A Counterfactual Theory of Counterfactuals

Abstract

Jeremy M. Black has proposed criteria for a determining whether a counterfactual is helpful. This article raises questions about how we can have a counterfactual if we cannot agree what a historical fact is. The conceptualization of any particular so-called historical fact differs in the mind of each historian, so this article asks how can we have a counterfactual to what are different conceptualizations, even if the words historians are using to label any given event are the same. But even if we take, as this article proposes, source testimony as our historical facts, we do not have agreement on the meaning of that source testimony. This article explores the issues of counterfactual statements in regard to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Muscovite and Lithuanian origin myths concerning the ancestry of their rulers and concludes that Black’s criteria for a helpful counterfactual cannot be met.