«[T]ruth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for the truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction.... »
(Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, trans. Caryl Emerson)

«We say that we ‘conduct’ a conversation, but the more genuine a conversation is, the less its conduct lies within the will of either partner. Thus a genuine conversation is never the one that we wanted to conduct. Rather, it is generally more correct to say that we fall into conversation, or even that we become involved in it. The way one word follows another, with the conversation taking its own twists and reaching its own conclusion, may well be conducted in some way, but the partners conversing are far less the leaders of it than the led. No one knows in advance what will "come out" of a conversation... it allows something to ‘emerge’ which henceforth exists.»
(Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall)

Humanist is an ongoing scholarly seminar on the relation between digital computing and the human sciences. It was founded in 1987 by the current Editor to strengthen a small and scattered community of practitioners. It quickly grew beyond its original purpose into a structured conversational genre for academic research and exchange of information. This has remained its purpose throughout the last three decades. For more on Humanist, click on the ‘About’ link above.

The Archives, below, are open to everyone. Participation, however, requires that you apply for membership. Click ‘Subscribe’ above if you wish to do so. Submissions to Humanist are moderated and published to all members daily.