondness, but at the expense, in this case, of not giving a full explanation
of reality, so, also, the technical explanations in themselves cannot account
for the solution of nonoperational problems. Ethical problems can be
solved by technique, but only insofar as technique is guided by ethical criteria, and it is these criteria that decide whether a technique is good or bad.
In order to overcome the positivist dualism, we need a suitable theory of
human action. Perhaps for this we would need to go back to Peirce, in a similar manner to the way in which some have called for the return to Aristotle.
In Peirce, facts and values are intrinsically related in semiotic theory, as all
interpretations are made from the individuals past experience as well as
from his or her personal preferences and convictions. However, Peirce also
unequivocally said that ethics has a scientific character and that, as such, it
must be present in the sphere of rational, public discussion. The fallibilist
awarenessas Bernstein has pointed out in his discussion of The Resurgence of Pragmatismdoes not imply lapsing into another form of dualism that condemns universality, identity, and totality and praises
196
particularity, difference, and fragmentation. The goal is to learn to live with

an irreducible contingency and ambiguity, not to ignore it or become lost in
it.4 Fallibilism does not mean skepticism. Quite the contrary, it tells us to be
responsible for our beliefsbut also to be humble and change them when
necessary, to search together for the truth and to search for it above all in the
reality of things and of our own lives.
In the same text, Bernstein echoes a growing sentiment that argues that it
is not possible to disregard ethical-political issues. Not only must we learn
to live without absolutes and with an indefinable ambiguitywith contingencies and blind alleysbut we must be willing to take, defend, and commit ourselves to responsible positions. Although we can abandon any
pretense to infallible rationality, we cannot abandon the necessity of making reasonable discriminations. This requires articulating and defending,
honestly and imaginatively, the ideals that form the basis of criticism. The
gesture of totalizing criticism that seeks to expose and mock all norms and
standards is self-deceptive. As our statements do not rest on fixed foundations and are not gratuitous decisions, it is essential that they be articulated, debated, and publicly discussed.5
Finally, Peirce says that the debate on ethical issues must take place
within a suitable classification of the sciences, in which ethics and esthetics
appear as sciences that direct the experimental sciences and technology.
This point is particularly important in manager training tasks. Management training cannot confine itself to the technical aspects; it cannot be reduced to imparting a series of techniques. This may be sufficient to deal
with operational problems but, when it comes to nonoperational problems,
the skills required to address them are very different from technical skills
and are more closely related to the development of the virtue of prudencestarting with an adequate definition of the problem and taking into
account the situations particular circumstances, without incurring in undue generalizations. However, in addition to the development of prudential judgmentwhich would correspond to Peircean ethicssuch training
must also include a suitable conception of the human personwhich
would correspond to Peircean esthetics. With our action, we introduce a
novelty in the world, imbuing it with a new meaning: we humanize it. That
is why it is fundamental to have an adequate knowledge of human beings.
Only by understanding ourselves can we act on the world; only by knowing what we are and how we act can we think about the world and act in it.
Human work thus needs an anthropological and ethical foundation.
This is the Peircean proposal, whose verification, at the end of this book,
now falls to the people of action. Today, the absence of the principle of character, which is, after all, the anthropological foundation of human action,
has meant that the principles of creativity and continuity are lacking in
their full meaning and do not attain the full effectiveness they potentially
have. The Peircean principle of character is opposed to the pursuit of re-
Epilog for Entrepreneurs
197
sults as the end of business activity. Financial results may be one of the motives for action, but they do not answer the characteristics of the ideal of
conduct. Growth cannot be understood as mere accumulation or material
growth. Personal growth is the reintegration of difficult situations on
broader horizons corresponding to the subject him- or herself, the community, and the relation between the two. That is, it is understood as a growth
of the esthetic-moral richness of experience, so that the managerin his or
her leadership dimensionis concerned above all with the organizations
values, commitments and aspirations, and not only with its physical resources.6
It is illustrative that it should be the founder of pragmatism himself who
should warn against the danger of making action the ultimate end of life.
Thus, although we should not look back to times past, as Bernstein warned,
because the pragmatic attitude is rather to look to the future than to yearn
for the past,7 Peirces thought on the future that has yet to be built may be
vitally helpful in understanding human action in its true sense, in guiding
corporate management, and in understanding the human being. The pragmatist legacy offers richness, diversity, vitality, and the power to address
the theoretical and practical problems currently facing us,8 among which
human action in organizations no doubt occupies a leading position.
NOTES
1. From the business viewpoint, the criticism of analytic rationality made by
Henry Mintzberg in his book The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1994) is interesting.
2. S.B. Rosenthal and R.A. Buchholz, Leadership: Toward New Philosophical
Foundations, Business and Professional Ethics Journal 14 (1996): 30.
3. H.A. Simon, Administrative Behavior, 3rd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1975),
45.
4. R.J. Bernstein, El resurgir del pragmatismo, El Giro Postmoderno,
Philosophica Malacitana, Suppl. 1 (1993): 2829.
5. Bernstein, El resurgir del pragmatismo, 2930.
6. Rosenthal and Buchholz, Leadership: Toward New Philosophical Foundations, 37.
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This reference list is confined to an ordered list of the books and articles
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groups: the anthologies of collected articles and works, followed by a
general list of the monographs and articles consulted, in alphabetical
order. The anthologies from which only one article is quoted are indicated in the reference to the article quoted.
C.S. PEIRCES WRITINGS

Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Edited by C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss, and
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Selected Writings: Values in a Universe of Change. Edited by P. Wiener. New York:
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The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce. Edited by C. Eisele. 4 vols. The
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Historical Perspectives on Peirces Logic of Science. Edited by C. Eisele. 2 vols. The
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200
References
A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Published Works of Charles Sanders Peirce with a

Bibliography of Secondary Studies. Edited by K.L. Ketner. Bowling Green,
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Index
A priori, method for fixing beliefs,

106, 108
Abduction, 30, 15253, 158, 194; creative character, 15960; as first step
of scientific reasoning, 159; phase
of discovery, 153; its place in scientific inquiry, 154. See also Hypothesis
Agapasm, 5758, 68; applied to human action, 58, 67
Agents, 48, 51, 79, 84; as center of intention, 82, 173
Americanism, 93
Anancasm, 57, 58
Apel, Karl-Otto, 3, 36, 68, 12526, 174,
183
Arguments: abduction, 30, 15254,
15860, 194; deduction, 151, 152; induction, 15153; as steps of the inquiry process, 153; three types, 151;
three types, differences among
them, 152
Aristotle, 50, 66, 137, 165, 190, 195
Authority, method for fixing beliefs,
1067
Ayim, Maryann, 9495
Bayesian theories, 158

