Historicism is the idea of attributing meaningful
significance to space and time, such as historical
period, geographical place, and local culture.
Historicism tends to be hermeneutical because
it values cautious, rigorous, and contextualized
interpretation of information; or relativist,
because it rejects notions of universal, fundamental
and immutable interpretations. The approach
varies from individualist theories of knowledge
such as empiricism and rationalism, which
neglect the role of traditions.
The term "historicism" (Historismus) was coined
by German philosopher Karl Wilhelm Friedrich
Schlegel. Over time it has developed different
and somewhat divergent meanings. Elements
of historicism appear in the writings of French
essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
and Italian philosopher G. B. Vico (1668–1744),
and became more fully developed with the dialectic
of Georg Hegel (1770–1831), influential
in 19th-century Europe. The writings of Karl
Marx, influenced by Hegel, also include historicism.
The term is also associated with the empirical
social sciences and with the work of Franz
Boas.
Historicism may be contrasted with reductionist
theories—which assumes that all developments
can be explained by fundamental principles
(such as in economic determinism)—or with
theories that posit that historical changes
occur as a result of random chance.
The Austrian-English philosopher Karl Popper
condemned historicism along with the determinism
and holism which he argued formed its basis.
In his Poverty of Historicism, he identified
historicism with the opinion that there are
"inexorable laws of historical destiny", which
opinion he warned against. This contrasts
with the contextually relative interpretation
of historicism for which its proponents argue.
Talcott Parsons criticized historicism as
a case of idealistic fallacy in The Structure
of Social Action (1937).
Post-structuralism uses the term "New Historicism",
which has some associations with both anthropology
and Hegelianism.
The theological use of the word denotes the
interpretation of biblical prophecy as being
related to church history.
== Variants ==
=== Hegelian ===
Hegel viewed the realization of human freedom
as the ultimate purpose of history, which
could only be achieved through the creation
of the perfect state. And this progressive
history would only occur through a dialectical
process: namely, the tension between the purpose
of humankind (freedom), the position that
humankind currently finds itself, and mankind's
attempt to bend the current world into accord
with its nature. However, because humans are
often not aware of the goal of both humanity
and history, the process of achieving freedom
is necessarily one of self-discovery. Hegel
also saw the progress toward freedom being
conducted by the "spirit" (Geist), a seemingly
supernatural force that directed all human
actions and interactions. Yet Hegel makes
clear that the spirit is a mere abstraction,
and only comes into existence "through the
activity of finite agents." Thus, Hegel's
philosophy of history is not necessarily metaphysical,
despite the fact that many of Hegel's opponents
and interpreters have understood Hegel's philosophy
of history as a metaphysical and determinist
view of history. For example, Karl Popper
in his book The Poverty of Historicism interpreted
Hegel's philosophy of history as metaphysical
and deterministic. Popper referred to this
"Hegelian" philosophy of history as Historicism.Hegel's
historicism also suggests that any human society
and all human activities such as science,
art, or philosophy, are defined by their history.
Consequently, their essence can be sought
only by understanding said history. The history
of any such human endeavor, moreover, not
only continues but also reacts against what
has gone before; this is the source of Hegel's
famous dialectic teaching usually summarized
by the slogan "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis".
(Hegel did not use these terms, although Johann
Fichte did.) Hegel's famous aphorism, "Philosophy
is the history of philosophy," describes it
bluntly.
Hegel's position is perhaps best illuminated
when contrasted against the atomistic and
reductionist opinion of human societies and
social activities self-defining on an ad hoc
basis through the sum of dozens of interactions.
Yet another contrasting model is the persistent
metaphor of a social contract. Hegel considers
the relationship between individuals and societies
as organic, not atomic: even their social
discourse is mediated by language, and language
is based on etymology and unique character.
It thus preserves the culture of the past
in thousands of half-forgotten metaphors.
To understand why a person is the way he is,
you must examine that person in his society:
and to understand that society, you must understand
its history, and the forces that influenced
it. The Zeitgeist, the "Spirit of the Age,"
is the concrete embodiment of the most important
factors that are acting in human history at
any given time. This contrasts with teleological
theories of activity, which suppose that the
end is the determining factor of activity,
as well as those who believe in a tabula rasa,
or blank slate, opinion, such that individuals
are defined by their interactions.
