One Origin of Digital Humanities Julianne Nyhan • Marco Passarotti Editors One Origin of Digital Humanities Fr Roberto Busa in His Own Words Foreword by Steven E. Jones 123 Editors Julianne Nyhan Marco Passarotti University College London (UCL) Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore London, UK Milan, Italy Translated by Philip Barras, Andreia Carvalho, and Tessa Hauswedell ISBN 978-3-030-18311-0 ISBN 978-3-030-18313-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18313-4 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Cheshire This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For Reimar, Joey, Clara, Iris, John and Eileen and for Nina, Ilde, Maria Assunta, Carlo and Alice Table of Contents List of Figures ....................................................................................................... ix List of Tables ......................................................................................................... xi Foreword ............................................................................................................. xiii Preface and Acknowledgements .......................................................................... xix About the editors ................................................................................................ xxv Chapter 1 Introduction, or Why Busa Still Matters. Marco Passarotti and Julianne Nyhan ....................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2 A First Example of Word Index Automatically Compiled and Printed by IBM Punched Card Machines. Roberto Busa S.J. ........................................... 19 Chapter 3 The Use of Punched Cards in Linguistic Analysis. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................... 39 Chapter 4 The Main Problems of the Automation of Written Language. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................... 59 Chapter 5 The Work of the “Centro per l’Automazione dell’Analisi Letteraria” in Gallarate, Italy. Roberto Busa S.J. ................................................................... 69 Chapter 6 Linguistic Analysis in the Global Evolution of Information. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................... 75 Chapter 7 Latin as a Suitable Computer Language for Science. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................... 87 Chapter 8 Cybernetics and the Possibilities of a New Human Being. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................... 93 Chapter 9 Experienced-Based Results with Preparations for the Use of Automatic Calculation in Biology. Roberto Busa S.J. ....................................... 105 vii viii–Table of Contents Chapter 10 The Function and Use of an Electronic Computer. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................. 111 Chapter 11 Human Errors in the Preparation of Input for Computers. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................. 119 Chapter 12 Models of Knowing and Speaking. Roberto Busa S.J. .................... 125 Chapter 13 Thirty Years of Informatics on Texts: at What Point are We? What Opportunities for Research? Roberto Busa S.J. ........................................ 135 Chapter 14 The Complete Works of St Thomas Aquinas on CD-ROM with Hypertexts. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................ 143 Chapter 15 To Do and to Cause to Do: Man and Machine. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................. 149 Chapter 16 Interior Algorithms of Understanding by Reading. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................. 167 Chapter 17 Considering Myself as if I were a Computer. Roberto Busa S.J. ............................................................................................................ 173 Chapter 18 Doing Philosophy on the Computer and Doing Philosophy with the Computer. Roberto Busa S.J. ........................................................................ 185 Chapter 19 Roberto Busa S.J. Bibliography: 1949–2009 ................................... 197 Chapter 20 “A Tall, Stooping Figure in Black Crossing the Courtyard”: Philip Barras’ Recollections of Roberto Busa S.J. Philip Barras and Julianne Nyhan ................................................................................................... 221 Index ................................................................................................................... 229 List of Figures Figure 2.1: 27/06/52 (Busa Archive #0010) ......................................................... 19 Figure 3.1: 03/09/58 (Busa Archive #0127) ......................................................... 39 Figure 3.2: Summary of operations ...................................................................... 42 Figure 3.3: Sentence card ..................................................................................... 44 Figure 3.4: Tabulations of a Set of Hypothetical Variants of a Verse from Dante (Paradiso I, 34) .......................................................................................... 54 Figure 3.5: Simplified block diagram of “Dead Sea Scrolls” processing on EDPM equipment ................................................................................................. 55 Figure 3.6: 27/09/56 (Busa archive #0032) .......................................................... 56 Figure 5.1: 08/10/61 (Busa archive #0428) .......................................................... 69 Figure 6.1: 19/01/62 (Busa archive #0467) .......................................................... 75 Figure 7.1: 02/09/63 (Busa Archive #0536) ......................................................... 87 Figure 9.1: 25/04/66 (Busa Archive #0590) ....................................................... 105 Figure 10.1: Transposition of the printed text onto a punched card and thence to magnetic tape .................................................................................................. 117 Figure 11.1: 20/06/67 (Busa Archive #0613) ..................................................... 119 Figure 17.1: A human being is generated by nature, while every machine by definition is produced by man ............................................................................ 174 Figure 17.2: Caricature of two types of “other” that recur in human discourse ............................................................................................................. 179 Figure 17.3: A human’s thought is expressed with the production of knowledge and words ......................................................................................... 175 Figure 17.4: Scheme of items of knowledge and expressions ............................ 176 Figure 17.5: Essential phases of every productive process ................................. 176 Figure 17.6: The unity of knowledge ................................................................. 182 ix List of Tables Table 2.2: Sum Es Esse ........................................................................................ 37 Table 12.1: Words other than proper names and special words in the works of St Thomas ........................................................................................................... 131 xi Foreword In a 1962 essay included in the present collection, Father Roberto Busa, S.J., looked back at the beginnings of his project in 1949 and admitted: “I was unaware of the fact that I was placed in the sequence of events by which the automation of accounting caused the worldwide evolution of the means of information” (see p. 80). That term,