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By Michael Glass<\/p>\n
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The digital humanities do not have a central place in philosophy, and so much of my work starting out has been learning the tools of stylometric analysis and also trying to see what has been done with those tools. Stylometry is the use of statistical tools (such as on word frequency) to measure the style of a work and compare it with the style of other works. As I have been teaching myself, I have had exposure to some of the primary literature (such as the paper in which Burrows proposed his \u2018Delta\u2019 procedure, an important tool). But what I have found most interesting so far are the debates surrounding the use of stylometric analysis in philosophy.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Where stylometry has seen its greatest use thus far is in Plato scholarship, where it has been used in an attempt to determine the order of Plato\u2019s works. For a large part of the twentieth century, a dominant theory was that Plato\u2019s works could be interpreted as belonging to an early, middle, and late period. The idea is that each of these periods could be understood as distinct phases which should be interpreted together. But then it would matter what order Plato\u2019s works were written in. Much disagreement centered on the <\/span><\/span>Timaeus<\/i><\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The debate over the <\/span><\/span>Timaeus<\/i><\/span><\/span> was viewed by G.E.L. Owen (1953) as determining whether Plato still held to his metaphysics in the late period. Owen interpreted Plato as abandoning his metaphysical views (due to an argument in the <\/span><\/span>Protagoras<\/i><\/span><\/span>), but the <\/span><\/span>Timaeus<\/i><\/span><\/span> retains them. Therefore, Owen thought, the <\/span><\/span>Timaeus<\/i><\/span><\/span> must be before the <\/span><\/span>Protagoras<\/i><\/span><\/span>, and must be a work of Plato\u2019s middle period. This flew in the face of common wisdom at the time, as stylometrists agreed that the <\/span><\/span>Timaeus<\/i><\/span><\/span> was one of Plato\u2019s latest works. Owen declared them wrong, and argued that the philosophical arguments should take precedence over the stylometric work.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Against Owens, H.F. Cherniss (1957) defended the stylometrists, saying that Owen\u2019s criticisms were baseless. Further, Cherniss attempted to show problems with Owen\u2019s philosophical arguments, saying that Owen had missed the details of Plato\u2019s arguments, and that Plato maintained his metaphysical views up to the end of his life. Owen, Cherniss argued, wanted Plato\u2019s views to look like his own, and misinterpreted Plato on that basis.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n