Why historians (and everyone else) should care about counterfactuals

Nolan, Daniel

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Why historians (and everyone else) should care about counterfactuals

Date

2013

Authors

Nolan, Daniel

Abstract

There are at least eight good reasons practicing historians should concern themselves with counterfactual claims. Furthermore, four of these reasons do not even require that we are able to tell which historical counterfactuals are true and which are false. This paper defends the claim that these reasons to be concerned with counterfactuals are good ones, and discusses how each can contribute to the practice of history.