Abstract

Fr. Roberto Busa was an Italian Jesuit. In this article his biography will briefly be presented, and some issues raised by his philosophy analyzed. Busa was known as a pioneer of computerized research in the humanities. With the support of IBM he constructed the Index Thomisticus, containing all the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. He believed that expressions of the human can be mathematically modeled. He was the originator of a specific conception of hypertext, in which logically structured programs are able to challenge the general linguistic mode of thinking, in order to make better communication and understanding possible. However, Busa was also con- scious of the general ethical problems involved (Babel), and he hoped that the basic logic of objects could progress towards the truth of being.