Function, Fiction, and Fact
This paper begins by contrasting myth and mathematics, placing literal language in an intermediate position between them, apparently not requiring interpretation as myths and applied mathematics do. It then focuses on literal language in order to indicate a principle of interpretation that is little noticed in the more or less automatic understanding of literal language. I have traced this principle to Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801 1887), who expounded it with exotic and warning consequences in Nanna, or the soul life of plants. One place where this principle is more typically used is in scientific induction, which gives rise to the philosophical problem of justifying admittedly rational predictions.