Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 40, No. 40.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2026-06-03 05:48:37+00:00
From: Bill Pascoe <bill.pascoe@unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.29: what's wrong
Ah, so the nature of this question is something along the lines of ‘A Critique
of Pure Digital Humanities’, like where Kant suggests that before we go around
reasoning and thinking we can reason on anything and everything, we should first
understand the limitations of our capacity for reason. The ability to do
anything is limited to the capabilities of the tool you are using to do it with.
What is a hammers capacity for hitting things into other things - nails into
wood yes, but hitting water into rocks no. There may be things beyond our
capacity to reason. Eg: they way Kant sees it, if I remember right from that
vast inscrutable tome, is that the way we think about things is limited to a
basic framework of space and time. It is very difficult for us to think of
things except in a spatio temporal context. This kind of makes sense when we
remember learning about infinity as kids, and wondering what’s beyond the edge
of space, or what is outside of infinity - or with the big bang wondering what
is before time began - these questions just don’t make any sense because we
can’t think them. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but that is just to
give the idea of the importance of understanding the limitations of a tool,
before you go running off thinking you have comprehended or ever will comprehend
everything with it. So to bring that back to the scope of digital humanities -
what in the humanities can we definitively not do with computers? What can we
not do because a) theoretically because of the inherent nature of computers, vs
b) pragmatically because of the limitations of present technology.
I can’t answer those, yet, would have to think more, but one thing that always
is in my mind, but will probably have to wait till retirement to pursue (because
the real limitations of Digital Humanities are boring work place ones and lack
of recognition of it as a job, etc rant rant rant) is about genuine AI, as
opposed to imitation intelligence (which AI still is, though it is absolutely
incredible what it can do). IMHO, this is a) theoretically possible but b) not
possible as a sort of high order intelligence, though possibly as ’stupid’
intelligence because of limitations of present technology.
Trying to think through a more immediate problem - I’m working on history. AI
has made it possible to process vast amounts of OCR texts, to find and summarise
specific events in this vast amount of information, turn it into data. But it
still needs me to turn that into a story - ie: I'm still the one doing history,
and I’m the one using the digital methods. DH is usually a tool that enhances
our ability to do humanities. That’s a limitation - it doesn’t do humanities,
it’s among the tools for doing it. Another way of putting this is to turn it
around - that DH makes it possible to do humanities that could not be done
before. Humanities has many practical limitations that are stripped away by
digital humanities techniques. Most of that is a pragmatic question - eg:
ability to digitise and analyse millions of pages of historical news that would
take humans alone hundreds of years etc - there are pragmatic limitations on how
DH can enhance humanities, but what is the theoretical limit of how DH can
enhance and augment humanities?
Another way of contemplating this might be a Heidegerrian way - when in one
moment you’re chopping wood, and you don’t notice the axe till it breaks, then
you notice the axeness of the axe - or something like that. So what would we
notice when the computer breaks. Happened to me once when I had some very
stressful deadlines. Feeling very thrown, I went to the beach and made up some
bad poetry.
This still isn’t getting to the heart of it, but maybe it’s a thought on the
way.
(BTW the best part of Humanist is these provocative theoretical and critical
questions.)
-----
From: Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
Date: Saturday, 30 May 2026 at 4:44 pm
To: Bill Pascoe <bill.pascoe@unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: [Humanist] 40.29: what's wrong
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 40, No. 29.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
http://www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2026-05-30 06:30:50+00:00
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.26: what's wrong
Jim Rovira asks why I think digital humanities is limited. I'd say,
because we are, as finite creatures, along with all that we do. Digital
humanities goes back to a finite-state machine, which in its application
to the artefacts we study runs into what Stevan Harnad called "The
symbol grounding problem" (1990)*, or what happens in "modeling the mind"
(Harnad 1990). Not only does this problem remain unsolved (Harnad 2010)**,
but it is the origin of all that's truly interesting in digital
humanities itself. So, I'd say, ironically, our field of study is
limited insofar as we fail to study the limits computing in the
humanities encounters whenever pressed to the limits of what the machine
can do at any one moment. By ignoring them, instead of taking them as
characteristics of a different intelligence than our own, we fog the
mind with chatter about the next release.
Comments?
WM
-----
*Stevan Harnad, "The symbol grounding problem". Physica D 42 (1990) 335-346.
**Stevan Harnad, "Symbol Grounding Problem: Turing-‐Scale Solution Needed".
IEEE AMD Newsletter 7(1).
On 28/05/2026 07:03, Humanist wrote:
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 40, No. 26.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> http://www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2026-05-27 23:10:17+00:00
> From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Humanist] 40.18: what's wrong
>
> I'm curious why you think there are intellectual limitations? Why do you
> think DH needs to be liberated?
>
> The mind is always free.
>
> Server space, physical space, faculty lines are never free.
>
> Jim R
>
>
>>> For digital humanities as a field of research, what is the most serious
>>> intellectual limitation? Is there one overriding problem holding everyone
>>> back--even if they don't realise what it is? Is there a fundamental
>>> impediment that if removed, circumvented or better understood would
>>> liberate research across the disciplines which computing engages
>>> with?
--
Willard McCarty, Professor em., King's College London;
Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities
(http://tinyurl.com/Berghahn-IRASH); Humanist (dhhumanist.org);
Science in the Forest, Science in the Past
(http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/events/sfsp);
http://www.mccarty.org.uk
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