Exploring Historical Causation :: World History

Exploring Historical Causation in that location is a large number of theories close to what causes historical events to happen. And without doubt there are in fact numerous different kinds of causes. It seems to me that the danger lies in espousing any(prenominal) one particular vitrine of cause to the exclusion of all others, for there potty be few, if any, events of which it can truly be said that they had but one single cause. It leave however be interesting to see whether we can find any common thread running through or underlying or so of these theories. Let me clear one bit of undergrowth before deprivation further. Many of the views and arguments about historical causation bear a slopped resemblance to arguments about free will and determinism. It is not possible exclusively to isolate a discussion of historical causes from this wider question, but it will be helpful if we concentrate our minds on the matter of likely or veritable reasons why certain things happene d, and as far as we are able, head off a tendency to collapse the argument back into any views we whitethorn hold on determinism. In offering this warning, I am promote by E H Carrs comment that arguments about accident in history are not to be confused with arguments about determinism. What because have historians and philosophers of history thought were the factors in historical causation? there are the big ideas of history, which we might call Great Causes. The list is long. There is the Will of God the cyclical nature of history the iterative Hegelian process by which Man moves progressively towards the ideal state of independence and self-awareness similar ideas in Eastern philosophy the Marxist economic mixed of Hegels ideas the everlasting law of the Stoics Adam Smiths invisible hand blind Darwinian evolution Montesquieus belief that history is the result of geography and climate. And there is bedlam theory while this is in large measure about ageless random happenings , they are nonetheless supposed to be contained inwardly about overall scheme. The flap of a butterflys wings may result in a hurricane a week later, but according to the theory, that is to be seen as a random event which triggers off something taking place within this wider context. It is not difficult to ridicule rigid interpretations of Great Causes, and Bertrand Russell memorably did so when he traced the cause of industrialism back by way of Galileo and Copernicus, of the Renaissance, the fall of Constantinople and the migration of the Turks, to the dessication of exchange Asia.