Digital Methods and the Evolution of the Epistemology of Social Sciences

After ten years that the debate on big data, computation and digital methods has been a contested epistemological terrain between some who were generally optimistic, and others who were generally critical, a large group of scholars, nowadays, supports an active commitment by social scientists to face the digital dimension of social inquiry. The progressive use of digital methods needs to be sustained by an abductive, intersubjective and plural epistemological framework that allows to profitably include big data and computation within the different paradigmatic traditions that coexist in our disciplines. In order to affirm this digital epistemology it is critical to adopt a methodological posture able to elaborate research designs with and against the digital, trying to exploit what digital techniques can give as added value, but going to test their reliability, alongside others techniques, including qualitative ones.