Wesleyan University
Assessing Relative Causal Importance in History
Author(s): Andrus Pork
Source: History and Theory, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Feb., 1985), pp. 62-69
Published by: Wiley for Wesleyan University
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ASSESSING RELATIVE CAUSAL
IMPORTANCE IN HISTORY
ANDRUS PORK
The competing explanations of historians have recently attracted the attention
of philosophers of history in the English-speaking world. Examples are W. H.
Dray's writings, especially his analysis of causation in A. J. P. Taylor's account
of the Second World War;1 Alan Donagan's model of verifying alternative historical explanations;2 and M. Hammond's article about weighting causes in his-
torical explanation.3 The best analysis seems to be that of Raymond Martin,
who has done a good job in clarifying many key questions.4 He writes:
The work in the present study is a part of the larger program of clarifying the manner
in which historians attempt to show that one explanation is better than any competing
explanation. This program can be accomplished only through detailed studies of
significant instances of actual historical argumentation. Although the literature over the
last thirty years on historical explanation is voluminous, it contains very few such
studies and has barely scratched the surface of this program. In my opinion, there is
no more important work for critical philosophy of history in the 1980s.5
The attention devoted to competing explanations seems to mark one of the
turning points in the development of the English-speaking critical philosophy
of history. It undoubtedly contributes to making critical philosophy of history
more practical, more useful for the historians, because historians usually start
to ask philosophical or semi-philosophical questions when they quarrel over
whose explanation of a certain historical event is better.6
Competing explanations have also been recently studied by Marxist
philosophers of history in the Soviet Union, though most works devoted to the
problems of historical explanation are concerned with interpreting the covering
1. W. H. Dray, "Concepts of Causation in A. J. P. Taylor's Account of the Second World War,"
History and Theory 17 (1978), 149-174.
2. A. Donagan, "Alternative Historical Explanations and Their Verification," The Monist 53
(1969), 58-89.
3. M. Hammond, "Weighting Causes in Historical Explanation," Theoria 43 (1977), 103-128.
4. See, for example, R. Martin, "Beyond Positivism: A Research Program for Philosophy of History," Philosophy of Science 48 (1981), 112-121.
5. R. Martin, "Causes, Conditions, and Causal Importance," History and Theory 21 (1982), 74.
6. Of course, as was rightly pointed out by W. H. Dray, sometimes philosophers of history do
not think that they should be "useful" to historians at all. Cf. W. H. Dray, Perspectives on History
(London, 1980), 3.
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RELATIVE CAUSAL IMPORTANCE 63
law problem from the point of view of the Marxist notion of laws of history;
with distinguishing causal, structural, genetic, and other types of historical ex-
planation; with the implicit structure of historical explanation; and with distin-
guishing dynamic "stages" of explanation in the ~process of historical inquiry.7
My judgment is that studies of the problem of competing historical explanations offer good possibilities for an active dialogue and polemics between
Marxist and critical philosophy of history, and that both above-mentioned
schools of philosophy of history would benefit from this in spite of their
different approaches to many key ideological and epistemological questions.
The starting point of my analysis here is Raymond Martin's above-mentioned
article "Causes, Conditions and Causal Importance."8 This essay seems to be
the most profound representation of the current state of argument about competing historical explanations (more specifically, about one aspect of that larger
problem: the question of relative causal importance). My aim here is to clarify
some further points that arise if we try to apply Martin's scheme to the analysis
of cognitive situations in history.
Martin offers a philosophical interpretation of A. H. M. Jones's account of
the relative importance of the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire in the
West:
What follows is a philosophical evaluation of Jones's reasons for assigning greater rela-
tive importance as a cause of the fall to increased pressure from barbarians, during the
fourth and fifth centuries, than to other causes of the fall which Jones also recognizes.