Belief, 101, 104; character of habit, 103;
fallible character, 104; maxim of action, 119; methods for fixing,
10611, 175; as rule of action, 103
Bernstein, Richard, 195
Castaares, Wenceslao, 76
Categories: and classes of persons, 98;
in the classification of sciences, 133;
and esthetic ideal, 184; experience
of, 46; firstness, 42, 43; in human
action, 4850; secondness, 42, 42,
48, 49; in self-control, 172; in
semiotics, 75; theory of, 4142, 61;
thirdness, 4247, 4950, 68, 81
Chance, 60, 61
Clarity: fourth grade of, 126; third
grade of, 115
Classification of sciences, 30, 52,
12930; and categories, 133
Cogitative, 104
Colapietro, Vincent, 173
Community, 175, 194; epistemological
character, 178; vs. individualism,
176; moral character, 178, 180; rela-
212
tion with knowledge, 176; scientific, 80, 93, 142, 17475, 189
Concept, as maxim of action, 119
Conduct, ideal of, 125, 186; as
thirdness, 50
Conscience, 122
Conservatism, principle of, 94
Continuity, principle of, 59, 153, 173;
in human action, 69; synechism,
5960; as thirdness, 61
Cost-benefit analysis, 158
Creativity, 158, 194; formulating the
right questions, 16063; free exercise of reason, 154; in solving problems, 163
Criteria: for action, 121; for decision,
123
Darwin, Charles, 57, 60, 67
Debrock, Guy, 3, 117
Decisions, 103; everyday, 96
Deduction, 151, 152
Descartes, 42, 59, 66, 79
Desire to learn, 143; in people of action, 146
Determinism: necessitarianism, 58;
necessity, 66, 67
Doubt, 1013, 105
Dualism, 59, 67, 117
Eco, Umberto, 3; types of abduction,
77, 161, 162
Economy of research, 21, 24, 30,
15556; applied to human action,
158
Efficient cause, 5052
Egoism: Gospel of Greed, 177; individualism, 176, 184
Esthetical ideal, 186, 188; and theory
of categories, 184
Esthetics, 132; its place in the classification of sciences, 135
Ethics, 132, 188, 190; its place in the
classification of sciences, 135; relation with techniques, 195
Evolution, 5758; agapasm, 5758, 67,
68
Evolutionary love, 58, 68, 185
Fallibilism, 81, 104, 122, 162, 196
Index
Fay, Harriet Melusina (Zina), 14, 17,
19, 41
Final cause, 5152
Finality, as thirdness, 51, 52
Firstness, 42, 43
Fisch, Max, 3, 11
Fukuyama, Francis, 179
Golden rule, 185
Gospel of Greed, 177
Great men, 97
Growth, 187, 189, 197; as esthetic
ideal, 18586
Haack, Susan, 143, 14546
Habermas, Jurgen, 175
Habit: and belief, 103; in human action, 65, 6768, 116; law of, 59, 68;
as limiting element of interpretation, 80; in the physical world, 67;
as rule of action, 83; as thirdness,
68
Haskell, Thomas, 17778
Human action: agents, 48, 51, 79, 82,
84, 173; artistic component, 188;
and categories, 48, 119; conceivable, 119; criteria to interpret, 85; as
deliberative process, 79, 82; efficient cause, 5052; final cause,
5152; and habit, 6568, 116; intention, 51, 85; interpretative context,
83; mechanistic approach, 49, 52; as
meta-abduction, 162; and
secondness, 4849; semiotics of, 81;
and sentiments, 93; and reason, 95;
teleological character, 50, 5253, 85,
119, 190; and thirdness, 4950
Hypothesis, 15, 15253, 160, 162; criteria to choose the best one, 154; observational powers, 164
Illanes, Jos Luis, 189
Imagination, 145
Individualism, 194; economic, 177;
egoistic, 176, 184
Induction, 15152; phase of confirmation, 153
Inquiry, 42, 102, 1056, 117, 195; is not
algorithmic, 105; arguments as
steps of the process, 153; guided by
Index
other interests than the search for
truth, 14647; in human action, 120;
and managerial decision, 101
Instinct, 93, 9596
Intention, 51, 85
Interpretant, 75, 7879; as thirdness,
74; types, 77
Interpretation: indefinite character, 78;
limiting elements, 80
Intuitionism, 80
James, William, 1617, 1920, 2932,
34, 36, 42, 73, 122, 134
Kant, Emmanuel, 12, 80, 12930
Kent, Beverly, 116, 126, 133, 183
Knowledge: society of, 165; spheres
of, 138; technical and artistic, 164
Lamarck, Jean Baptiste, 57
Learning, 83, 96; negative, 84, 125
Limited rationality, principle of, 157
Llano, Alejandro, 6667, 163, 165, 175,
189
Llano, Carlos: responsibility, 123;
spheres of knowledge, 138; synthetical character of management,
138; work, 92, 99100
Logic, 132. See also Abduction; Hypothesis
Logica docens, 94
Logica utens, 94, 105
Logical positivism, 117, 194
Lumen naturale, 153, 163
Management: as an art, 164; dimensions, 99; as practical, 99; as practical science, 137; primacy of ethics
in, 139; as scientific attitude, 99
Managerial action, 92, 96. See also Human action
Maximization, 157
Mechanicism, as an a priori, 56
Methods for fixing beliefs, 10611,
175. See also Scientific method
Musement, 154
Necessitarianism, 58
Necessity, 66, 67
213
Negative learning, 84, 125; learning,
83, 96
Newcomb, Simon, 17, 23, 25, 27, 29, 34
Normative sciences, 30, 35, 52, 132; esthetics, 132, 135; ideal of, 132, 135;
logic, 132; relation of dependence
among them, 134; relation with
practical sciences, 133, 136; their
place in the classification of sciences, 131. See also Ethics
Nubiola, Jaime, 154, 165
Object, 79, 80; dynamical or mediate,
75, 76; immediate, 75
Objective idealism, 59
Organizational theories: historical development, 6265; rejection of
mechanistic and organistic models,
65
Peirce, Benjamin, 12, 18
Peirce, Charles Sanders: broad knowledge, 14, 33; business projects, 25,
2729, 33; Cambridge Metaphysical Club, 17, 36; Harriet Melusina
Fay (first wife), 14, 17, 19, 41; financial difficulties, 29; first years,
1213; lectures, 14, 16, 25, 28, 30,
43, 91, 98, 130, 134, 185; live at
Arisbe, 26, 2732; Juliette Pourtalai,
22, 25, 2729; studying at Harvard
Unviersity, 1213; teaching at Harvard, 14; teaching at Johns
Hopkins University, 17, 20, 2324,
3233, 97; trips to Europe, 1719,
22; working at Harvard Observatory, 18; working at U.S. Coast and
Geodesic Survey (Coast Survey),
13, 1520, 2224, 27, 33; working at
the Weights and Measures Office at
Washington, 23; writings, 1416,
2123, 2729, 3132, 52, 5556, 58,
73, 79, 97, 115, 144, 15152, 154,
160, 176, 183
Prez Lpez, Juan Antonio: criteria for
decision, 124; dimensions of management, 99; learning and negative
learning, 8384, 185; types of
agents, 81, 8384, 126
214
Person: as center of intention, 82;
theory of categories and classes of,
98; three classes, 97, 98
Petry, Ed, 17172
Phaneron, 4142, 131
Phaneroscopy, 41
Polo, Leonardo, 89, 161, 18688
Popper, Karl, 3; differences with
Peirces ideas, 159
Potter, Vincent, 44, 61, 116, 188
Pourtalai, Juliette, 22, 25, 2729
Practical rationality, 165, 179, 188, 191
Practical sciences, 130, 136; management as, 136
Pragmatic maxim, 2, 115, 172; formulation, 116, 118; and habits, 118; is
the logic of abduction, 154; as
methodological principle, 116; predictive character, 117; prescriptive
character, 118; and rational character of action, 119
Pragmaticism, 3, 31, 36, 119, 173, 194
Pragmatism, 3, 18, 42
Prescission, 46; applied to human action, 51
Problems, operational and
non-operational, 97, 196
Professionalism, 17779
Purpose, 119; intention, 51, 85; as limiting element of interpretation, 80
Putnam, Hilary, 3, 105, 122
Reason, 9496; first principles of, 102;
first rule of, 143; in human action,
95; rules of, 102
Regularity: of general ideas, 60; in the
universe, 56
Rescher, Nicolas, 109
Responsibility, 123
Schiller, Friedrich, 171
Science: architectonical character,
12930; and conduct, 92; as method
(see Scientific method); as a mode
of life, 14142; as an organized
body of knowledge, 129; and practical matters, 9293; subordination
Index
of, 137. See also Scientific community
Scientific attitude: in management,
144; qualities, 14345
Scientific community, 93, 142, 17475,
189; as limiting element of interpretation, 80
Scientific method, 106, 108; differences
with the other three methods, 108;
importance of moral aspects, 143;
in management, 195; reference to
reality, 108, 110; self-corrective
character, 109
Secondness, 42, 43; in human action,
48, 49
Self-control, 171, 186; and categories,
172; evolution of the concept in
Peirces thought, 171, 173
Self-realization, 173
Semiotics, 73; in human action, 81
Sentimentalism, 93
Sentiments, 9596; their role in human
action, 94
Sign, 74, 76, 7980; and theory of categories, 75
Simon, Herbert, 63, 117, 194
Smith, John E., 81, 173
Stikkers, Kenneth, 176
Sullivan, William, 179
Summun bonum, 183
Synechism, 5960. See also Continuity,
principle of
Taylor, Charles, 173
Tenacity, method for fixing beliefs, 106
Thirdness, 4243, 47; as future, 46; as
generalization, 4546; in human action, 4950, 68; as mediation, 44; in
semiotics, 81
Tychasm, 5758
Uncertainty, 121
Virtue, 18687, 18990
Vitally important topics, 91, 93, 96
About the Author

