Using Counterfactual Analysis for Providing Historical Explanations in Social Sciences

علوم اجتماعی دانشگاه فردوسی مشهد

Article 4, Volume 7, Issue 1 - Serial Number 15, September 2010   

Document Type: Scientific-Research

DOI: 10.22067/jss.v0i0.8779

Author

Mohammad Reza Taleban^*

Abstract

Counterfactual analysis is concerned with explaining events that have not happened. Counterfactuals are mental experiments through which one can reconstruct hypothetical versions of the history in one’s mind; these versions are relatively different from the real history, but provide one with the opportunity to test historical hypotheses against the available evidence. Historicist researchers in social sciences often aim to account for certain results in few cases. In this paper it is argued that such historical accounts are usually based on counterfactual analysis. In other words, to study the causal chains in the past or to evaluate an historical account, one has no way but to resort to counterfactual reasoning. Four types of causality in historical explanations namely necessary and insufficient, sufficient and unnecessary, necessary and sufficient, and unnecessary and insufficient and their relationship with counterfactual analysis are elaborated. In counterfactual analysis, the sequences and interconnected causal factors are used to account for interconnected historical events that unfold in time and space. Finally, the significance of counterfactuals for testing causal hypotheses in social science studies which are of an historical nature is discussed.

Keywords

Counterfactual analysis; historical explanation; types of causality; causal chain; hypothesis testing in historical studies

References