The future of the Humanities will also depend on whether the Digital Humanities can be accepted as serious players and participants in humanities research. This, however, requires a correction of a well-known self-image that absolutizes hermeneutics and interpretation as humanity’s key methodologies. The future viability of the digital humanities, in turn, will depend on its willingness to apply the potential of critical reflection to its own digital methods and instruments. 

The ‘sting of the digital’ thus consists of initiating an urgent revision of humanities’ self-image. A revision that allows the Digital Humanities to be acknowledged not as a threatening replacement, but as a meaningful complement to the humanities repertoire of methods. But what role can quantified, data-driven procedures actually fulfill in research within the Humanities?