Making of the Humanities III Humanities ’ new methods : a reconnaissance mission

In comparison to the natural and social sciences, the humanities have received comparatively little attention from analytic philosophy of science. This discipline has been concerned primarily with the sciences narrowly construed. In particular confirmation theory, the systematic study of theory evaluation, shows remarkable lacunas when it comes to the methodology of the humanities. But developments in the humanities and in conformation theory invite us to reconsider this situation. First, due to the fast uptake of empirical and computational methods in several humanities disciplines, the humanities are presently very much in flux, and much more amenable for methodological elucidation. Second, confirmation theory has over the past decade significantly broadened its scope, and made contact with developments in mathematics and computer science. It is in a good position to take on new challenges. The main idea of this paper is that confirmation theory can help to elucidate the introduction of new methods in humanities scholarship. In the context of this paper, it will not be possible to work out the confirmation-theoretic models in any level of detail. Instead I will discuss an example of the kind of challenges that arise where humanities scholarship is confronted with empirical and computational methods. After some general considerations on the case study itself, I will sketch how we might engage with these challenges by means of confirmation theory. One goal with this is to expand the reach of confirmation theory, thereby contributing to the philosophy of science. But more importantly, I think there is a need within the humanities for a theory about the status and impact of empirical and computational results. I hope this paper can illustrate this need and suggest a possible direction for exploring the issues.