These ideas can be interpreted variously.
The Right Hegelians, working from Hegel's
opinions about the organicism and historically
determined nature of human societies, interpreted
Hegel's historicism as a justification of
the unique destiny of national groups and
the importance of stability and institutions.
Hegel's conception of human societies as entities
greater than the individuals who constitute
them influenced nineteenth-century romantic
nationalism and its twentieth-century excesses.
The Young Hegelians, by contrast, interpreted
Hegel's thoughts on societies influenced by
social conflict for a doctrine of social progress,
and attempted to manipulate these forces to
cause various results. Karl Marx's doctrine
of "historical inevitabilities" and historical
materialism is one of the more influential
reactions to this part of Hegel's thought.
Significantly, Karl Marx's theory of alienation
argues that capitalism disrupts traditional
relationships between workers and their work.
Hegelian historicism is related to his ideas
on the means by which human societies progress,
specifically the dialectic and his conception
of logic as representing the inner essential
nature of reality. Hegel attributes the change
to the "modern" need to interact with the
world, whereas ancient philosophers were self-contained,
and medieval philosophers were monks. In his
History of Philosophy Hegel writes:
In modern times things are very different;
now we no longer see philosophic individuals
who constitute a class by themselves. With
the present day all difference has disappeared;
philosophers are not monks, for we find them
generally in connection with the world, participating
with others in some common work or calling.
They live, not independently, but in the relation
of citizens, or they occupy public offices
and take part in the life of the state. Certainly
they may be private persons, but if so, their
position as such does not in any way isolate
them from their other relationship. They are
involved in present conditions, in the world
and its work and progress. Thus their philosophy
is only by the way, a sort of luxury and superfluity.
This difference is really to be found in the
manner in which outward conditions have taken
shape after the building up of the inward
world of religion. In modern times, namely,
on account of the reconciliation of the worldly
principle with itself, the external world
is at rest, is brought into order — worldly
relationships, conditions, modes of life,
have become constituted and organized in a
manner which is conformable to nature and
rational. We see a universal, comprehensible
connection, and with that individuality likewise
attains another character and nature, for
it is no longer the plastic individuality
of the ancients. This connection is of such
power that every individuality is under its
dominion, and yet at the same time can construct
for itself an inward world.
This opinion that entanglement in society
creates an indissoluble bond with expression,
would become an influential question in philosophy,
namely, the requirements for individuality.
It would be considered by Nietzsche, John
Dewey and Michel Foucault directly, as well
as in the work of numerous artists and authors.
There have been various responses to Hegel's
challenge. The Romantic period emphasized
the ability of individual genius to transcend
time and place, and use the materials from
their heritage to fashion works which were
beyond determination. The modern would advance
versions of John Locke's infinite malleability
of the human animal. Post-structuralism would
argue that since history is not present, but
only the image of history, that while an individual
era or power structure might emphasize a particular
history, that the contradictions within the
story would hinder the very purposes that
the history was constructed to advance.
=== Anthropological ===
In the context of anthropology and other sciences
which study the past, historicism has a different
meaning. Anthropological historicism is associated
with the work of Franz Boas. His theory used
the diffusionist concept that there were a
few "cradles of civilization" which grew outwards,
and merged it with the idea that societies
would adapt to their circumstances, which
is called historical particularism. The school
of historicism grew in response to unilinear
theories that social development represented
adaptive fitness, and therefore existed on
a continuum. While these theories were espoused
by Charles Darwin and many of his students,
their application as applied in social Darwinism
and general evolution characterized in the
theories of Herbert Spencer and Leslie White,
historicism was neither anti-selection, nor
anti-evolution, as Darwin never attempted
nor offered an explanation for cultural evolution.
However, it attacked the notion that there
was one normative spectrum of development,
instead emphasizing how local conditions would
create adaptations to the local environment.
Julian Steward refuted the viability of globally
and universally applicable adaptive standards
proposing that culture was honed adaptively
in response to the idiosyncrasies of the local
environment, the cultural ecology, by specific
evolution. What was adaptive for one region
might not be so for another. This conclusion
has likewise been adopted by modern forms
of biological evolutionary theory.