JUAN FONTRODONA is Assistant Professor of Business Ethics at IESE
Business School, Barcelona. He holds an MBA and a doctorate in philosophy and has had visiting professorships, fellowships, and scholarships at
Harvard Business School and the Center for Business Ethics, Bentley College. In his research and various publications, Fontrodona combines the
study of the theoretical foundations of management with the ethical implications of the daily conduct of business and has explored these and other
topics in his various books and journal articles.

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PRAGMATISM AND

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The paper used in this book complies with the

Foreword by W. Michael Hoffman

Human Action in the Thought of Charles S. Peirce

Charles S. Peirce: A Life Devoted to Science

The Triadic Conception of Human Action

The World in Which Humans Act

The Task of Knowing and Interpreting the World

PART II The Scientific Character of Management

The Decision-Making Process

Decision Criteria in Management

The Synthetical Character of Management

The Scientific Attitude in Management

PART III Three Principles for Management

Creativity: The Logical Principle of Action

Community: The Ethical Principle of Action

Character: The Esthetic Principle of Action

Epilog for Entrepreneurs: A Challenge for the

There are a number of reasons why I am pleased to write this foreword to

cial targets. But, as Fontrodona convincingly argues, such interpretations

Prolog to the Spanish Edition

Prolog to the Spanish Edition

Prolog to the Spanish Edition

Prolog to the Spanish Edition

Prolog to the Spanish Edition