Plausible Worlds
Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social Sciences

Examples through history used to examine the role of possible worlds in explanation and practical judgements.

Geoffrey Hawthorn (Author)

9780521457767, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 18 November 1993

208 pages
21.6 x 13.6 x 1.2 cm, 0.227 kg

'This volume is a marvelously stimulating and thought provoking work. It ought to be on the reading lists of advanced courses on both the theory and the methodology of history writing.' Allan Megill, The American Historical Review

Possibilities haunt history. The force of our explanations of events turns on the alternative possibilities these explanations suggest. It is these possible worlds which give us our understanding; and in human affairs we decide them by practical rather than theoretical judgement. In his widely acclaimed account of the role of counterfactuals in explanation, Geoffrey Hawthorn deploys extended examples from history and modern times to defend his argument. His conclusions cast doubt on existing assumptions about the nature and place of theory, and indeed of the possibility of knowledge itself, in the human sciences.

1. Counterfactuals, explanation and understanding
2. Plague and fertility in early modern Europe
3. The United States in South Korea
4. Duccio's painting
5. Explanation, understanding and theory.

Subject Areas: Social & political philosophy [HPS]