Contingentism for historians

In this paper, I will propose a formulation of the contingentism/inevitabilism (C/I) debate that does not require of alternatives to present-day scientific theories that they are equally successful, but rather asks whether they are historically possible. I argue that the debate has already, over the past decades, moved towards a more historical interpretation of the issue, and that it is worth exploring what it would entail to let go of normative considerations altogether. Different answers to inevitability questions still retain the philosophical relevance that originally led Ian Hacking to explore philosophical disagreement in terms of the contingentism/inevitabilism debate.1