__________________________________________________________________ Alfonso Martínez Ruiz Causal Explanation and Narrative in Historiography : A Chronicle According to the philosophy of history propounded during the 19th century by Adolphe Quetelet and Henry Thomas Buckle , unbiased , verifiable historical narrative would be the outcome of following “ the methods of natural science which operate with causal laws ” ( Cohen 1942 , 12 ). Quetelet , for example , considered that statistical research concerning social phenomena such as prosecution of witchcraft , and torture and death for religious opinions , pertains “ to the history of nations , and will assist us in determining their laws of development ” ( 1842 , 79-80 ; emphasis added ). He also spoke of the average person and how , through statistical analysis , we can discover the laws governing social phenomena . These laws would allow legislators and politicians alike to ameliorate social evils . 1 Buckle 1 Quetelet ´ s main work , A Treatise on Man and the Development of His Faculties ( 1842 ) has the telling subtitle Social Physics . According to Hayek , the positivistic approach to history began with Condorcet ( 1743-1794 ), who considered that “ to establish laws which will enable us to predict the future , history must cease to be a history of individuals and must become a history of the masses , must at the same time cease to be a record of individual facts but must become based on systematic observation ” ( Hayek 1941 , 13 ). This via regia to historical analysis would permit , according to Condorcet ‟ s followers , the improvement of social structures and the bet- ( who considered that historians were inferior in „ mental power ‟ to physicists and mathematicians ) declared : In the whole literature of Europe there are not more than three or four really original works which contain a systematic attempt to investigate the history of man according to those exhaustive methods which in other branches of knowledge [ natural sciences ] have proved successful , and by which alone empirical observations can be raised to scientific truths ( Buckle 1869 , 4 ; emphasis added ). The idea that natural science proceeds by induction in discovering natural laws (“ empirical observations raised to scientific truths ”) ruled unhindered at the time Quetelet and Buckle wrote . From that perspective , the first task of the “ scientific ” historian should consist in the careful accumulation of data that eventually will show existing correlations among events . Once a correlation was found , the histoterment of the human condition . ( But they forgot that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions !) Alfonso Martínez Ruiz estudió economía en la Universidad Francisco Marroquín y en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México . Durante veinte años ocupó el cargo de economista asesor en USAID / Guatemala . Ha sido profesor de economía y de econometría en varias universidades del país . Laissez-Faire , No . 36-37 ( Marzo-Sept 2012 ): 23-36

__________________________________________________________________ rian could proceed , following John Stuart Mill ‟ s “ canons of induction ,” to find the desired causal connections . 2 A century after Buckle and Quetelet published their works , a new wave of philosophers of science and of historians began promoting again positivism as the only worthy way of writing history . A prominent example is Frederick Teggart ‟ s study of the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire — Rome and China : A Study of Correlations in Historical Events ( 1939 , note the title !). After an extensive and painstaking investigation , Teggart discovered that , during the period covering the years 58 B . C . to A . D . 107 , wars in Asia and barbarian invasions in Europe were highly correlated . He became overjoyed for his discovery : “ The discovery that certain sets of events — wars in Asia and barbarian invasions in Europe — are correlated is a matter of unusual importance , for it demonstrates the existence of a type of order of historical facts which has not hitherto received attention .” 3 He then devoted himself to discovering the cause ( or causes ) of those 2 Unfortunately , this is not the way of science . In any case , Quetelet and Buckle were proceeding by what Max Black termed “ adduction ,” which is the “ non-logical operation of leaping from the chaos that is the real world to a hunch or tentative conjecture about the actual relationship that holds between the set of relevant variables ” ( Blaug 1997 , 17 ). And this hunch or conjecture comes from an act of intuition or of genius , and not by the application of rules of any sort . 