Why Computational Humanities needs falsifiable theories

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Computational humanities has powerful tools and abundant data, but too little research tests falsifiable theories. We argue for a shift: dedicating a share of research effort to theory-driven hypothesis testing, coexisting with descriptive scholarship and exploration. We review some past attempts at building theory-driven research programmes in the humanities and outside of them, some successful, some not. Successful turns towards theory-driven research do not diminish the relevance or importance of descriptive work but make it more focused. We show how emerging theories can supply predictive frameworks usable by computational humanities and outline practical steps for bridging gaps between theory-driven and descriptive research programmes.