According to the law of cause and effect, there is a specific cause for every effect and a specific effect for every specific cause. Accordingly, every action in that situation will have a clear consequence that will eventually lead to another event by acting as a causal factor. As a consequence, the theory is explained in the context of events that develop as a result of other events. It follows that every occurrence has a response that can be understood in light of the one before it. The idea of cause and effect has become very popular in the writing of history. Without this principle, it would be hard to explain the historical events presented in history books and articles. There would be no history. This is to mean that this principle is the basis of history and it acts as a reference point I history creation. History is explicated consistently and coherently that discerns events because of others. In that context, therefore the principle of cause and effect find its place in the process of outlining history (Bayne, 2012).
Different historical approaches have had differences of opinion on how history is defined and attained as far as events and occurrences are concerned. In that context, the different methods present different responses to the cause and effect principle. The three approaches addressed correlatively respond to the principle with much appreciation since they show the contextual happening and the results of their going on in the society. Marxism for instance critically aligns to the cause and effect principle in the context that it discerns social and economic conflicts. As a result social differences in production between the private owners and the surplus produced by the highly mechanized sector. Moreover, the Annales School history approach gives the cause and effect principle weight due to the way it approaches the events of history. The approach emphasizes the principle by giving critically elementary recognition of what led to what in the circumstances surrounding history (Stearns, 2009). Due to the increased hostility association of the Marxism, there was the gradual development of events that demanded use of a more political and diplomatic approach to identifying social concerns rather than the social scientific methods that were used due to their unreliability.
Moreover, quantitative history also gives importance to the theory of cause and effect. The aspect of the quantitative history displays the development of figures to have been caused by the need to perform data analysis. Due to the presence of recorded data and information as the progress of sociology advanced, there was a need to analyze the data accumulated as a result of emergency of many numerical considerations in forms of tax assessments and business ledgers thereby prompting the need for more advanced inventions. I that context, therefore, the three approaches appreciatively respond to the cause and effect principle effectively as an accurate measure of historical progress and creation (Bod, 2013).
The principle of periodization in the historical perspective state that historical events occurred in discrete and quantified blocks of time. The principle critically aims at explaining historical events and the processes through which the occurred by giving a credential flow each with time assignation. It simply gives descriptive abstractions that provide convenient terms of periods with relative events and characteristics. The advantages of periodization in the history creation platform are that it gives specific analysis to events and their estimated time of occurrence. Moreover, it gives a formatted information on events that occurred during what time, the progressive advancement because of what caused the events, and what effects the events cause. Therefore, there are the cons of managing change and presenting it coherently by considering event frameworks. However, the principle appears to be more or less arbitrary. It does not provide specific time events, and therefore the analysis of history remains to be clumsy and scattered without a framework to help in understanding (Bayne, 2012). In that context, therefore, despite the fact that the principle helps in classifying events into bonds and characteristic timely occurrences, it does not give a basis for understanding their chronology of occurrence.
Work Cited
Bayne, Steven M. Kant on Causation: On the Fivefold Routes to the Principle of Causation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2012. Internet resource.
Bod, Rens. A New History of the Humanities: The Search for Principles and Patterns from Antiquity to the Present. , 2013. Print.
Peter N. Stearns, (2009). Long 19th Century? Long 20th? Retooling That Last Chunk of World History Periodization. The History Teacher, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Feb. 2009), pp. 223-228. Published by: Society for History Education
