Semiotics of Peirce and its Mediating Role Between the Cognitive Sciences and the Comparative Studies of Literature and Music

Abstract

Peirce’s is a theory about human knowledge and as such is deeply linked to modern cognitive sciences. The following article pursues a twofold objective. Firstly, it seeks to analyze that intimate link. Its analysis takes into account Peirce’s belief that human beings themselves are signs as well as his notion that the mind is an external phenomenon, the vital role that the ground and interpretant concepts introduced by him have played in the generation and reception of ideas, and finally, his view that human creativity represents a quest for a new intelligibility. The article’s second objective is to assess how well Peirce’s theory of signs is suited to a comparative approach to literature and music. Several key aspects are evaluated, including the tangible process by which signs (qualisigns) come to be defined, Peirce’s notion that meaning dependents on interpretative recreation carried out by other signs, his interest in interpreters and interpretants types and consequently in possible response types specific to every communicative phenomenon, and finally, the various models of referentiality that stem from the relation between the sign and the object.