Plausible Worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social Sciences

Product Description
Possibilities haunt history. The force of our explanations of events turns on the alternative possibilities those explanations suggest. It is these possible worlds that give us our understanding; and in human affairs, we decide them by practical rather than theoretical judgment. In this widely acclaimed account of the role of counterfactuals in explanation, Geoffrey Hawthorn deploys extended examples to defend his argument. His conclusions cast doubt on existing assumptions about the nature and place of theory, and indeed of the possibility of knowledge itself, in the human sciences.
Review
"Geoffrey Hawthorn, the British sociologist best known for his Enlightenment and Despair: A History of Sociology (1976), has been thinking about possibility. This book is the elegant result...This volume is a marvelously stimulating and thought-provoking work. It ought to be on the reading lists of advanced courses on both the theory and the methodology of history writing." American Historical Review

"Hawthorn's Plausible Worlds is not only a good read, filled with all sorts of fascinating information, but a book that raises very large and interesting questions about the nature of explanation in the human sciences. I found his answers to these questions persuasive." Richard Rorty

"There is much about the intellectual armature of Plausible Worlds that will appeal to the practising historian....Few recent books have made me realise as keenly as has Hawthorn's how strong an incentive there is in us to deterministic thinking, and how comforting it is to see determinism rendered concrete as the shape of history. Those who wish to train themselves in the fortitude needed to resist this lure will find in Plausible Worlds much stimulation and encouragement." Gerald Strauss, Times Higher Education Supplement

"...wonderfully playful and intelligent book..." The London Review of Books

"With this elegant and engaging work Hawthorn has established himself as one of the major contributors to the philosophy of history in the late 20th century....As Hawthorn shows with clarity and rigor, knowledge and conjecture go hand in hand in understanding history. This book is not a call for Pyrrhonism but a defense of reasoned judgment." Choice

"...intriguing because the theoretical sections are suggestive and incisive....Hawthorn's learning is impressive and his objectives are worthy....Hawthorn makes valuable suggestions for avoiding determinism and for escaping from epistemological nonsense...." Ronald J. VanderMolen, The Historian

"This volume is a marvelously stimulating and thought-provoking work" American Historical Review
Book Description
Fundamental questions about the nature of causal explanation as conducted by historians and social scientists are raised in this exploration of counterfactual speculation or "what-might-have-been". Its pursuit casts doubt on existing assumptions about the roles of theory as well as knowledge.
About the Author
Geoffrey Hawthorn is Professor Emeritus of International Politics, University of Cambridge. He has taught sociology and politics at the Universities of Essex and Cambridge and was twice a visiting professor at Harvard University. He has published books on human fertility, the history of social theory, counterfactual thinking in history and the social sciences and the politics of east Asia. He also studied the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and has written a large number of essays and reviews across a range of subjects in philosophy and politics.