20.143 defining humanities computing

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 143.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
  www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 08:55:25 +0100
         From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>
         Subject: Re: 20.141 defining humanities computing

Richard et al,

I am reminded of a wonderful article by Monroe Beardsley, "On the
creation of art", Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 23.3
(1965): 291-304. He argues for a version of the creative process in
which every stage powerfully affects the succeeding one -- in which
each action of the artist, between the incept of the work and the
final touch, sets up demands and suggestions as to what may come next
and places limits on what can. Once the work is underway, he writes,
it is carried along by tension between what's been done and what
might have been done, leaving deficiencies and unrealized
possibilities. He cites an example from poetry: "as the poet moves
from stage to stage, it is not that he is looking to see whether he
is saying what he already meant, but that he is looking to see
whether he wants to mean what he is saying." This is the sort of
process, of discovery-invention, that I had in mind. It's pragmatic
in that the practice comes first, reflection on it second, except
that strong reflection persists and survives to guide further practice.

"Strategy" etymologically is the craft of the strategos, military
general. Military history, I suspect, would show that successful
generalship closely resembles the creative process described by
Beardsley, though the good general may have more of a plan than the
good artist. I doubt that an experienced general depends only on his
or her intuition. Difficult to generalize (pun unforeseen but
accepted). I do prefer the resonances of "practice", however.

Perhaps you can tell me if the "rhetoric of" movement might have had
greater success if it had made better use of the prepositional force
of its programme (i.e., rhetoric *of* the subjects in which it
occurs) and then synthesized its instances into a methodological
commons, or perhaps just called itself "rhetoric". There's more than
enough in the subject of rhetoric to keep many of us busy for a long
time. The background is fascinating. See Ray Frazer, "The origin of
the term 'image'", ELH 27.2 (1960): 149-61, which fell across my path recently.

Yours,
WM

At 07:00 08/08/2006, you wrote:
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 141.
> Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
> www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
> www.princeton.edu/humanist/
> Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu
>
>
>
> Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 06:31:34 +0100
> From: Richard Cunningham <richard.cunningham_at_acadiau.ca>
> >
>Willard,
>
>I've just re-read a few chapters of Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory:
>An Introduction in preparation for a class I'll teach this fall, and
>in it (I think it's in the final chapter) Eagleton argues for a
>strategic approach to literary criticism rather than an aesthetic or
>explicitly theoretical (e.g. deconstructive or Marxist)
>approach. Perhaps "strategic" is simply a synonym for pragmatic, but
>perhaps it is slightly more. It implies having a goal in mind from
>the outset (in the mind of the one who deploys the theory, practices
>the criticism, advocates the [huco] approach) whereas pragmatic
>implies causing some action, some change, in the world, but perhaps
>not so clearly focused an effect as is implied by "strategic." I'm
>not sure, but I know I've heard more intelligent people than me speak
>against pragmatism and wonder if this is (still?) a wide-spread
>attitude. In the event someone were to object to taking a pragmatic
>view of humanities computing, might we suggest a strategic view?
>
>A strategic view of humanities computing might include "historians do
>better history as a result" of using huco methods and asking huco
>questions, etc, without stopping there. It could also include,
>briefly I hope, justification of the field and its relationship to
>academic disciplines (scientific, social scientific, humanistic,
>professional), technology, humanity, and post-humanity. I would urge
>that the justificatory impulse be brief because I remember what a
>farce the "rhetoric of" move became in the US during the 1990s (it
>seems to have run its course, but I may just have mercifully fallen
>out of touch). There was a spate of conference sessions and papers
>and books on the rhetoric of science, the rhetoric of architecture,
>the rhetoric of technical documents, etc, as though rhetoric could
>systematically be reduced to form and separated from the content of
>science, architecture, technical communication, etc.
>
>Humanities computing is not, it seems to me, just a different way to
>do history (to continue with the same example), although it is that;
>rather, an historian who is also a computing humanist thinks as well
>as works differently; she asks different questions and seeks
>different information and synthesizes that different information
>differently. If we were to ponder the pragmatics of the huco
>historian's work, would we think about what she does and ask the same
>questions as we would if we were to ponder her strategy? If she were
>to approach her work strategically, the questions she asks and the
>approach(es) she takes might be determined by the goals she sets
>herself, whereas if she were to approach it pragmatically she might
>limit her concern to the possibility of completing her research
>within a specific time frame, or budget, or--and this strikes me as
>unsettling--she might simply satisfy herself with producing a (i.e.
>any) result.
>
>Or am I myself guilty of devaluing pragmatism, and simply splitting
>hairs as a result?
>
>Cheers,
>Richard
>
>At 04:54 AM 8/7/2006, you wrote:
>
> > Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 20, No. 138.
> > Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
> > www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/cch/research/publications/humanist.html
> > www.princeton.edu/humanist/
> > Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu
> >
> >
> >
> > Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2006 10:03:16 +0100
> > From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>
> > >
> >The philosopher F. H. Bradley, in "Association and Thought", Mind
> >12.47 (1887): 354, arguing in a footnote with the editor of that
> >journal about how to define "a psychical fact or event" in the
> >empirical science of psychology, declares that
> >
> > >A definition in psychology is for me a working definition. It is not
> > >expected to have more truth than is required for practice in its
> > >science; and if when pressed beyond it contradict itself, that is
> > >quite immaterial.
> >
> >Giving his definition, he then observes,
> >
> > >We see here the impotence of empirical science to justify its
> > >principles theoretically.
> >
> >-- not because this or any other empirical science is inherently
> >inferior, but because in his view metaphysics has no place in it.
> >But what then justifies such a field is its results, which in the
> >case of psychology is a better understanding of how and why humans
> >do what they do, and not only or primarily why we shop for
> >particular products or any other such thing to which psychology
> >might be applied. If humanities computing is an empirical field -- I
> >won't say "science" for obvious reasons -- then by analogy its
> >justification cannot be how and why it is that, say, historians do
> >better history as a result, but how and why scholarly enquiry is
> >different -- better, perhaps, but certainly different -- across all
> >the humanities (by which the historians' improved performance may be
> >explained). Not a metaphysical but a pragmatic philosophy?
> >
> >Yours,
> >WM
> >
> >
> >Dr Willard McCarty | Reader in Humanities Computing | Centre for
> >Computing in the Humanities | King's College London | Kay House, 7
> >Arundel Street | London WC2R 3DX | U.K. | +44 (0)20 7848-2784 fax:
> >-2980 || willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/

Dr Willard McCarty | Reader in Humanities Computing | Centre for
Computing in the Humanities | King's College London | Kay House, 7
Arundel Street | London WC2R 3DX | U.K. | +44 (0)20 7848-2784 fax:
-2980 || willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
Received on Wed Aug 09 2006 - 04:46:50 EDT