(59)
One of the main results of this evaluation is Martin's statement (D2):
A was a more important cause of P relative to 0 than was B if (1) A and B were each
a cause relative to 0, and (2) either A was necessary for P or B was not necessary for
P, and (3) had B not occurred, something would have occurred which more closely approximates P than had A not occurred. (69)
Martin suggests that "it is possible to understand Jones's main assessment as
an instantiation of (D2)" (72). And this (if I understand Martin correctly) is
for him a point in favor of the thesis that historians' judgments which assign
relative importance to the causes of particular results are not invariably subjective.
I agree with the claim that historians can make objective judgments about
relative importance of causes but I think that some further questions must be
put about (D2).
7. See, for example, I. S. Kon, "K sporam o logike isotoricheskovo obyasneniya," Filosofskiye
problemy istoricheskoi nauki (Moscow, 1969), 263-296; E. Loone, Sovremennaia filosofiia istorii
(Tallinn, 1980), 182-198; A. Pork, Istoricheskoye obyasneniye (Tallinn, 1981); and A. I. Rakitov,
Istoricheskoye poznaniye (Moscow, 1982), 265-281.
8. Further references to this article will be given in the text.
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64
ANDRUS
PORK
II
How is it shown that Jones's main assessment about relative causal importance
is an instantiation of (D2)?
The general answer is very simple: Martin shows it through analysis of
Jones's explicit statements. But there is also a more specific aspect of Martin's
method: he tries to understand what is meaningful from Jones's (and other
historians') point of view. For example Martin tries to show that it is meaningful to use the notion "more closely approximates" in (D2):
Jones and most other historians of the fall routinely talk in ways which suggest that,
in their opinion, it is meaningful to say that some states more closely approximate
Rome's fall than do others. This is reflected, for example, in the hackneyed use of the
expression "the decline and fall of Rome" and more generally in the various ways in
which Rome's history from the first to the fifth century is characterized as progressive
stages of deterioration. Although such talk is neither precise nor perspicuous, it is
meaningful. And, if it is meaningful, then it is also meaningful to regard one state as
more closely approximating Rome's fall than another if it would have constituted a more
advanced state than the other in the process of deterioration which led to Rome's fall.
Thus, it is possible to understand Jones's main assessment as an instantiation of (D2). (72)
One may of course question how justified is the connection between the last
two sentences of Martin's passage. Does the fact that it is meaningful to say
that one state more closely approximates Rome's fall than another really give
considerable support to the counterfactual interpretation like (3) in (D2)?
There seem to be no explicit indications of a counterfactual style of thinking
in Jones's thought. But it is of course natural that philosophical analysis of an
historian's text includes some portion of construction: I do not want to quarrel
with that. The important thing is that the correspondence of Jones's statements
to (D2) is at least partially shown by demonstrating that in Jones's (and in most
other historians' of the fall) way of speaking it is meaningful to use notions
used in (D2).
In the following discussion I take it for granted that historians' assessments
of relative causal importance are quite frequently instantiations of (D2), although in some other context this claim may need further confirmation.
III
Is it meaningful to imagine that (D2) may be explicitly accepted by historians?
I think that if we take (D2) seriously, then the answer must be affirmative.
If Jones's main assessment is really an instantiation of (D2), if it "is typical of
a way in which good historians often attempt to justify judgments which assign
relative importance to causes" (74), then it must be meaningful to imagine that
something like (D2) can be explicitly accepted by (good) historians.
So we may at least theoretically suppose that some historians of the fall may
say, after studying (D2): "I use the notion 'A was a more important cause of
P than was B' in the sense (D2)" or "My assessment of the relative causal importance is an instantiation of (D2)."
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RELATIVE CAUSAL IMPORTANCE 65
IV
What will happen if (D2) is explicitly accepted by historians?
