Historical contingency as an alternative to grand theories

One explanation for an enormous range of history: that is the ambition of a grand theory. Freudianism explains culture, politics, and social interaction through supposedly universal psychological traits. Marxism explains those interactions through universal economic factors. The sources of explanation differ, but the breadth of the claim is what places both in this group.

Ambitious doesn't automatically mean wrong. At first, the writer is describing what these theories try to do. Their shared tendency is toward historical determinism: the idea that universal, necessary laws govern the course of history. If the laws dictate the outcome, history follows a fixed progression rather than leaving room for events to unfold differently.

The second paragraph tells us why confidence declined. Some adherents treated the theories almost like scientific facts, but later events didn't fit them. Some theories also lost credibility through association with failed or unjust political systems. We don't need outside examples to understand either problem: events challenged their explanatory reach, and political associations damaged their standing.

The author allows that these works could plausibly explain earlier phenomena. The problem is the leap from explaining those phenomena to supplying truths that explain history universally. A successful fit with the past isn't a guarantee that every later event will fit too. Think of a failed prediction: if someone insists the sun won't rise tomorrow and it does, we have a reason to question the reliability claimed for that person's predictions. Here, later developments expose limits in theories once treated as universally reliable.

So why would anyone miss them? They made history feel logical and intelligible. A grand theory seemed to promise that events followed a necessary pattern, rather than an uncertain series of developments. People can lose confidence in a theory and still miss the comfort it supplied. That is the nostalgia for determinism.

The writer recognizes the discomfort, then suggests it could be useful. Perhaps losing that certainty will push us to take contingency, particularity, and novelty seriously. In plain language, events depend on specific circumstances; some details are unique, and new developments don't have to repeat a fixed historical script.

This leads to the recommendation. An explanation of history should make room for those particular details instead of forcing them into a predetermined progression. The alternative is more flexible, but not simply vaguer. It should account for the details the grand theories were too rigid to include.

The distinction between laws that constrain and laws that necessitate is the key. A constraint limits what can happen without specifying the one outcome that must happen. A necessitating law dictates the outcome. The writer is willing to retain explanatory laws of the first kind while rejecting the demand that all history be fully determined. For example, power and a country's desire to expand can help explain its actions without being the whole explanation or making every outcome inevitable.

That still leaves room for a satisfying story. We can arrange events into a coherent explanation of what happened without claiming that nothing else could have happened. The ending therefore offers an alternative to both rigid determinism and giving up on explanation altogether.

Our main point should include that recommendation. The failures of grand theories are the reason for reconsidering their approach; the larger point is to explain history in a way that respects contingency. The author isn't merely lamenting the lost comfort of grand theories or declaring historical understanding impossible.