Counterfactual History and History in Fergussons View - Essay Example

History Today Prepared by Submitted to Length 1371 words Introduction The causal ordering is defined in a complete structure. In history the compilation of the answers for the ‘what if’ questions for the incidents in the history can be termed as counterfactual cause. There will be a question about its identification in the mechanisms of a system. There are several techniques to identify the accomplishment. The explication of causal ordering is used to analyse the causal counterfactual conditionals, which are explicitly used Ferguson. The counterfactual proposition can be articulated through the device of a belief contravening supposition. The causal ordering follows to provide modal categories for the factual propositions. In this system the logical contradiction is resolved by ordering the factual propositions. These will be according to the causal categories. 1 The counterfactual cause involves the unconventional views from the point of Niall Ferguson a Scottish Historian. These views are regarding the imperialism and the origins of conflict in the twentieth century. He is a specialist in financial and economic history. His recent publication is ‘The War of the World” in 2006. He has become historian inspired by AJP Taylor. Ferguson’s significance lies in his well versed nature in economic matters as he was in history matters. He wrote a book named cash nexus arguing that the money makes the world go around is wrong and proved that the human actins are more important for history to go around. He feels that the US is not sufficiently in the affairs of the world. In his books Colossus and Empire, he shows potential virtues of US when compared to British Empire. He also analyzed the World War I that generated much controversy. In that he suggested that it could have been more beneficial to Europe if Britain has stayed out of the war by Germany making a win. 2 2. Counterfactual History 2.1Fergusson’s Significance: He is considered as a leading champion of counterfactual history that involves the counterfactual cause. It is because he likes to imagine alternative outcomes as a way of stressing the contingency aspects in the history. According to his counterfactual causal analysis of history, the great forces are not only responsible for the history and in fact the individual’s doings pre determine the course of history. He argues that the world is neither progressing nor regressing. His view is that the actions of individuals will determine the better or worse world. His book the war of the world explains the violent 20th century. According to his argument the economic volatility, ethnic conflict and the collapse of the empires can be blamed for the majority of the mass killings. The genocides during the last hundred years also are a consequence of the fall of empires according to his view. The peers of him praise him as unrivaled range due to productivity and visibility he expressed in his works. The counterfactual cause he used has discussed the subjects with spirit, reason and evidentiary forces. No other historian rivaled him in this way of analyzing. His significance is combining a prodigious output with clear, fluent writing and the all too rare ability to mix the economic analysis with the politics. 2.2 History in Fergusson’s view: Fergusson consider the counterfactual history as virtual history. This is a recent form of the history that attempts to answer ‘what if’ questions. These questions are known as counterfactuals. Fergusson tried to ascertain the relative importance of the events, incidents or person the counterfactual hypothesis is negating. For example he supported the Iraq invasion and contradicts with the subsequent consequences. The negation present in the acceptance in this form. He can answer the question “what if the Iraq was not invaded?” or “what if after the Iraq invasion the forces are withdrawn?” He increased the relative importance of the event, incident or the person negated by counterfactual hypothesis. He can answer the question “what would have happened had Hitler died in July, 1944 assassination attempt.” In this manner Fergusson can bring into sharp belief the importance of any person as an individual and how his personal fate shaped the course of the incidents recorded. 3 2.3 Beginning of counterfactual history: The exploration of counterfactuals in history has begun in the late 20th century. A significant foray into treating counterfactual scenarios made by Fergusson used both quantitative and qualitative methods to imagine the history. The book ‘plausible worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social Sciences’ by Geoggrey Hawthorn inspired the Ferguson as this explored three different counterfactual scenarios. The ‘Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals’ tackles the controversial topic of counterfactual causal case. Ferguson selected a controversial topic of “what if Hitler had invaded Britain in WWII?” In one of the essay he also discussed the issue of survival of the John F Kennedy. Another controversial question is that “what had been no Gorbachev to usher the collapse of communism?” The importance issue in counterfactual cause in Ferguson analysis is that the he took individual’s doings as a reason for the happenings of the events in the history and discussed what would happen if they did not act so. This made the history a personal matter of every body and some fiction and creativity involved in it made it interesting to study and read by scholars and ordinary readers respectively. He distinguished the collaborators who lodged some convincing counterfactuals of their own to counter this arguably blinkered the notion. The main distinguished feature in his works is that he personalized the questions he answered in his articles and books. Unlike the earlier historians who analysed through questions from the view of nations and groups, he questioned the contexts on the basis of individuals whose decisions resulted in dire consequences and good victories. The civil war in Europe was personalized by his question “What if Charles I had avoided the civil war?” He also posed the questions like “what if Home rule had been enacted in 1912 in Ireland?”, and “what if Britain had stood aside?” in August 1914. Though the last two questions seem to be not individually oriented, the answers are given in that manner. The reading about the decisions of the individuals will be lighter than the analysis of collective decisions. This making up a lighter vein of the history made innumerous number of people to read his works and admire him. The complexity of history was made simple to make the incidents in history nearer to the hearts of the common people. Fergusson structured the answers for fictional questions in the manner of the consequences for the decisions of the individuals. He stimulated the readers’ minds with delightful afterword as his writings will be different from the others. The people will become familiar with the history and even like to read it if both the probabilities in the context of a particular point in history are displayed in an interesting manner. In that way he became a significant advocate of counterfactual history. He used counterfactual scenarios to illustrate his objections to deterministic theories of history such as Marxism. In this context he has put forward a case for the importance of contingency in history. This is a new angle of studying or analyzing the history. This resulted in few key changes resulted in a significant change of view in the modern world. 4 In the hands of Ferguson the counterfactual history did not exhibit or displayed the historical revisionism or negativism. Instead of that the works of him inculcated a positive sense of understanding the history. He is interested in seeking to evaluate its historical importance by means of the counterfactual. In that way he provided reasoned and interested arguments (all reasons may not be interesting and this is the significance of Ferguson) for each change and the changes usually outlined in broad terms. As a fiction writer he is free to invent very specific events and characters in the imagined history. Though some historians with traditional view will dismiss the Ferguson’s view of counterfactual history as entertaining, it is not complex. This is even understandable and helps the reader to react differently and according to the need by taking the clue from the history to the present circumstances. Instead of presenting the history as it is form, Ferguson added a spice of “what if “ to it and mastered in answering it.5 References: 1. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/378900&erFrom=-4302289979169488821Guest 2. Herbert A. Simon, Nicholas Rescher, 1966, cause and counterfactual, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 33, No. 4 pp. 323-340, electronic, 20-8-07, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248(196612)33%3A4%3C323%3ACAC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S 3. Answers.com, 2007, Niall Fergusson, Answers.com, ,electronic, 20-8-07, http://www.answers.com/topic/niall-ferguson 4. Answers.com, 2007, Counterfactual history, Answers.com, ,electronic, 20-8-07, http://www.answers.com/topic/counterfactual-history 5. mediawiki, 2007, counterfactual history, answers.com, ,electronic, 20-8-07, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_history 6. Alan Riding, 2007, review, Amazon.com, ,electronic, 20-8-07, http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-History-Counterfactuals-Niall-Ferguson/dp/0465023231 Read More