In other words, suppose that an historian tries to use the model (D2) ex-
plicitly and says something like this: "I have an opinion that the barbarian pres-
sure was a more important cause of the fall of the Roman Empire in the West
relative to the circumstances of the Empire in the West during the first two cen-
turies A.D. than was the decline in agricultural productivity if the following conditions are fulfilled: (1) the barbarian pressure and the decline in agricultural
productivity were each a cause of the fall relative to circumstances of the Empire during the first two centuries A.D.; (2) either the barbarian pressure was
necessary for the fall or the decline in agricultural productivity was not necesssary for the fall; and (3) had the fall in agricultural productivity not occurred,
something would have occurred which more closely approximates the fall than
had the barbarian pressure not occurred."
I think that the first reaction from other historians or philosophers would be
the following: "Well, you can employ the notion 'one cause was more important
than another' in this sense, but please tell us, how can you show that had the
fall in the agricultural productivity not occurred, something would have occurred which more closely approximates the fall than had the barbarian pressure not occurred?"
One answer to this question is indicated by Martin's text, namely: historians
can confirm counterfactual claims by using historical evidence. But perhaps it
is meaningful to try to outline some general pattern of how historians show or
attempt to show that counterfactual claims like (3) in (D2) are justified.
V
What is the epistemological pattern of how historians show (or attempt to
show) that counterfactual claims like (3) in (D2) are justified?
The best way to answer that question is not to develop yet another
philosophical, abstract, and strict theory of counterfactuals, but to look at
some historical writings where authors explicitly try to show that this sort of
counterfactual claim is justified. Although there is a vast philosophical literature about counterfactuals, there are practically no studies of real cases of
counterfactual thinking and writing in history. Perhaps this is partially explained by the fact that actually there are not so many cases of explicit counter-
factual thinking and writing in history. Or at least there are few cases of explicit
counterfactual argument in "traditional," non-mathematized, historical
writings, such as A. H. M. Jones's studies of Ancient Rome. Most cases of ex-
plicit counterfactual thinking appear in the writings that belong to the "new
economic history" where techniques of mathematical modelling are widely
used.9 But what we need here are examples from "traditional" historical
writings.
9. Cf. for example, R. F. Fogel, Railroads and American Economic Growth (Baltimore, 1964);
B. N. Mironov and Z. V. Stepanov, Istorik i matematika (Leningrad, 1975).
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66
ANDRUS
PORK
I did not manage to find any examples where an historian tries to show that
a claim exactly on the model of (3) in (D2) is justified. But there are cases where
historians try to justify counterfactual claims that have a more simple struc-
ture. I think that with the help of the analysis of these more simple cases we
can reconstructt the possible rationale behind the claims like (3) in (D2).
The most crucial element in that sort of counterfactual thinking seems to be
a reference to some other real historical situations. It appears clearly in the explanation given by V. T. Pashuto of the end of the Mongol invasion of Eastern
Europe."0 As is well known, after destroying Kiev in 1240, the Mongol army
under the leadership of Khan Batu moved to the West, defeating in 1241 the
German-Polish army of knights in the battle of Liegnitz and the Hungarian
army in the battle of the Sajo river. The Mongols conquered one region after
another and the whole of Europe was in great danger. Finally the Mongol
cavalry reached the Adriatic sea and was ready to invade Italy, when the
Mongols suddenly decided to turn back. Historians have always been puzzled
by this decision and offered explanations for it. One of the most popular explanations connects the Mongols' retreat with the death of Ugedei, the Great
Khan (the supreme ruler of all Mongols) in Karakorum on 11 November 1241,
and with the need for Batu to go back for dynastic reasons for the election of
a new Great Khan. Pashuto challenges this explanation. Had Ugedei's death
been the main cause of Batu's return, he says, there would have been no need
to turn back the whole army. Had Batu had a stronger army and had there been
less intensive resistance in Russia and in the conquered areas of Eastern Europe,
his army would have stayed, because another Mongol Khan, Hulagu, who
heard the news about Ugedei's death in a similar situation, left his army near
Damascus and returned almost alone." As I said, this is not exactly the case
that is reflected in Martin's (D2), but nevertheless we can learn something from
it: confronted with the problem of justification of the counterfactual state-
ment, historians usually intuitively try to find for a comparison some other real
situation (for example Hulagu's situation) which in some important respect is
similar to the possible situation reflected in the counterfactual claim (for ex-
ample Batu's situation, had his army been stronger and the resistance less intense).