The primary method of historicism was empirical,
namely that there were so many requisite inputs
into a society or event, that only by emphasizing
the data available could a theory of the source
be determined. In this opinion, grand theories
are unprovable, and instead intensive field
work would determine the most likely explanation
and history of a culture, and hence it is
named "historicism."
This opinion would produce a wide range of
definition of what, exactly, constituted culture
and history, but in each case the only means
of explaining it was in terms of the historical
particulars of the culture itself.
=== New ===
Since the 1950s, when Jacques Lacan and Foucault
argued that each epoch has its own knowledge
system, within which individuals are inexorably
entangled, many post-structuralists have used
historicism to describe the opinion that all
questions must be settled within the cultural
and social context in which they are raised.
Answers cannot be found by appeal to an external
truth, but only within the confines of the
norms and forms that phrase the question.
This version of historicism holds that there
are only the raw texts, markings and artifacts
that exist in the present, and the conventions
used to decode them. This school of thought
is sometimes given the name of New Historicism.
The same term, new historicism is also used
for a school of literary scholarship which
interprets a poem, drama, etc. as an expression
of or reaction to the power-structures of
its society. Stephen Greenblatt is an example
of this school.
=== Modern ===
Within the context of 20th-century philosophy,
debates continue as to whether ahistorical
and immanent methods were sufficient to understand
meaning—that is to say, "what you see is
what you get" positivism—or whether context,
background and culture are important beyond
the mere need to decode words, phrases and
references. While post-structural historicism
is relativist in its orientation, that is,
it sees each culture as its own frame of reference,
a large number of thinkers have embraced the
need for historical context, not because culture
is self-referential, but because there is
no more compressed means of conveying all
of the relevant information except through
history. This opinion is often seen as deriving
from the work of Benedetto Croce. Recent historians
using this tradition include Thomas Kuhn.
=== Christian ===
==== Eschatological ====
In Christianity, the term historicism refers
to the confessional Protestant form of prophetical
interpretation which holds that the fulfillment
of biblical prophecy has occurred throughout
history and continues to occur; as opposed
to other methods which limit the time-frame
of prophecy-fulfillment to the past or to
the future.
==== Dogmatic and ecclesiastic ====
There is also a particular opinion in ecclesiastical
history and in the history of dogmas which
has been described as historicist by Pope
Pius XII in the encyclical Humani generis.
"They add that the history of dogmas consists
in the reporting of the various forms in which
revealed truth has been clothed, forms that
have succeeded one another in accordance with
the different teachings and opinions that
have arisen over the course of the centuries."
== 
Critics ==
=== Karl Marx ===
The social theory of Karl Marx, with respect
to modern scholarship, has an ambiguous relation
to historicism. Critics of Marx have charged
his theory with historicism since its very
genesis. However, the issue of historicism
also finds itself important to many debates
within Marxism itself; the charge of historicism
has been made against various types of Marxism,
typically disparaged by Marxists as "vulgar"
Marxism.
Marx himself expresses critical concerns with
this historicist tendency in his Theses on
Feuerbach:
The materialist doctrine that men are products
of circumstances and upbringing, and that,
therefore, changed men are products of changed
circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets
that it is men who change circumstances and
that the educator must himself be educated.
Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society
into two parts, one of which is superior to
society. The coincidence of the changing of
circumstances and of human activity or self-change
[Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and
rationally understood only as revolutionary
practice.
=== Karl Popper ===
Karl Popper used the term historicism in his
influential books The Poverty of Historicism
and The Open Society and Its Enemies, to mean:
"an approach to the social sciences which
assumes that historical prediction is their
primary aim, and which assumes that this aim
is attainable by discovering the 'rhythms'
or the 'patterns', the 'laws' or the 'trends'
that underlie the evolution of history". Karl
Popper wrote with reference to Hegel's theory
of history, which he criticized extensively.
However, there is wide dispute whether Popper's
description of "historicism" is an accurate
description of Hegel, or more his characterisation
of his own philosophical antagonists, including
Marxist-Leninist thought, then widely held
as posing a challenge to the philosophical
basis of the West, as well as theories such
as Spengler's which drew predictions about
the future course of events from the past.
