Although the topic of historical causation has occu-
pied philosophers and historians from early
times, the
discussions to which it has given rise have not con-
formed to any single continuous pattern or
theme. Like
other matters that have been the focus of perennial
theoretical controversy and dispute, and particularly
those falling within
the sphere of the human studies,
it has been approached from a variety of
directions
and examined in the light of a number of different
perspectives and interests; as a consequence debates
on the subject have
not infrequently been bedevilled
by misunderstanding and confusion. One
broad division
within the field may, however, be introduced at the
outset, its being convenient for the purposes of the
present article to
apply a familiar contemporary dis-
tinction
and to consider the principal issues raised
beneath two main headings.
Under the first we shall discuss substantive theories
of causation, such
theories being concerned, in one way
or another, with determining the
actual forces opera-
tive in history and with
trying to elicit the factors
ultimately responsible for historical
development and
change. Theories of this type are often associated
with
the speculative writings of classical philosophers of
history;
but they have also found expression—whether
explicitly or
implicitly—in the works of practicing
historians, informing
their methodology and influenc-
ing the
manner in which they have approached the
empirical data confronting them.
Under the second
heading we shall be concerned with a type of theory
that is of more recent origin and which is of an analyti-
cal or critical character. Here the questions
involved
have been of a conceptual rather than a factual nature,
having to do with the notion or category of causality
as it is commonly
employed within the context of
historical thought and discourse: the
problems raised
by this kind of investigation have not been related to
the workings of the historical process itself but have
pertained instead to
the explanatory concepts and
linguistic devices in terms of which
historians are ac-
customed to interpret the
events of which it is com-
posed. Yet, as will
emerge in the course of this survey,
the two types of enquiry have not
evolved inde-
pendently of one another,
there being in fact significant
connections discernible between them.