VI
It is of course not wise to generalize from only one example; but similar patterns appear also in some other historical writings. Take, for example, the
peasant wars in Russia. There were three peasant wars or very great uprisings
in Russia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: 1606-1607, 1667-1671,
and 1773-1775. They all were defeated by government troops. But what would
10. V. T. Pashuto, "Mongolski podhod v glub Evropy" in Tataro-Mongoly v Azii i v Evrope
(Moscow, 1977), 210-277.
11. Ibid., 222.
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RELATIVE CAUSAL IMPORTANCE 67
have happened if they had been victorious? V. V. Mavrodin asks this question
in his study on the nature of these peasant wars. 12 He thinks that it would have
been possible to establish for some period a peculiar moderate "cossack" feudal
system. As a prototype of such a possible system Mavrodin takes a situation
in the Ukraine in the seventeenth century during the national liberation war
under the leadership of Bogdan Hmelnitski and during some decades after its
end. Again we see an attempt to find some sufficiently similar real historical situation.
Perhaps one of the very few cases in historiography where an explicit coun-
terfactual claim has been for a long time in the center of a discussion can be
found in the history of the industrialization of the USSR. There is a conception
in Western historiography and political science that had there been no socialist
economic management in the USSR from 1917, the rate of the industrial
growth would have been approximately the same. A Soviet historian, V. I.
Tetyushev, says explicitly that to analyze such a statement we have to compare
"first, the rates of Russia's industrial development before and after 1917, and
secondly, the rates of industrialization in the USSR and advanced capitalist
countries."13 And he proceeds to compare the rates of industrial growth in the
USSR from 1918 to 1966 and in some other historical situations: in Russia from
1885 to 1913, in the USA, in England, and in France.14 From the fact that the
rates of industrial growth in these other comparable historical situations were
lower than in the USSR from 1918 to 1966, Tetyushev reaches the conclusion
that there would have been no such industrial growth in the USSR, had there
been no socialist economic system. As we can see, the historian relies again on
comparisons with real historical situations.
VIII
What we have to do now, I believe, is to take these explicit structures of histor-
ical discussion, put ourselves "into the historian's place," use our intuition and
logical thinking, and try to find a more general epistemological pattern, connecting these structures with (D2).
There are three more or less explicit structures of historical discussion at our
disposal:
(Cl) Had A (the relative weakness of Batu's army, compared with the
strength of the struggle of Russian and Eastern European people) not occurred,
P (the retreat of Batu's army) would have not occurred because in the case Z
(Hulagu) a factor like A was less critical and PNA (the army stayed) occurred.
12. V. V. Mavrodin, "Po povodu kharaktera i istoricheskovo znacheniya krestyanskih voin v
Rossii" in Krestyanskiye voiny v Rossii XVII-XVIII vekov: problem, poiski, resheniya (Moscow,
1974), 35-51.
13. V. I. Tetyushev, Socialisticheskoye preobrazovaniye ekonomiki SSR i burzhuaznye "kritiki"
(Moscow, 1978), 136.
14. Ibid., 137-154.
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68
ANDRUS
PORK
(C2) Had A (the peasant rebels' victory) occurred, something like P (the
"cossack feudalism") would have occurred because in the case Z (Hmelnitski's
victory) something like A occurred and P occurred.
(C3) Had A (the socialist economic system) not occurred, P (the high rate
of the USSR's industrial growth) would have not occurred because in the cases
Z,, . . ., Zn (Russia 1885-1913, the USA, England, France) a factor like A did
not occur and PNA (a much slower rate of industrial growth) occurred.
