‘Unique’ events, and causes and effects

Abstract

The old saying that by studying history we could predict the future, is probably for many people one of the most important reasons why they — consciously or unconsciously — regard historical studies as a useful and necessary part of our spiritual outfit and not merely as a nice thing to have. In purely deterministic doctrine, the contention is sometimes made that all that has happened has come about through necessity and that, hence, it would be basically possible to predict future events.