Publicado en G. Debrock, ed. Process Pragmatism: Essays on a Quiet Philosophical Revolution, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2003, 39-49 THE LAW OF REASON AND THE LAW OF LOVE Jaime Nubiola (University of Navarra, Spain) jnubiola@unav.es "The Law of Love and the Law of Reason are quite at one." C. S. Peirce, Science, 20 April 1900 1 . 1. Introduction 2 In a world of ever growing specialization, the idea of a unity of science is commonly discarded as an impossible ideal. Yet, at the same time, co-operative work involving cross-disciplinary points of view is usually encouraged, though seldom practiced, both as a remedy against the conceptual poverty of the scientific reductionism inherited from logical positivism of the Vienna Circle, and as a way of efficiently tackling the most stubborn and still unresolved problems which our society is facing today. The generation of knowledge is commonly perceived as a strange mixture of hard cross-disciplinary research, personal imagination and a lot of luck; a mixture which calls to mind the saying: ninety per cent perspiration and ten per cent inspiration; or perhaps better, ninety per cent team perspiration and ten per cent individual inspiration. As Debrock highlighted, Charles S. Peirce's thought helps us to re-assume philosophical responsibility which has been largely abdicated by much of 20th century philosophy and offers suggestions for tackling some of these stubborn contemporary problems (Debrock 1992, 1). The founder of pragmatism not only identified one century ago this paradoxical situation about scientific development, but he also mapped out some paths that we could follow in order to get a clearer view of the problem and to genuinely improve the communication between the various sciences. Along this line, the aim of my paper is to understand from a Peircean point of view the nature of scientific growth and the essential need for cooperation and cross-disciplinarity to develop new knowledge. With that purpose in mind, my paper will be divided in three sections: 1) a short presentation of Peirce, stressing his personal authority on this issue; 2) a selection of texts from the mature Peirce about science and the nature of scientific growth; and, finally, 3) an attempt to understand how - according to Peirce- communication and love can be effective to achieve real cross-disciplinarity. 2. Charles S. Peirce, a real scientist philosopher As you very well know, the figure of Charles S. Peirce has an ever increasing relevance in very