When to Use Counterfactuals in Causal Historiography: Methods for Semantics and Inference

IF 6.5 2区 社会学 Q1 SOCIAL SCIENCES, MATHEMATICAL METHODS
Tay Jeong
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

According to the interventionist framework of actual causality, causal claims in history are ultimately claims about special types of functional dependencies between variables, which consist not only of actual events but also of corresponding counterfactual states of affairs. Instead of advocating the methodological use of counterfactuals tout court, we propose specific circumstances in historical writing where counterfactual reasoning comes in most handy. At the level of semantics, that is, the specification of the variables and their possible values, an explicit specification of the latent contrast classes becomes particularly useful in situations where one may be prompted to take an event that is pre-empted by the antecedent of interest as its proper causal contrast. At the level of inference, we argue that cases in which two or more antecedents appear to be playing a similar role tend to fumble our pretheoretical intuition about cause and propose a sequence of counterfactual tests based on actual examples from causal historiography.
在因果史学中何时使用反事实:语义学和推理方法
根据实际因果关系的干预主义框架,历史上的因果关系主张最终是关于变量之间特殊类型的功能依赖关系的主张,这些变量不仅包括实际事件,还包括相应的反事实状态。我们不提倡在法庭上使用反事实的方法论,而是在历史写作中提出反事实推理最方便的具体情况。在语义层面,即变量及其可能值的说明,潜在对比类的显式说明在人们可能被提示采取被感兴趣的先行词抢先的事件作为其适当的因果对比的情况下变得特别有用。在推理层面,我们认为,如果两个或两个以上的前因似乎扮演着相似的角色,那么我们对因果的理论前直觉就会出错,并根据因果史学的实际例子提出一系列反事实检验。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
16.30
自引率
3.20%
发文量
40
期刊介绍: Sociological Methods & Research is a quarterly journal devoted to sociology as a cumulative empirical science. The objectives of SMR are multiple, but emphasis is placed on articles that advance the understanding of the field through systematic presentations that clarify methodological problems and assist in ordering the known facts in an area. Review articles will be published, particularly those that emphasize a critical analysis of the status of the arts, but original presentations that are broadly based and provide new research will also be published. Intrinsically, SMR is viewed as substantive journal but one that is highly focused on the assessment of the scientific status of sociology. The scope is broad and flexible, and authors are invited to correspond with the editors about the appropriateness of their articles.
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