Whereas the path of the history of philosophy and political thought has been trodden at the University of Helsinki since the 17th century, digital humanities are a relatively new phenomenon both in a university context and for me personally. I could almost claim that “digihumanism” is the new direction that nascent scholars are encouraged to take, but it is often difficult to follow in practice.

For me, digital humanities research means, in particular, using modern data processing methods to study humanities and social science research questions involving large quantities of data in digital form. It is also very much interdisciplinary work. At the moment, I could not imagine working on digital humanities research in any other way than in cooperation with other scholars; right now I am working with a pioneer in open research in computational molecular biology, Leo Lahti.

While digital humanities in a way represent something novel, it is the abovementioned route through the history of political thought that has led me to this path. When I began work on my doctoral thesis, I knew that the methodological foundation of my study should be expanded to include the history of books, and indeed when I was at Cambridge, I spent a considerable amount of time searching for new archive material to help me understand my topics of interest. Then I immediately thought that it must be possible to utilise the material stored on impractical microfilm in a more rational way using digital methods. On the other hand, the data in question has still not been digitised.

At times it enrages me to notice how little the humanities have advanced in the adoption of methods which are ultimately very simple. That is why I am extremely satisfied to be presently participating in the projects of the National Library and discussing the matter with the National Archives. I hope to do my part in furthering these things in Finland from the perspective of research in the humanities.

In my research, then, digital humanities are connected to the study of the history of political thought. Even though digital humanities now play a significant role in my daily activities, I still do not regret following the path of studies in the history of political thought and philosophy. You can’t change fowl into fish. The idea is to fly in a new direction, however.

For me, connecting the history of political thought and digital humanities means, for example, the possibility of seeing the entire ecology of early-modern European printing activity and drawing the development of publishing-related networks on a map. This brings a new perspective to what philosophy, history or theology are, how books as physical objects contain within them different kinds of thoughts and how this develops in the course of time. The end result can be, for example, new conclusions on the place of David Hume’s history of England in a modern historiographical context.

This still feels a scary thought, even though it is entirely achievable. At the same time, the basis for studying the history of political thought is turned upside down, both in terms of methodology and the question of what should be studied in the first place. When we include the huge potential of data mining, I don’t see why digital humanities should not be in the vanguard.

At a grass-roots level, we have already managed to build the foundation for constructing new infrastructure for the statistical use of library catalogues using distributed data processing. Especially with the British data, we are already quite far along the road, and are moving at a good pace towards an outline of Finnish early modern publishing through the National Biography of Finland.

The future will show where the paths of digital humanities and the history of political thought and philosophy will lead. Much positive progress is underway in various projects. I am particularly interested in the future because I believe interdisciplinary cooperation and new possibilities will also lead us to come knocking on new doors in the study of the history of political thought and philosophy. Who wouldn’t jump for joy at the possibility of investigating the development of early modern information production and how it spread, virus-like, in various forms?