ABSTRACT In this article, I focus on Charles Sanders Peirce's viability for contemporary art history and criticism. I argue that in order to make sense of Peirce's published remarks on photographs they should be read in light of specific nineteenth-century uses of photography in experimental science. I argue that Peirce's comments on photography are consistent with a realist theory of science. It is only when these remarks are contextualized within a broader scientific project that we may begin to mine Peirce (...) for his art historical value. (shrink)

Francis Galton has long been recognized as a pioneer of experimental psychology. The work on which this reputation is based occupied him for several years – broadly, from 1877 to 1884 – at the peak of his scientific productivity. This period of Galton's career has, however, attracted relatively little attention from historians, and few have made full use of the materials available for its study.