Thinking Counterfactual Sequentially : A Processual View of Counterfactual in Historical Sociology

Counterfactual has been understood in various languages and practiced in different ways in philosophy, history, and the social sciences. Both its importance and controversy cannot be underestimated. In “History is Sociology: All Arguments are Counterfactuals,” Mark Gould posits several illuminating and provoking statements. I appreciate Gould's ambition and support many of his claims, but it seems that some perplexing problems and challenges of counterfactual analysis have not been sufficiently specified in his essay. While sympathizing with Gould's position, I also find there is a need to respond to serious critics of counterfactual history (e.g., Carr, 1961, p. 127–128; Collins, 2007; Elster, 1978; Evans, 2013; Thompson, 1978, p. 300) by developing a moderate version of its methodological application. To go deeper into this discussion, my essay will mostly focus on the use of counterfactual in the historical social sciences. In what follows, I will first respond to several of Gould's central claims, then elaborate on a sequential view of counterfactual that fits the epistemology of historical sociology, and finally focus on the counterfactual of human choices, which often lies in the intellectual, practical, and moral center of historical scholarship.