Counterfactualism in History

Anti-factualism in history In the third part of these articles, people are enjoying good stories about the value of history. Some believe that history has played a role in meeting this demand. A simple form of anti-factual-based novel is always successful - Robert Harris's "homeland" is a recent good example - it seems that this kind of history is equally attractive . History of "hypothesis" and "substitution", or a title of a serious anti-factual essay edited recently by Niall Ferguson, sometimes called "virtual history". Hello

Some of the materials in this article are from "King Kong and Cold Fusion: Anti-factual Analysis and Technology History", edited by Philip Tetlock, Ned Lebow, and Geoffrey Parker, "Anti-Fact Analysis in History and Social Science" It is an excerpt. From my book 'Athena' s gift: historical origin of knowledge economy '. Princeton University Press, 2002.1 The term "useful knowledge" is in Joel Mokyr's "The Gift of Athena: the source of the historical knowledge economy" which was defined in detail in 2002. This term has been used by economists to ask similar questions such as Mark Lupu and Kuznets. Fritz Machlup, Knowledge: Look at its creation, distribution, and economic significance. Volume 3, 1980 - 84. , Simon Kuznets, Economic Growth and Structure, 1965. In this article it is limited to knowledge of natural phenomena and laws that can be used for physical production.

Philosophers throughout the 20th century were fascinated by counterfacts due to the nature, origin and limitations of the logic and human knowledge they referred to. Recognizing that these ideas are extremely important to the way people understand the past, predict the future, and understand the process of events in life, psychological research on anti-factualism It began in the early 1980s. Occasionally anti-factual ideas are painful or even weak, as when people think about how to tell their best friends to wear a seatbelt after a tragic accident. In this case, counter-facts may lead to self-responsibility, which may worsen the suffering of bad situations. For this reason, researchers are particularly interested in anti-factual thinking and coping, relationship between depression and anxiety.

To make matters worse, counterfactual assumptions naturally arise from conservative assumptions of short-lived history. Like most popular histories selling best, counter-facts often emphasize the inventor's importance, using it as the subject of war, biography or old school's technical history. (This is why Evans calls anti-factism as part of "a form of intellectualism.") Popular anti-factualists focus on the outcome of military conflict (civil war and the second Next World War is disproportionately popular) What happens if a leader occurs? Hitler's reputation has been assassinated (or possibly not). These counterfactual assumptions have become very important for political and military leaders. This seems to be retrograde to many historians who believe historical events are the result of complex social and cultural processes. Not a small group of "important" people's choice