So there's an interesting divergence in scholarly philosophies at play here, not the kind of surface-level 'we use different theories here' stuff that might define different schools of thought within a wider field, but a broader divergence in terms not just of how historians study the past, but also why historians study the past. There is no common theory of causation used by historians, because historians take historical causation as their main subject in and of itself. Indeed, attempting to advance a bounded theory of historical causation is perhaps one of the most common criticisms historians make of the kind of interdisciplinary 'big' histories proposed by the likes of Jared Diamond - boiling down centuries or millennia of historical change to a particular dominant factor is something that goes against everything a historian is trained to do.

This in turn reflects a broader divide between history and the social sciences. These disciplines are, ultimately, concerned with the past - all the hard data available to social scientists is, by definition, historical. However, while the purpose of historical data in the social sciences is to construct models with predictive power (and therefore usefully inform private and public decision-making), the purpose of historical study is generally to understand the past on its own terms. Models that overcome individual distinctiveness in search of broader trends and laws are therefore not in themselves attractive, since the particular complexities of any given place and period are what motivated us to undertake the study in the first place. This accounts perhaps for the gulf between popular and historical reactions to work like Diamond's. Historians see the nuance and complexity that this work washes over, and give examples of how the broad explanation Diamond advances falls apart on close scrutiny. For (some) broader audiences, this just seems like quibbling with the edges of the model - it doesn't actually matter if it describes every case perfectly, just that it has broad explanatory power, and since you historians don't have a competing theory Diamond wins by default.

Historians naturally differ widely in the kinds of things they argue lead to historical change, both implicitly in terms of the subjects and approaches they choose, and explicitly when they contest each other's explanations for various events. Some historical schools of thought go further than others in proposing a grand model, most obviously Marxism, in which the basis of all fundamental historical change is based on structural economic relations and the class conflict these relations lead to. Yet particularly in modern scholarship, this is perhaps the most controversial and frequently criticised aspect of Marxist historical approaches, that its teleological model of history is too rigid and determinative, and devalues human agency and contingency alike as factors that are important for understanding historical change. While many elements of Marxist thought remain influential today, these aspects of the theory mean that its immensely rare to still find scholars doing 'pure' Marxist history. Other broad historical models - such as Strauss–Howe generational theory - are generally less fortunate, and tend to be outright dismissed in terms of their actual ability to inform our understanding of the past.

I have no doubt that some areas of historical enquiry - the overlap with both biblical studies and philosophy spring to mind - take the abstract nature of causality more seriously as a topic to be reflected on. But for the majority of historians, it is simply not something that requires engaging with except insofar as it highlights the tensions between disciplinary boundaries.