3 In reaching his conclusion , Teggart followed ( I surmise ) Mill ‟ s Method of Agreement : “ If two or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one circumstance in common , the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree , is the cause ( or effect ) of the given phenomenon ” ( Mill 1859 , correlations . Finally , he found that “ the correspondence of wars in the East and the invasions in the West had been due to interruptions of trade ” between China and Rome ( Teggart 1942 , 9 ). The historian and philosopher of science , Edgar Zilsel , referring to Teggart ‟ s findings wrote : “ With the necessary scientific accuracy a historical law has been given for the first time ” ( 1941 , 575 ). Teggart , of course , dismissed traditional methods of historiography as unscientific . He wrote , “ With whatever care the facts are sifted , with whatever sincerity they are subsequently presented , narrative statement remains art , and , as such , is not science ” ( 1925 , 32 ). Writing during World War II , he was anxious to find historical laws conducive to the abolition of tyrants and of wars . He went so far as to declare that “[ a ] s a contribution to the study of „ causation ,‟ we need [ historical ] investigations , based upon comparison of instances , of the conditions under which Caesars , Bonapartes , and Hitlers arise ” ( Teggart 1942 , 4 ). In his distress and in his ambition to help build a better world , he went so far as to transplant his conclusion concerning the barbarian invasions of Rome to a completely different historical environment , thousands of years apart from the field of his original investigations . Thus , he wrote , “ I am disposed to believe that interruptions of trade still continue to be a most important factor in creating disturbances throughout the world ” ( 1942 , 10 ). 4 4 It is interesting to recall what Mises had to say in this regard : “ These British liberals [ of the Manchester School ] and their continental friends were keen enough to realize that what can safeguard durable peace is not simply government by the people , but government by the people under unlimited laissez faire . In their eyes free trade , both in domestic affairs 224 ). and in international relations , was the neces- __________________________________________________________________ 24

__________________________________________________________________ Zilsel , despite his admiration for Teggart , considered that the law found by him holds for “ late antiquity only [ but that ] this does not impair its scientific value ” ( 1941 , 575n ). In addition ( according to Zilsel ), Teggart had shown the way for all future discoveries of historical laws : “ The investigator of historical laws must collect , interpret , and compare an immense and highly complex [ historical ] material … [ b ] y collecting and comparing [ this ] material with philological accuracy historical laws will be discovered ” ( 1941 , 578-79 ). 5 An almost perfect description — applied to historiography — of what formerly was considered as the way of all science . 6 Teggart , however , made a more lasting and valuable contribution to historiography when he insisted that historians should not restrict themselves to historical narrative but should study historical problems : “ Science is , fundamentally , a method of dealing with problems , and the initial step in any scientific undertaking is the determination of the problem to be investigated ” ( Teggart 1918 , 1 ). 7 sary prerequisite of the preservation of peace ” ( Mises 1963 , 823 ). 5 Zilsel forgets that “ no process of reasoning whatsoever can , with logical certainty , enlarge the empirical content of the statements out of which it issues ” ( Medawar 1969 , 24 ). 6 The historian C . H . Haskins had given in 1923 a relatively simple example of how to apply the inductive method to historical analysis . In his The Rise of Universities he states : “ … the mass is much diversified in time and space , so that generalization is difficult … It would be impossible to make a true picture out of elements drawn indiscriminately from such disparate sources . Until the conditions at each university of the Middle Ages shall have been studied chronologically , no sound account of student life in general can be written … .” ( Haskins 1923 , 80 ). The philosopher of science Morris Cohen , however , was one of the first to disagree with Professor Teggart ‟ s inductive approach to historiography . “ Keep in mind the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc ,” Cohen admonished . A simple correlation among events does not necessarily imply the existence of a causal relation . “ A causal relation asserts more than mere past coincidence . It affirms that there is some reason or ground why , whenever the antecedent occurs , the consequent must follow ” ( Cohen 1942 , 15 ). In history causality means , according to Wiener ( 1941 , 313 ), that a “ historical fact is objectively relevant to or „ explains ‟ another only if the first logically implies the second .” Cohen also pointed out that any single historical event is preceded by a multitude of other historical events . Therefore , historians must select what they deem the most relevant explanatory antecedents of the events under study . In the examples adduced by Teggart , other causes ( e . g ., attraction of richer lands , ambition of powerful leaders , love of independence ) besides disturbances in the trade routes between China and Rome could have been working as parallel causes of the barbarian invasions . To complicate matters , Cohen showed that the terms “ war ,” “ rebellion ,” “ invasion ” and “ disturbance ” used to describe the events studied by Teggart are too general to permit a clear analysis of the relationships involved . The reason for this shortcoming is that “[ s ] cientific statements are typically formulated in special terms , such as „ mass ,‟ „ force ‟ … and so forth . If those terms are Lord Acton advises historians to “ study problems in preference to periods .” And in fact Teggart is anticipating Popper , who stated in a lecture delivered in 1963 that “ … science [ including history ] always begins and ends 7 In his Lectures on Modern History ( 1906 ), with problems ” ( underscored in the original ). __________________________________________________________________ 25

__________________________________________________________________ to serve their purpose , their meanings will have to be so specified as to make sure that the resulting statements are properly testable and that they lend themselves to use in explanations , predictions , and retrodictions ” ( Hempel 1966 , 85 ). Therefore , before attempting to find a testable common cause of the barbarian invasions , we must narrow the meaning of the terms used by Teggart . For example , we employ the word War to talk about the Boer War and about the Second World War , although they obviously are quite different events . “ In the present state of our knowledge ,” Cohen says , “ it is futile to ask the cause of disease [ in general ]. We must in our etiology first deal with different kinds of diseases ; and much more is this the case with wars ” ( 1942 , 17n ). But precisely , to be or not to be , that is the question in historical analysis . Because if , for example , we reduce the term “ war ” to a common denominator , we would miss all the quirks and traits of historical wars . That is why , in this sense , all historic events are unique . 8 And that too is why ( good ) history makes such fascinating reading . In the last part of his 1942 paper , Cohen softens somewhat his critique by concluding that “ … the historian as a narrator of what happens is under pressure to tell a coherent story and this does not permit him to stop to indicate every so often the inadequacy or inconclusiveness of his evidence . Hence most historians adopt much looser conceptions of causality .” Actually , some eminent historians had denied altogether the value of the idea of causation in historical analysis . Among the most prominent were Dilthey , Rickert , Croce , and Collingwood . 9 For example , the Italian philosopher and historian Benedetto Croce considered that the concept of “ cause ,” as used in natural science , should be banned from historiography . In History as the Story of Liberty , he wrote that , “[ t ] he concept of cause must and should remain outside history because it was born in the realm of natural science and its place is there ” ( Croce 1941 , 28 ) Clearly , we can find some instances in historiography where the idea of causation , as used in natural science , plays only a marginal role . In a chronicle , for example , the historian can dispense most of the time with the concept of “ causality .” However , this is more difficult to carry out when the historian is trying to solve some historical problem . ( Even in our practical daily life , we cannot do without the idea of causality .) Croce was dissatisfied with positivist historians because they disregard the role of the individual in history , and instead deal with averages , statistical tables , and with abstract concepts like “ the people ” and “ the masses .” In his book on aesthetics , he wrote , “ History does not seek for laws … it is directed ad narrandum , non ad demonstrandum ” ( Croce 1909 , 20 ). He also saw in the positivist approach to history another malignant force pushing in the direction of making “ of society not a living organism but a mechanism ” ( and therefore subject to manipulation by demagogues ). 8 Obviously , the term “ unique ” is relative : “ No historical event could even be described , much less could it be in any sense explained , if it were wholly unique ” ( Mandelbaum 9 “ Scientific history ” had its opponents from the start . Teggart noted that Buckle ‟ s historical work was described by a notable scholar as “ a laborious endeavor to degrade the history of mankind to the level of one of the natu- 1961 , 231 ). ral sciences ” ( Teggart 1910 , 710 ). __________________________________________________________________ 26