Interpretant and Interpretation

Abstract

We do not approach the work of the poet or musician in the same way that we would the geometer’s diagram or the philosopher’s proposition. But, as Peirce points out,

the work of the poet or novelist is not so utterly different from the scientific man. The artist introduces a fiction; but it is not an arbitrary one; it exhibits affinities to which the mind accords a certain approval in pronouncing it beautiful, which if it is not exactly the same as saying that the synthesis is true, is something of the same general kind. The geometer draws a diagram, which if not exactly a fiction, is at least a creation, and by means of observation of that diagram he is able to synthesize and show relations between elements which before seemed to have no necessary connection. (1.383)