Diagrammatology

The academic study of diagrams is a complex, disparate and yet relatively new field of study. The fundamental role played by the diagram in the communication and creation of knowledge makes Diagrammatology not only an interdisciplinary subject, but pan-historical and cross-cultural.

The term Diagrammatology is often used synonymously with Diagrammatics, however Diagrammatics tends to be more common place within the fields of Mathematics (especially logic), the sciences and technology, whereas Diagrammatology is currently the term of choice for the Arts and Humanities, where it is closely associated with Charles Sanders Peirce’s work on diagrammatic reasoning.

In the introduction to his seminal 2011 work ‘Diagrammatology’, Frederik Stjernfelt describes the reasoning behind his use of the term:

“As a substitute for the neologism of ‘diagrammatology’, the title might equally have well have been ‘diagrammatical reasoning’. But two things argued against such a choice: (1) a book with that title already exists (Glasgow et al. 1995, on the reemergence of diagrammatical representations in computer science), and, consequently (2) the close association of that title with diagrams in computer science specifically.”

Stjernfelt attributes the term diagrammatology to the art historian W.J.T Mitchell, who, in a 1981 article entitled ‘Diagrammatology’ writes of the need for “…something like a diagrammatology, a systematic study of the way that relationships among elements are represented and interpreted by graphic constructions”

The term diagrammatology was also used in the title of the 2010 publication ‘Studies in Diagrammatology and Diagram Praxis’ by Olga Pombo and Alexander Gerner. This volume is a collection of papers given at the interdisciplinary workshop on Diagrammatology and Diagram praxis held at the University of Lisbon, 23 – 24 March 2009. The workshop was organised by the Research Project “Images in Science” of the centre for Philosophy of Science of the University of Lisbon (CFCUL), aiming to analyse the place of image and diagrammatic thinking in different epistemological and semiotic programs.

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