Historical Causation and Human Free Will

Abstract

The question which I wish to discuss is whether the assumption of universal causation in history—the assumption that any event or condition studied by the historian can, in principle, be explained by indicating its cause or causes—conflicts with the assumption that human beings, whose actions contribute so largely to these events or conditions, possess free will. That both of these assumptions are made in the course of ordinary historical inquiry, it seems rather difficult to deny; and it is only natural that the recognition of this fact should have embarrassed, not only philosophers of history, but many practising historians as well. Thus, although historians regularly use the word "cause" (or one of its many substitutes) in the explanatory narratives they offer of past happenings, it is a common complaint among them, when confronted with certain theories of the historical process, that such theories mistakenly attempt to represent the course of history as determined. And when a reflective and self-critical historian like Professor Charles A. Beard urges his fellows to abandon causal language altogether on the similar ground that it implies determinism, it may seem that this complaint is only being pressed to its logical conclusion.