Why the statement “the digital humanities have no theory” is a liar’s paradox

In philosophy, “liar’s paradoxes” are a category of self-denying statements that have been known and studied for more than two millennia. Figuratively, operating with a liar’s paradox is like pulling the rug under your own feet. The statement that the digital humanities have no theory (no-theory-statement) falls into this same category of paradoxes. The paradox is that this no-theory-statement is in itself a theoretical statement, a “no-theory-theoretical-statement,” or more simply a “no-theory-theory.” The theory denies its own existence and is therefore self-denying. The same conclusions can also be reached over another path of reasoning. The statement that the digital humanities have no theory logically means that the digital humanities cannot make any theoretical statement. This leaves us with a “no-theoretical-statement-statement,” or simply, a “no-statement-statement,” which is again self-denying. The consequence of self-denial is devastating for any scientific theory. As a consequence of self-denial, the no-theory-statement cannot make any predictions and must therefore remain untestable. This present article follows the no-theory-statement, as a liar’s paradox, from the end of the 19th century and from controversies around Vilfredo Pareto’s statistics to sociology with Pierre Bourdieu, and to present-day digital humanities.