The Experimental Space of the Diagram According to Peirce, Deleuze and Goodman: Concerning Composite Photography, Chronophotography, and Painting

In this article I examine the perspectives of Charles Sanders Peirce, Gilles
Deleuze, and Nelson Goodman on diagrams in order to assess the variety of meanings of
diagrammatic reasoning, form, and manipulation. I argue that diagrammatic reasoning
may not only guide the understanding of the functioning of schemas, graphs, and chains
of equations, but also—as I show in this article—the functioning of scientific images,
photographs, and artistic paintings. More precisely, I focus on the relationship between
the concept of diagram, the composite photographs by Francis Galton studied by Charles
Sanders Peirce, works of art such as the paintings by Francis Bacon studied by Gilles
Deleuze, and scientific images (especially aggregate images such as those of black
holes), while taking account of the distinction between autographic and allographic
semiotic systems.