 As an ontological starting point, modes of action should be understood as “general” terms, in the sense proposed by C. S. Peirce. Generals, for Peirce, are like habits in that they specify a general state of affairs that can be realized in multiple different ways (Peirce, 1931, 2:148). Generals stand in contrast to universals. While universals are deductively complete categories, generals are emergent categories where some particulars fit closely to the features specified by the general concept and others less so. The category of oak tree, for example, can be realized by a wide range of particular oak trees from tall, full trees, to small, stunted trees, to trees broken by ice and wind. Each is, in a general sense, an oak tree, but each realizes the concept in a particular way. The concept of species is likewise general in that a species includes marginal cases that are not clearly in the category or clearly out of it. While it is tempting (especially in the case of terms that are defined in a particular field of inquiry) to suppose that categories are the nominal constructs of inquirers, Peirce argued that generals are themselves real (not nominal), so that natural kinds or categories are the products of evolving and intersecting activities, and as such are as much discovered as they are created for purposes of inquiry (Peirce, 8:12; Mayorga, 2007).