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Abstract
South Africans tend to take a neglectful attitude toward hazard in general.This article identifies and qualifies the forms of practical reasoning that make such negligence possible. The research draws on the methods of logical and pragmatic analysis to clarify the notion of a health and safety-culture as a research problem. These methods are based on the broader logical doctrine of C.S. Peirce's pragmaticism. Elements of Peirce's economy of research are adapted to infer some of the criteria on which the potential for research projects into a culture of safety can be assessed. The theory's main point is that there is in the field of research in general, a ratio between research expenditure and the increase in knowledge that can be graphed in a manner comparable to the supply and demand curves of classical economics (CP 7.147). This approach is applied to an analysis of the Report of the Leon Commission into Health and Safety in South African Mines (1995). These issues bear on the problem of defining ‘culture’.
