Causation in History

Early in 1990, the Indian Institute of Advanced Study organized a seminar on ‘Philosophy of science’ at Cochin in collaboration with the Indian Science congress. However, the scope of this seminar was not confined to natural and life sciences. In fact, a number of philosophers and social scientists participated in the seminar. Though it was at a rather late stage that the lat Professor Sukhamoy Chakravarty suggested that seminar may focus on ‘Chance and Determinism’, several of the participants agreed to write on this theme. At the time of preparing the proceedings of the seminar for publication, Professor Indu Banga observed that three papers dealing with the theme of ‘causation in history’ complemented or supplemented one another in such a way that, if put together, they could form a separate unit with special interest for historians and social scientists. These three papers were reprinted to form this booklet.