Hobbes and “A Discourse of Laws

The Perils of Wordprint Analysis

Bibliographic Data

ID6401116
AuthorsJohn C Fortier (corresponding author)
Year1997
Volume59
Issue4
Pages861-888
Publication date1997-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670500028357
OpenAlexW1969125833
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited13

John Hilton, Noel Reynolds, and Arlene Saxonhouse have employed statistical authorship analysis to claim that Hobbes authored three anonymously published works. But the authors of the study were not aware of close textual parallels between one discourse and a recently discovered work of Francis Bacon which argue against this attribution and call attention to deficiencies in the method of proof. Compounding this difficulty, they could not determine the stylistic pattern of Bacon, who is a candidate for authorship of the three discourses. It can be concluded that the authorship of at least one of the discourses is still a mystery, and that while the science of statistical wordprint analysis has advanced significantly over the past thirty years, it still has limitations which must be taken into account in any authorship study

Attribution · Authorship attribution · Epistemology · Linguistics · Parallels · Political science · Sociology · Statistical analysis · Statistics · Authorship Attribution and Profiling · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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