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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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What, if anything, underlies the course of history
as a whole? What are the fundamental or real deter-
minants of historical change? Can any one factor be
picked out as being of preeminent importance? Is it
possible to formulate causal laws that hold universally
throughout the domain of historical experience? What
is the role of human thought and decision in history,
and how far is it justifiable to impute moral respon-
sibility for their actions to individual historical figures?
Is it legitimate to regard accident or chance as playing
a significant part in deciding the direction taken by
historical events? Is historical determinism true, and
if so what are its implications? These constitute some
of the questions that have been asked by theorists
preoccupied by the problem of giving an account of
causality as it manifests itself within the field of the
human past. Not only have they generated a host of
diverse and often conflicting answers; they have also
been raised at different levels of enquiry and with
distinguishable considerations in mind.