ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes some fundamental characteristics of models and the process of building models, or modeling, with the aim of establishing the role of the subjectivity and its counterpart, objectivity, in modeling within the digital humanities (DH). Modeling can be considered one of the DH primitives, and in fact the activity of analyzing and modeling some humanities domain or domains with the purpose of making them processable by a computer represents one of their defining characteristics. In the humanities we are not used to the words “model” and “modeling” employed in this particular sense, but nevertheless the elaboration of a particular model of an object of study is the preliminary, implicit activity that lies at the basis of most analytical endeavors. Every analytical activity is based on a model and produces a model. A model is thus always built from a certain point of view, trying to respond to a specific research need or epistemological enquiry.
