What If? Modality and History

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4496444
AutoresJohannes Bulhof (Gettysburg College, autor correspondente)
Ano1999
Volume38
Fascículo2
Páginas145-168
Data de publicação1999-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoHistory and Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/0018-2656.00084
OpenAlexW2051329159
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas15

Philosophers and historians have long been suspicious of modal and counterfactual claims. I argue, however, that historians often legitimately use modal and counterfactual claims for a variety of purposes. They help identify causes, and hence help explain events in history. They are used to defend judgments about people, and to highlight the importance of particular events. I defend these uses of modal claims against two arguments often used to criticize modal reasoning, using the philosophy of science to ground the truth of modal claims. This analysis puts several important points into perspective, including how certain we can be about our claims about what might have been, and the role that determinism plays in those claims. The proper analysis of modality shows, I argue, that counterfactual claims are legitimate and important, if often uncertain, and that issues of determinism are irrelevant to the modal claims used in historical analysis

Causation · Counterfactual conditional · Counterfactual thinking · Determinism · Economics · Epistemology · Modal · Modality (human–computer interaction) · Perspective (graphical) · Positive economics · Possible world · Variety (cybernetics) · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · History of Science and Medicine · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science