Is it possible to apply the concept "interpretant" to diverging fields uniformly? : something about the relationship between semiotics as philosophy of science and semiotics of arts

Abstract

The thesis of this paper is that the direct application of Peirce's semiotic to the arts has been based upon a number of misunderstandings. Two false assumptions have played a cardinal role. The first is that Peirce's semiotic represents a scientific method instead of representing a theory of a scientific method, which it actually is; in other words, it is a metatheory. The second and more crucial assumption concerns the application of the interpretant to science as opposed to the arts. Here it is overlooked that in science, interpretants carry the sole responsibility for the constitution of meaning, whereas in the arts, divergence from the interpretants upon which a work is based plays the decisive role.