As was already stated above, there is one common feature in all these cases
(C1)-(C3): the historian's attempt tofind a real historical stiuation(s) that is
sufficiently similar to the envisaged counterfactual situation (for example,
Hmelnitski's victory and the possible counterfactual situation of the peasant
rebels' victory) and to compare them. It is hard to imagine how historians can
draw such comparisons, unless they tacitly admit that the actual historical situ-
ation under study, the hypothetical counterfactual situation, and the comparison situations) all belong to the same type of historical situation. Now if we
take (D2) as granted and if we apply to it the principles that appear in
(C1)-(C3), then we reach the following scheme (D3), or at least something quite
like it:
(D3) A was a more important cause of P relative to 5? than was B if
(1) A and B were each a cause of P relative to 0, and
(2) either A was necessary for P or B was not necessary for P, and
(3) had B not occurred, something would have occurred which more closely approximates P than had A not occurred, because
(4) the actual historical situation, the hypothetical counterfactual situations, and the
real comparison-situations are all historical situations of the type Z, and in the situations of the type Z
(5) where causes like A did not occur and causes like B did occur, something like PNA
occurred, and
(6) where causes like A did occur and causes like B did not occur, something like PA
occurred, and
(7) PA more closely approximates P than PNA.
I think that (4)-(7) further specify the intuitively acceptable sense of "A was
a more important cause of P than B." Or to put it in another way, I think that
if we ask an historian who has explicitly admitted that he uses the notion of
"A was a more important cause of P than B" in a sense (D2) the question put
at the end of the paragraph IV (how can you show that had B not occurred,
something would have occurred which more closely approximates P than had
A not occurred?), and if the historian has enough factual material at his disposal, then his further explicit discussion of the matter will follow the pattern
reflected in (4)-(7), or something quite like it. For example, if an historian says
that A (the socialist economic system) was in a sense (D2) a more important
cause of P (the rate of industrial growth in the USSR after 1917) than B (the
rich natural resources of the USSR), and if he is asked how he can show that,
then the most likely way of further discussion follows the pattern (4)-(7). This
historian will probably try to find examples of socialist countries with poor nat-
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RELATIVE CAUSAL IMPORTANCE 69
ural resources and rapid industrial growth rates, and, on the other hand, examples of nonsocialist countries with rich natural resources and low rates of
industrial growth. Of course, the historian's cognitive situations may be
different: there is more historical evidence available when we deal with modern
history and usually less when we deal with the problems like Batu's retreat or
Rome's fall. In these latter cases historians may be compelled to follow some
truncated version of (D3). But even in these latter cases, (D3) (or something like
it) may help us to understand how the historian's claims are substantiated in
a given evidential situation, and what would have been the likely epistemological pattern of the historian's further explicit discussion, had he had more historical evidence for such a discussion.
Of course, as is inevitable in philosophy, the next level of analysis (D3) is as
open for further interpretations and specifications as was (D2). For example,
we may ask now: "How do we know that the actual historical situation, the
counterfactual situations, and the real comparison situations are similar in relevant aspects?" "On what basis can one say that in (D3) (5)-(7) give support to
(3)?" Perhaps we must now proceed to find intuitively acceptable senses of such
notions as "similarity," "to give support to," and others. Naturally, we have to
do that again through the analysis of real cases of historical thinking and
writing. But this analysis will certainly lead us to a next set of questions and
so on. The only possibility seems to be to admit frankly that any philosophical
statement inevitably raises further important questions that will remain unan-
swered within the framework of this statement. At the same time it is always
possible to declare in general form an author's view about the possible develop-
ment of the argument. For example, I think that if we were to develop (D4) to
overcome the shortcomings of (D3), and then similarly develop (D5), (D6),
(D7), and so on, then at some stage we will reach a statement that gives sub-
stantial support to the Marxist claim that history is a scientifically analyzable,
law-governed process. But to reach that statement step by step, not an article
but a lengthy book is needed.
Institute of History,
Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR.
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