In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper
attacks "historicism" and its proponents,
among whom (as well as Hegel) he identifies
and singles out Plato and Marx—calling them
all "enemies of the open society". The objection
he makes is that historicist positions, by
claiming that there is an inevitable and deterministic
pattern to history, abrogate the democratic
responsibility of each one of us to make our
own free contributions to the evolution of
society, and hence lead to totalitarianism.
Another of his targets is what he terms "moral
historicism", the attempt to infer moral values
from the course of history; in Hegel's words,
that "history is the world's court of justice".
This may take the form of conservatism (former
might is right), positivism (might is right)
or futurism (presumed coming might is right).
As against these, Popper says that he does
not believe "that success proves anything
or that history is our judge". Futurism must
be distinguished from prophecies that the
right will prevail: these attempt to infer
history from ethics, rather than ethics from
history, and are therefore historicism in
the normal sense rather than moral historicism.
He also attacks what he calls "Historism",
which he regards as distinct from historicism.
By historism, he means the tendency to regard
every argument or idea as completely accounted
for by its historical context, as opposed
to assessing it by its merits. In Popperian
terms, the "New Historicism" is an example
of historism rather than of historicism proper.
=== Leo Strauss ===
Leo Strauss used the term historicism and
reportedly termed it the single greatest threat
to intellectual freedom insofar as it denies
any attempt to address injustice-pure-and-simple
(such is the significance of historicism's
rejection of "natural right" or "right by
nature"). Strauss argued that historicism
"rejects political philosophy" (insofar as
this stands or falls by questions of permanent,
trans-historical significance) and is based
on the belief that "all human thought, including
scientific thought, rests on premises which
cannot be validated by human reason and which
came from historical epoch to historical epoch."
Strauss further identified R. G. Collingwood
as the most coherent advocate of historicism
in the English language. Countering Collingwood's
arguments, Strauss warned against historicist
social scientists' failure to address real-life
problems—most notably that of tyranny—to
the extent that they relativize (or "subjectivize")
all ethical problems by placing their significance
strictly in function of particular or ever-changing
socio-material conditions devoid of inherent
or "objective" "value." Similarly, Strauss
criticized Eric Voegelin's abandonment of
ancient political thought as guide or vehicle
in interpreting modern political problems.
In his books, Natural Right and History and
On Tyranny, Strauss offers a complete critique
of historicism as it emerges in the works
of Hegel, Marx, and Heidegger. Many believe
that Strauss also found historicism in Edmund
Burke, Tocqueville, Augustine, and John Stuart
Mill. Although it is largely disputed whether
Strauss himself was a historicist, he often
indicated that historicism grew out of and
against Christianity and was a threat to civic
participation, belief in human agency, religious
pluralism, and, most controversially, an accurate
understanding of the classical philosophers
and religious prophets themselves. Throughout
his work, he warns that historicism, and the
understanding of progress that results from
it, expose us to tyranny, totalitarianism,
and democratic extremism. In his exchange
with Alexandre Kojève in On Tyranny, Strauss
seems to blame historicism for Nazism and
Communism. In a collection of his works by
Kenneth Hart entitled Jewish Philosophy and
the Crisis of Modernity, he argues that Islam,
traditional Judaism, and ancient Greece, share
a concern for sacred law that makes them especially
susceptible to historicism, and therefore
to tyranny. Strauss makes use of Nietzsche's
own critique of progress and historicism,
although Strauss refers to Nietzsche himself
(no less than to Heidegger) as a "radical
historicist" who articulated a philosophical
(if only untenable) justification for historicism.
== See also ==
Parametric determinism
Path dependence
Sociocultural evolution
== References ==
== Further reading ==
Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method.
G. W. F. Hegel, 1911. The Philosophy of History.
Ludwig von Mises, 1957. Theory and History,
chapter 10: "Historicism"
Karl Popper, 1945. The Open Society and Its
Enemies, in 2 volumes. Routledge. ISBN 0-691-01968-1.
Karl Popper, 1993. The Poverty of Historicism.
Routledge. ISBN 0-415-06569-0.
== External links ==
Historicism in Anthropology
