Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 275.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
                      Hosted by DH-Cologne
                       www.dhhumanist.org
                Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org




        Date: 2025-12-28 16:52:42+00:00
        From: scholar-at-large@bell.net <scholar-at-large@bell.net>
        Subject: In the Wake of Failure

Willard

Sorting through some boxes of documents, I came across a printout of John
Unsworth’s 1997 paper, The Importance of Failure.

It opens with a sharp observation: “If an electronic scholarly project can’t
fail and doesn’t produce new ignorance, then it isn’t worth a damn.”

The paper then methodically details a set of questions that would be responsive
to such a situation. Its peroration calls on Karl Popper to the effect “that our
knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite.”

I wonder how in the years that have followed how diligent scholars have been in
documenting failures…


François


_______________________________________________
Unsubscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted
List posts to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
List info and archives at at: http://dhhumanist.org
Listmember interface at: http://dhhumanist.org/Restricted/
Subscribe at: http://dhhumanist.org/membership_form.php